And this is TINA FEY
Posted on 01/17/2011 9:16:16 AM PST by scottjewell
The colorful attention-grabbing billboards of gay black men in a church and on the basketball court are creating a firestorm of controversy on an issue that continues to drive a wedge in segments of the African-American community.
City Councilman Joseph Allen said Friday that he came in for both scorn and support after publicly expressing his displeasure this week that the billboards send the wrong message to impressionable youngsters, particularly those being raised by single mothers who may not have positive male role models.
"This kind of billboard is putting the stamp of approval on a gay lifestyle," said Allen, who is black and insists he is not homophobic.
He said he has talked with the city lawyer about taking down the billboards in Schenectady but was told the advertisements are protected under First Amendment rights.
Tandra R. LaGrone, executive director of Albany-based In our Own Voices, said the group is sponsoring the awareness campaign because it is consistent with the mission of promoting the health and welfare of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people of color.
"I thought it would be useful and pertinent to have the campaign in the Capital Region because of the numbers for HIV and AIDS among gay black males have has risen significantly," she said. "You have to start from a place of respect in order to address the stigma and homophobia of being a black gay man."
There are a total of 18 billboards in Schenectady, Albany, Rensselaer and Montgomery counties along with ads on buses and bus shelters, said Peter Constantakes, spokesman with the state Department of Health which gave $50,300 to the campaign.
"This is targeting a group that is reluctant to get tested or to use a condom or other protection," said Constantakes, adding that across the country, black males are one of the fastest-growing groups being infected with the virus that causes AIDS. "There is the stigma that they are keeping everything secretive and are afraid to get tested."
The campaign is modeled after similar ones in Long Island, Rochester and New York City, Constantakes and LeGrone said.
LeGrone called Allen's remarks especially "frightening" considering he is an elected official and black. "He is looking at his constituency as strictly being heterosexual individuals," she said, adding that the message is that gay black men make up every segment of society and are here to stay.
In one of the ads, three men kneel at a basketball with the message, "This is where I play," while another shows an older man with a clerical collar and Bible standing in pew behind a younger man that says, "This is where I pray."
Pastor Richard Parsons of Consecration Temple Church of God Christ in Schenectady said the message he gets when he sees the billboards is that homosexuality is OK. "It's directly against God's word and what God hates, I hate," he said.
Paul Webster, president of the Schenectady chapter of the NAACP, said he would rather see black activists, politicians and clergy tackle the problems of gangs, guns and violence that are addling the community.
The billboards' over-arching message is, he said, about "preserving families and protecting people," Webster said.
Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/default/article/I-am-gay-billboards-igniting-controversy-957981.php#ixzz1BJMzktAf
If they wanted to put up billboards in the black community to promote keeping families together, the message would be about staying with the baby mama, not siring kids and running off or getting run off.
This is where I PRANCE... OKAY-HEY?!!
The impression from those billboards is that ALL young black males are homosexuals.
well that is a way to kill off attendance at basketball games.
Ironically missing is the billboard showing a cemetery filled with the disproportionate number of black homosexual AIDS cases:
I am gay
And here’s where I lay
lol, keep diggin’ Doc.
State funds used for a "religious" message ("This is where I pray.")? Maybe Councilman Allen could use their own "separation of church and state" technique against this.
That’s an excellent point, and one I make here often. It is THE fundamental problem in the black community. I won’t go down the road of whose fault that is...ahem PERSONAL responsibility...ahem....
I must be off form today, I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.
Then, a picture of hell, the man being burned alive in hellfires, with the caption "I am homosexual, and this is where I will spend eternity, after I die from AIDS."
That would be more to the point, I think.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
“How about:
I am GAY
And this is where I SASHAY. “
OOOO, you got me with that one.
Add a nice graphic of one of the prancers at the Gay Parade, complete with feather boa.
That would go over like a lead balloon.
I think the worst part of all this, is that it is an attempt to make forays and inroads into the one community which still holds to the old view of homosexuality. If these billboards were saying, “I am disabled, and this is where I play”, or “I say No to drugs, and this is where I pray”, that would just be a typical do-gooders campaign. This, however, is an attempt to make these folks “progressive up” on an issue which is foreign to them.
Having a man on the down low has had a lot of women contract aids because they didn’t know this about their husbands. This is a problem in the black community. What would really help would be some famous black men on the down low coming forward. Can you think of any very well known national figure who is pretending to be fully straight but is sexually very gay, with many encounters with men, who could explain to the black community about his shameful double life?
Ha!
Whoa! Gold Star for the Red Devil!!
ping
Fags must recruit because they cannot reproduce.
Homophobia does not cause gay men to get AIDS, it’s their lifestyle which you are promoting.
“I thought it would be useful and pertinent to have the campaign in the Capital Region because of the numbers for HIV and AIDS among gay black males have has risen significantly,” she said. “You have to start from a place of respect in order to address the stigma and homophobia of being a black gay man.”
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