Saul of Tarsus, apprehended by the Lord on the Road to Damascus
My deceased brother, Major, was bisexual. He lived for a while in San Francisco, then for a while in Key West. Perhaps 25 percent of the population of Key West, where I lived off and on since late 2000, is gay. As far as I know, Key West is the only city in the US, and in the world, which adopted the gay social creed as its city creed: “We are all ONE HUMAN FAMILY.” Needless to say, Key West is not in step with mainstream America on homosexuality. Below is recent Facebook commentary started by a Key West bi-sexual man I have known since 2002. It covers a lot of terrain, including New Testament and Birmingham terrain …
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Mike Mongo posted to Facebook: Can someone please explain why signs inviting boys to join Boy Scouts of America are allowed on Monroe County school grounds? They are an avowed anti-gay organization. Those signs are not on the right-of-way, they are ON SCHOOL GROUNDS. Yet scouts, scoutmasters, and scout leaders (mothers) who are gay are not allowed in BSA. So how is BSA allowed on the grounds of Monroe County schools?
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I posted to Mike’s Facebook thread: Mike, ask John Dick, School Board Chairman
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Mike posted: “Life is hard enough, lets not make it harder on our kids” is right.” That’s why I am bringing this up. If Key West’s scout troop is defying BSA in this regard, make it public record. Our Salvation Army is different too but the parent organization is also anti-gay so they do not get city or county support. As for “promote an upstanding and educational way of life for young men, as well as etching them skills and manners that will be beneficial in the future” they haven’t been that for a long time. There are 14,000 pages to prove it. People had to fight in court to get those files released. Defend scouts all you want. They are anti-gay. They enable pedophiles. And their propaganda not withstanding the signs do not belong on Monroe County school grounds. Are the kids they hurt sacrifices for the kids who they benefit? How do the lucky kids and unlucky kids get “chosen”? Is there a lottery? http://www.mpnnow.com/opinions/x1660699382/OUR-OPINION-Boy-Scouts-did-not-keep-morally-straight OUR OPINION: Boy Scouts did not keep ‘morally straight’www.mpnnow.com The purpose of the “perversion files,” according to the Boy Scouts, was to weed out those men who might harm young Scouts. It appears no effort was made to protect children outside of Scouts from the men whose criminal secrets the organization’s leadership kept.
Mike posted: Like Sloan said, I contacted all the members of School Board. How many kids have to suffer so that others can have a “good” experience? It’s a bad deal. The fantasy about scouting is over. Either reorganize or shut it down. In the meantime, let’s get it off our school lawns.
Mike posted: As I just said to a friend, I am over the whole scouting-is-sacred routine. BSA is hurting the kids I am working to defend. And while I am unable to speak for my fellow former scouts, the values I learned in scouting are such that I am unable to allow this to continue in good conscience. And in case any other Scouts forgot: The Scout Oath On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law*. To help other people at all times, And to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight. *The Scout Law A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. How could some kids be randomly selected for defeat and still be morally straight, mentally away, trustworthy, brave and reverent? I learned the ideals worth defending in Scouts. So feel free to bring this to me as an adult. I was raised for this battle. Signed, Mike Mongo former Boy Scout Troop 340 Seminole, FL
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I posted: I put this below in my post today at goodmorningkeywest.com, and emailed it to [schools superintendent] Mark Porter, the school board members, and some local journalists:
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Received word from Mike Mongo yesterday that Key West High School allows Boy Scouts of America to recruit on the Key West High School campus, even though Boy Scouts of America is an anti-Gay outfit. I told Mike to contact school board chairman John Dick about that. I also should have told Mike to contact schools superintendent Mark Porter, as it will be Mark’s job to deal with it.
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Mike posted: BTW it is important to note that BSA is not GSA. Girl Scouts of America is okay with everyone being themselves. Here’s how they maturely deal with it: “As a private organization, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. respects the values and beliefs of each of its members and does not intrude into personal matters. Therefore, there are no membership policies on sexual preference. However, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. has firm standards relating to the appropriate conduct of adult volunteers and staff. The Girl Scout organization does not condone or permit sexual displays of any sort by its members during Girl Scout activities, nor does it permit the advocacy or promotion of a personal lifestyle or sexual preference. These are private matters for girls and their families to address.” And here is a beautiful editorial policy praising GSA for their policy in contrast to BSA. BTW please stop saying this is a sexual issue. It is not. It is an identity issue. If you are gay, you are not allowed in Boy Scouts. That’s not “sexual” that’s “discrimination”. Being gay is not a sexual topic, it’s a people topic. http://www.wisconsingazette.com/opinion/the-rising-of-the-women.html
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After a bunch of nap dreams about closing all entry points on this topic, and then Ken Gentile, the Florida Keys school district’s chief operating officer and a devout Christian with whom I have had serious discussions about Jesus, Paul and the New Testament, telling me I needed to plant this discussion with Mike Mongo in the ground, I posted:
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Well, Mike, it looks like a sexual topic to most people. Including most gay people, I imagine. Because what defines it is same-sex sex, instead of opposite-sex sex. Without that, it would not be a topic, nor any politics, religious views, etc. surrounding it. I told you years ago, and we had some discussion, that most homosexuality is adaptation to soul wounding, specifically, injury to the female essence. While some people are born gay, they are a small percentage of gay people. I wrote an article about that, maybe it was in 2001, which a Key West gay organization received and wrote back asking permission to republish it. In the article, I described dreams I’d had in late 1988, of a young man making love with a young woman, and the young woman turned to face me and became a young gay man; of a young woman sitting on a commode in a public restroom stall, and a big, skin-head, macho man came into the stall with and made her have oral sex with him, and she then turned into a young gay man. I awoke, terrified. The dreams showed me the state of my own internal male and internal female, and the cause was serious aggressive testosterone poisoning. The testosterone poisoning was the result of mental, emotional psychic aggression committed against me by others, probably my father and his father most prominent, and mental, emotional and psychic aggression I had committed against others. I felt the dreams also showed me that I came very close to being homosexual myself. I included in the article that there is no indication in the New Testament that Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul, ever married and had children. As Paul, he placed men above women spiritually, saying Christ is to head of a man, as a man is to the head of his wife, and only through her husband can a woman know Christ. I wrote that Saul of Tarus persecuted and caught a lot of Christians and had them killed for being Christians. I wrote that Paul’s flocks were the children he never had, because he was homosexual, which every woman near him knew – the thorn in his own flesh about he wrote that God would not remove. I wrote that Paul advised his followers that he felt they would be better off being celibate, like him. I wrote that he told them there was no point in producing more children, because Christ’s return was imminent. And I wrote that the early church had created an all-male Trinity, which made their god homosexual. [I also wrote in the article, after telling that to a number of gay men I was getting to know in Birmingham, Alabama, and it didn't matter to God that Saul of Tarsus who was changed to Paul was gay, they started attending the same Sunday school class at Southside Baptist church. I told them they would be warmly received in the class, and in the church, which happened, and they became valuable members of the class.] In their request to publish the article, the gay organization asked for my mailing address and phone number. I wrote back that I had no mailing address or phone number. (I was homeless.) I did not hear back from them, nor did they publish the article. Some years later, I had a chance to speak about that with a gay man who had been affiliated with that organization, and he said, yes, they had dropped it when they realized I was homeless. As I recall, that is what you really blew up at me about, I was homeless. You make it very plain that you would not put up with that. After that was when you demanded that I leave Key West. You may not remember any of that, or our discussions about the cause of most homosexuality, and your being gay, and that you needed to avoid something, not gay sex – I won’t go into that detail on Facebook, but you agreed, said that something didn’t feel right to you and a gay man had told you the same thing. What I’m saying, Mike, is there is a lot of serious prejudice in this world, and there is a lot of serious prejudice in Key West, and there is a lot of serious prejudice in the gay community in Key West. Some of that gay prejudice is against straight people; it’s racial prejudice. Just as prejudice against street people is racial prejudice. Just as prejudice against black people, or against hispanic people, or against asian people, or against white people, is racial prejudice. I agree, Mark Porter needs to deal with Boy Scouts of America recruiting at Key West High School. However, I am not sure I am comfortable with Girl Scouts of America recruiting there. Or with any group or organization recruiting there. Nor am I comfortable with your position that being gay is not a sexual issue, when clearly is it a sexual issue, just as a person who is homeless and experiences mistreatment by the establishment is a homeless issue. Yes, beyond all of that, we all are human beings, part of the One Human Family. But when we take our singular personal human trait, being straight, or gay, or white, or black, or Republican or Democrat, or Christian or Jew or Muslim, or pro-life or pro-choice, and we turn it into into an aggressive, even fanatical religious crusade, instead of into just pleading for the same treatment everyone gets who is not bothering or causing other people problems, it becomes something I do not care for. It becomes projection. It becomes denial. It becomes a cult. And then I want nothing to do with it. What people who join crusades do not realize, take the crusade many have joined to save the planet, is they have identified with the planet, they are the planet, the abuse the planet is receiving from humanity rivals the abuse they received, usually at a younger age, from humanity. In desperately trying to save the planet, which is perfectly capable of taking of herself, if she chooses to rid herself of her cancer – humans – they really are trying to save themselves. Instead of dealing with the beams in their own eye, they go about determined to remove the mote from the eye of people who do not share their religious belief – crusade. I sent this below to people involved in school district issues, including Mark Porter and the school board members and some local journalists. It’s in Mark’s hands now.
From: keysmyhome@hotmail.com
To: school board members, superintendent of schools, school district staff, local journalists
Subject: Boy Scouts of America recruiting on KWHS campus Date:
Thu, 25 Oct 2012
Received word from Mike Mongo yesterday that Key West High School allows Boy Scouts of America to recruit on the Key West High School campus, even though Boy Scouts of America is an anti-Gay outfit. I told Mike to contact school board chairman John Dick about that. I also should have told Mike to contact schools superintendent Mark Porter, as it will be Mark’s job to deal with it. Sloan
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Hmmmm, I sent it to them twice. Wonder what, if anything, will come of it? I told a duplicate bridge amiga in Marathon yesterday that Christendom made its Trinity all male, thus homosexual, and how did it reproduce if it was all male? To know what the divine plan is, all I have to do is look at human beings’ plumbing. The few people actually born gay do so for soul reasons. They are not evil. People who become gay after being born are not evil. Being gay is not evil. But you will never convince the religious right of that. Never. And the irony is, the more homophobic they are, the more condemning of homosexuality they are, I used to be seriously homophobic and made fun of gay men out of their hearing, the more homosexual they are in their psyche, if not in fact. I imagine most people still remember the Florida U.S. House of Representatives member – Mark Foley, wasn’t that his name? – who, like St. Paul, was so outspoken against homosexuality …
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From Wikipedia:
Mark Adam Foley (born September 8, 1954) is a former member of the United States House of Representatives. He served from 1995 until 2006, representing the 16th District of Florida as a member of the Republican Party. Foley resigned from Congress on September 29, 2006 acting on a request by the Republican Leadership after allegations surfaced that he had sent suggestive emails and sexually explicit instant messagesHYPERLINK \l “cite_note-threemore-0″[1] to underage males who had formerly served and were at that time serving as Congressional pages.[2]HYPERLINK \l “cite_note-2″[3] As a result of the disclosures, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted investigations of the messages to find possible criminal charges.[4] Each ended with no criminal finding. In the case of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the “FDLE conducted as thorough and comprehensive investigation as possible considering Congress and Mr. Foley denied us access to critical data,” said FDLE Commissioner Gerald Bailey with the closure of the case.[5] The House Ethics Committee also conducted an investigation into the response of the House Republican leadership and their staff to possible earlier warnings of Foley’s conduct.[6]
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Just my opinion, Key West High School needs Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts of America on its campus recruiting students, as much as it needs Catholic priests and nuns on its campus recruiting students. Also just my opinion, maybe if my brother, Major, had talked with me about someone who had it in for him was going to out him for being bisexual, I might have been able to talk him out of killing himself and trying to make it look like someone else did it.
Sloan Bashinsky
goodmorningbirmingham.com
goodmorningfloridakeys.com
goodmorningkeywest.com