Ron Paul Endorser Reverend Phillip G. Kayser Supports Criminalizing Homosexuality And Enforcing Death Penalty Against Offenders, Armed Robber Who Lured Victims Via Gay Chat Lines Sentenced To 14 ½ Years In Prison, Transgender Woman Murdered In Kansas City And Local Media Coverage Criticized, 2011 National Film Registry Select Forest Gump Among Other Films But Again Ignores The Times Of Harvey Milk, Joe McGuiness, Tom Felton

GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul’s Iowa chair, Drew Ivers, recently touted the endorsement of Reverend Phillip G. Kayser, a pastor at the Dominion Covenant Church in Nebraska who also draws members from Iowa, putting out a press release praising “the enlightening statements he makes on how Ron Paul’s approach to government is consistent with Christian beliefs.” But, reports Talking Points Memo, Kayser’s views on homosexuality go way beyond the bounds of typical anti-gay evangelical politics and into the violent fringe: he recently authored a paper arguing for criminalizing homosexuality and even advocated imposing the death penalty against offenders based on his reading of Biblical law. “Difficulty in implementing Biblical law does not make non-Biblical penology just,” he argued. “But as we have seen, while many homosexuals would be executed, the threat of capital punishment can be restorative. Biblical law would recognize as a matter of justice that even if this law could be enforced today, homosexuals could not be prosecuted for something that was done before.” Reached by phone, Kayser confirmed that he believed in reinstating Biblical punishments for homosexuals — including the death penalty — even if he didn’t see much hope for it happening anytime soon. While he said he and Paul disagree on gay rights, noting that Paul recently voted for repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, he supported the campaign because he believed Paul’s federalist take on the Constitution would allow states more latitude to implement fundamentalist law. Especially since under Kayser’s own interpretation of the Constitution there is no separation of Church and State. “Under a Ron Paul presidency, states would be freed up to not have political correctness imposed on them, but obviously some state would follow what’s politically correct,” he said. “What he’s trying to do, whether he agrees with the Constitution’s position or not, is restrict himself to the Constitution. That is something I very much appreciate.” Kayser’s allegiance to the Paul campaign may reflect who the campaign has chosen to sell Paul to the churches. Mike Heath, who became Ron Paul’s Iowa state director this fall, has spent his career on the Christian right. In Iowa, Heath has focused on outreach to the religious community in the state, where Paul has made an effort to target evangelical voters. Heath spent 14 years running the Christian Civic League of Maine (which has since changed its name). As a prominent figure in Maine, Heath slowly alienated the Christian right in the state with his extreme tactics. In 2004, for example, he launched a witch hunt to out gay members of the Maine legislature, asking supporters, according to the Portland Press Herald, to “e-mail us tips, rumours, speculation and facts” regarding the sexual orientation of the state’s political leaders, adding, “We are, of course, most interested in the leaders among us who want to overturn marriage, eliminate the mother/father family as the ideal, etc.” The result was that his own organization suspended him for a month. “He’s a well-known conspiracy theorist about the ‘gay agenda,’” says Travis Kennedy, chief of staff for the House Democratic Office in Maine, who says Heath was a big figure around the capital for many years. Heath made more enemies than friends, says Kennedy, whose “offensive and aggressive” tactics put off even his allies on the Christian right. In 2007, Heath played a big part in opposing a sexual orientation anti-discrimination ballot measure which ultimately passed by a wide margin. On Heath’s new job in Iowa, Kennedy said, “I’m not surprised he’d be hired in a state far away from Maine. He has a pretty poor reputation around here.”

An armed robber who met his victims through gay chat lines -- and pretended to only be interested in romance or sex -- was sentenced to 14½ years in prison Tuesday. The Oregonian reports that investigators say the tactics and targets of Elijah Whitney Cohens II varied widely. But in all four known cases he said he had a gun. He also always said he was a police officer — perhaps to scare his victims into thinking they had done something illicit and that they should hand over valuables so he would not arrest them. Cohens is 35. His victims ranged in age from their 20s to 60s. He robbed them during a four-week period in May and June. Cohens fooled around with two victims before robbing them. He skipped any romance and went straight to robbing the two other victims. He tracked down one victim at the victim's apartment, although the victim had not given Cohens his address. Cohens tied him up and walked out with $5,000 worth of the man’s valuables, including a big-screen TV. Cohens met another victim at Lloyd Center mall, before driving off with the man and demanding he withdraw cash from an ATM. One victim said Cohens wielded a knife. Another saw the butt of a gun. The other two did not see any weapon. Portland police were able to track down Cohens because he left behind a cigarette butt. DNA on the cigarette butt matched DNA that had been entered into the state database after Cohens' previous felony convictions, which include robbery, forgery, assault and burglary. Three of the victims also identified Cohens. He lived in an apartment on Northeast Columbia Boulevard. Cohens pleaded guilty in Multnomah County Circuit Court to first-degree robbery, second-degree robbery, first-degree burglary and criminal impersonation of an officer. Judge Angel Lopez sentenced Cohens to 150 months and ordered him to pay $7,000 in restitution. Although Cohens claims there are no additional victims, investigators believe there could be others. Anyone with information is asked to call Portland police Sgt. Mike Smith at 503-823-0400.

A Kansas City man who told police he became angry after he realized the prostitute he had patronized Christmas Eve was a man posing as a woman was charged Sunday with the transgender woman’s murder, according to The Kansas City Star. Kenyan L. Jones, 26, faces charges of second-degree murder and armed criminal action in the shooting death of Darnell D. Pearson, 31, also known as Dee Dee Pearson. According to court documents, Jones admitted paying to have sexual relations with Pearson believing that Person was a woman. Several hours later, Jones became aware that Pearson was a biological man. Jones told police that he obtained a handgun and approached Pearson in the vicinity of East 46th Street and Troost Avenue. Jones chased Pearson to the entry of an apartment building in the 1000 block of East 43rd Street where, Jones said, he “popped him.” Police found Pearson’s body at about 11:25 p.m. A witness who had called 911 told police she heard several shots and saw a man in a hoodie running from the scene and the victim lying in front of the apartment. When police arrested Jones on East 43rd Street, west of Virginia Avenue, he was out of breath and wearing a hoodie-style shirt. A short distance away, police recovered a handgun and a hooded jacket with a cellphone containing video images of Jones. There has been criticism of the local media coverage, including the Star, for failing to use the correct pronouns in referring to Pearson.

Forrest Gump, the multiple-Oscar winning 1994 film starring Tom Hanks as an American innocent navigating the social changes of the 1960s and 1970s, was named to the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry on Wednesday, along with 24 other films deemed worthy of preservation at the library’s conservation facility in Culpeper, Virginia. According to The Washington Post, this year’s list spans more than 80 years, with Forrest Gump being the most recent title and A Cure for Pokeritis, a silent comedy made in 1912, being the oldest. A number of this year’s inductees have to do with social issues, from the documentaries The Negro Soldier and Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment to the child-labour melodrama The Cry of the Children and The Lost Weekend, starring Ray Milland as a man battling alcoholism. Every year, Librarian of Congress James H. Billington personally selects which films will be added to the National Film Registry, working from a list of suggestions from the library’s National Film Preservation Board and the general public. “What it’s proven to me, having done it now for a number of years, is the continuing inventiveness and diversity of how moving images and the film industry have flourished in this country,” Billington said. “There’s just terrific variety and richness.” In addition to such mainstream motion pictures, this year’s list includes such lesser-known titles as Allures, a 1961 study in abstraction by Jordan Belson, and I, an Actress, by George and Mike Kuchar, filmmakers whose subversive experimental films influenced John Waters, among other directors. This year, Forrest Gump and the 1971 feminist documentary Growing Up Female enjoyed significant public support, with the library receiving substantial numbers of e-mails advocating for both. However, The Times of Harvey Milk, Rob Epstein’s Oscar-winning 1984 documentary about the San Francisco politician and gay rights advocate, long recommended by the board, was once again not chosen for the registry. Dennis Doros, whose company Milestone Films has distributed a number of the classic and “orphan” films the registry regularly champions, sees the absence as a troubling blind spot. “One of the reasons I’m disappointed is that I think so highly of the selections of the National Film Registry, that they try to be so diverse,” Doros said. “They have just about every minority represented, so the omission of LGBT films just makes that omission even more glaring.” For his part, Billington says, “I don’t think there’s been an absence,” citing such registry films as Midnight Cowboy, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Eaux d’Artifice, by gay filmmaker Kenneth Anger, as examples. “There’s no conscious exclusion of anybody. It’s a question of who do we include in a given year. We don’t have quotas. And I don’t think you’ll find a list with a wider range of inclusiveness than this one, in terms of films with a distinct point of view.” Still, board member Bob Rosen, a preservationist, historian and former dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, noted that a few films by gay filmmakers or featuring gay characters “is not by itself sufficient to reflect the cultural, historic and aesthetic significance of the literally thousands of LGBT films produced over the years,” Rosen adding, “The list, now numbering more than 500 titles, is truly amazing in reflecting generic, cultural and gender diversity. That there are no films that reflect gay and lesbian culture and history suggests an area that remains to be addressed.”

The very cute Joe McGuiness of The Wanted, a British boy band, spotted along the shores of Barbados.

The very pale Tom Felton spotted in Miami Beach.