The following is an email I sent to Chris Matthews and the staff of Hardball in regards to Tony Perkins's appearance on the show yesterday. It is imperative that as many of us also submit emails. You can feel free to use my letter or submit your own. The email address is hardball@msnbc.com
To: Chris Matthews and the staff of Hardball,
Dear Mr. Matthews,
On November 29, you had Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council on your show speaking against the designation of his organization as an official anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. In making his point, Mr. Perkins committed several distortions which need to be brought to your attention.
1. When he cited work from the American College of Pediatricians as proof that homosexuality is a "dangerous lifestyle," he did not mention that this organization is not a legitimate medical group. The American College of Pediatricians is not a legitimate medical group. It is a sham organization dedicated to the laundering of junk science about the lgbt community, i.e. the kind of "science" which demonizes the lgbt community. One of its chief researchers was George Rekers, that is before he got caught coming from a European trip with a "rentboy."
Earlier this year, the American College of Pediatricians tried to push a webpage, Facts About Youth, to American schools.
Among other things, this site made the following claims about gay men:
Some gay men sexualize human waste, including the medically dangerous practice of coprophilia, which means sexual contact with highly infectious fecal wastes
2. Perkins claimed according to a study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, 86 percent of men who molest children identified as gay. He conveniently did not mention that in the study of 229 convicted child molesters, 63 victims were male, and 166 victims were female. Eighty-six percent of 63 isn't a drop in the bucket and it's certainly not enough to make a generalization in regards to the gay community.
I am well aware of the fact that when discussing controversial issues, journalists have a duty to show a degree of parity and present "both sides." However, journalists also have a duty to call out any distortions made by either side of the issue.
At the very least, I would hope that you and your staff come to the realization that when it comes to discussing gay issues, neither Tony Perkins nor anyone else in the Family Research Council can be trusted to be accurate or truthful.
Thank you for your time,
Alvin McEwen
www.holybulliesandheadlessmonsters.blogspot.com
Feel free to copy what is in this letter or send your own. But by all means, please be polite. We have a right to be angry with how Perkins distorts facts to demonize us, but we are still a people with dignity. The point is to let Matthews know how Perkins and FRC lie about lgbt issues.
5 comments:
Post your letters on Matthews' Facebook page & force him to publicly defend giving Perkins a free bully pulpit to incite violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans.
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4493601326&ref=ts
I wrote to him. Thanks for letting people know about this.
i will write to hardball and i am tired of these nuts getting on and just repeating lies and know one questions them!
Here's what I'm sending!
"The next time you have a discussion on race, will you invite members of the Klan? The next time you talk about Israel or American Jews, will you invite members of Hamas?
Shocked? Well, I for one am getting sick and tired of seeing anti-gay bigots and representatives of hate groups such as Tony Perkins spewing falsehoods and other anti-gay bile.
It's time hate groups like NOM, FRC, TVC, FotF, are ignored andignored when discussions surrounding LGBT issues in this country."
Homosexuality is not a sexual deviation as defined by the psychiatric DSM. We are the throes of a revolution on human sexuality and human sexual variability perhaps on the scale of the Copernican and Darwinian revolutions. Reactionary attitudes in this matter need to be exposed as harbingers of bigotry that is to say for what they are. Gay rights is part of the ongoing quest to further human dignity. There is nothing that is anti-Christian about gay rights. The Bible is not a proof text. To accept the condemnation of gays is equivalent to flat earth thinking, geocentric cosmology, and scientific creationism and intelligent design thinking. The UCC, TEC, and the ELCA have led bravely in the right positive direction as Christians. Similarly, the moves to end "don't say don't tell" in the military further the very necessary revolution for human justice in matters of sexual orientation. Richard w. Chadburn Sevierville TN.
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