The 2010 Five Most Embarrassing Moments of the Anti-Gay Right Caught on Video

One thing that I will never forget about this year is how members of the religious right and the right in general made complete fools of themselves in their zeal to oppose lgbt equality.

And luckily we have the best moments on video and audio. So without further comment, I present the 2010 Five Most Embarrassing Moments of the Anti-Gay Right Caught on Video.

Honorable Mention: Peter LaBarbera loves Paul Cameron

Okay this isn't exactly a video moment, which is why it gets an honorable mention. Yes I am cheating but I want folks to remember this. Our friend, Porno Pete LaBarbera in an interview with Concerned Women for America's Martha Kleder freely admits to using the discredited research of Paul Cameron in order to demonize the lgbt community. Not only is he not ashamed of it, but he claims that gays don't take Cameron's work seriously because we flat don't like him. This is true. We don't like Paul Cameron. Maybe it has to do with all of those censures and rebukes he has gotten from legitimate groups (i.e the American Psychological Association, the American Sociological Association) for his awful research techniques:




5. Martin Luther King, Jr. supported imprisoning gays?

 In February, Molotov Mitchell of World Net Daily gives an absolutely ridiculous defense of the Ugandan "kill the gays" bill, including the part about the death penalty.  But the most offensive item from this video comes at 3:00 when Mitchell actually evokes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to justify not only this bill but his labored defense of it:  

"Like the great Dr. King told us, 'the moral arm of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.' Ugandans, stay on the right side of history."

First of all, it's not "arm," but "arc" you dumbass.

It's bad enough that Mitchell sullies King's good name by actually thinking that he would have supported this  travesty of a bill. He compounds his homophobia and stupidity by getting the quote wrong:




4. Barney Frank owns phony journalist

In December,  DADT was repealed. However the conservative CNS News tried to trip up Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) by reducing the issue to that of heterosexuals "being forced" to shower with gays. What happens next is one of the reasons why Frank is one of my heroes. It begins at 3.50:





3. Family Research Council's Peter Sprigg makes a comment that comes back to haunt him

There are times in which the best thing to do is let religious right members talk. Sometimes they go beyond the talking points and show their true face, like this case in February. On the news program Hardball, Family Research Council spokesperson and board member Peter Sprigg said  he believes that Lawrence vs. Texas (the Supreme Court decision that struck down the sodomy laws) was "wrongly decided" and that "gay behavior" should be criminalized.

The comment came back to haunt Sprigg and FRC. It's one of the reasons why the Southern Poverty Law Center declared FRC to be an anti-gay hate group:




2. Janet Porter prays to God for control of the media and ends up losing her gig

If some of us don't know who Janet Porter is, then blame this video. Porter has a long history of zaniness, including claiming that anyone voting for Obama is going to hell and writing a fictional account of Christians forced into "re-education camps" had Hilary Clinton won the 2008 presidential election.

But the following prayer she made in March takes the proverbial cake. She actually prayed that "righteous people" be in control of the media. I kid you not. And maybe her prayer had an effect.  Her radio program was dropped later that year from VCY America due to the company's uneasiness with some of her stances:




And the number one Most Embarrassing Moment of the Anti-Gay Right Caught on Video:

1. David Boies owns the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins

In August, a federal judge struck down Prop 8, the California law that prohibits marriage equality. California voters passed this law in November 2008. However, Theodore Olson and David Boies, two attorneys who faced each other during the Gore vs Bush election controversy of 2000,  teamed up to successfully argue against it in court.

What made their victory easy was the fact that those for Prop 8 did an awful job of defending the law in the court room. However, that didn't stop supporters of the law to whine after the loss. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council was one of those folks and he faced Boies on CBS's Face the Nation. Boies proceeded to not only knock the defenders of Prop 8 and Perkins on their collective asses, but he also created a moment in time which broke down just why religious right groups were successful in the ballot initiatives against marriage equality. The good part starts at 2:50:




Please know that I did not make this list up in order to gloat but as a reminder. No matter what the religious right says, the lgbt community are not the bad guys in this so-called culture war. All we want is what we should have as human beings - i.e. the same rights as everyone else.

Regardless of their talking points, access to money, and ability to spin, the religious right are a group of people hiding behind God but totally devoid of truth or integrity.

And those without truth or integrity never win.