It never hurts to point out how phony and homophobic Michele Bachmann is

Anderson Cooper lays the smack down on Michele Bachmann:

Bachmann receives some dumb advice from South Carolina and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Oh please follow this man's advice, Mrs. Bachmann. Pretty, pretty please:



Pens at ready, Mainers: Push to regain removed rights begins today - Go for it, Mainers!

WaPo: Obama Admin Should Halt Binational Spousal Deportations - Amen to that!

Fox News Hosts Tony Perkins Three Times In Eight Days - Now THAT is the perfect definition of shoving something down someone's throats.

Silly phony 'activist' claims that gays are 'sexualizing' children

In a column in One News Now, an "activist" named Michael Brown reveals the ignorance of the religious right when it comes to the gay community.

The title of the piece "Please stop sexualizing our children" should give you an indication of where he is headed. It's one of those Anita Bryant-like pieces which implies rather slyly that gays are trying to "convert" childen. And as with all religious right hit pieces regarding the gay community, he pulls out "examples" of just how the gay community is "sexualizing" children:

But there's more. There is the sexualizing of our children in the public schools, and I'm not talking about sex-ed classes. I'm talking about teaching gay history to elementary school children, as now mandated by law in California with the recent passing of SB 48, thereby introducing sexual categories to little ones who haven't the slightest clue what sexual orientation is, let alone have the ability to wrap their minds around "bisexual" or "transgender."

Please notice what how Brown tries to imply that this bill is about "sexualizing" children. Of course this is a lie. According to the author of the bill, CA State Sen Mark Leno:

Children need to feel self-confident and safe, both emotionally and physically, in order to learn and thrive in school. They are denied a safe school environment when they are exposed to negative stereotypes in classroom materials and school-sponsored activities. California law currently addresses this problem for many children by prohibiting instruction which reflects adversely on people of certain personal characteristics such as race, sex, color, creed, disability, national origin or ancestry. California law also requires that public instruction include the historical contributions of underrepresented cultural and ethnic groups such as African American, Native Americans, Asian American, Mexican Americans and other groups.

Despite these protections, some children’s needs are still not met by the law. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students are an example of one group that is still vulnerable to discrimination in instructional materials and school activities. SB 48 would remedy this problem by adding coverage for sexual orientation and gender, consistent with other laws prohibiting discrimination such as the Fair Employment and Housing Act and the Unruh Civil Rights Act.

The FAIR Education Act also require that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans are included and recognized for their important historical contributions to the economic, political and social development of California and the United States. Specifically, this legislation would add LGBT people to the existing list of underrepresented cultural and ethnic groups. Studies have shown that including the contributions of LGBT people in instructional materials is linked to greater student safety and lower rates of bullying.

Now you may agree or disagree with Mr. Leno (and I happen to agree), the point is shouldn't this bill be debated without lies about how gays are trying to introduce sexual acts to children?

Brown commits another distortion:

Already in Massachusetts, a couple was so upset with this state-sponsored sexualizing of their first-grader that they took their battle to court, where Judge Mark Wolff of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the schools have a greater responsibility to teach "diversity" than to honor the requests of the parents. In other words, "Sorry, moms and dads. We know what is best for your children, and when we decide it's time to introduce them to 'diversity' -- our code word for gay activist curricula -- we will do so. You, on your part, have no right to interfere, so don't even think about it." 

You will notice again how Brown does not tell the entire story. The situation he is referring to actually sprang from two cases - in one case, parents claimed to be upset that their child was read a story in which one prince ended up marrying another prince.  I wonder if Brown feels that children being read the story of Hansel and Gretel teaches them cannibalism or that the story of Cinderella teaches them child abuse?

Now the other situation is one which I covered on several occasions - the David Parker situation.  Parker was arrested for trespassing at his son's school because he would not leave the premises after a meeting with school officials. Parker claimed that he was trying to make sure that his son would not be "taught" about homosexuality. Of course the reality of the situation, which was exposed many times, was that Parker and a MA hate group, Mass Resistance, orchestrated the entire situation to harm the local gay community.

Both of those controversies combined into one court case which was dismissed by U.S. District Court of Appeals. Brown omitted the fact that the Supreme Court also refused to listen to the case.

But how Brown dismissed the ruling gives a clue to not only his mindset but those of the religious right:

Judge Mark Wolff of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the schools have a greater responsibility to teach "diversity" than to honor the requests of the parents. In other words, "Sorry, moms and dads. We know what is best for your children,

The thing that Brown hates to acknowledge and that other members of the religious right hates to acknowledge is that heterosexual two-parent families aren't the only ones who are raising children. Same-sex couples and single gay parents are also raising children.

In short, Mr. Brown makes the clarion cry of  "stop sexualizing our children," but it's not his right to make such a cry. Those are our children too. And we are not "sexualizing" them.

We are merely telling them that the gay community exists, there is nothing wrong with us, and if these children should discover that they too are lgbtq , there is nothing wrong with that. There is no need to be depressed or be consumed with self-hatred. We are merely telling them that they are wonderful creatures as God has made them.

And it is a message that we will continue to repeat in spite of Mr. Brown and others like him.

Since when is connecting the gay community to human wastes 'truthful research?'

Earlier this month, phony historian David Barton and WallBuilders Live co-host Rick Green went on a tangent about (what else) the supposed gay agenda in schools during a radio program. According to Right-Wing Watch:

Barton cited the American College of Pediatricians, a right-wing group that split off from the much larger and mainstream American Academy of Pediatricians because of the ACP’s stringent opposition to LGBT rights, particularly the right of gay and lesbian couples to adopt children. According to the AAP, the ACP’s “campaign does not acknowledge the scientific and medical evidence regarding sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual health, or effective health education.” The ACP also endorsers 'ex-gay' reparative therapy, saying, “therapy to restore heterosexual attraction can be effective for many people.”

Barton wrongly cites the ACP as “the leading pediatric association in America” and then repeats its anti-gay rhetoric, arguing that courses against bullying and that affirm non-heterosexual orientations are simply “indoctrination.”

Right-Wing Watch also said that  Barton alluded to how the ACP sent a letter to over 14,000 school superintendents regarding so-called "gay indoctrination."

Barton: The American College of Pediatricians is cautioning educators about what they do with same-sex attraction or symptoms of gender identity or gender confusion in schools.

Green: You’re kidding, this is the Pediatric Association?

Barton: Got it, get this. The letter reminds school superintends that it is ‘not uncommon for adolescents to experience transient,’ that’s a big word, ‘transient confusion about their sexual orientation,’ and is telling 14,800 superintendents that ‘most students will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged.’ And they’re saying, guys, back off. This indoctrination you’re doing—

An online buddy of mine, Bernie Keefe, got angry at what Barton said, so he emailed both Barton and Green asking specific questions about the American College of Pediatricians. He received the following very flippant response from Green:

I am not aware of anything from our broadcast that was inaccurate. Nothing in the transcript you sent is wrong or false. We may disagree on what constitutes "leading," but neither David or I said the ACP was the largest. As often happens, the larger associations become either stagnant or politically correct and lose the leadership qualities that make an organization "leading" in their profession. Meanwhile, a perhaps smaller, but more professional and cutting edge organization begins to lead by stating facts and putting forth truthful research the older organization is afraid to release due to political correctness.

Perhaps this explains your "harsh foray" mischaracterizing our opinion as a "prevarication" simply because you disagree with our opinion of which association is "leading" or maybe because you disagree with the political impact of the paper released by ACP?

Let's talk about the "paper" in question which ACP sent to schools. As luck would have it, I wrote an article about it. Allow me to rehash just what exactly is Green's idea of "facts" and "truthful research."

In February of last year, over 14,000 school district superintendents in the country were sent a letter by ACP inviting them to peruse and use information from a new site, Facts About Youth. The site claimed to present "facts" supposedly not tainted by "political correctness."  Alleged facts such as:

Some gay men sexualize human waste, including the medically dangerous practice of coprophilia, which means sexual contact with highly infectious fecal wastes

And the site gets more interesting in terms of the errors and distortions it contains, including:

1.  Facts About Youth repeats the claim that Dr. Francis Collins stated that homosexuality is not hardwired by DNA. The truth is that Francis Collins never said that. In fact, Dr. Collins said his words were being distorted:

The words . . .  all come from the Appendix to my book “The Language of God” (pp. 260-263), but have been juxtaposed in a way that suggests a somewhat different conclusion that I intended. I would urge anyone who is concerned about the meaning to refer back to the original text.

2. Facts About Youth repeats the lie that  the Robert Spitzer study proves that homosexuality is changeable, excluding the fact that Spitzer has said on more than one occasion that his research was being distorted.

3. Facts About Youth mentions the term "gay bowel syndrome," even though it does not exist.

4. Facts About Youth repeats the lie that a Canadian study proves that gay men have a short life span, even though the researchers of the study said that their work was being distorted.

5.  Many of the studies cited by Facts About Youth are over 10 years old and some even go back to the seventies.

6. Many studies cited by Facts About Youth are convenience samples not meant to be indicative of the entire gay community in general. One example of this is the citation of the 1979 book The Gay Report, which was the result of 2500 responses which came from a gay magazine questionnaire. The magazine, Blue Boy, was a softcore porn magazine which is now defunct. However, Facts About Youth cites this book on several occasions when claiming to give accurate details on gay sexual behavior.

The plain fact of the matter is this - my friend Bernie, myself, and everyone else who are bothered by Barton's and Green's citation of ACP's phony webpage aren't doing so because we simply disagree with the information it contains.

We are bothered by the information because it's wrong.

Not that it matters to Barton and Green, though. It's always amusing to me how some religious right characters who talk about "moral absolutes" seem to change their minds when the facts get in their way.

Pulling the gay = pedophilia card again and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Anger over rally to ridicule gay marriage - Apparently some folks just can't help but to compare gays to pedophilia. It's like a sickness to them.


And courtesy of Jeremy Hooper, take a look at the sickness in action at said event via religious right talking head, Rebecca Hagelin:



Fox News Fabricates Controversy About Campus LGBT Center, Provides Platform For Anti-Gay Columnist - Fox News plus Mike Adams. Why is it when two liars team up, they don't spontaneously combust?

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Texas Gov. Rick Perry To Address "Ex-Gay" Advocates - One wonders what planet is Perry on?

Liberty Counsel Lawyer Releases Book About The Lisa Miller Saga - But of course the Liberty Counsel has no idea where Lisa Miller is hiding (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

NOM's marriage pledge includes a 'witch-hunt' against the gay community

While there is a lot of noise being made over the National Organization for Marriage's pledge to supposedly "protect marriage," a passage in that pledge is escaping some much deserved scrutiny. Amongst other things, those presidential candidates who signed the pledge, should they get elected to the presidency, has promised to:

Appoint a presidential commission to investigate harassment of traditional marriage supporters.

In the world of the jaded gay community who has reputedly seen it all from the religious right, even this sentence should raise alarms.

First of all, who would be on this committee? Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown? Or how about Peter Sprigg or Tony Perkins? Or even worse, Matt Barber? I would say Peter LaBarbera but even I'm not that crazy.

And just what would they investigate or rather how would they investigate certain matters? Remember during the Clinton Administration, how investigations of Whitewater "magically" pivoted to other matters having absolutely nothing to do with legal matters but more about Clinton's personal life?

Whose to say that this "commission" wouldn't turn into a fishing expedition determined to undermine and destroy pro-gay organizations?  And I haven't even mention bloggers. Imagine being called before a committee and forced to give personal testimony about some false claim (which will no doubt be played up heavily by Fox News, conservative bloggers, and religious right groups) simply because you published a fact as to how religious right groups lie. And knowing the folks who suggested the committee in the first place, it certainly isn't a farfetched notion.

No doubt, a list of pro-gay organizations and bloggers to be "investigated" is already forming in the minds of NOM and its allies.

The gay community would do well for itself to lose its jaded pose and get itself into the game of the 2012 election. We already seem to have a huge target on our back this election cycle - as unfortunately we always do every election cycle - so it seems to me that the best thing to do is to stop griping about being targets and start establishing a few targets ourselves.

Uh oh. Now maybe I will be investigated for saying that.

GLSEN issues cease-and-desist letter to Family Research Council

This morning, GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) issued a cease-and-desist letter via its attorneys to the Family Research Council "demanding that FRC cease distribution and publication of a video clip containing false and defamatory statements about GLSEN, as well as any other similar false and defamatory statements that may be contained in a longer video associated with that video clip."

 The cease-and-desist letter has to do with the video below in which Tony Perkins, head of FRC, and Brian Camenker, head of the Massachusetts anti-gay group Mass Resistance claimed that GLSEN and the Massachusetts Public Schools distributed an explicit safe-sex guide called The Little Black Book to fifth to ninth graders at a conference in 2005:



But this claim has been debunked several times. Most specifically, the group Media Matters conducted a detailed debunking of this claim in December 2009.

In a May 19, 2005, article, The Boston Globe reported:

Fenway Community Health officials yesterday said they left about 10 copies of the ''Little Black Book" on an informational table they rented at a conference sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network of Boston. The annual event, held on April 30 at Brookline High School, was aimed at high school students, educators, counselors, administrators, and parents. The ''Little Black Book," produced by the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, is targeted at 18-and-older gay men, according to the committee. The book uses vivid descriptions and colloquial terms to describe the ways HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases can be prevented and spread.

A Fenway Community Health employee brought the pamphlets along with other materials and put them on the table by mistake, said Chris Viveiros, a spokesman for Fenway Community Health.

''Fenway Community Health regrets accidentally making available a small number of copies of the Little Black Book, an HIV-prevention publication for gay and bisexual men over the age of 18, at an event where young people were present," said Dr. Stephen Boswell, Fenway Community Health's president and CEO.

Furthermore:

 From the Globe article:

Sean Haley, executive director of the education network (GLSEN), which sponsored the conference, added: ''We have very clear policies that sexually explicit material of any kind will not be made available at the conference. Had I seen the book, I would have asked them to put it away."

At the start of the event, Haley said, network officials scanned each of the 10 tables it had rented, for $35 apiece, to outside groups. He said nobody saw the pamphlet at the time. ''We're just going to have to be more rigorous in our review of materials," he said.

Haley said that about 500 people attended the conference, roughly half of them students. He said only ''a handful" were younger than high-school aged.

On May 18, 2005, WHDH 7News Boston's Sean Hennessey reported that Brookline Superintendent of Schools William H. Lupini says that "none of his students, he believes, took the [Fenway] book home."

In its cease-and-desist letter, GLSEN said the following:

The false statements in the FRC video can do real and lasting harm to our work. FRC has made those false and defamatory statements in an obvious effort to raise money, undermine GLSEN’s work and maintain the status quo: school systems where LGBT students face unacceptable levels of harassment and violence and where anti-LGBT bias is a weapon of choice for bullies. We must respond forcefully and aggressively to defend our ability to fulfill our mission, and to protect ourselves and our partners in this critical work – the countless people in school communities across the country who work with GLSEN and our chapters to ensure safe and affirming schools for all students, utilizing our resources, attending our trainings, advocating with us for urgently needed change to make a positive difference in schools.

Both the FRC and Mass Resistance have been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as anti-gay hate groups due to what SPLC calls an intentional spreading of demonizing propaganda against the gay community and pro-gay organizations.

Deadbeat dad Congressman puts down same-sex households

Sorry but this one is too good to ignore.

According to ThinkProgress, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) had some negative things to say about same-sex households. Apparently during a recent town hall meeting in Crystal Lake, IL, Walsh retreaded the same religious right junk about children "having a right to a home with a mother and a father:

Walsh is a supporter of traditional marriage between a man and a woman for economic reasons. He also stated that studies have shown it is more beneficial for a child to be raised in a home where a mother and father are present rather than in same-sex households. The congressman, however, said he was open to further information and research that might disprove that. 

How nice it is for Walsh to give us the caveat of  "he might change his mind if further research disproved his opinion." I would suggest that he get to reading because there is a plethora of information out there which contradicts his beliefs on same-sex households.

But it would be nicer if Walsh wasn't late with his child support payments. You all will remember that Walsh is the same Congressman who, in a video (starting at 2:30), said that he owed it to his children not to vote to raise the debt ceiling. At the same time, however, he was being sued by his ex-wife for $117,437 in child support payments for his three children.

Just in case you are wondering about Walsh's monetary situation, he loaned his own campaign $35,000 and paying himself back $14,200 for the loans.

Mr. Walsh, in this case, silence is definitely golden. Maybe it would have been better if you had pretended not to hear the question. Anything would have been much better than making a hypocritical ass of yourself.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to PAY YOUR DAMN CHILD SUPPORT before you start creating caste systems against loving families simply because they may contain parents of the same-sex.

One more thing:  National Organization for Marriage, I absolutely DARE you to write a blog post on Walsh's comments.  Please, please, please do it.

Marcus Bachmann continues to lie about 'ex-gay therapy' and other Monday midday news briefs

The militant homosexual savage attack on the religious freedom of little old lady affidavit signers - Box Turtle Bulletin gives a definitive breakdown on phony religious right cause celebres.

Marcus Bachmann Backtracks: Denies Using ‘Ex-Gay’ Therapy, Claims He Never Called Gays ‘Barbarians’ - Sorry Marcus but we all know that you are lying.

CDC Official Discusses Impact Of Stigma On New HIV Infections - Let's not forget that we are still fighting this disease.

GHANA: Christians March Against Gays - Pray for our brothers and sisters in Ghana.

Staver: Under Obama, The US Is "One Of The World's Immoral Leaders" - Mat Staver and Matt Barber would know about immorality - particularly the immorality of lying and bearing false witness.

Over 900 demand that Congress reject fraudulent anti-gay testimony

Over 900 members of the gay community and their allies sent a message to Congress demanding that it take a hard look at the people and groups called to testify against gay rights during its hearings.

These individuals all signed a petition through Change.org asking that Congressional leaders scrutinize the testimony given by religious right spokespeople and groups because the testimony could contain inaccurate and fraudulent information.

The petition is the brainchild of Alvin McEwen, blogmaster of Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters and a contributing writer on such sites as The Huffington Post, Alternet.org, Pam's House Blend, and LGBTQ Nation.

According to McEwen, the idea for the petition sprang from the July hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) when Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) called out Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery for distorting a government study to claim that heterosexual households are better at raising children than same-sex households.

While the blogsphere was abuzz about this incident, McEwen said he was concerned mostly about the times when religious right witnesses testifying in front of Congress were not called out on their distortions.

The petition points to two incidents. One was when Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage committed the same error as Minnery in an earlier Congressional hearing on DOMA this year.

The other incident took place in 2009 when Family Research Council head Tony Perkins cited information in front of Congress from pro-gay health sites to contend that homosexuality is a "deadly lifestyle." In doing this, Perkins omitted the fact that none of the sites implied that homosexuality was a "deadly lifestyle,"but rather that homophobia leads some gays into unhealthy behaviors.

"And unfortunately," McEwen said, "both Gallagher and Perkins got away with these distortions."

McEwen says that more attention should be paid to how religious right groups either rely on junk science or the distortion of legitimate science to back up their claims that homosexuality is somehow dangerous.

As further proof of this, McEwen points to at least 11 instances where legitimate researchers and physicians have complained about how religious right groups have distorted their work to make this case.

"The methods these organizations use against the gay community is highly skilled," McEwen said. "Usually they anoint 'policy experts' with no expertise other than the ability to repeat their false talking points. And these points are geared to exploit people's religious beliefs against homosexuality. It's common sense that if you believe homosexuality to be a sin, then it doesn't take much persuasion to make you believe that promiscuity, disease, drug abuse, pedophilia, and all sorts of negative behaviors are indicative of the homosexual orientation."

McEwen also points to several questionable techniques used by religious right groups, such as continuously changing the alleged number of sexual partners of gay men, referring to convenience sample studies which cannot be used to generalize about the entire gay community (such as the number of clients in STD clinics), citing books and studies about the gay community which were published over 10 to 30 years ago, and referring to negative health statistics about the gay community while omitting what is said about how homophobia plays a role in creating these negative health statistics.

For the longest time blogs, such as McEwen's, have been complaining about what the religious right does to the gay community through its distortion of science. Finally last year, there began to be some mainstream attention when the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization geared to fighting racism, homophobia, and other inequalities, called out several of these groups for spreading propaganda about the gay community.

However, for McEwen, it's not nearly enough. He said that groups like the Family Research Council, the National Organization for Marriage, and Focus on the Family still have influence in the minds of some Congressional leaders. And he hopes that the petition will attract attention to how religious right groups lie about the gay community.

"Congressional leaders need to be aware of the actions of these groups they count on for credible negative information about the gay community," he said. "These groups and their affiliate organizations have been getting away with this sort of thing for years. I think it is probably one of the most missed stories in the history of journalism."

"It's extremely hypocritical for religious right groups to make a so-called Christian stance against homosexuality and then stoop to un-Christian methods to further that stance. Lies in the name of God are still lies."

Sign the petition here.

The dangers of not challenging false anti-gay testimony are numerous

This is the last of  a series of posts highlighting the need for Congress to scrutinize misleading religious right testimony during its hearings. The first post today showed of Maggie Gallagher gave misleading testimony  during an earlier DOMA hearing this year. The second post showed how Tony Perkins gave misleading testimony during a Congressional hearing on ENDA in 2009. Now this post demonstrates just how dangerous it is to allow testimony like this to go unchallenged.

To put it simply, via ThinkProgress, when lies about the lgbtq community go unchallenged during Congressional hearings, you will find Congressional leaders repeating these lies as reasons to vote against gay equality.

The following words are during a 1996 debate on DOMA. While you view this footage, ask yourself just how much of it have you heard coming from the mouths of Tony Perkins, Peter Sprigg, and the rest of that bunch:




Sign the petition to keep injustices like this from happening.

Family Research Council head gave misleading testimony on ENDA in 2009

This post is Part 2 in a series highlighting the need for Congress to scrutinize misleading religious right testimony during its hearings. This repost has to do with 2009 testimony which Family Research Council leader Tony Perkins gave in front of Congress to oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Just like Maggie Gallagher's testimony earlier this year (which was highlighted in today's earlier post), Perkins's testimony was misleading. And the two unfortunate things about it were that he was not called out for his errors and in 2010, he was allowed to give testimony opposing the confirmation of now Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

October 1, 2009 

Recently, Family Research Council head Tony Perkins submitted testimony to Congress in opposition of Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

The bulk of his testimony were anecdotes of supposedly how ENDA would hurt free speech.

As Goodasyou.org pointed out, at least one of his anecdotes was a distortion of the facts. Perkins claimed that the person in the case was able to sue because he was merely perceived as gay.

Perkins was making the point that the lawsuit in that case was frivilous.

But Jeremy Hooper from Goodasyou.org showed that the person in the case was not only perceived as gay, but also harassed and fired because of that perception.

And I think I found another sly distortion from Perkins regarding ENDA. The part I want to address is in bold:

The principle at stake is whether personal disapproval of these chosen and harmful behaviors (homosexual conduct and sex changes) should be officially stigmatized under law as a form of bigotry that is equivalent to racism. Since such disapproval is the dominant viewpoint in the American public,explicitly taught by leading religions,and empirically supported by the negative health consequences of those behaviors

Perkins is pushing the "homosexuality has negative consequences" factoid that has served the religious right well for so many years.

The endnotes of his testimony say:

Evidence for the negative health consequences of homosexual conduct is available even from pro-homosexual sources such as the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. See their "Top Ten Issues to Discuss with Your Healthcare Provider" online at: http://www.glma.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=586&parentID=533&nodeID=1

To echo Jeremy Hooper in his denunciation of Perkins, it's a matter of perception.

Perkins is pushing the notion that "if people engage in same-sex intercourse, they face negative consequences."

Maggie Gallagher gave misleading testimony during April 15 DOMA hearing

Editor's note - As you all know, I have begun a petition asking Congress to scrutinize and call out misleading testimony given by religious right figures during its hearings. Part of the reason for this petition is the blowback Sen. Al Franken received when he called out Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery for his misleading testimony during a recent hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Another reason is to highlight the times in which religious right figures were able to get away with misleading testimony. Today, I will be reposting various pieces highlighting those incidents. This is the first and it took place at an earlier DOMA hearing in April of this year. Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage gave the same type of misleading testimony which Tom Minnery was called out for. The only difference is that no Congressional leader called her out. The site Equality Matters did call her out, but that was after the hearing was over.

April 25, 2011

According to Equality Matters, the witnesses speaking for DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) during the April 15 Congressional hearing gave incorrect testimony on several occasions. I invite everyone to take a look at the section, but the one which stands out for me is a statement made by the National Organization for Marriage's Maggie Gallagher.

She claimed that social science proves that the best place to raise children are in homes with biological, married parents as opposed to same-sex households:

Transcript:

GALLAGHER: From what we know from the social science evidence, marriage protects children to the extent that it increases the likelihood they are born to and raised by their own mother and father in a low-conflict, enduring relationship. We know this because, frankly, children do not do better under remarried parents than they do with solo mothers on average, which means that it is not simply a set of legal benefits that we can transform. It is the extent and way to which marriage as a legal and public institution helps to protect a particular kind of family that it helps to protect children or fails to protect children.

However, according to Equality Matters, in her written testimony, Gallagher cited a study on heterosexual single parents:

We know this from the social science evidence showing that children do no better, on average, in remarried families than they do living with single mothers. 1 Marriage protects children to the extent that it helps increase the likelihood that children will be raised by their mother and father.

[…]

1 See Sara McLanahan & Gary Sandefur, Growing Up With a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps (Harvard U. Press 1994) (“In general, compared with children living with both their parents, young people from disrupted families are more likely to drop out of high school, and young women from one-parent families are more likely to become teen mothers, irrespective of the conditions under which they began to live with single mothers and irrespective of whether their mothers remarry or experience subsequent disruptions.”). [Statement of Maggie Gallagher, Hearing on “Defending Marriage,” 4/15/11]

Equality Matters went on to use the words of Judith Stacey, Professor of Sociology and Professor of Gender and Sexuality at New York University to call out Gallagher and others on the right who inaccurately use studies on the heterosexual family dynamic to demonize same-sex parenting, and by proxy, marriage equality:

According to the child protection discourse that Professor Wardle, Maggie Gallagher, and others deploy, social science research demonstrates that legalizing same-sex marriage poses dangers to children and families… In particular, claims that research establishes the superiority of the married heterosexual-couple family and that children need a mother and a father conflate and confuse research findings on four distinct variables - the sexual orientation, gender, number, and the marital status of parents… Unfortunately, opponents of same-sex marriage, like Maggie Gallagher and Professor Wardle, and even some advocates, draw selectively, indiscriminately, and inappropriately from research findings about all four variables to address questions the studies were not designed to, and are not able, to illuminate.

[…]

Opponents of same-sex marriage draw on a third body of literature in which researchers have achieved an unusual degree of consensus. Most family researchers agree that, all other things being equal (which, of course, is almost never the case), two parents are better than one. Research indicates that children raised in single-parent families are at greater risk of various negative outcomes (e.g., dropping out of school, delinquency, unwed teen pregnancy, substance abuse, etc.) than children raised in comparable two-parent families. All of this research, however, as Maggie Gallagher acknowledged, has been conducted on heterosexual-parent families. Moreover, this research generally compares children in married-couple and single-parent families, thereby confounding the effects of the number and the legal status of parents. None of the research cited to demonstrate the importance of fathers (or mothers) examines the adjustment of children raised by same-sex couples. Moreover, this research does not indicate that it is the gender or the sexual orientation of the absent parent that is responsible for the different outcomes of children raised in single versus two-parent families. Rather, most researchers conclude that the number and economic resources of parents as well as the disruptive effects that parental desertion or divorce can inflict on children's lives account for these differential risks. N12 [University School of Quinnipiac Law Review, via Lexis, emphasis added, 2004]

Gallagher has done this sort of thing before. In in January of last year, she distorted a study on child abuse to make the case that children in married biological homes do better to protect children from abuse than children in same-sex households.

The distortion comes because the study in question - the one she cited - didn't even look at children in same-sex households. We know this because Gallagher even admitted at the time that same-sex households wasn't a category in the study:

All the other family structures studied (which does not include same-sex parent families probably because these are such a small part of the population), but does include solo parents, other married parents (remarried primarily), single parents living with a partner, cohabiting parents, and no parents.

Please bear in mind that at that same April 15 Congressional hearing,  Gallagher said it was unfortunate that people misinterpret things she says as a condemnation of "gay people" and "their parenting skills."

If Gallagher wants people to not think that she is condemning "gay people" and "their parenting skills," then maybe she should stop being so deceptive in her testimony.

Sign the petition to keep Gallagher and company from getting away with deceptions like this.

Know Your LGBT History - Bachelor Party

Very few actors who are considered legendary entered the industry in a prestige picture (okay, Meryl Streep did but it was one speaking line in the Oscar winning movie Julia) and Tom Hanks is no different.

Before he became known as the two-time Academy Award winning and Emmy-award winning 21st century version of Gary Cooper, Hanks did his time in lowbrow comedies, such as Bachelor Party (1984).

Bachelor Party had a simple plot. Hanks is a common bus driver engaged to heiress Tawny Kitaen whose family despises him. His even more low brow friends plan a bachelor party for him with hookers, drugs, a live band - the whole nine yards.

Meanwhile, there are forces, i.e. Kitaen's former boyfriend and her father, who are conspiring to break up the soon-to-be married couple.

Like I said, this comedy is lowbrow, very lowbrow with coarse humor and nudity all over.

That's not to say that I don't care for lowbrow. Some of it can be hilarious.

But a lot of it can be offensive.

That's not to say that Bachelor Party didn't have its moments. The late actress Wendie Jo Sperber stole the movie in certain places - especially at the end when she discovered that her husband cheated on her with a hooker.

And the movie also included a performance by one of my favorite new wave band of the 80s, the Waitresses.

Now for the lowbrow stuff.. I will omit the hot dog scene in the male strip club and scene where the donkey dies of a drug overdose during a strip act. But for the purpose of this site, I want to feature two very different scenes. One is totally offensive and I am conflicted by the other.

First let's look at the offensive scene. One of Hanks's buddies just finished having intercourse with a female he met at the bachelor party. However, after it's over, he discovers something about her. You know where this is going:

Gary's Dream "Girl"




Bachelor Party

— MOVIECLIPS.com

All I can about this monstrosity of a scene is that is demonstrates just how far the lgbtq community has come. When this movie came out, no one made any noise about the scene. Do you think we would be silent if some mess like this came out today?

And another thing. There have been many fights about pro-gay non-discrimination ordinances mostly because the religious right refers to them as "bathroom bills." The above image is what they want to convey to folks in order to scare them.

Now the second scene has me conflicted because I think it's funny. Here is the scenario - the villain of the piece, Kitaen's ex-boyfriend, sends some "entertainment" that was supposed to go to Hanks's bachelor party to Kitaen's bridal shower. The entertainment is two women "putting on a show." Why do I think this is funny? Simply because of how the actresses portraying the women shocked at what they are seeing behaved. We don't see anything graphic but their reactions are priceless. I hope I am not offending my lesbian sisters by saying this. Well judge for yourselves:

Bachelor Party Classic Scene : Shower Scene - The best video clips are right here

Past Know Your LGBT Posts: 

Anti-gay state rep caught wanting some gay 'nookie' and other Friday midday news briefs

All The Anti-Gay Rhetoric From The GOP Presidential Debate…In Under 2 Minutes - From ThinkProgress comes a new way to get nauseous:




Anti-Gay Marriage State Rep. Accused Of Offering Young Male Money 'For A Really Good Time' - Why oh why doesn't something like this ever happen to Rick Santorum or Peter Sprigg or Brian Brown or Tony Perkins?

How Do You Handle A Huffy Town Clerk That Doesn’t Wanna Sign Gay Marriage Licenses? - You fire the person for not doing her job. End of story.

Barber: Gays Are Targeting Your Kids In Order To Plant "Poison In Their Impressionable Little Minds" - Personally I don't give a crap about the Bert and Ernie thing but I wonder what Matt Barber's opinions are on The Smurfs? Come on now - a village with over 100 male smurfs and one female smurfs. I mean was Smurfettte the world's biggest "fag hag" or what? Well we know that at least one of the smurfs wasn't gay.  Don't you think that it's odd that Smurfette showed up in season one and then all of the sudden Baby Smurf showed up in season three?

Lead with Love - a documentary which should be required viewing

As much as I would absolutely love to skewer the religious right today, I want to focus on something a bit more positive. From Think Progress:

A new documentary called Lead With Love looks at four families responding to learning that their child is gay. The 35-minute film can be watched online. Here’s the trailer:

A documentary as wonderful as this needs as much attention and support as we can give it.

NOM slapped down by the courts while its bus tour is flopping hard

It hasn't been a good day for the National Organization for Marriage. According to ThinkProgress:

The First Circuit Court of Appeals has again ruled against the National Organization for Marriage’s attempts to challenge the “constitutionality of a Rhode Island election law requiring the reporting of so-called ‘independent expenditures.’”  NOM has been actively challenging financial disclosure laws across the country to protect the names of its few but generous donors. The Court borrowed largely from its own decision against NOM’s challenge to Maine’s laws. Read the full decision.

The Maine Public Broadcasting Network goes into more detail about NOM's loss:

NOM, which was the major funder behind the effort to overturn Maine's same sex marriage law two years ago, had had challenged the constitutionality of Maine's election law, claiming that its reporting requirements for political action committties are vague and over-broad.

District Court Judge Brock Hornby ruled against NOM on most of its challenge, and now the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals has also weighed in, siding with the state of Maine.

"That's correct, NOM had made 'vagueness' claims and First Amendement claims, and the 1st Circuit rejected all of them," says Tom Knowlton, an assistant state attorney general who serves as counsel for the Maine Ethics Commission. "The 1st Circuit has upheld the constitutionality of Maine's laws that require the disclosure of contributions and expenditures in candidate elections by PACs and by independent groups."

And as if NOM's court loss isn't bad enough, according to Equality Matters, the organization's "Values Bus" tour is an unmitigated flop:

On Tuesday, NOM -- along with the anti-gay Family Research Council and anti-choice Susan B. Anthony List -- began its 2011 “Values Bus Tour,” which plans to stop at 22 Iowa cities and energize ‘value voters’ to participate in the Ames Straw Poll on August 13 (the day the tour ends). 

So far, tour stops have included appearances from GOP presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Tim Pawlenty, with others expected to show up before the week ends.

Not making appearances so far? Actual voters.

So far, looking over the scant news coverage the tour has received, it appears that few of NOM loyal followers bothered coming out to show their support.

And Equality Matters is definitely twisting the screws into NOM's wounds by going into detail as to where NOM stops on its tour and just how many people are not showing up. 

I know I shouldn't enjoy Equality Matters's breakdown of NOM's flopping tour but I am.

Sometimes you gotta say what the hell and do things for your own personal enjoyment.

Poll - New Yorkers like marriage equality law and other Thursday midday news briefs

The petition asking Congress to scrutinize anti-gay testimony at its hearings is slowly but surely closing in on 1,000 signatures. Check out a news brief below as to why it is important. And sign it if you haven't already!

  Poll: New Yorkers Pleased With Marriage Equality Law - In your FACE, NOM!

Starbucks' Howard Schultz Won't Speak At Church That Once Supported 'Ex-Gay' Therapy - Starbucks strikes a blow for truth.

“I Want To Be With My Family, In My Country.” - I LOVE me some Obama, but this here is a consummate disgrace and tragedy.
 
Boehner’s DOMA lawyers want to cite Maggie Gallagher, but avoid cross-examination - THIS is why the petition is important.

Bachmann's Mentor Says Gay Rights Will Doom America - Okay, just who told our plans. I swear gay folks are such blabbermouths!

Hate group leader doesn't want gays to serve on juries

Brian Camenker

If you give the members of the religious right enough rope, they tend to hang themselves.

That's why I am a huge proponent of letting them talk freely because sooner or later, they always wind up with their foot in their mouths. You can set your watch to it.

A perfect example would be Brian Camenker, the leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center declared hate group Mass Resistance.

Mass Resistance has that title of a hate group for the following reasons:

In 2006-2007, Mass-Resistance pushed for an amendment of the 1996 statute that would have required that parents be notified of any discussion of gay or lesbian issues in the schools. The group proposed language that lumped sexual orientation (which includes heterosexuality, homosexuality and bisexuality) in with criminal behaviors like bestiality and polygamy. During legislative testimony supporting the amendment, Camenker falsely claimed that no homosexuals died in the Holocaust and that the pink triangle the Nazis forced imprisoned gays to wear actually signified Catholic priests. The amendment did not pass.

Camenker, who has long focused on the purported “homosexual agenda” in the schools and frequently claimed gays are dangerous to kids, has repeatedly cited discredited claims from organizations like the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality that link homosexuality and pedophilia.  

Allow me include that additionally, Camenker and a local parent David Parker orchestrated a two-year long moral panic by first falsely claiming that Parker was arrested for merely wanting his son to be opted out of classroom discussions of homosexuality and then claiming that his son was physically assaulted by the children of lgbt household for his father's stance.

In 2008, another person affiliated with the organization, Michael Olivio, was arrested after he was caught taking pictures of children at a local middle school school. He and Camenker claimed that he meant to take pictures of students at a high school because the state Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgendered Youth had held a meeting there (taking pictures of gay students is another sideline of Mass Resistance).

And last but not least, it was Mass Resistance behind repeated smears of Obama appointee Kevin Jennings, including the phony "fistgate" scandal.

As hard as it is to believe, the subject of today's post, Camenker goes around yet another bend of homophobia. He was being interviewed by the phony news service One News Now on the possibility of gay jurors. According to One News Now, here is the scenario:

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has heard arguments that challenge a prosecutor's decision to remove a lesbian juror from a case involving Daniel Osazuwa, a homosexual Nigerian immigrant convicted of assaulting a guard when he hugged him. When the guard reacted, he fell to the ground, and Osazuwa toppled on top of him. Osazuwa contends that this greeting is a friendly gesture in Nigeria.

And the following is what Camenker said:

"There are a million reasons why someone might want to not include someone who is a practicing homosexual from a jury, especially [from a case] that has to do with homosexuality," the MassResistance spokesman points out. "This is very dangerous, I think."

Camenker goes on to warn that the Ninth Circuit's decision in this case will set precedence for future similar cases. And he contends that if the court rules in favor of the lesbian juror, it would secure special protection for homosexuals.

Camenker is right. Why if gays are allowed to serve on juries, particularly in cases involving gay issues, the next thing you know, they will get uppity and want to be treated like regular human beings.

Group hosts pride event for Minnesota teens

After all of the junk we hear about divisions and the debt ceiling, the following story, courtesy of Think Progress, is needed. It's proof that kindness is still present in the world:

Anoka-Hennepin Students, Parents Hold Pride Event: MyFoxTWINCITIES.com

The controversy over the Anoka-Hennepin School District’s neutrality policy — which prohibits staff from teaching about homosexuality — has sparked both a lawsuit and an investigation by the U.S. Departments of Justice and Education following claims that the ban enables an anti-gay culture of harassment and bullying. The district, which has 38,000 students and is Minnesota’s fourth largest, lies within presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann’s district, who has yet to comment on the nine teenagers have committed suicide over the last two years. State public health officials have “labeled the area a ‘suicide contagion area‘ because of the unusually high death rate.”

Yesterday, teens, parents, and organizations hosted a pride event for LGBT students, showing them that it’s “Ok to be gay.”