And so another one meets his maker

There are so many things going on today, but the one subject everyone is talking about (other than Congressman Craig) is the passing of James Kennedy.

Kennedy is the second prominent member of the religious right to die this year after Jerry Falwell. While he was probably not as prominently known as Falwell, Kennedy was equally effective when it came to opposing lgbt rights:

Kennedy’s recently-shuttered Center for Reclaiming America for Christ sponsored a series of television commercials in 1998 promoting gay conversion featuring Michael Johnston. Johnston, who is HIV-positive, was later found to have been secretly hosting orgies, taking drugs and practicing unsafe sex without disclosing his HIV status.

In 2004, Kennedy co-wrote What’s Wrong With Same-Sex Marriage with Jerry Newcombe which quotes extensively from discredited “researcher” and Nazi apologist Paul Cameron. In 2005, Kennedy published another book titled Why the Ten Commandments Matter, which features distortions from Cameron’s influential pamphlet, “Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do. And Kennedy’s Center for Reclaiming America posted at least one other article citing Cameron’s “research.”

The Miami Herald adds this reaction from Wayne Besen:

Fort Lauderdale gay-rights activist Wayne Besen calls him something else: “a source of great pain for gays and lesbians, distorting our lives on a national level. The whole ‘ex-gay’ movement we see nationally was jump-started by Coral Ridge Ministries … Kennedy popularized this idea that has caused a lot of suffering for gay people,” that homosexuality could be “prayed away.”

My prayers are with his family and I mean no one any disrespect but let’s be real about this.

James Kennedy, like the late Jerry Falwell, was a two-bit liar of the first order.

He helped the anti-gay industry highjack words like "family" and "values."

It is not my place to say where he is now, whether it be Heaven or Hell.

But I am totally in the right to say that while he was on this Earth, Kennedy was far from an angel or saint.

No doubt, Peter LaBarbera, Matt Barber, and other members of the anti-gay industry will scour the internet to find and post the nastiest comments from lgbts in an attempt to portray the entire community as mean-spirited.

Kennedy would probably be proud. His "influence" lives on.