Hypocrisy, thy name is Peter LaBarbera

One of our favorite anti-gay spokespeople, Peter LaBarbera, responded today to a letter sent to him by a young man accusing him of hate. This is the young man's letter:

Yes Peter, AFTAH and all other hate groups in America have complete freedom to publish, preach, and teach all the hate they choose to publish, preach, and teach. The Constitution holds for all. What hates [sic] groups such as AFTAH can not do is discriminate based on sexual orientation, gender expression, sex, race, or religion in public accomodations, employment, and other areas of public life. It is really rather simple: in public act civilized, in private hate anyone you wish as hatefully as you wish. I note you never publish nor reply to my rational and truthful letters. Odd, that is.

Naturally Peter pushes a long answer that evades the question. He brings up the usual ridiculous talking points and phrases such as about "intolerant gays," "how dare you attack me when I only trying to uphold Judeo-Christian values," and my favorite, "there are no ex-blacks, but thousands of ex-gays."

Then LaBarbera has the temerity to say this:

Let me leave you with this plea: repent of your sins and follow God. He will wipe your slate clean. Jesus Christ loves sinners, but He does “hate” sin, and died in our place so that we could spend eternity with God, and not face the judgment we surely deserve as sinners who constantly fall short of His righteous and holy standard. I will ask AFTAH readers to pray for you.

Coming from Peter, that has to be the oddest thing I have ever read. I simply had to write him the following:

Dear Peter,

I read your letter to Richard and I find it so hypocrtical on so many levels.

But the main level is how can you tell Richard to repent of HIS sins when you have sinned so many times when you tell lies on gays and lesbians. Just because you don't bring up what you have done doesn't mean God does not see it. To demonize an entire community (and knowingly relying on distorted or bad studies) is tantamount to lying. That makes you a liar. And it also makes you a sinner. The fact that you refuse to address your own sins while judging someone else on their supposed sins makes you a hypocrite.

Face it. You have no moral authority to talk about anyone's sins when you don't address your own.

In other words, before Peter starts praying about someone else's supposed sins, he needs to pray about his own.

Your co-parenting agreements will not protect you

What if two women in a relationship agreed that one would be artificially inseminated with a child.

What if the woman who did not carry the child signed co-parenting and co-guardianship agreements near the time the baby was born.

What if after the baby was born, the two women had a fight which ended up in a court case where the one who did not carry the child wanted the other to abide by the agreements?

Would she win? Nope. Not in Utah.

Gena Evaldson just lost a case against her ex-partner Jana Dickson in this very scenario. The loss strips her of the right to even visit her child:

A 3rd District judge, citing a 2008 Utah law, upheld Dickson's "fundamental" right, as the biological parent, to refuse visitation.

"I never want him to think I gave him up voluntarily. I never abandoned him," Edvalson wrote on her blog. "I loved him, and I love him still."

The case highlights the predicament of same-sex parents in Utah, a state where gay and lesbian couples cannot marry, adopt children or even expect their own contracts for shared parenting and guardianship to stand in court.

Dickson, who has termed herself bisexual, has moved on and married a man. Evaldson is trying to pick up the pieces.

You want to know the ugly irony of the entire thing?:

As her lawyer, Dickson hired Frank Mylar. According to the Salt Lake Tribune:

Mylar, a former Utah attorney general candidate, belongs to a conservative alliance of "Christian attorneys," the Alliance Defense Fund, and regularly fights against the extension of rights for gay and lesbian couples. He did just that in pushing changes to the 2008 law that severely limited Edvalson's ability to press for visitation in court.

That's the same law which led to Evaldson losing the case.

Just something to remember the next time we slash each other to death in the blogs and in our individual little groups. While we are directing venom towards ourselves, the other side is creating intricate interlocking tunnels to quantify their bullshit.