A religious right lesson in fear and entitlement

No message can go through without an eager audience and when it comes to religious right lies, the audience sometimes tends to bend over backwards to be receptive.

Witness the firsthand account by Ana Beatriz Cholo of a meeting of folks seeking to overturn SB48, the newly passed California law which mandates that classrooms teach about the contributions and roles of lgbtq figures in age-appropriate classes.

I will showcase the comments made by several folks at the meeting, making sure to include some explanation behind what they really mean:

 I drove an hour and a half to hear Karen England, Stop SB 48's main proponent, discuss their failed campaign and what their next steps are in stopping "the homosexual agenda." England is the executive director of a "pro-family" organization called the Capitol Resource Institute. As England put it that night, it's one thing to live with same-sex marriage. After all, even some hardcore conservatives might say with resignation, "Well, that's in their home. Live and let live."


"But now you're talking about bringing it into our schools; you're messing with our kids," England continued indignantly. "Kids need to learn their ABCs, not about transgendered people."

Please notice how England omits the fact that same-sex families have children attending these schools. She also omits the fact that lgbtq children are attending these schools. Her words are exploiting the notion that gays are "recruiting" children because apparently we don't have any of our own (a huge lie).  Also notice how she intentionally pushes the notion of "transgenders corrupting children."

Another woman identified herself as a school employee. She works in her school's print shop and said she had a conversation with the assistant principal about the new law in recent weeks.


"I won't print that stuff for the children," she said she'd informed the administrator, referring to LGBT-related materials that might end up coming her way. "I will walk," she'd told him. The administrator had tried to dismiss her concerns, but she made it pretty clear that she would rather quit her job than allow gay people to be humanized.

She will quit her job and walk right into a new gig with the National Organization for Marriage as their latest phony defamation victim, even though her rights would not be violated by simply doing her job. She doesn't know what the materials will be but yet has made it up in her mind that she will not print them, as if she is entitled to do so.

An elderly man said his worse fears were medically motivated. "The gay community has a lot of health issues that straight people don't have."

We've all heard this before. One wonders if the man brought up the "gay bowel syndrome" lie.

So what do you do when you're up against such nonsense. Engage those you can, waste no time getting into useless arguments with those who won't listen, but above all, put the truth out there consistently.

Satan, pedophilia, the gay community, and other Monday midday news briefs

DeMint Accuses El Salvadorian Ambassador Of ‘Promoting The Homosexual Lifestyle’ - Ah yes Sen. Jim DeMint from my state of South Carolina. The man who is afraid of the possibility of a gay president. The man who attacks the idea of unmarried female and gay teachers. The man who is the single reason why I laugh when I am encouraged to call my Senators to get their support for pro-gay legislation. Seriously though, who uses the phrase "promoting the homosexual lifestyle" anymore?

Audio: NOM's 'marriage defamation' star spent weekend conflating homosexuality and pedophilia - Don't listen unless wanting to "purge."

NOM: Decriminalizing Gay Sex Helped Cause Penn State Scandal - Yep. THAT'S the ticket.

Whitemarsh passes human relations ordinance with ease - Some good news for a change.


Liberty Counsel: Satan Plants The Seed Of Homosexuality - Here we go again.

Petty lawsuit + lots of money, religious right spin = big problems

From the American Family Association's One News Now:

A pro-family attorney says officials of one California school district were biased when they wouldn't allow a parent to be involved in her child's education.

The Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) filed legal briefs with the California Court of Appeal, arguing that San Jose Unified School District officials broke the law by refusing to acknowledge Norina Mooney's request to make changes to a pro-LGBT event at her daughter's school.

The lawsuit stems from a "Rainbow Day" event at Castillero Middle School that addressed the issue of lesbian, "gay," bisexual, and transgender bullying. Mooney asked the school district to place a request on the agenda that would recognize other minorities who are affected by bullying, but the superintendent and board president refused. PJI filed suit in June to protect parents' rights to participate in such decisions, but a Santa Clara County judge rejected the case without comment, prompting appeal.

And of course as you can read, and will probably read more, this is not the end of the story. I'm guessing that this faux controversy will continue and, as with other cases in the past, we will be bombarded with religious right spin portraying this woman as a so- called innocent parent stymied by the so-called gay agenda.

The fact that the lawsuit was dismissed without comment because it was petty means absolutely nothing.  Nor does the comment from San Jose Unified School District that the the school district doesn't have the ability to ask schools to change school-wide events mean anything also.

This isn't about bullying or parents. This is yet another attempt to undermine the gay community under the guise of morality. As long as there are religious right groups with unfettered finances to pursue such petty lawsuits, as long as there are enough right-wing publications eager enough to publicize the one-sided drivel of these groups, and as long as there are enough ignorant morons out there whose homophobic bias outweighs their common sense and who will comment about the evils of the so-called gay agenda even when they know that the situation they are commenting about is false, we should expect more phony moral panics like this.