SPLC's newly designated anti-gay hate groups deserve the 'honor'

Linda Harvey

How could I have missed this?

Last week, the Southern Poverty Law named 11 new anti-gay hate groups, including one which you may recognize. From Think Progress comes the list:

• United Families International (Gilbert, AZ): This group backed the sodomy laws ruled unconstitutional in the Lawrence v. Texas case and has argued “No one is ‘born that way.’ Policies that would normalize homosexuality by equating homosexual behavior with innate characteristics such as race or ethnicity should be opposed.”
• Save California (Sacramento, CA): The group is leading the charge to repeal California’s FAIR Education Act, hoping to stop teachers from “kidnapping the brains of kids” by teaching about the contributions of LGBT Americans. Save California’s head, Randy Thomasson, blamed a bullied and murdered gay teen for his own death.
• Sons of Thundr (Faith Baptist Church) (Luthersville, GA): The church’s website feautures a “sodomites can be saved” section which claims “ALL HOMOS ARE: SICK, BRAIN DAMAGED, PERVERTS!”
• You Can Run, But You Cannot Hide (Annandale, MN). Bradlee Dean, the group’s president and CEO, has said, “The gay ‘movement’ is part of a sexual revolution that has stripped sexuality of all moral significance for an entire generation. We cannot accept the physical prosecution of homosexuals and we cannot accept the proposal that homosexuality is either private or moral,” but notes he is opposed to actually executing LGBT citizens.
• Parents Action League (Champlin, MN): A small group of parents in the bullying-riddled Anoka-Hennepin School District want to require schools to teach that AIDS is a gay disease and to promote harmful and ineffective ex-gay therapy.
• Jewish Political Action Committee (Brooklyn, NY): This group claims that marriage equality in New York State has created a “surge” of child molestation and distributes signs that say “G-d sent AIDS to punish male gays.”
• Windsor Hills Baptist Church (Oklahoma City, OK): The church’s pastor, Tom Vineyard, argued against an employment non-discrimination proposal by making the bizarre claim that half of all murders in large cities are by gay people.
• True Light Pentecost Church (Spartanburg, SC): On the church’s blog, it warns that “The sub-human culture created by the anti-christ and magnified by the Sodomite/Lesbian movement,” has “brought end-time prophecy to a final state,” and encourages followers to “fight the great sodomite/lesbian army.”
• Tom Brown Ministries (El Paso, TX): Pastor and exorcist Tom Brown led the charge in El Paso to rescind an employment non-discrimination law he felt was “condoning immorality.” He also preaches that “homosexuality is actually an emotional, psychological disorder brought on early in childhood.”
• Public Advocate of the United States (Falls Church, VA): Run by Loudoun County, Virginia Supervisor Eugene Delguaido (R), this group is infamous for its over-the-top anti-gay fundraising letters, including comments like, “As homosexuals die off due to AIDS, the remaining AIDS carriers prey on children to replenish the ‘Homosexual Community.’”

Even as I write this, You Can Run But You Can't Hide is embroiled in an ugly controversy in which it was invited to speak at a Dunkerton, IA high school assembly. Apparently the principal was not aware of the group's reputation. However, he - and the students - became swiftly aware when Dean began spinning lies about the lgbtq community, i.e. the usual Paul Cameronesque nonsense about us not living past 42. And that itself is ironic seeing Dean once conducted an interview with the discredited Cameron in which they traded homophobic conspiracies.

Needless to say neither the principal, nor the students, nor some parents were appreciative of Dean's homophobic vigor. (For video footage of this hot mess, see the site of one of my favorite bloggers, the Arn Anderson to my Tully Blanchard, Jeremy Hooper)

However, these groups are simply cocktail canape to the last group named by SPLC as an anti-gay hate group. We all knew it was coming sooner or later:

 Mission: America (Columbus, OH): Lead by Linda Harvey, who has been dubbed “the most homophobic woman in America,” this group has discouraged the hiring of gay and lesbian employees and claimed that “there is no proof” that gay, lesbian or bisexual or transgendered people even exist.

Oh Linda, Linda, Linda. You finally made the big-time so to speak. You now are in company with the huge homophobic groups such  as the Family Research Council and the American Family Association.

And if you ask me, it couldn't have happened to a more deserving individual. I leave you with probably the main reason why Harvey got the designation, i.e. her admonition against gay and lesbians health practitioners:

Transcript:

How do you feel about open homosexuals tending to your child in a health care setting? Do you think these folks provide good role modeling at a time when your child is very vulnerable? I was thinking about this recently when I heard that Children’s Hospital in Columbus has a homosexual employees group called NCHARGE, which stands for Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Advocates Representing Gay Employees. The meeting minutes of this groups reveal that they participated in last June’s gay pride parade, that they participated in a health expo on adolescent health this summer and that they’re concerned about same-sex partner benefits. They’re also planning to be identified with rainbow lapel pins.

But let’s say your eleven year-old has broken her leg rather badly and needs to be in the hospital a few days, which would you prefer: a nurse who’s proud of her lesbianism, who has rainbow identifiers on her work clothing, or a nurse who does not?

I would like to suggest that parents think long and hard about this. If you want your children to admire people who proclaim a homosexual lifestyle, they’re involvement with your child during a hospital stay is sure to be an influence. And let me be clear that folks involved in these behaviors can be certainly competent workers but they are tacking on to their workplace identity one that is highly offensive to many people and can be erroneously influential to children who won’t, or shouldn’t, see the whole picture of how this behavior really manifests itself.

Here’s what parents can do: select your pediatrician very carefully, first of all. There are a few homosexual doctors treating kids, there are far more nurses, LPNs, technicians and other health care workers in these lifestyles so you may want to consider writing a letter that you file with your pediatrician that should your child ever be hospitalized, you do not want your child to be treated or cared for by one of these members of the Children’s Hospital gay employees group except in the case of an emergency situation. But for routine in-hospital care where contact with your child would be required, your values should be respected. 

I know what you are all thinking because I am thinking it, too. PLEASE Family Research Council, come to the rescue of these groups. I double dare you!