Street preacher threatens woman with rape during gay pride celebration

Religious right organizations have fought in court to allow folks to disrupt Pride celebrations by protesting and such so I wonder how they feel about the following (I apologize for the language):

Police in Grand Rapids, Michigan say that there was nothing they could do after Bible-preaching protesters threatened to rape and murder pro-LGBT activists at a “Gay Day” event over the weekend.

In a video posted to YouTube, several protesters with Bibles can be seen shouting at a woman celebrating in the inaugural “Gay Day” celebration, an event organized by the human rights group Tolerance, Equality and Awareness Movement (TEAM) to showcase the community’s diversity.

“Back in the day there was no free power, there was no going to the mall,” one protester tells the woman. “There was, ‘sit your ass in this house until I bring my ass home.’”

“And if your ass get to going out there like you said, guess what?” a second protester adds. “You get raped. And that’s what’s going to happen to you. … Keep your pussy clean, that’s all you need to do. Do you understand?”

After one man claims, “the Lord said that,” the woman challenges him to find the corresponding Bible verse.

He responds with Isaiah 13: “Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.”

“What does ‘ravished’ mean? It means, we going to rape your ass,” the protester explains. “And I’m going to have fun doing that shit. And you going to like that. I promise you.”

After briefly arguing that he is misinterpreting the Bible, the woman observes, “Anything I say, you say it doesn’t matter.”

“It’s going to matter right now,” the man shoots back. “It’s going to matter when your clothes off and I’m going inside of you repeatedly. That’s when it’s going to matter. Because you going to enjoy yourself.”

. . . WWMT reported that the men were part of a Christian black supremacist group called the Black Hebrew Israelites. According to the South Poverty Law Center, the quickly spreading movement preaches “a frightening, racist theology that says Jesus Christ is returning soon to kill or enslave white people, Jews, homosexuals, and others.”

Certain cultures practice “corrective rape” to “correct” the sexual orientation of Lesbian women.

More here at Raw Story.

Just want to be clear about something - This is NOT a black/white issue but a crazy vs. sane issue.

'NOM paid black minister $20,000 to oppose marriage equality' and other Thursday midday news briefs

"You Can't Equate Your Sin With My Skin" Will the National Organization for Marriage's plan to pit blacks versus gays work? - Awesome article by Mother Jones magazine on NOM's attempt to play the black and gay communities against one another. It includes an explosive revelation about the relationship between NOM and Harry Jackson, a pastor whom People for the American Way called the point man for the religious right's attempt to exploit the black community:

 Jackson is exactly the kind of African American spokesperson the NOM memo envisions. "There's been a hijacking of the civil rights movement by the radical gay movement," he said on CNN after backing California's Proposition 8 in 2008. "You can't equate your sin with my skin." He has received $20,000 from NOM's education fund and has rallied support for same-sex marriage bans in Florida and Washington, DC, where he joined Councilmember Marion Barry to oppose a marriage equality bill in 2009.

Don't be nonchalant about this, folks because it fills a missing piece of the puzzle. I have long suspected black ministers who are teaming up with NOM aren't doing it solely for their religious beliefs. This revelation about Jackson begs the question just what other black ministers does NOM have on it's payroll. And I would also be remiss if I didn't state the obvious - these ministers are betraying their own people.

And in just in case you need another reminder about Jackson, he is the same man who recently claimed that gays are trying to recruit children and conservative Christians need to "steal back the rainbow:"



 In other news:

 About that writer the far-right is trying to contrast with Zach Wahls... - You know that college professor from the same-sex household I talked about this morning? The one NOM is using to denigrate same-sex families? Jeremy Hooper found out some interesting stuff about him.

 Vanderbilt University Employee Caught Trashing LGBT Newspaper - This is a hot mess!


 

Anti-gay group finds new person to attack same-sex families

Earlier this year, the National Organization for Marriage got into trouble for secret documents outlining a strategy of playing the black and gay community like pawns over the subject of marriage equality.

NOM deserved all of the trouble it got for this. However, in those same confidential documents is another strategy which seems to be now coming to fruition.  

Equality Matters points this out:

NOM Intentionally Seeks Out Children Of Same-Sex Parents.  . . .  According to the organization’s internal documents, NOM planned to spend $60,000 in 2010 alone to try to get the children of same-sex couples to speak on camera: 

I think it's safe to say that NOM has its spokesperson.

Robert Oscar Lopez, a self-described bisexual English professor, has just published a piece in the Witherspoon Institute publication Public Discourse called Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children’s View in which he detailed growing up in a same-sex household.

He does not go into detail about his childhood, but the gist is it is tough growing up in a same-sex household. For his candor on this aspect, I don't fault him. Growing up in marginalized household, be it a same-sex household or a single-parent household is tough.

But what I do fault Lopez for is how he puts down his own family

By citing his childhood, Lopez attempts to give credibility to a recent study on same-sex households which has been criticized for its lack of good science.

This study, by Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, was in part paid for by the Witherspoon Institute, the same organization in whose publication Lopez's piece appears in.

How very convenient.

Lopez says the following about the study:

Mark Regnerus deserves tremendous credit—and the gay community ought to be crediting him rather than trying to silence him.

Regnerus’s study identified 248 adult children of parents who had same-sex romantic relationships. Offered a chance to provide frank responses with the hindsight of adulthood, they gave reports unfavorable to the gay marriage equality agenda. Yet the results are backed up by an important thing in life called common sense: Growing up different from other people is difficult and the difficulties raise the risk that children will develop maladjustments or self-medicate with alcohol and other dangerous behaviors. Each of those 248 is a human story, no doubt with many complexities.

Lopez's words are probably irrelevant.  He is really a symbol.
Or, for lack of a better word, a pawn.

The fact that he is a product of a same-sex household whose words can be used to discredit those households is the important factor here.

And don't think NOM is wasting this opportunity.

Already NOM's former president, Maggie Gallagher, is citing Lopez in a column:

In mediaworld, gay marriage activists are all ordinary loving couples who seek nothing more than to be left alone to snuggle as they choose, and opposing gay marriage is "controversial" for a business executive.

. . . Professor Robert Oscar Lopez, a self-identified Latino bisexual professor of English raised by two lesbian moms, wrote an essay praising professor Mark Regnerus' study on the subject.

Children with a gay parent, Lopez says, are typically kids like him, the product of a previous heterosexual relationship. By declaring the children of "bisexuals" off limits, critics of Regnerus are seeking to shut out the voices of the majority of children with a gay parent, Lopez says, the voices of people like him

He went on to say that Regnerus "deserves tremendous credit -- and the gay community ought to be crediting him rather than trying to silence him."

 It is not known whether or not Lopez is receiving compensation for his "story."  As it is, I really don't care.

The only question I have now is how long will it take before Lopez will be appearing on Fox News.