The above video is the latest monstrosity from the group Faith2Action and Janet Porter (the entities behind several other ridiculously homophobic videos). It's the usual nonsense about how gays supposedly want to "silence" Christians and harm children.
I would have yawned and let it go by except for one vicious lie in it. At 1:02, the narrator - Folger - zeroed in on the Southern Poverty Law Center. Folger and other members of the religious right have been angry at SPLC ever since the organization designated several anti-gay organizations as hate groups due to their deliberate spread of untrue propaganda about the lgbt community.
Folger claims that SPLC published the personal information and address of Concerned Women for America's president Peggy Nance and invited people to "visit" her. Folger then connects this claim to last year's shooting at the Family Research Council headquarters.
But this is a lie. SPLC has never published Nance's personal information or address. I know that SPLC would have never stooped to such a tasteless and dangerous tactic. And I confirmed this via an email this morning with Mark Potok, SPLC spokesman and director of publications and information.
The shooting last year at FRC headquarters was awful and I am thankful that no one was seriously hurt. However, the attempt by Folger and other members of the religious right (particularly the Family Research Council itself) to exploit the shooting is simply nauseating.
It's bad enough to create a false connection between the obviously disturbed young man who attacked FRC and SPLC (particularly when there was no connection between the two), but now religious right spokespeople are stooping to distasteful inferences that SPLC is deliberately trying to create another tragedy.
At what point will people say enough?
I wonder if the "father" in that video realizes that he can A) take his kid out of school and homeschool the kid with their religious indoctrination, B) send his kid to online schooling, or C) enroll his kid in a private institution which will indoctrinate their kid for them. By the way, all but plan C are free, so you can pay someone ELSE to babysit your damn kid.
ReplyDeleteWe said enough a long time ago, the problem is that we have a pesky thing called freedom of speech in this country. The best we can do is be a counterweight (by doing exactly the excellent work that you amd people like Jeremy Hooper and Dan Savage do all the time) and to speak with our voices at the ballot box.
ReplyDeleteThe good news is that there are fewer and fewer people listening to the likes of Janet Porter.
Janet Porter: "So now, to disagree, is hate and to quote the Bible is illegal."
ReplyDeleteBrian Camenker: "See right now, if you quote the Bible on homosexuality in a school, you could be suspended from school for the crime of bullying."
Leviticus 20:13 "If a man has sexual relations with a man … They are to be put to death…"
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So let me get this straight, they have a problem with students facing consequences for the incitement of murder?