To defeat ENDA, expect anti-gay groups to use same-old framework of propaganda and lies

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Contact: Alvin McEwen
Phone: 803-447-4874

E-mail: charlekenghis@aol.com

To defeat ENDA, expect anti-gay groups to use same-old framework of propaganda and lies

 

 

If passed into law,” says (Americans for Truth about Homosexuality head Peter) LaBarbera, “ENDA would not only impact businesses, but also homosexuals and other gender-confused people could work as teachers and influence children to accept their lifestyle.

How many of you would feel comfortable dropping off your kids in a school that encouraged faculty cross-dressing? At least three Senate Republicans would. Today, those leaders -- Sens. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), and Lisa Murkowski (R-Ak.) -- threw their support behind a bill that would force sexual confusion on almost every classroom, day care, and summer camp in America. Insisting the legislation is just a harmless little "anti-prejudice" bill, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee voted 15-7 to make employees' bedroom habits a preeminent consideration in hiring, firing, and promotion decisions – Family Research Council email

COLUMBIA - Recently, the Senate began consideration of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). This burst of progress has redoubled the efforts of anti-gay opponents. And, as author Alvin McEwen notes, they’re ready to double -down on their rhetoric.

“Anti-gay groups are already conjuring up images of drag queens teaching in nurseries, men invading women’s restrooms, and Christians being led away in handcuffs because of ENDA,” McEwen said. “The sad thing is that people take them seriously because they are fooled that these are legitimate concerns. But they aren’t. They are merely part of a very old framework of propaganda and lies dating back to the 70s and 80s.”

McEwen is an expert in tracking the rhetoric of the anti-gay industry via his blog Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters. In January, he created an online booklet spotlighting anti-gay propaganda and instead of refuting anti-gay distortions, he allowed the propaganda to refute itself. The booklet, How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on Gay America, is a simple, graphics- intensive project whose aim, according to McEwen, seeks to show how anti-gay rhetoric is dangerous to the American discourse.

 

“Over the past several decades, the anti-gay groups have been successfully creating a complex framework of propaganda which stigmatizes the gay community as dreaded outsiders out to indoctrinate children, destroy American values, and imprison Christians,” McEwen said. “Until we address these lies and how they are hidden behind the facade of religious beliefs, our success will not be total. And, we’re going to see these lies in overdrive over the next weeks and months.”

 

A key part of How They See Us involved spotlighting images from a 1986 anti-gay comic book entitled Deathstyle. Deathstyle sought to show the so-called dangers of the so-called “homosexual lifestyle” through stereotypes brought to life via an artist’s pen. Back then, it was a major project which was endorsed by anti-gay groups such as Concerned Women for America and a California Congressman, William Dannemeyer.

 

However, a look at the various cartoons in Deathstyle today would most likely elicit laughs in terms of how stereotypically caricatured and outdated they are. That is, until McEwen compares them with the present-day rhetoric pushed by anti-gay groups.

 

“Showing people a ludicrously drawn picture of an oversexed gay man looking to molest a child would garner many laughs,” McEwen said, “that is until readers looked on the other side of the page and read comments from someone like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council making the same accusation in the present, albeit in a more sedated tone. It’s not so funny then.”

 

In addition, McEwen also demonstrates how anti-gay group such as the Family Research Council distort information from the Centers of Disease Control to falsely denigrate the lgbt identity as dangerous.  He also lists 11 different examples of professors, researchers, and Ph.D.s who have complained over the years that their work have either been distorted or taken out of context by anti-gay groups.

 

And with Congressional discussions about the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) beginning soon, How They See Us is definitely timely.  How They See Us is available on Scribd and can be read or downloaded free of charge.