Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
Tony Perkins (bottom) and his group, the Family Research Council, are trying to clean up Donald Trump's (top) racist comments about Baltimore by distorting the entire controversy.
Donald Trump recently said some awful things about the city of Baltimore as part of an attack on Congressman Elijah Cummings. Cummings, a long-time critic of Trump, is the chair of the House Oversight and Reform Committee which has apparently opened 23 investigations into the Trump Administration. Last week, the committee authorized subpoenas for records of senior White House officials' use of personal email and text services for business purposes.
This is what led Trump to say the following via tweets last week:
"Rep, Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is FAR WORSE and more dangerous. His district is considered the Worst in the USA," Mr. Trump said in the first of several tweets.
"As proven last week during a Congressional tour, the Border is clean, efficient & well run, just very crowded. Cumming District is a disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess. If he spent more time in Baltimore, maybe he could help clean up this very dangerous & filthy place," Mr. Trump continued. He threatened to investigate the federal funds sent to Cummings' district, and said that "no human being would want to live there."
The firestorm was enormous as Trump faced a hugeblow back of criticism, with many pointing out how the tone of these attacks fit a racist narrative he applies to the black community.
Mario Lopez: It's 'dangerous' for parents to support transgender kids - And he is catching hell for it as he should. Why is it when it comes to trans issues, the media rarely talks to trans people or medical professionals who have experience dealing with the issue? They either talk to idiots or self-anointed "experts" from anti-LGBTQ groups who do nothing but repeat false talking points.
Bill Owens (top) and Alveda King (bottom) are both two anti-LGBTQ so-called black leaders trying to grab the spotlight by defending Trump's racist attacks on Baltimore and Congressman Elijah Cummings.
So now Trump has started a new controversy with his racist comments against the city of Baltimore in an attempt to smear Congressman Elijah Cummings. He has been just about universally condemned, except for by a few - Republicans who either support or need him to fulfill their goals. And other folks who see it as an opportunity for spotlight. This latter category includes so-called black leaders who can always be counted on to publicly defend defend the racist excesses or the extreme agenda of the GOP. Recently, Trump met with a few of them in an attempt to blunt the firestorm he caused. What's interesting is that the LGBTQ community should recognize a few of these folks, and not in a good way.
CNN’s Don Lemon confronted Reverend Bill Owens on meeting with President Donald Trump following his widely condemned attack on Baltimore and its Congressman, Elijah Cummings. Owens, the president of the coalition of African-American pastors, on Monday attended a meeting between Trump and a group of inner-city pastors
Lemon kicked off the interview by asking if any of the faith leaders raised concerns about the president’s attacks on “leaders of color.”
“I think something was said in passing,” Owens replied, though he tried to avoid addressing Trump’s remarks.
Lemon pressed, asking his question again. When Owens again dodged.
“So the president tweeted today he was looking forward to his meeting with wonderful inner-city pastors. Any concern for you that the president used this meeting with black leaders to insulate himself from the criticism?” Lemon asked.
“I don’t think so. I don’t think that at all because I have been to the White House four times in five months,” Owens said. “There was nothing about insulating from anything. He wanted to hear from us, what our concerns were and what he could do to help us.”
Lemon noted that Owens has “said some controversial things before” including in 2012 when he compared President Barack Obama’s support for same sex marriage to condoning child molestation (comments Owens walked back).
Unfortunately, the Mediaite article omitted a few things. Owens is the head of a group called the Coalition of African-American Pastors. It sounds legitimate, but it actually serves as a way for Owens to provide a black voice to conservatives for a price, particularly when it comes to anti-LGBTQ issues:
No matter how they try, anti-LGBTQ groups and personalities can't seem to get a moral panic started over the popular event Drag Queen Story Hour. But that doesn't mean they don't try. Almost on a daily basis via various conservative sites, I read articles with lurid inferences about what drag queens are doing to children during this event. Usually these lurid inferences translate to innocent situations exaggerated by homophobic need to exploit the "LGBTQs recruit children" lie
The “Drag Queen” disruptions in public libraries across the country are becoming more frightening and weird. But parents and citizens are fighting back! A bizarre pair of “Drag Queens” led a disturbing “Drag Queen Story Hour” event at the Grauwyler Park Public Library in Dallas, TX on July 13. A few of our people were inside documenting it, but a much larger group, organized by our new Dallas chapter of MassResistance, held a rousing protest outside.
Don't be fooled by the prose or the pictures on the webpage. Mass Resistance has a reputation going overboard on self-aggrandizement.
A big caveat - this list was compiled in 2017. A lot of things have happened since then, such as the wonderful television show, Pose. Still, this is somewhat a good historical compilation of where we have been. Number one should be easy to guess.
If there is any question that the Family Research Council (and its president Tony Perkins) sold what little soul and integrity they have to boost Donald Trump, its Washington Report about Wednesday's testimony of Special Counsel Robert Mueller should remove all doubt.
"Finally, Washington sort of agrees on something," the New Yorker half-joked. "Mueller bombed." After 124 days of waiting, "painful" doesn't begin to describe the disjointed spectacle of former special counsel Robert Mueller's House hearing. The epic dud, proclaimed across the news networks as "sad," "embarrassing," and "a disaster" came to an anti-climatic end Wednesday for Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) party. Democrats, who've desperately been trying to find a way to end Donald Trump's presidency prematurely, are back to square one. If they want to send Trump packing, the Washington Post pointed out, they'll have to do it the old-fashioned way -- at the ballot box.
The seven-hour sit-down was supposed to be the must-see event of the year. Instead, the New York Times pronounced, Mueller's appearance was "the blockbuster that wasn't." Confused, evasive, and downright scattered, the man at the center of one of the biggest political witch hunts in history did nothing but prove what a waste of time this entire drama has been. The liberal's political savior was such a liability that by afternoon's end even CNN's Jeffery Toobin was calling it a "win" for President Trump.
Congressman Mike Johnson (R-La.), chair of the Republican Study Committee who had a front row seat for the circus in the hearing, told me on "Washington Watch" that Democrats had every right to be disappointed. "They truly hoped, as I said in my closing statement for the Republican side... that there was really one reason that Mr. Mueller was called to testify today -- and that was to give political cover to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. They desperately wanted him to tell them that they had to impeach the president. He did not do that. His report of course did not do that. And that's where we are today -- just exactly where we were yesterday."
When I asked him if he felt like the committees had covered any new ground, he said flatly, "None at all." But then, he pointed out, everyone should have expected that. Mr. Mueller himself made that quite clear when he had his press conference more than a month ago, when he insisted, "I'm going to stick to the four corners of this document."
But as frustrating as the scene must have been for Democrats, Republicans were equally annoyed. After all, Mike pointed out, there were so many questions that went unanswered about the report's bias, its origins, the Steele dossier, the tainted FBI agents. None of those gaping holes in this theory were addressed, Congressman Johnson vented. "He refused to even talk about the origins of this whole charade... now proven to be totally bogus. That was the foundation of this entire ordeal.... and if the root of it is corrupt, then everything that comes from it is as well."
Mueller was asked to get to the bottom of this supposed collusion with Russia, but we've all known for quite some time that, as Mike put it, "There was 'no there there' -- not even any smoke, much less any fire... It was a political hack job, and now it's proven to be so." From an investigative team with 14 Democrats and zero Republicans, none of this should have come as a surprise. There were FBI agents texting how much they hated Donald Trump and vowing to take him out. "[Those are] their own words. So it's hard to look at this by any objective measure and say, 'Oh, well, this was a fair investigation.'"
While Mueller was panned for the delivery of his report by some in the media, very few pundits disputed what he said. Many pundits, while criticizing Mueller's shaky delivery, called attention to the fact that his report was not a win for Trump. And others called out their colleagues for focusing more on optics than the facts Mueller verified.
The Russia probe wasn’t a “witch hunt.” Russian election interference was not a “hoax.”
Russia meddled in the 2016 election and the Trump campaign was happy with it.
The Mueller report did not find “no obstruction.” Trump’s answers to written questions from Mueller’s team were “generally” untruthful.
And most importantly:
The Mueller report didn’t give Trump “total exoneration.”
In addition, Mueller also said Trump could be charged after leaving office:
This reality is the reason why pundit Joe Scarborough blasted Trump and Republicans for celebrating:
Scarborough noted how the Republicans were “ecstatic” Wednesday given how the hearings proceeded before listing the items learned and/or confirmed by the hearing: 1) Russia interfered with American democracy, 2) Trump and his campaign “happily welcomed” that interference, 3) Trump and his team members repeatedly lied to federal agents investigating this, 4) President Donald Trump lied under oath about Russians trying to infiltrate, and 5) “American democracy is still, is still under threat from the Russians.”
Scarborough ended this opening riff by blasting the GOP members of Congress who, during much of Mueller’s testimony, seemed entirely more focused on undermining Mueller and his team’s investigation into Russian interference, than the Russian interference itself.
Perkins and FRC belongs in that camp. One would think that after everything Perkins and his group says about "American values," "traditional morality," etc, they would show some alarm that our democracy is in danger of being compromised, Instead, the only thing they seem to be concerned about is protecting Trump. If they aren't making excuses for his behavior or giving him "mulligans," they are echoing his lies.
I guess Perkins and FRC save outrage for more "vital" issues such as preventing transgender children from using school bathrooms without any fear.
I am of the belief that a closeted LGBTQ politician should be out if he or she publicly makes themselves an enemy of our equality. With that in mind, I give you an interesting story courtesy of LGBTQNation:
Cari Wade Gervin — a longtime political reporter who covers Tennessee news, politics and gossip site The Dog and Pony Show — has accused 59-year-old Tennessee state Rep. Bill Sanderson of “openly soliciting sex” and sending “sexually explicit messages and pictures to men almost 40 years his junior” while voting repeatedly in favor of anti-LGBTQ legislation.
Sanderson resigned today. He says he’s resigning to run his business, White Squirrel Winery, but Gervin claims that his resignation was partly in response to the revealing of his same-sex encounters.
In January 2014, the gossip blog The Dirty published messages Sanderson allegedly sent to an unnamed male Vanderbilt student in which Sanderson writes that he is a “state rep” representing Obion, Lake and Dyer Counties, his actual district.
The article details another alleged near encounter between Sanderson and another young man which was curtailed by his wife coming home. The article also details that Sanderson has been a consistent vote against anything pro-LGBTQ:
In 2011, Sanderson voted against allowing cities to adopt anti-LGBT discrimination ordinances. In 2012, he voted for an abstinence-only sex-ed bill that banned discussion of “gateway sexual activity.” In 2016, he signed a resolution denouncing the U.S. Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling and supported a bill allowing therapists to turn away gay clients (in violation of the American Counseling Association’s code of ethics).
This year, he voted to defend schools that refuse bathroom access to trans students, signed a watered down anti-trans bathroom bill and voted to allow adoption agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples.
With this revelation, Sanderson joins a long list of politicians and leaders (many who were anti-LGBTQ) brought down by accusations that they were secretly gay.
If one of the country's biggest retailers is going to ban books, it had better have a good reason. Amazon didn't. The authors it blacklisted weren't inciting violence or promoting terrorist jihad -- they were offering hope to men and women suffering from sexual bondage. But to LGBT activists, it didn't matter what the books actually said or how many people they helped. All the extremists care about is that these authors might undermine their agenda and therefore must be silenced.
Of course, to most Americans, the intolerance is nothing new. We've all watched Google, Twitter, YouTube, and others crack down on conservative speech for years. But banning books that could give people freedom? That's taking the intolerance to a whole new level. Congresswoman Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.), who's been horrified at the fast pace of censorship in this country, refuses to let Amazon get away with it. "Everybody is entitled to information," she told me on Monday's "Washington Watch." "And what Amazon has done is [block] people from having access to information that they're seeking and that they want. And it's just not right." Censorship, she said, should have no place in a country that values free speech.
"We don't want to start having a society where, on controversial issues, people will only have access to one viewpoint.... That's what's made America different than others. [Sexual orientation change efforts may be] an emotional topic, but we need to have more information out there for people so they can make decisions. [U]nwanted sexual attraction is a very difficult thing.... This isn't just a topic that we should throw around the political sphere. We have to remember these are individuals... And if people are struggling with something so personal, and they want more information, they should have access to a book... [to] get some potential help... or see if [it's] something they want to pursue or not. To just to have one group say, 'No, our way is the only way, and we're not going to let any other American hear about another alternative way to think about a condition or a subject' -- that's what we've seen in other countries in the past, and that's a scary place to go."
Apparently FRC and its Congressional allies, particularly Rep. Vicky Hartzler (who has been known to freely funnel any lie FRC tells her), is relying on hysterical connotations about "intolerance" and "censorship" to tell boldfaced lies. When FRC says that those books aren't inciting violence, the group is clearly lying.
Probably the greatest thing to come out of this vile Trump era is gay comedian, singer, and satirist Randy Rainbow. His musings have gotten us all through plenty of Trumpian spewed calamities. And he does it again with a brutal mocking of Trump, his supporters, and Lindsey Graham
I know what you're thinking. "Wow! Can Alvin be any more stereotypical with this post! Picking the Top LGBTQ characters in a musical? It's not the start of this list that's concerning. It's would it ever be finished."
Nevertheless, the folks at Ms. Mojo actually do a good job with this countdown.
One would think that after losing the fight over marriage equality in America, anti-LGBTQ talking head Brian Brown would have slithered away. Unfortunately, he is still around and thanks to a new committee formed by Trump's secretary of state, the Freddy Krueger of homophobia hopes to clamp down on the future dreams of the LGBTQ community.
Anti-LGBTQ-equality activist Brian Brown declared in a message to supporters on Thursday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s new “Commission on Unalienable Rights” provides Brown’s International Organization for the Family with “an extraordinary opening to push for clear and consistent recognition of the natural family” and “gives us a forum to challenge American foreign policy that has in the past advanced the extreme agenda of the left that has been cloaked in the language of so-called human rights.”
Pompeo’s commission, which was reportedly created without input from the State Department’s existing human rights infrastructure, will bring a “natural law” lens to a reexamination of U.S. human rights policy. As New Ways Ministry’s Bob Shine has noted, “Natural law theory has been used for a long time by Catholic Church leaders and theologians who reject LGBT people’s identities and their relationships.” Natural law theory has various strains, but as applied to sexuality and gender, it essentially argues that people whose sexual expression or gender identity is not “natural,” or who have non-procreative sex, are defying the “natural law” of God.
While Pompeo has tried to downplay the policy impact of the commission, which is dominated by social conservatives, Brown’s enthusiasm makes it clear that Religious Right believes the commission’s work is likely to be used to provide intellectual justification for further reversing U.S. advocacy for the rights of LGBTQ people and women as elements of U.S. foreign policy.
None of that is surprising, given that the commission is reportedly the brainchild of Robert George, a founder of the National Organization for Marriage and other anti-LGBTQ groups, and an intellectual force behind the anti-equality movement. George is not an official member of the commission, but has professional associations with many of the commission’s members, including chair Mary Ann Glendon, an anti-abortion-rights activist who has dismissed U.S. and European advocacy for LGBTQ human rights globally as “neocolonialism.”
When it comes to the LGBTQ community and how we are portrayed in comedies, I am of two minds. I like blue humor and see nothing wrong with risque comedy. But at the same time, there is a difference between risque comedy and comedy which sends a message that the LGBTQ orientation is something to be gawked at. I've pulled a couple of scenes from various movies and television shows which I invite to you to view and see if you share my opinion regarding whether they are funny or degrading:
FUNNY - Blazing Saddles. This 1974 classic by Mel Brooks could never be made today because it is so apologetically brutal and politically incorrect. From African-Americans to politicians to Methodists to women, no one gets away unscathed. And the scene above is delightfully funny because of how it implies how a lot of gay men were in musicals during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Not only that, but the humor coming from two movie genres - westerns and musicals - literally crashing against one another is wicked without being degrading.
DEGRADING - Martin - This scene with the title character at the DMV is not all funny. It's basically a big one-note stereotype of the swishy gay man hitting on a straight guy. Very juvenile and droll, but not in a good way.
Franklin Graham (top), Robert Jeffress (middle), and Tony Perkins (bottom) have been called out for enabling and then being silent about Trump's recent racist comments against four members of Congress.
The House of Representatives just voted 240-187 to condemn Trump's racist attacks on four of its members. Only four Republicans joined the Democrats in that vote.
Meanwhile, conservative evangelicals have been mostly silent throughout the entire thing. Franklin Graham, who seems to be never at a loss for words when tweeting attacks on the LGBTQ community, has been especially evasive.
And don't think that it hasn't been noticed. John Fea, religious author and professor of American history at Messiah College, posted about this on Tuesday:
Trump is simply calling upon an old tradition in American history. Sadly, we have been telling people to “go back to your country” since the birth of the republic. None of this is new. Trump appeals to the darkest parts of our past. This is what demagogues do. Today he refused to rescind his comments because apparently a lot of people like them.
But America has always had its better angels. We have always had men and women who have tried to consistently apply our country’s ideals to matters of race, immigration, and injustice. Robert Jeffress, Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell Jr. Jack Graham, Tony Perkins, Paula White, Ralph Reed, Gary Bauer, David Barton, Jim Bakker, Lance Wallnau, Steven Strang and the rest of the court evangelicals do not fall into this category.
Sadly, the court evangelicals have chosen to side with darkness over light. They are sycophants, incapable of speaking truth to power because they have made a deal with the devil (who apparently has come in the guise of a new King Cyrus). They have enabled Donald Trump. The silence speaks volumes.
The entire piece is short but on point and deserves your full attention.
White conservative evangelicals continue to debase themselves for Trump.
Eager to defend their golden goose, i.e. the Trump Administration for giving it access and power, several conservative evangelical - religious right groups - are running interference for the administration's excesses with as much vigor as they dehumanize the LGBTQ community.
Last weekend, Pence visited the border facilities in an effort to blunt criticism about their overcrowding, lack of sanitation and overall dehumanizing treatment of immigrants. It didn't work out for him:
Vice President Mike Pence visited an overcrowded, unsanitary migrant detention center on Friday as part of a tour meant to highlight the Trump administration’s handling of an influx of immigrants and asylum seekers crossing the US-Mexico border.
At a McAllen, Texas, facility housing nearly 400 Central American men, reporters noted an overwhelming foul odor and extreme heat. Men packed in cages worked to get the reporters’ attention, telling members of the press they did not have access to showers or toothbrushes; some of the detained said they’d been at the center for more than 40 days, and others claimed to be underfed and hungry.
An absolutely vulgar enemy of the LGBTQ community has passed away:
Seven-term Congressman William Dannemeyer, one of the leading homophobes of the 1980s and ’90s, has died at age 86.
The California Republican, who once read a description of sexual acts into the Congressional Record, said he’d like to wipe out all HIV-positive people, and spread false claims about how HIV was spread, died Tuesday after suffering from dementia, The Orange County Register reports. In addition to his antigay activism, he promoted conspiracy theories about Bill and Hillary Clinton and claimed that Jews were seeking to eliminate Christians.
. . . “In the mid-1980s, Dannemeyer endorsed a plan to quarantine people with HIV or AIDS,” the Register’s obituary notes. “He also spoke against allowing nurses with HIV to work with children, saying (incorrectly) that people with the virus emitted a ‘spore’ that caused birth defects.”
In 1989 he placed a detailed description of sex acts in the Congressional Record; he characterized them as gay sex acts, even though heterosexuals were known to engage in some of them as well. The same year, he sent a letter to President George H.W. Bush expressing concern about the influence of gay people in the administration. Dannemeyer was a fan and ally of President Ronald Reagan, less so of fellow Republican Bush. He also published a book that year, Shadow in the Land: Homosexuality in America, about what he considered the threat posed by gay people.
In 1990 he voted against a bill authorizing the federal government to collect data on crimes motivated by a victim’s race, religion, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. He was one of only 18 House members to oppose it; he said he did so because it put sexual orientation on a par with those other characteristics.
Dannemeyer was before my time, but he is a reason why this blog exists. I could say a lot about him, but I would prefer to leave an item which accentuates his legacy of hatred:
This 1986 comic was created by a man named Dick Hafer and it is a representation of some of the most evil anti-gaylies out there. Check out the images it contained:
Those invited by Trump included anti-LGBTQ think tank the Heritage Foundation, Ali Alexander - the fool who is helping to spread the rumor that Kamala Harris isn't "American black," and Joy Villa - a no-talent never-was whose claim to fame is wearing stank-looking or pro-Trump dresses on the Grammy Awards red carpet, and various others racists and conspiracy theorists (Pizzagate, Q-Anon, Seth Rich.) Please note at the end how Villa attempts to model one of her tacky outfits while hot dogging to the press.
Wanted to get the part where a guest at a White House function begins walking toward the press and James O’Keefe is filming and Joy Villa is showing off her FREEDOM gown. pic.twitter.com/ZPIXRRVo6K
... in the rose garden of the @whitehouse, @sebgorka just screamed at journalist @briankarem calling him a "punk." then someone remarked that gorka could "kick your punk ass."
Let's take another look at Villa attempting to stretch her 15 minutes of fame. Minutes after egging on Gorka, she is attempting to be concillatory to the press. Of all of the folks begging to be interviewed at this event, she came across as very needy:
What do Peter Berkowitz, Mary Ann Glendon, Jacqueline Rivers, and Christopher Tollefsen all have in common? They are all noted anti-LGBTQ activists and they all are presently members of the State Department's new Commission on Unalienable Rights.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday unveiled a new Commission on Unalienable Rights, a panel he said is aimed at providing him with “an informed review of the role of human rights in American foreign policy.”
The panel will be headed up by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor and former ambassador to the Vatican under George W. Bush. Glendon is also a social conservative who has been a prominent anti-abortion voice, which could lend credence to the concerns among human rights activists that the commission is a ploy to undercut LGBTQ and women’s rights under the guise of religious liberty. In remarks at the State Department on Monday, Pompeo noted that “words like ‘rights’ can be used by good or evil,” decrying how some have “hijacked” human rights rhetoric to be used for “dubious or malignant purposes.”
. . . While Pompeo was vague in laying out what exactly the panel will do, emphasizing its focus on “principles” over “policy,” he praised its members as those he hoped would facilitate "one of the most profound reexaminations of the unalienable rights in the world since the 1948 universal declaration."
GLAAD just came out with a report which uncovers the history of several members of this committee. The report found that they all have been very active in opposing LGBTQ equality and rights.
“This ‘Commission’ is a farce and further illustrates the bold-faced anti-LGBTQ agenda of this administration,”said Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD. ”The Trump Administration is knowingly appointing activists who have made careers out of fighting against LGBTQ progress and is now providing them an opportunity to export their anti-LGBTQ activism around the world through the U.S. State Department.”
GLAAD’s new report dug into the records of the ten members appointed to serve on the State Department’s Commission and found troubling, anti-LGBTQ history in seven of its members. The Commission includes members like Mary Ann Glendon, a longtime anti-LGBTQ activist who claimed marriage equality was a “radical social experiment,” and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Hanson, who claimed marriage equality was “one of the signs of the End Times.” The launch of the “Commission on Unalienable Rights” now marks the 117th attack against the LGBTQ community by the Trump Administration since the start of 2017.
Here are just a few of the 10 which GLAAD listed::
Mary Ann Glendon (Chair)
— Has written extensively on her view that marriage equality is a “radical social experiment” that harms children. She alsorecently wrote a blurb for a viciously anti-trans book, calling the book—which culminates in a plan of action that calls for the complete erasure of trans people —“eminently readable and insightful.”
Peter Berkowitz
— Criticized the Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling overturning sodomy laws as “dangerous,” writing that “Justice Kennedy's majority opinion seemed to follow the logic of his moral and political judgments rather than the logic of the law.”
Jacqueline Rivers
— Delivered a speech at the Vatican, insisting that LGBTQ activists were “abolishing in law the principle of marriage as a conjugal union and reducing it to nothing other than sexual or romantic partnerships or domestic companionship.” She went on insist that LGBTQ activists have “unjustly appropriated” civil rights language.
Christopher Tollefsen
— Wrote an anti-trans essay that culminated in the opinion that “...attempts to change one’s biological sex all fail. That is an undefeatable reason against trying to do so.” In a follow up, he further argued that “...it is a mark of a heartless culture that it encourages such confusion even to the point of encouraging bodily mutilation as a solution to gender dysphoria and prohibiting therapy that might be psychologically and spiritually beneficial.”
One of the most annoying things about anti-LGBTQ groups is how they bestow official-sounding titles on their spokespeople and then trot them out as experts in front of the media. Often times, these folks anointed as experts don't know what they are talking about except for the talking points they are paid to spew.
Peter Sprigg, the Family Research Council's Senior Fellow for Policy Studies, is a perfect example of what I am talking about. FRC's bio of Sprigg says the following:
Mr. Sprigg joined FRC in 2001, and his research and writing have addressed issues of marriage and family, human sexuality, the arts and entertainment, and religion in public life.
Mr. Sprigg has been quoted as a spokesman for FRC in many major newspapers, and he has been interviewed or participated in debates on all of the national television networks. He is the author of the book Outrage: How Gay Activists and Liberal Judges Are Trashing Democracy to Redefine Marriage (Regnery, 2004), and he was co-editor of another FRC book on homosexuality. Mr. Sprigg also edited FRC's agenda-setting booklet, 25 Pro-Family Policy Goals for the Nation.
Mr. Sprigg is an ordained Baptist minister. Before coming to FRC, he served as pastor of Clifton Park Center Baptist Church in Clifton Park, N.Y. Mr. Sprigg previously served for ten years as a professional actor and unit leader in Covenant Players, an international Christian drama ministry. Prior to his career in ministry, Mr. Sprigg worked in the government and non-profit sectors, including service as economic development assistant to the late Congressman Robert F. Drinan (D-Mass.). Mr. Sprigg received the Master of Divinity degree cum laude from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Mass.). He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree summa cum laude from Drew University (N.J.), with a double major in political science and economics.
I'm willing to wager that when it comes to the LGBTQ community and human sexuality, I could give you more credible information while talking in my sleep than Sprigg could while awake.
Yet, FRC trots him out as an expert to talk about such things as the recent decision by Amazon to stop selling books defending the fraudulent practice of "ex-gay therapy."
Peter Sprigg, who joined "Washington Watch" on Monday to talk about the controversy, said he couldn't believe a company as massive as Amazon would take a single activist's word for it.
"It's interesting that the LGBT movement wields such power as that they are able to persuade a huge corporation -- in fact, one single activist is able to persuade a huge corporation -- to remove a whole set of books. I'm pretty certain that nobody at Amazon has cracked the cover of any of these books to see what's inside. I doubt that Roho Allen himself has ever looked at any of these books to see what's inside. And you might be surprised if he did because, the content is not the kind of extreme material that LGBT activists always associate with what they call 'conversion therapy.'"
. . . As Peter explains, "The fact is, there have been a number of publications [and] peer-reviewed scientific studies that have shown that this therapy can be effective. So anytime you hear an LGBT activist say there's no research showing it works, that's a lie. There is research showing it works, and you can find it on the FRC website..."
The "research" Sprigg is talking about is some ridiculous paper he wrote claiming that studies show "ex-gay therapy" works. I chose not to post the link for two reasons.
Family Research Council head Tony Perkins is sounding the alarm about a new bill because it benefits LGBTQ students:
Apparently, it's not enough that schools are indoctrinating students -- they want to brainwash teachers too! In California's public schools, where the districts have their hands full just raising test scores, it looks like the faculties will have to take time out from actual educating to master a new subject: LGBT sensitivity.
Under a new bill just approved by the state assembly, every junior high and high school teacher would be ordered to undergo training on how to support kids who identify as LGBTQ. That includes everything from referring students to activist organizations to launching school-wide efforts aimed at encouraging confusion like transgenderism. The legislation, AB 243, (Editor's note - FRC got the name of the bill wrong. It is actually bill AB 493) passed unanimously -- 61-0, with virtually every Republican refusing to vote.
Our friends at California Family Council are horrified that anyone would force teachers to promote an agenda that the American College of Pediatricians calls "child abuse." "This mandated training," CFC's Greg Burt warns, "will put Christian public school teachers in the position of promoting and approving beliefs that clash with their biblical values. This conflict is already happening. According to information the California Family Council recently received from concerned Christian elementary school teachers, LGBTQ teacher training is already being used to shame teachers into promoting gender and sexual orientation beliefs they disagree with."
Is AB 493 as bad as Perkins is making it out to be? Of course not. When you eliminate FRC's penchant for alarmist phraseology (indoctrinating students? brainwashing teachers?) and citations from a fake medical organization which passes along junk science as legitimate medical information (the American College of Pediatricians), one can easily see that AB 493 is simply an attempt to keep our LGBTQ kids safe while they attend school.
According to a February article in The Sacramento Bee:
Anti-LGBTQ bullying is an epidemic in California schools: 64 percent of such middle and high school students surveyed by the California Department of Education last year reported being bullied. Nearly half had seriously considered suicide.
Now, California lawmakers have re-introduced a bill aimed at giving teachers and school districts tools and funding to help lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning students.
Assembly Bill 493 is co-sponsored by Assemblyman Todd Gloria, vice chair of the California Legislative LGBT Caucus, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. The bill would require every county office of education, school district and charter school to provide annual in-service training to all teachers grades seven to 12.
The training would focus on “strategies to increase support for LGBTQ pupils and thereby improve overall school climate,” according to the bill language.
It is ironic that FRC labels AR 493 as harmful to children seeing that the organization has in the past harmed transgender children by smearing them as predators:
And don't even get me started about the nonsense that AR 493 would interfere with the so-called beliefs of Christian school teachers. Any school teacher who doesn't put the safety of their students first doesn't belong in any classroom, regardless of whatever religion they hold dear.
