Sunday, September 15, 2019

The Family Research Council isn't helping Mike Pence by defending his homophobic career

Mike Pence
In spite of a recent campaign against reality by his allies, we all know that Vice President Mike Pence is a homophobe who has made a political career off of stigmatizing the LGBTQ community behind the veneer of  simple religious beliefs.

A recent article by CNN only underscored this:

Vice President Mike Pence once argued that homosexuality was a choice during his fight in the early 1990s against local efforts in Indiana to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. Pence's opposition to LGBT equality has long drawn the scorn of gay rights activists and made him a champion of the Religious Right. 
But scrutiny of Pence's record on LGBT issues intensified recently when White House Deputy press secretary Judd Deere suggested last week in a tweet that the vice president wasn't anti-gay because he was having lunch with the Irish prime minister, who is gay, and his partner during a state visit. 
The little-explored episode in the 1990s, unearthed in local newspaper clippings during a deeper KFile review of Pence's record on LGBT issues, highlights an early window into the now-vice president's public activism and views in opposition of gay rights. Darin Miller, a spokesman for Pence, told CNN in a statement that the vice president "has always opposed discrimination in any form and defends the Constitution's protection of the rights of all Americans regardless of race, sex or religion." 
 Pence argued in the 1990s that, unlike protections for African Americans, homosexuals choose or learn to be gay and was part of a "grassroots-generated movement for recognition of homosexual rights" nationwide.

. . . The American Psychological Association said in 1992 that data did not support the view that homosexuality was a choice and studies at the time in the 1990s suggested homosexuality was biological and genetic. The arguments made in the 1990s by Pence would echo those he later emphasized when he ran for Congress in 2000 when his platform protested extending civil rights protections to gay Americans. But the 1990s comments show for the first time Pence calling homosexuality a choice and offer a clearer view into Pence's view on gay Americans at the time. 

Hoping to offer some type of defense to Pence, Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council attempted to play down the revelations of the CNN article in a piece on FRC's webpage. It's a rather boring piece except for this part:

Most of the arguments Pence offered in 1993 are the same arguments that we at Family Research Council and other social conservatives make today in opposing radical LGBT rights legislation like the proposed federal Equality Act.   What would be news is if Mike Pence had ever taken any other position.

No, Peter. The news is that you freely admit that the position FRC takes against the LGBTQ community is old, antiquated, and totally against science. Not to mention rooted in fear stories and out-and-out lies, such as claiming that gays shouldn't be employed as school teachers.

Keep it up, Peter and FRC. Pretty soon folks like myself won't be needed with y'all telling on yourselves.