'Porno' Pete wants to help Glenn Beck and other Wednesday afternoon news briefs

Peter LaBarbera Wants Glenn Beck to Come to His Next ‘Truth’ Camp - Glenn Beck and Peter LaBarbera together? I don't think my intestines could handle that.

Watch: Bible-Believing Bigots Foment Violence Against LGBT People in Rural Pennsylvania Town - THIS my friends is what you call a hot mess.


The AFA and The Peter go off the rails over Mehlman and GOP 'secret homosexuals' - Yeah it's a Porno Pete double feature but you know you love it.

Omaha World-Herald creates criteria to exclude same-sex couples - It's sad what people will do in order NOT to acknowledge lgbt couples.

Atlanta police name gay advisory board - Good news for Atlanta.

SC Pride banners meets resistance through false claims, distortions

In a move which should surprise no one, the Palmetto Family Council released a press release criticizing the city of Columbia about the rainbow flags hanging on downtown lamp posts.

The banners are to commemorate the SC Pride festival happening Saturday as well as to bring visibility to SC's lgbt community.

The Palmetto Family Council released a press release saying the following:

“This is about much more than a piece of cloth on a lamp pole.

The flag raised today is symbolic of the city’s ongoing and aggressive financial and institutional support of militant homosexual advocacy.

Taxpayers need look no farther than this year’s headliner, Pandora Boxx (or last year’s RuPaul) to see how their tax dollars and the city’s good name are being invested.

The City of Columbia is not neutral in this matter. It continues to take a side in the culture wars, which we believe is not appropriate for any government.”

With this press release, the Palmetto Family Council seems to be sidestepping any confrontation with SC Pride and instead going the "the city council is wasting our tax dollars" route.

That also seems to be the route taken by SC blogging site FitsNews.com:

As much as we hate to agree with the Bible thumpers, they’ve got a point here. As we’ve said on numerous occasions, we have no problem with homosexuals and we support their right to publicly display their lifestyle choices. We’re also supporters of civil unions and oppose efforts to discriminate against gays – whether that means denying benefits in the workplace or denying permits for a parade.

However, using tax dollars to support such events – or public facilities to promote one particular sexual orientation over another – is clearly wrong, which we would encourage the Palmetto Family Council to keep in mind the next time it organizes protests over municipalities doing away with Jesus-themed prayers.

But it would seem that both FitsNews.com and the Palmetto Family Council have gotten the story wrong.

According to an article in South Carolina's Free Times, the city of Columbia did not pay for the banners nor did it put them up:

In fact, the City of Columbia did not pay for or put up the banners: The organization SC Pride paid for the banners itself, and the City Center Partnership, Main Street’s business coalition, put them up.

The article goes on to state that the City of Columbia did contribute monetarily to SC Pride, but it does the same for other organizations and the SC Pride festival brings money to the city:

The City of Columbia does fund SC Pride, though: Last year, the group received $7,500 in city hospitality tax funding, and this year it will receive $10,000 — the same amount as groups like Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge and Congaree Riverkeeper.
The pride parade and related events are good for downtown business, according to both Deirdre Mardon, executive director of the Vista Guild, and Matt Kennell, president and CEO of City Center Partnership.

Furthermore, SC Pride is not the only organization putting up banners. After the pride festival, banners for the Italian Festival are being put up.

I might add that the FitsNews.com's implication that any support of SC Pride "promotes one sexual orientation over another" is extremely shortsighted. The festival, and the other events, are for everyone to come out and enjoy whether they be lgbt or heterosexual.  The only thing that's being promoted here is unity.


Author's note - for the sake of full discloure, I should reveal that I am on the advisory board of SC Pride.

Video take down of the anti-gay marriage arguments should be required viewing

A very frustrating thing for me is how the community is always full of fire in expressing our anger - whether it be to the religious right or each other (which is more times than I would like), while very few want to take the time to battle the opposition with reasoned arguments and push these arguments until they become the narrative.

This video is a point by point take down of the National Organization for Marriage's lies. It should be required viewing.

GLSEN responds to Focus on the Family distortions

Yesterday, I posted a piece on how Focus on the Family is using data from the discredited George Rekers to stop anti-bullying efforts in America's schools.

Today, Talking Points Memo gave a wider view to the entire situation. It's a good read but my favorite part is the ending where GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) head Eliza Byard gave a strong response to Focus on the Family. Her words should be a directive in how we answer the lies of the religious right. No flowery language, no automatically pushing the "bigot" card but shooting straight from the shoulder:

Focus on the Family has tried to discredit GLSEN's efforts to make schools safe for all students since our founding in 1990. These most recent attempts show that, once again, Focus on the Family either doesn't know what it is talking about or simply don't care about addressing bullying, or both. The policies we support - which, by the way, include protections for bullying based on religion - have been shown by years of research to make a difference in young people's lives. That is why nearly 70 national education, youth service and civil and human rights organizations endorse the Safe Schools Improvement Act. In terms of LGBT youth, we certainly hope that Focus on the Family agrees that the current environment in which nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students experience harassment each year in school is simply unacceptable. But we won't hold our breath.

Yet another study confirms same-sex households and other Tuesday midday news briefs

NYT Writer Demonizes LGBT Bloggers and Serves As Apologist For Ken Mehlman - Poor Ken Mehlman. Whatever happened to the good old days when and in the closet can exploit his own people for politicial gain AND get away with it?

Travesty of Justice - Whether folks agree or not, Rev. Eric Lee makes some good points on the disconnect in the lgbt community when it comes to their own people of color.

Children raised by gay couples show good progress through school - To the surprise to no one with common sense of course.

NOM blatantly appeals to homophobia - You mean they haven't been before?

SC Pride hang rainbow banners in Columbia to increase lgbt visibility

The upcoming SC Pride festival is what everyone is talking about in Columbia and a key move by the organization coordinating the festival is a good reason why:

Displaying a multitude of colors, the rainbow flag is now hanging from lamp posts on Main and Gervais Streets. The brightly colored banner is a sign of diversity and acceptance for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens.

“It definitely will promote the event, but I also hope it makes people realize that there is a strong LGBT community that exists in Columbia,” said Vice President of Center Operations Santi Thompson with the SC Pride Movement.

Thompson adds that for the first time in the organization's 21 year history, the rainbow flags will fly in downtown Columbia in celebration of this weekend's SC Pride Parade and Festival.

The flags not only had to be approved by the City of Columbia, but the organization also had to get clearance from businesses along the two streets.

“I think the flags being flown on Main Street and Gervais Street make people excited and will help them realize it’s not as backwards as we think,” said Thompson.

For many lgbt South Carolinians who have to live with the stereotype of our state being backwards, these flags and the increased visibility they bring are a like bursts of fresh air. It also reveals the steady pace the SC lgbt leadership has been working to make things better for our community.


The banners also caught local anti-gay leaders by surprise. Oran Smith of the Palmetto Family Council was asked about the banners and all he could muster is the following:

“I think the mistake the city has made is being knee deep in agenda for a specific organization promoting a specific kind of lifestyle,” 

If you ask me, he is probably upset. Up until yesterday, he probably thought he had the easiest job in the state.


For more information on the SC Pride week, especially Saturday's festival featuring 80s diva Taylor Dayne, go here. Full disclosure time - I will be one of Saturday's speakers and will also be receiving the Order of the Pink Palmetto.

Focus on the Family cites George Rekers in fighting anti-bullying efforts

Focus on the Family is targeting anti-bullying efforts in schools, claiming that they actually push the so-called "gay agenda." According to The Denver Post:

As kids head back to school, conservative Christian media ministry Focus on the Family perceives a bully on the playground: national gay-advocacy groups.

School officials allow these outside groups to introduce policies, curriculum and library books under the guise of diversity, safety or bullying-prevention initiatives, said Focus on the Family education expert Candi Cushman.

"We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled," Cushman said.

This stance against anti-bullying efforts seem to be part of a larger campaign by Focus on the Family to push the inaccurate notion that "homosexuals are indoctrinating children in America's schools." This effort is led by Cushman by way of the site, TrueTolerance.org

The following article in the American Family Association's One News Now goes into more detail about Cushman's claims and efforts:

With the new school year starting up, many parents are concerned about homosexual promotion in public schools, so a prominent pro-family group is informing parents about what they can do to protect their kids.

Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family's CitizenLink, tells OneNewsNow that one simple way to stay on top of the issue is to go to the school's online library catalog.

"Enter key terms in the search function like 'lesbian,' 'gay,' 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity'...and if you start pulling up a lot of books with homosexual themes, that's a real red flag to you because technically, the library should reflect the school curriculum," Cushman explains. "It's also a place teachers can go to pull out resources for use in the classroom."

It also seems that a major bone of contention of Cushman and Focus on the Family is a booklet which was put out by GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) to be distributed to school officials entitled Just the Facts About Sexual Orientation and Youth.

The contention by Cushman and Focus on the Family is that this booklet is wrong and "one-sided." Eliza Byard, head of GLSEN, told The Denver Post that while GLSEN thought up the idea, the booklet was actually written by a coalition of 18 medical, mental-health and education organizations.

Now to combat this, Focus on the Family has a piece on the True Tolerance site called  Just The Real Facts Please which supposedly gives a refutation of the GLSEN booklet. Just The Real Facts Please is a part of a packet that parents are encouraged to give to school officials.

But it's obvious that Focus on the Family didn't research its facts well. Three errors stick out greatly.

On page 22 is this claim:

According to a scientific article published in the journal Pediatrics, nearly 26 percent of 12-year-olds are unsure about their sexuality. The study showed that this uncertainty diminished significantly in older age groups. So pushing a particular sexual agenda onto children during this vulnerable time period is irresponsible, and can even amount to taking emotional advantage of youth.

The article in question is from Gary Remafedi, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. And on more than one occasion, Remafedi has complained about how it was being distorted.

Another distortion is the following on page 17:

Dr. Robert Spitzer, a pro-gay ally and former APA (American Psychiatric Association) Fellow—as well as a Professor of Psychiatry and Chief of Biometrics at Columbia University—published his study of 200 men and women who had reported some change "from homosexual to heterosexual orientation that lasted at least five years." He found that "almost all of the participants reported substantial changes in the core aspects [of] sexual orientation, not merely overt behavior." He also noted that “participants reported benefit from nonsexual changes, such as decreased depression.”

The problem with this citation is that Cushman omitted the fact that Spitzer later continuously complained that his work was being distorted. In addition, in a 2006 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Spitzer said that he now believes that some of those he interviewed for his study may have been either lying to him or themselves. - Ex-Gays Seek a Say in Schools, Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2006

But the most egregious error in Cushman's piece, and it's an error that says a lot not only about her mindset but that of Focus on the Family, is the following:

According to the medical and psychological experts writing in the Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexual Problems, “The consequences of choices made with the advantage of developmental maturity are preferable to those consequences resulting from decisions made impulsively, in the absence of adequate knowledge, or without the moderating benefit of maturity. The latter choices will, of course, be imperfect, but the former regularly result in personal and social consequences that are painful, destructive, and not fully reversible.”

And just who are these experts? A quick look at the endnotes tells us the following:

Lundy, M.D., M.S., Michael S. and George A. Rekers, Ph.D., Fellow of the Academy of Clinical Psychology. “Homosexuality: Development, Risks, Parental Values, and Controversies,” Handbook of Child and Adolescent Sexual Problems, Ed. George A. Rekers, New York: Lexington Books, 1995, p.290.

You read that right. Our "beloved" solicitor of "luggage lifters," George Rekers.

Even after the scandal involving the rentboy and the knowledge that his very presence at anti-gay judicial cases almost ensures victories of the lgbt community (due to the fact that judges don't find him credible), Cushman and Focus on the Family still think of him as a credible source when it comes to lgbt issues.

The big irony is that Cushman contends that Focus on the Family wants to establish an anti-bullying program to help all students. I find that hard to believe on so many levels. The citation of Rekers as a reliable source is one reason. The entire campaign in general is another.

If they don't want schools to acknowledge lgbts, how can they talk about protecting lgbt youth?

Author's note - Focus on the Family isn't the only right-wing group seeking to influence America's schools through inaccurate information on the lgbt community. In March, the American College of Pediatricans, a shell group of phony anti-gay data, sent out information to school officials about a website featuring junk science and legitimate studies taken out of context. The organization received numerous rebukes for the false data.