Walsh responds to receiving 'pro-family' award, doesn't talk about owed child support

By now, we all know the last mess coming from the Family Research Council - how the organization awarded Congressman Joe Walsh an award for supposedly fighting for "family values" even though Walsh owes over $100,000 in child support.

Of course the ugly irony is that earlier this week, FRC publicly prayed that God would keep gays from adopting children. So apparently being gay father or a lesbian mother is a bad thing, but not paying your child support is a virtue.

But what gets me is Walsh's response in receiving the award:

“I am proud and honored to be recognized by the Family Research Council as the only member from Illinois with a 100 percent pro-family voting record,” he said in a press release. “Defending American values have always been one of my top priorities, and this reward reaffirms my dedication to that fight.”

Yes, I know. Apparently paying for your children's care isn't an American value in Walsh's book. Now allow me to tell you what will probably happen next.

The Family Research Council will either ignore this incredible faux pas on its part or respond much later after formulating some type of battle plan to explain away what it did.

Count on this battle plan to include one-sided articles in phony "pro-family" publications such as the American Family Association's One News Now and appearances on "friendly" areas such as Fox News.

But above all, this battle plan will not include anything remotely looking like an apology or any type of acknowledgement that the organization goofed.

After all, the Family Research Council works for Jesus. And those who work for Jesus never makes goofs.

Know Your LGBT History - The Best Way To Walk

The Best Way to Walk (1976) or La Meilleure Façon de Marcher, as it is known in France is a motion picture which is screaming for an American remake.

It's a complex story about closets, intimidation, and possible secret wanting.

Patrick Bouchitey portrays a summer camp counselor who is caught one night by another counselor (my dreamboat, Patrick Dewaere) wearing make up and in drag.

Dewaere does not tell the other counselors but for some reason - which is not known to the viewer, but we can guess - decides to subtlely humiliate Bouchitey on several occasions via anti-gay jokes, intimidating actions, and even flashing himself (in a very, very open scene involving frontal male nudity) in front of Boutchitey.

Finally, at the end of the movie, Bouchitey decides to turn the tables on Dewaere during a costume ball.

While a very vanguard movie for its time, The Best Way To Walk, was also very guarded. At no time do either of the characters say that they are gay. But there is an underlying tension that is just fascinating. Dewaere - whom I was very upset to learn committed suicide decades before I discovered him - gives a performance which should be watched, memorized, and copied by any actors. Especially the full frontal scene.



Past Know Your LGBT Posts: .

'Family Research Council gives 'pro-family' honor to deadbeat dad' and other Friday midday news briefs

Anyone who thinks that the Family Research Council is either a Christian or "pro-family" group obviously has not done their homework on the group.

The group just anointed Congressman Joe Walsh as a pro-family leader in spite of the fact that he allegedly owes over $100,000 in child support:

“Congressman Walsh and other ‘True Blue Members’ have voted to repeal Obamacare, de-fund Planned Parenthood, end government funding for abortion within the health care law, uphold the Defense of Marriage Act, and continue support for school choice. I applaud their commitment to uphold the institutions of marriage and family.”

At the same time, FRC has been saying ugly things to say about the following same-sex wedding officiated by Conan O'Brien on his show:



And the biggest irony? The praise of Walsh comes days after FRC publicly prayed that God stop gays from adopting children.

Pro-family? My tuckus! Christian? Forget about it!

In other news:

Senate panel advances gay judicial nominee - Excellent news!

Transgender, victimized and black - An issue which deserves a lot of attention.

You can't shake a marriage amendment without hitting an 'ex-gay' advocate (NC edition)- And speaking of FRC, resident junk scientist and spokesperson Peter Sprigg is attending a huge convention of the anti-gay group NARTH. That's the live bunch in which George Rekers used to be a member. I told him not to allow Rekers to lift his luggage should HE show up.

Family Research Council has a quiz for you

Information is from Family Research Council's team of "Capitol Hill experts" 

1. Due to religious exemptions, same-sex “marriage” would not harm the rights of parents, schools, churches, or religious ministries.

2. Science indicates that homosexuality is likely inborn and unchangeable.

3. Homosexual activists have grossly overstated the number of homosexuals in the population as being 10%, when surveys actually show it is only half that number, at about 5%!

4. Members of Congress from both parties support a pro-homosexual law that could force Christians to remove family photos from their workplace.

5. The proposed federal ENDA law would force all employers to hire transsexuals, cross-dressers, and “drag queens” and “drag kings” for any job—including customer service jobs and ones with children, such as teachers and day care workers.

Now if you really loved that quiz, you can send for a copy of the Family Research Council's ridiculously inaccurate booklet, The Top Ten Harms of Same-Sex Marriage.
Written by FRC spokesman and resident junk science specialist Peter Sprigg, this booklet containing the following errors:

1. distorts the work of Harvard professor Dr. Kyle Pruett and Judith Stacey. Both have complained on more than one occasion about how folks like Sprigg distort their work.

2. In page 10 and 11 of the pamphlet, Sprigg cites a study done by Maria Xiridou as proof that marriage will not stop alleged promiscuity amongst gay couples.

However, none of the couples in Xiridou's study were married. Her study did not look at gay marriage but was designed to "access the relative contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam and to determine the effect of increasing sexually risky behaviours among both types of partnerships in the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy."
 
For this study, Dr. Xiridou received her information from the Amsterdam Cohort Study of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and AIDS Among Homosexual Men. To gain this information, researchers studied 1,800 gay men between the years of 1984- 2000.

Same sex marriage was legalized in the Netherlands in 2001, thus making the information irrelevant to points about gay marriage. Information for the Amsterdam Cohort Study is found here.

Furthermore, lesbians were not included in the study

3. Sprigg recounts the story of Massachusetts parent David Parker who was arrested for trespassing for not leaving his son's school after a meeting with school officials. Parker claimed that the school would not "allow him to opt his child out of discussions about homosexuality."  Supposedly the school was breaking state law that said parents have a right to opt out their child when it comes to discussions of human sexuality.

Of course Sprigg inaccurately condensed the story. The school had already assured Parker that discussions of human sexuality were not a part of his child's curriculum, but - and they checked with district policy on this - discussions about differing families was not a human sexuality issue AND  since several students in the school came from same sex households, they couldn't control these students talking amongst themselves about their families.

Sprigg also omitted the fact that the entire Parker controversy was conjured up by Parker and a Massachusetts anti-gay group Mass Resistance, i.e. Parker's goal was to be arrested in order to create  controversy.

By the way, Mass Resistance is also designated as an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I'm sure Sprigg and FRC are aware of these errors, but what's a few distortions when you are fighting in God's name?

Lesbian couple humiliated at the Florida DMV

The religious right would have us to jump through hoops just to get simple validation of our relationships. As this story proves, those hoops don't mean a thing:

'This just in - Satan did not create gays' and other Thursday midday news briefs

House GOP Continues To Misuse Research Of Pro-Gay Rights Psychologist To Argue That Gay Is A Choice - Apparently Republicans are learning from folks in the religious right. Who cares if a researcher complains. Distort the research anyway.

Senate passes ‘license to bully’ legislation - You smell the religious right's smelly hand in this travesty, you would be right. Ain't that so, Gary Glenn?

BREAKING: Bishops’ “Marriage Guy” Retracts Statement That Homosexuality Comes From Satan - Well that's a relief, I guess.

Minnesota For Marriage solicits votes with tantalizing gift card offer - Now I've heard of everything!

NOM hires controversial attorney to fight disclosure laws

Cleta Mitchell

The following just came in from the Minnesota Independent:

The National Organization for Marriage has tapped tea party attorney Cleta Mitchell as the organization’s Minnesota lobbyist during the state’s contentious 2012 battle over a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Mitchell’s expertise is in campaign finance law and Minnesota for Marriage—of which NOM is a member—has already announced plans to challenge Minnesota’s finance law surrounding ballot initiatives.

Mitchell registered as a lobbyist with the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board last Wednesday, according to board records. She’s the only lobbyist that NOM has currently registered in Minnesota, although NOM President Brian Brown was registered for a month earlier this year.

Mitchell is a rising star in conservative politics, mainly for her efforts in opposing campaign finance laws and helping candidates and groups exploit loopholes in existing laws. She’s represented a slew of tea party candidates including Sharron Angle in Nevada, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Joe Miller in Alaska, Sen. Jim DeMint in South Carolina, Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania, Marco Rubio in Florida and Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire.

However, even with all of that expertise, Mitchell is repeating the same claptrap which NOM unsuccessfully repeated in California and Washington State:

Mitchell was the author of a letter to the campaign finance board in protest of the state’s disclosure guidelines. In it, she reiterated the complaints offered by NOM, claiming that members of the LGBT community will attack donors if they’re publicly disclosed.

“The board’s sudden attempt to change the law in order to subject the source(s) of NOM funds used to support the Marriage Referendum puts a bullseye squarely on the forehead of every NOM donor, supporter and member if disclosed and any alleged ‘informational interest’ is purely artificial,” wrote Mitchell. “In sum, this newly concocted disclosure and regulatory scheme is unlawful, is not constitutionally sound, threatens NOM members, donors and supporters with personal injury and harm and the Board should cease immediately its efforts to rewrite Minnesota law to achieve this unlawful purpose.”

NOM continues to lose court cases because the organization has yet to show proof of these threats. And no matter how well-connected Mitchell is, she can't make the proof appear out of thin air.

Speaking of which, Mitchell's appearance is yet another reason for NOM's finances to be disclosed. High-powered attorneys never come cheap.

Also, according to a webpage of an NRA (National Rifle Assocation ) watchdog group, Mitchell's past actions will ensure that she fits in well with NOM:

Mitchell led opposition to a decision by the American Conservative Union (ACU) to allow GOProud, a gay conservative group, to participate in the 2011 CPAC conference. GOProud Board Chairman Chris Barron called Mitchell a “nasty bigot” in response to her efforts to shut out his organization.

Mitchell served as an “attack attorney” for many Tea Party Congressional candidates during the 2010 elections, including Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell and Joe Miller. She has suggested that the Democratic Party’s “tricks” include widespread engagement in voter fraud. Mitchell famously wrote a fundraising letter on behalf of Angle where she accused Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of attempting to steal the election. Mitchell also accused the Democratic party of stealing the 2002 South Dakota senate election, where Senator Tim Johnson was victorious over Senator John Thune. Both Angle and Miller have been involved in high-profile controversies surrounding guns and the Second Amendment.

In 2009, Mitchell spearheaded an initiative to overturn the legalization of gay marriage in the District of Columbia.

Mitchell served as the attorney for the American Issues Project, a group that ran a television ad falsely accusing President Barack Obama of having a close personal relationship with former-Weather Underground member Bill Ayers in the months prior to the 2008 presidential election. Because AIP’s tax-exempt status makes it illegal for the organization to have a mission that is primarily political, the legality of the ad was questioned by elections experts. Laura MacCleery, Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, called the ad a “clear abuse of federal election law.” Fox News declined to air the spot.

In May 2005, Mitchell served as the Master of Ceremonies at an ACU event honoring U.S. Representative Tom Delay (R-TX), who was embroiled in ethics investigations (and has since been convicted of money laundering). After telling those in attendance that she and other conservatives “love” DeLay, Mitchell claimed he was under investigation only because he is “effective.” She also declared, “The tribute is a statement to him: You're not alone. We'll stand by you. And it's to say to people in this town: If you pick a fight with him, you've got us to contend with.”