Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
Editor's note - I may or may not be posting intermediately today due to a dentist's appointment.
Okay, I know after yesterday, everyone is all "chickened out." So let's talk about another subject while bearing in mind that the Chick-Fil-A situation is NOT over yet. The restaurant seems to have approached Anita Bryant status . . . and we all remembered what happened to HER.
On Tuesday, the Coalition of African-Americans Pastors (CAAP) held a press conference announcing plans to speak out against President Obama's support of marriage equality.
I'm sure we will be hearing more about this group, including the fact that the president, Rev. William Owens, is the "black church liaison with the National Organization for Marriage and that NOM has already endorsed Obama's appointment Mitt Romney.
For those not familiar with two plus two, add in the fact that NOM has already been called to the carpet because of its wedge strategy, i.e. the group's plan to play gay and black America against each other on the subject of marriage equality.
The following clip is another reason why NOM's race-wedge strategy won't work.
Let me preface by saying that I've always found it interesting how the religious right in general are so chilvarous to the black community when it seeks "defend" the legacy of the civil rights movement against the supposed unfair comparison to the gay equality movement.
However, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association shows us what some members of the religious right think about black folks when they aren't faking their chivalry:
Transcript:
The Democrats as a party, I believe, they want slaves, they want Americans to be as slavishly dependent upon the central government as slaves were upon their masters in pre-Civil War days, that’s what they want. That’s why they’re trying to hand out goodies and dish out goodies to get them completely dependent because then they’ll know that they can count on them and count on their votes, they’re going to vote for whatever party is promising them the most goodies. We were talking this morning about how in the world is it that African Americans still support the Democratic Party? How can you explain that, when the Democratic Party is the party of slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow laws, lynch mobs, the party that filibustered the Civil Rights Act, how can you explain this?
. . . The only reason we can see why the Democrat Party still has support in the African American community is because the Democrat Party promises them more goodies, the Democrat Party is handing out stuff, basically getting them addicted. It’s like the government is one big giant methadone clinic and they’re just handing out these injections to people in the form of welfare benefits to get them hooked, so they got to hook up with their supplier once a month, they got to get their fix, they got to hook up with their dealer on a street corner once a month and get their fix from the federal government. They’re like drug-addled addicts and the Democrat Party has gotten them addicted to welfare benefits. That apparently is the only reason they continue to support this party.
. . . I think what keeps the African American community in the Democratic and on the Democratic plantation is the promise of goodies, it’s the promise of welfare, it’s the promise of benefits. That’s what keeps them on the Democratic platform as much as anything. So that’s just a form of idolatry, they put money ahead of principle. If they’re going to give me stuff, that’s materialism, that’s greed, that’s a violation of the Ten Commandments, they’re going to stick that in front of me I’m going to vote for them no matter what.
Now some folks will say that Fischer not a part of NOM. However, Fischer is a prominent voice in the religious right as a spokesman for the American Family Association. And AFA and NOM have joined forces before, particularly during this recent "Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day."
So at the very least, NOM (or at least CAAP) should say something about Fischer's words.
Of course they won't and THAT is the point.
Seems to me that if NOM wants to siphon the black vote away from President Obama, muzzling one of its allies would be more effective than using astroturfed black groups.
While members of the religious right are patting themselves on the back on a successful Chick Fil-A Appreciation Day (while totally oblivious to how they helped US get the information out on the evil that Chick-Fil-A supports), the following has been happening in the real world:
As part of an effort to market its standard discounted family travel program, for the first time, the national passenger rail company included gay families in its materials. In an online ad sent by Instinct magazine to its email subscribers, a photo of same-sex parents with their child is featured.
Two version of the ad, one with a picture of a male couple and another with a female couple, were distributed. Both versions include the headline: Priceless Family Moments Are Now Affordable. The ad goes on to promote Amtrak's 50% off campaign for children age 2 to 15 who are traveling with an adult, and directs readers to its gay travel website www.AmtrakRideWithPride.com.
Also, Judith Arndt has become the first openly gay athlete to medal at the Olympics in London by winning the silver in Women’s Cycling Time Trials.
This is the third Olympic medal for Judith Arndt, who, as a 20-year-old, won silver for the 3000 Meter Pursuit at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She also won a bronze in Road Race at the Athens Olympics in 2004.
Concerned Women For America vs. Amazon - Only a religious right group - in this case, Concerned Women for America - can contradict itself in its own writings and think that gay folks won't notice.
Of course what would one expect. His call to support the restaurant chain on this day has been echoed and endorsed by several religious right and anti-gay groups as well as some ignorant religious entities.
So while these folks will no doubt inundate the media with videos and photos of today's event, I would like to reassure my lgbtq community and our allies not to worry.
You see we have won already. And when I say that we have won, I don't mean the intangible way that the title of my piece implies.
Our goal has never been about "shutting down Chick-Fil-A."
Our goal has always been to make people aware of just who Chick-Fil-A supports because this issue goes way beyond chicken.
A group of conservative black pastors are responding to President Barack Obama’s support of same-sex marriage with what they say will be a national campaign aimed at rallying black Americans to rethink their overwhelming support of the President, though the group’s leader is offering few specifics about the effort.
The Rev. Williams Owens, who is president and founder of the Coalition of African-Americans Pastors and the leader of the campaign, has highlighted opposition to same-sex marriage among African-Americans. He calls this campaign “an effort to save the family.”
“The time has come for a broad-based assault against the powers that be that want to change our culture to one of men marrying men and women marrying women,” said Owens, in an interview Tuesday after the launch event at the National Press Club. “I am ashamed that the first black president chose this road, a disgraceful road.”
CNN deserves kudos for telling the entire story about Owens and his fake group, including talking about comments which Owens made linking gays to pedophilia:
Owens has long been an opponent of gay marriage and consults with the National Organization for Marriage as a liaison to the black churches.
At the press conference, Owens said that Obama’s support of same-sex marriage tantamount to supporting child molestation.
“If you watch the men who have been caught having sex with little boys, you will note that all of them will say that they were molested as a child…” Owens said. “For the president to condone this type of thing is irresponsible.”
Owens later walked about those comments back, saying he didn’t think the president was condoning molestation.
CNN also did make mention of NOM's wedge strategy, i.e. the group's plan to play gay and black America against each other on the subject of marriage equality.
Jack Phillips, Denver Baker Who Refused Wedding Cake To Gay Couple, Defends His Stance - Phillips says he would rather lose his business before making a cake for a gay couple. It's good for us to know who NOT to give our business to. However, it goes beyond that. If businesses are allowed to discriminate against gay couples on the basis of their religious beliefs, then where is that line drawn? Today it's gays. Tomorrow it may be people of a different faith, be it Jewish or Catholic. And then there is the case of racial ethnicities.
Liberty Counsel Jumps on the Boycott Hypocrisy Bandwagon - One good thing about this Chick-Fil-A is how it exposes the hypocrites. Wasn't Matt Barber - a defender of Chick-Fil-A - one of the folks who organized a failed boycott of McDonalds a while back?
NOM’s dumps are flattening out - Meanwhile, the National Organization for Marriage's anti-gay protests are fizzling hard.
