'Gays are the greatest threat to American liberty? REALLY? & other Tuesday midday news briefs

The greatest threat to American liberty? Gay rights? Sometimes I like to pretend that Bryan Fischer is just saying these things because he has a very sick relative and he needs the money given to him for these outrageous commentaries. It's either that explanation or simply the man is a homophobic sleazeball. Whatever the case may be, I don't feel angry. I feel the need to buy a one piece white suit and a Persian cat which I will then stroke gently while speaking in a faux European accent while commanding a bunch of fearful subordinates.  

An Open Letter to Mainstream LGBT Organizations That Have Remained Silent on Black Lives Mattering - Excellent point AND it underlines the intersection of the lgbt and African-American communities.  

How the anti-gay bill affected Uganda’s tourism - Thanks to folks like Martin Ssempa, Uganda can now 'eat da poo poo.' 

 Marriage Equality Arrives In Scotland - Not bad. Not bad at all!  

Philly Anti-Gay Hate Attack Suspects Determined To Fight Charges In Court - Bring it on!  

Religious Right Group Defends Bogus Ex-Gay Billboard - Of course they do and in the attempt, they underline the point I made about anti-gay distortions of science:

 Greg Quinlan, PFOX’s conspiratorial and extremist spokesman, defended the billboard in an interview today with the far-right outlet WorldNetDaily, insisting that that his group just wants gay people to know that “the truth that homosexuality is destructive to someone.” 

 “The billboard speaks to the scientific fact that to quote the American Psychiatric Association, ‘there still remains no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality,’” Quinlan told WND. “There is zero evidence that a person is born a homosexual. In fact, Dr. Francis Collins of the human genome project with the National Institute of Health, who was appointed by President Clinton to do the project said homosexuality was “not hard-wired.’” 

 But THAT is not true. In 2008 and 2010, Collins has gone on record saying that he didn't make that statement. And Quinlan knows this because during the 2008 situation,  HE WAS MADE AWARE OF WHAT COLLINS SAID.

Family Research Council spokesman gives lukewarm response to proposal that gays be put to death

I don't know what's scarier about the following audio clip - that this caller actually proposes executing lgbts or the lukewarm way the Family Research Council's Craig James addresses the man's proposal.

In all honesty, I don't blame the caller for what he said. I blame people like James, Tony Perkins, and the rest of the anti-gay right (especially Fox News' Todd Starnes) for consistently ginning up the lie that gays want to harm Christians. What do you expect when you conjure up visions of gays recreating the Holocaust on evangelical Christians? When you are constantly feeding people fear, what the heck do you expect the outcome will be?

Anti-gay billboard the latest in a long line of scientific lies by the religious right

PFOX's inaccurate billboard highlights the organization's willingness to lie.

Last week, the anti-gay group PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays) suffered a huge embarrassment because of a billboard it put up on a Virginia interstate:

 The billboard appeared recently beside I-95 in Richmond, Virginia, according to NBC affiliate WWBT. The sign depicts two males, one dressed in a suit and the other in a white T-shirt, and says: "Identical twins: One gay. One not. We believe twin research studies show nobody is born gay."

As it turned out, the two males featured in the billboard sign was only one man, Kyle Roux, who happens to be openly gay.  This slip provided a delicious degree of schadenfreude
for the lgbt community.

However, in the midst of the laughter and derision, the lgbt community seem to be missing the larger picture which can be potentially beneficial to the community.

The way PFOX cited twin studies is inaccurate, according to lgbt activist and Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen:

“PFOX’s billboard underscores the groups scientific illiteracy and shows that ‘ex-gay’ activism is about demagoguery and marketing, rather that truth and results,” said Besen. “In reality, twin studies prove that there is a genetic link to sexual orientation. It is stunning that PFOX would pay for a billboard to showcase its ignorance and incompetence.”

A Truth Wins Out press release accused PFOX and other anti-gay groups of continuously distorting science:

 . . . anti-gay activists consistently distort research. They point to twin studies and say, “if homosexuality was truly genetic, the concordance rate for identical twins would be 100-percent.” Scientists say that this is a gross misunderstanding of the research. According to Dr. Eric Vilain, Professor of Human Genetics, Pediatrics and Urology at UCLA, and the Director of the Institute for Society and Genetics:

“All sorts of traits that are clearly genetic do not show 100% concordance [in twins]. I’ll give you examples, if people look at obesity. Or autism, looking at twins. There is undeniably, no one will even challenge that there is a genetic cause for both obesity and autism.

The twin studies do not show that it is 100% genetic. They just demonstrate that there is a genetic influence. There could be other influences on sexual orientation. Some of them might be environmental. For instance, the older brother effect [studies showing the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay] is an environmental influence. That’s what has happened in the past, in the same womb seems to influence the sexual orientation of future pregnancies. So, it is certainly not an all or nothing phenomenon.”

Truth Wins Out's  press release also quoted  Dr. Marc Breedlove, Michigan State University, Rosenberg Professor of Neuroscience and Dr. Simon LeVay, author of Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation. They both went into detail about what was omitted by the simplicity of PFOX's billboard.

PFOX's  billboard is the latest in a long history of scientific inaccuracies and distortions undertaken by various anti-gay groups to bolster their negative claims against the lgbt community.

'Horses, marriage equality & ex-gay billboards' & other Monday midday news briefs

No One Is Born Gay? Hundreds Join In Protest Of 'Ex-Gay' Billboard - Nothing like an idiotic anti-gay happening to get the folks stoked up. I hope they stay stoked up.

  Mississippi Pastor Edward James Protests Gay Marriage With Horse In Wedding Dress - Somehow I don't think he successfully made his point. What I want to know is how did he get the dress on the horse.

No, My 10-Year-Old Son Isn't Looking for a Girlfriend. He Likes Boys. - I read this piece over the weekend and I think it should have a wider audience. THIS is what parental support looks like. 

 Scott Lively claims homosexuality worse than mass murder 'from God's perspective' - Because apparently God speaks His word through a two-bit homophobic #@!% who exploited homophobia and fear in foreign countries to further the persecution of lgbts. Who knew? 

 Bobby Jindal Is Predictably Partnering With Anti-Gay Radicals For His Prayer Rally - Bobby, Bobby, Bobby! The key to pandering is to not make it look so obvious.

Gasp! Proctor & Gamble enlists Tide in pushing the 'gay agenda!' Oh horrors!!

My only regret about this commercial is that it from Canada. One can only imagine how our very creatively enterprising opponents would spin this.

I can just hear them now. - How DARE Tide run a commercial showing a gay couple doing normal things like bickering over laundry when it is a well-known fact that gays all congregate in huge board rooms and discuss the overthrow of America, the indoctrination of children, and the imprisoning of heterosexual Christians.:

Hat tip to Towleroad.

'Ex-gay group contradicts its own message via billboard model' & other Friday midday news briefs

'Ex-Gay' Group Erects Billboard Saying 'Nobody Is Born Gay' - A couple of days ago, the anti-gay group, PFOX causes a huge controversy by a billboard it put up along a major interstate highway in Virginia. However, we now know that this is ONLY part of the story. 

HILARIOUS: Model from 'ex-gay' twins billboard is 'out, proud gay man,' not a twin - HERE is the other part of the story. Because of its cheap budget and exploitation of stock footage, PFOX made a MAJOR Freudian goof. 

 Barber And Staver: The Fight Against Gay Marriage Is 'The Next Civil Rights Movement' - This of course is absolutely the most ridiculous, stupid, ignorant thing I have heard today, but it bothers me. As much as some heterosexual African-Americans carry on when they think that lgbts are appropriating the Civil Rights Movement, I wish they weren't so silent when anti-gay white folks do it.

 The Duggars Just Made It Easier To Discriminate Against LGBT People. Will TLC React? - Unfortunately, probably not. At least not now. But let's give the Duggar family time and room to dig their own hole a little deeper.  

Alabama recalls vanity license plate with gay slur - I guess I'm SUPPOSED to be happy over this. Why was the slur approved in the first place?

The Family Research Council isn't held accountable for its homophobia, anti-gay lies

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center:

The Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians. The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

According to GLAAD, FRC president Tony Perkins has made several outrageous comments about the lgbt community, including accusing us of being "pawns" of Satan, claiming that we want to put Christians in boxcars and cart them away, comparing us to terrorists, and - of course - claiming that we want to recruit children.

Substitute the African-American or Jewish community for lgbt community in terms of who FRC and Perkins denigrates and do you honestly think that the following montage of Perkins being called upon to comment as a "Christian leader" on Fox News would happen:

The problem here isn't solely the fact that Perkins and FRC continuously lie about and denigrate the lgbt community. Part of the problem is that the media doesn't hold them accountable for these actions.

Hat tip to Jeremy Hooper for the montage.