Ken Mehlman and Glenn Beck for your Thursday midday news briefs

Self-proclaimed civil rights leader Glenn Beck's history of racially charged rhetoric - The so-called inheritor of Dr. King's "Dream" is a circus clown with a large retinue of sheep. Where are these black leaders who bristle at the comparison of the gay rights movement of the black civil rights movement?

Ken Mehlman - the story of the former Republican National Committee chairman who came out (surprising no one) which has played extensively for these past two days on numerous blogs. It's not that I've been ignoring it more than I don't think I can add anything new to the conversation at this time. So with that in mind, I am attaching links to folks who have been deep in this story:

From FMA supporters to FMA scapegoats: Ken schmoozes with a new kind of Advocate

Ken Mehlman Is Still Funding Anti-Gay Politicians

NOM's Brian Brown: 'Mehlman abdicating core Republican beliefs' - and more on the self-outing

Welcome Out, Ken Mehlman

Mehlman '05: Activist judges 'remov[ed] a pivotal decision from the hands of voters'

On Mehlman, I'm more interested in equality than revenge

Peter LaBarbera's symbol of Biblical love and truth is all wet

 Editor's note - I actually have two posts for you this morning. Check out the post on gay adoption following this one.


Our friend Peter LaBarbera posted a video on his Americans for Truth site with the following lead in:

Authentic Christianity in action cannot hide the truth…

Molotov Mitchell of Illuminati Pictures (and WND.com) created this “For the Record” video about loving a homosexual friend enough to tell him the truth from the Bible (1 Corinthians 6). PFOX’s Greg Quinlan, a former homosexual himself, shared this video at the recent AFTAH Truth Academy.

The video is supposedly of Mitchell talking about how he "ministered" to his gay friend. You'll forgive me for not posting it. And I didn't do it to be mean.

I've looked at the video and it's nice and smarmy but I can't shake the image out of my head of ANOTHER video Mitchell made in which he defended that awful Ugandan "kill the gays bill." Now THAT video is something which should be remembered:



Mitchell goes into detail as to why he thinks Uganda is correct for pushing this bill, which goes as far as punishing gays and lesbians with the death penalty.

Amongst Mitchell's points:

The Bible is totally on Uganda's side,

Uganda is merely reacting because an "evil homosexual king, Mwanga" raped young boys and murdered a group of them who would not have sex with him (never mind that this incident took place between the years of 1885-1886),

Uganda "doesn't want to kill homosexuals, they just want them to stop practicing homosexual acts,"

If gay Ugandans don't like the law, they can leave,

and the Founding Fathers would have agreed with Ugandans. I believe his words were (at 2:51): "Ugandans are making decisions that our very Founding Fathers made so long ago but we are terrified to touch today."

But the most offensive item from this video comes at 3:00 when Mitchell actually evokes the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to justify not only this bill but his labored defense of it: "Like the great Dr. King told us, 'the moral arm of the universe is long but it bends towards justice.' Ugandans, stay on the right side of history."

Mitchell's diatribe is probably the most disgusting thing I have ever seen and the fact that he actually evokes the words of Dr. King, a man who died for the causes of justice and nonviolence, to support a bill which would create genocide is beyond foul.

And THIS GUY is LaBarbera's symbol of Biblical love and truth?


Truth Wins Out breaks down Mitchell's "love video" with the usual attention to skill.

Gay adoption in Britain gives religious right another chance to make fools of themselves

In Britain, there has been a recent incident involving gay adoption and the Catholic Church:

A Roman Catholic adoption agency has lost its fight for the right to continue its policy of refusing to place children with same-sex couples based on religious principles.

The agency, Catholic Care, saw its battle to limit its adoption services to heterosexual-only parents collapse in a ruling Thursday (August 19) by the powerful Charity Commission, an independent watchdog in England, although funded by the British government.

After a lengthy legal wrangle, the Charity Commission decreed that Charity Care's stance amounted to discrimination based on sexual orientation because it "departs from the principle of treating people equally."

Of course those opposing ruling (religious right groups and spokespeople) will trot out the same hackneyed talking points, i.e. " a child "has a right to a home with a mother and a father." But like so many things they delve into, the religious right deals in idealistic situations and not reality. The mother and father dynamic may be good in some cases, but not all cases. The fact of the matter is that there aren't enough mother and father homes for children and also, not every home with a mother and a father is a good home.

I wish these folks would say something like "a child has a right to a good home which gives him or her love and support."

But instead of that, we get distorted studies and statements like the following from the Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber.

"The goal here of the homo-fascist, anti-Christian left is both chilling and transparent -- and that goal, of course, is to push the practice of, and ultimately any reference to Christ or Christianity, off the cliff's edge," explains Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel.

Does Matt Barber think he serves any purpose other than providing the lgbt community with adequate proof of just how nasty and homophobic those on his side of the argument are?

He takes a complicated issue (adoption) and tries to simplify it into a global conspiracy on the part of the lgbt community propagated to destroy Christianity.

Does he really think that he is doing anything other than being a sort of ecclesiastical Abbott to Pete LaBarbera's Costello.

He's so over the top, I've long since stopped getting angry at whatever he says. In fact, I look forward to his stupid comments because with "enemies" like him, just who needs allies.

Editor's note - By the way, Matt. I know that you google your name and at times come by my site to read what I wrote. On the behalf of the lgbt community, I would like to say !@$* with a cherry on top.

Ugandan community speak about anti-gay bill

Breaking the Chains from Alyssa Eisenstein on Vimeo.

This video is the very essence of bravery. It is required viewing for everyone, especially those who make awful claims about the lgbt community and specifically for anyone claiming to be an lgbt activist. From Breaking The Chains:

A year ago, three American Evangelicals traveled to Uganda for a conference on “the gay agenda” to speak about curing homosexuality. The Anti-Homosexuality Bill was proposed just a few months later and introduced some of the harshest punishments in the world for homosexuals. It calls for lifetime imprisonment for all LGBT people, death to homosexuals who are HIV positive and prison for any Ugandan who fails to report LGBT Ugandans within 24 hours of the Bill passing.

Despite the security risks, Ugandan activists are raising the alarm about this human rights abuse. Recent Northwestern University graduate Alyssa Eisenstein traveled to Uganda this spring to hear from these inspiring men and women. With interviews from LGBT activists, legal and political authorities, university students, village leaders and even a traditional healer, "Breaking the Chains" profiles these activists as they tell this story in their own words. 

Hat tip to Box Turtle Bulletin.

Did Rekers 'rentboy's scandal cost Bill McCollum the election? and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Rekers Failed To Lift McCollum’s Luggage - The story of how a rentboy cost the Florida Attorney General the chance to be the state's governor.

The Ex-Gay Industry Hits The Skids - We can only hope so.

No judge left behind: Even deeply GOP Bush appointees earn 'activist' ire -Perhaps instead of railing against the alleged "homosexual agenda," the religious right should watch out for Republican appointed judges.

WaPo Endorses MD Delegate Candidate Dr. Dana Beyer - An intelligent woman whom voters would be stupid NOT to elect to office.

Jennifer Keeton Appeals Right To Be Anti-Gay Ruling - Guess who's not going away anytime soon. Ugh.

Two ways One News Now picks homophobia over accuracy

The American Family Association led phony news service One News Now seems to be on a tear about the lgbt community right now.

There are two articles in today's edition about us and both of them are slightly twisted.

The first one is about Jennifer Keeton, the Augusta State University graduate student who unsuccessfully sued the university claiming that she was forced to compromise her beliefs about homosexuality in order to receive her degree.

What it boiled down to was the fact that Keeton didn't want to read material on counseling gays nor did she want to counsel gays at all.

Of course One News Now makes her sound like a martyr:

Dr. Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America sees judicial activism in action.

"The really horrendous part is that one single judge is able to make a decision that influences so many different aspects of our culture. And we're seeing it over and over again where that judge is imposing his own personal views -- which is such a contradiction and is so ironic when this young woman's rights are being taken away from her."

The judge has placed a gag order on the case. But in an interview last month, Keeton's attorney -- David French with the Alliance Defense Fund -- said one of the elements in the remediation plan called for Keaton to attend a "gay-pride parade" and write about her feelings. He called it "ridiculous."

"She should be free from thought reform," the attorney argued. "She should be free from sensitivity training merely because she holds Christian beliefs. Just respect her First Amendment rights."

Of course the article omits the fact that during deliberations, Keeton neither testified on her own behalf nor offered up any witnesses to prove her case.

The second article involves Bradley Manning, the solider in the middle of the Wikileaks scandal.Wikileaks is a site which has displayed classified documents of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Manning, a 22-year-old soldier suspected of leaking documents to Wikileaks. He is currently awaiting court martial.

In the midst of this scandal, there is a claim, propagated by anti-gay activist Cliff Kincaid, and pushed by One News Now, that Manning is an angry gay activist who leaked information because he was angry at the military's policy on gays in the military. This was from the One News Now article from a couple of days ago:

The British newspaper Daily Telegraph first reported that Private 1st Class Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst, was not only openly homosexual but also considering a sex change. Manning could face more than 50 years in prison for passing secret documents to WikiLeaks, whose founder Julian Assange has an anti-American and anti-military bent.

But the Daily Telegraph never reported that Manning was seeking a sex change operation.

The claim about the sex change, as well as the entire narrative of Manning being "an angry gay soldier who leaked documents because he is mad at military's policy on gays and lesbians" is a concoction of Kincaid.

Today has been a slight change to One News Now's pushing of the article:

Cliff Kincaid, president of America's Survival and editor of Accuracy in Media is concerned about reports that Manning had been blatantly open about his homosexuality for more than a year and apparently held a grudge against the U.S. military because of its ban on homosexual military service. He thinks the military should have recognized that Manning was a security risk.

There is no mention of a "sex change" operation and no claim that the "Bradley Manning is an angry gay activist" narrative is being pushed by the Daily Telegraph. Nice change, but the inaccurate narrative of Manning being an angry gay soldier, i.e. a security risk, is still present.

It's a shame that One News Now feels that truth and accuracy are allowable casualties when it comes to defending the so-called opinions of God.

What the heck does Glenn Stanton know about gays and lesbians anyway?

I must be on a tear when it comes to responding to anti-gay ignorance today.

This morning it was Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America and her sad attempt to demonize lgbt households by using data having nothing to do with them.

This afternoon, it's Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family.

The point of annoyance for me is an article in today's USA Today talking about how Hollywood is  showing more lgbt characters and families.

Stanton, along with the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, is quoted as the voices who disagree with this increased visibility.

Now Fischer has a history of making asinine anti-gay comments (which unfortunately the article did not talk about) so there is a paper trail which destroys his credibility as a rational voice on the matter.

But Stanton is a bit more problematic. He tries to make himself sound reasonable but comes across as insulting:

"When actual gay and lesbian weddings are shown on TV (as in news coverage), we win. When they're shown through the lens and creativity and artifice of Hollywood, we don't. Hollywood is succeeding, but they're doing so by not representing reality."

First of all, Stanton's statement is gibberish. Secondly, as far as I know, Stanton is not gay so the question has to be just who is he to decide what is reality when it comes to the lgbt community.

Furthermore, I really don't understand the USA Today can push him as an expert when he has clearly gone on record saying the following:

I don't know of anyone who has referred to me as an "expert" on homosexuality. I have never referred to myself on this, simply because I am not. But I would describe myself as an expert on the issue of same-sex marriage. I have published a book and had many of my articles on the subject republished in numerous mainstream volumes.

I don't mind being critiqued, but at least get it right.

Apparently part of Stanton's "expertise" on same sex marriage is to push inaccurate data on the lgbt community like he did in his piece Why Homosexuality Falls Short of the Ideal.

This piece,  Stanton not only cites the work of the discredited Paul Cameron (via secondhand through Thomas Schmidt) but he also says the following:

In addition, because of the extremely high rate of incidence among homosexuals, a group of rare intestinal diseases have been grouped together under the title "gay bowel syndrome."

There is no such thing as "gay bowel sydrome." In the late 70s, there was a belief that there a series of intestinal disorders which was supposedly related to male sexual activity. However as time went on, it was discovered that the problems that made up "gay bowel syndrome" were not specific to homosexuals, not confined to just the bowels, nor did the term itself meet the medical definition of a syndrome.

There are a myriad of cases where this term has been expunged from usage in various places from the New York Times to the National Institutes of Health.

However, people like Stanton, i.e. phony religious right experts, continue to push the term to the ignorant and unassuming.

But that is the crux of the religious right's war on lgbt America. It's not enough for them to have a negative view of the lgbt community. They seek to force that view on society, even if it means beating back the voices of the lgbt community.

It's pretty much the equivalent of allowing a Klansman to dictate the public images of the African-American community.

Hat tip to People for the American Way.