Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
Boehner's DOMA lawyers have withdrawn from the case - Hot damn! This is huge! What caused them to drop the case? The news of the $500,000 cost? The "vetting process?" Or maybe us "mean, nasty, pushy homosexuals." One guess whom the religious right, especially NOM is going to blame.
Reactions to the news - And reactions to the decision, courtesy of Pam's House Blend.
American Experience to focus on the Stonewall Uprising - The event that gave birth to the modern lgbt equality movement. This should be required viewing for everyone especially our young lgbts. Know your history, boys and girls!
Reports are coming out that Eddie Long, pastor of the megachurch New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, is close to settling a case with four young men who filed a lawsuit last year claiming that he coerced them into sexual relationships.
This comes months after Long made a huge announcement in front of his congregation that he intends to fight charges:
Judge Johnny Panos said lengthy negotiations might soon bring the civil lawsuit involving New Birth Missionary Baptist Church Bishop Eddie Long to a close. Long has denied the allegations. Panos said Friday that lawyers for both sides began meeting Monday and have spent a total of more than 60 hours in face-to-face negotiations.
The irony of this entire thing is, of course, the fact that Long is known for speaking out publicly against lgbt equality, especially marriage equality. According to blogger Rod2.0Beta:
In addition to being one of the nation's most prominent pastors, Long is also among the most vocal critics of gay rights and same-sex marriage in the Black church. In December 2004, one month after voters approved an amendment to the Georgia state Constitution that banned gay marriage, Long led a 25,000 person march against gay rights and marriage equality.
And according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Long has also been very vocal in expressing his anti-gay opinions:
"Men can look attractive when they are dirty," writes Bishop Eddie Long in his 1997 book I Don't Want Delilah, I Need You! "We see sweating, dirty, hardworking men on television all the time and we say to one another, 'There's a macho guy.'"
Despite this affinity for sweaty, macho men, Long is one of the most virulently homophobic black leaders in the religiously based anti-gay movement. His book, subtitled What a Woman Needs to Know, What a Man Needs to Understand, appeared in the midst of a roaring growth period for Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Ga., near Atlanta. During the mid-'90s, it swelled to over 18,000 congregation members, men and women who worship in a multimillion-dollar complex that's the size of most major universities, spread out on 240 acres of land.
Much of what appears in I Don't Want Delilah was espoused in the videotaped "Back to the Future” sermon Long gave when his church was still small.
"It is the most unattractive thing I have ever seen, when I see women wearing uniforms that men would wear, and women fighting to get in the military!" Long shouted to his congregation then. "The woman gets perverted to turn towards woman … and everybody knows it's dangerous to enter an exit! And everybody knows, lady, if you go to the store and buy these devices [marital aids], it's Memorex! It ain't real!"
Even if there is a settlement, this will no doubt leave a huge stigma that will no doubt follow Long for the rest of his ministerial career.
Whatever the case may be, there is one good thing about this entire hot mess. I seriously DOUBT that Long will be saying stuff like the following for a loooooong time:
Maggie Gallagher, National Organization for Marriage
Editor's note - This is a repost of a February piece I wrote regarding Maggie Gallagher and NOM. I am presenting it again because it needed to be updated and also we need to be reminded of Gallagher and NOM's duplicity.
These days, it's relatively easy to be a talking head on news programs.
Just find some sucker with a lot of money willing to fund you, created an organization with an important sounding name, give yourself an important sounding but meaningless title (senior fellow, research analyst, president, etc.), and they'll practically be beating at your door.
An incident recently on Fox News more than demonstrates that point. Not long after Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama Administration would no longer defend DOMA, Fox News personality (you really don't think I'm going to call her a journalist, do you) Megyn Kelly had National Organization for Marriage head Maggie Gallagher on her show to whine about how evil this decision is for families.
Of course Gallagher's definition of families never seems to include lgbt families, leaving a lot of people out.
Nevertheless, Kelly allowed Gallagher to push her usual silly talking points, including one about how gays are inaccurately being compared to black people in terms of civil rights.
I sincerely hope that in discussing the DOMA decision - and hopefully this piece - no one falls for the divide and conquer technique of this person - Gallagher - who cares as much about the black community as she does the lgbt community.
And that level of care is zero.
What Gallagher and Kelly did were evasive tactics, much like other tactics Gallagher seems to have mastered when talking about gay marriage. Give her five minutes and she will try to pivot the conversation from the same-sex households negatively affected by her activism to how she and others like her are supposedly unfairly called "bigots" for supposedly simply trying to "protect marriage."
Okay, let go on that angle. Let's break down the acts of Gallagher and NOM and pose the question - are these the acts of a bigoted, homophobic organization or people simply trying to "defend marriage:"
June 14, 2010 - National Organization for Marriage: Gays Were Never Hunted Down and Murdered Like 'Jews, Christians, and Blacks' - NOM is found to be affiliated with Louis J. Marinelli during its failed summer for marriage tour. Amongst other things, Marinelli claims that gays want to molest children. When Marinelli's words became public, NOM claimed that the organization had no affiliation with Marinelli. However certain links posted as an update to the story demonstrated that NOM did have an affiliation with Marinelli. Editor's note - earlier this month, Marinelli disavowed his work with NOM as well as many of the things he said in the past about lgbt. He is now a supporter of marriage equality.
In all honesty, I don't believe that the entire tea party movement is racist. I believe it's a naive movement which allowed itself to be co-opted by the wealthy powers that be, but that's another argument entirely.
What I do believe, however, is that the tea party movement houses vindictively racist elements who can't get over the fact that an African-American is president or that the United States is becoming more multicultural. I also believe that those who have sense in the tea party movement know this but are afraid to admit so for fear that it would reduce the credibility of their entire movement.
However, this video speaks for itself. This is an authentic teabagger, Grady Warren, griping about how unfair it is to brand the tea party movement as racist. However, I don't think his argument will fly when you listen to what he has to say. If you can listen to the entire piece, then you deserve an award.
As much as I hate to remind folks, this video was done before the 2010 midterms, where thanks in part to folks like Warren, the Republican Party took over the House of Representatives and several state governorships. So any thing that's happening now, i.e. the problems with unions in Wisconsin, the Republican Party trying to make Medicare into a voucher system, insane anti-abortion legislation, is solely on the shoulders of folks like Warren.
See what happens when reasonable people don't vote like they should.
Big hat tip to a Facebook friend of mine of who pointed out this video.
To those who claim that an actor playing a gay character is a career kiss of death, I present Exhibit A of how wrong you are.
My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) is a stunning movie on so many levels. It came out in 1985 - a time when lgbt affirming movies were rare.
It featured an interracial relationship between middle class Pakistani man (Gordon Warnecke) and working class white man (Daniel Day-Lewis) in 1980s Great Britain.
Warnecke is tasked with taking a run down laundrette and making success out it during the backdrop of Britain's international politics and conflicts between whites and Pakistanis.Lewis decides to help him.
Now the beauty of the relationship between the two, as far as I'm concerned, is the fact that it was already in existence when the film begins.
And another thing is how the film doesn't shy away from showing the two being affectionate - and not in a gritty, "we gotta have sex before we explode" manner, but in a loving, realistic way.
Lastly - and you know I have to reveal this - the movie has a happy ending.
Now about that idea that playing a gay character is the" kiss of death," if that were the case, Daniel Day-Lewis's career would have been over when this movie came out.
But as it is, he is one of the most acclaimed actors in Hollywood today with two Oscars under his belt. This isn't surprising when viewing My Beautiful Laundrette. Lewis's talent shines through big time.
The following clip are scenes from the movie featuring Warnecke's and Lewis's characters. Check this movie out. It's a good one:
Part of the National Organization for Marriage's game plan is to exploit the "gays are angry bullies who are threatening Christians" angle. Go to their blog (if your stomach can take it) and you will see this angle consistently repeated.
Or better yet, listen to a speech or read something written by NOM chairperson Maggie Gallagher and count how many times the word "bigot" comes up. Or "racism." Or "hatred."
You can almost make a drinking game out of it.
It is a deliberate attempt by Gallagher and NOM to shift attention away from the same-sex families who are discriminated against because they aren't allowed to marry.
And it's like I said in another piece - when you can paint your opponent in less than flattering light, it helps you win the battle.
The thing about the lgbt community is that those who oppose our equality make it easy for us by their words and actions to paint them in a less than flattering light (even though sometimes we don't take advantage of it.)
However, it's not that easy for NOM to do the same to us since - even though a lot of us are angry at the basic dishonest of the group and its tactics - the lgbt community doesn't tend to go off the deep end like a Peter LaBarbera or Matt Barber.
So NOM has to lie, just like it did regarding the encounter Gallagher had with a member of GetEqual before last week's Congressional hearing on DOMA.
To hear the story from Brian Brown, NOM's President, Gallagher faced the equivalent of a rabid wolf (I took the liberty of highlighting the pertinent phrases below):
Just before testifying . . . Maggie was accosted by a similarly angry gay marriage advocate who wanted to get an "ambush" interview and engage in a little fire and brimstone moral condemnation of Maggie for standing up for marriage.
Now, folks don't usually publish "ambush videos" made by the other side on their own website or newsletter, but I think Maggie did such a wonderful, graceful job of responding to this one angry dude that I want you to see it and judge for yourself.
The video Brown is speaking about is Get Equal's Michael Dixon presenting Gallagher with the "Anita Bryant" award for her part in trying to stop marriage equality.
But as Brown says, look at the video:
Vicious, just vicious. Dixon looks like he is ready to hit Gallagher with a pair of brass knuckles. And by saying that, I am being highly sarcastic.
Angry dude? I don't think so. Seems to me that the only person who got angry on that tape was Gallagher.
Granted, I'm not one for a tactic like this. However in this case, it was very useful not only unnerving Gallagher (she was forced to republish an old piece on lgbt teen suicides as a way of diverting the conversation from what Dixon asked her about), but also in showcasing the absolute phoniness of NOM's game plan.
Painting Dixon as an "angry dude" is not only a stretch, it's a blatant lie. But for NOM, it's par for the course.
Related post:
NOM wants to paint LGBT ‘crazy’ (I can prove it) - According to former NOM member Louis J. Marinelli, the attempt to paint the lgbt community as angry people is a standard NOM tactic. Marinelli says Brown specifically asks for pictures showing lgbts in a negative light.
