Bigot's anti-gay press conference fails and other Tuesday midday news briefs

What happened at Rev. Lou Sheldon’s press conference opposing the FAIR Education Act - Hate group leader (Traditional Values Coalition being the group) has a HUGE fail of a press conference.

Video: An 'ex-gay' pushing governor? Better know your candidates, NH! - Pushing someone who support "ex-gay" crap as New Hampshire's governor? How nauseating.

Timothy Dolan Claims He’s Not Anti-Gay, Compares Same-Sex Marriage To ‘Polygamy, Adultery, Forced Marriage’ - Uh Mr. Dolan . . . I got news for ya. Comparing marriage equality to adultery, polygamy, and forced marriage DOES make you anti-gay.

Related post - Will the Catholic Church declare war on Obama over gay equality?

Land: Gay Activists Seek Full-Blown "Sexual Paganization Of Society" - Okay, who told him? Can't us gays stop revealing "our plans?"

Hate group angry at Republican for wanting to repeal DOMA

The anti-gay hate group, the Family Research Council is furious that a Republican in Congress is co-sponsoring a bill which would repeal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act).

On Friday, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) became the first Republican to co-sponsor the legislation that would repeal DOMA and yesterday, FRC attacker her position, claiming that she is harming children:

Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R) has joined the dark side by becoming the first Republican to co-sponsor bills that boost counterfeit marriage while effectively closing down most Christian adoption services.

. . . What the Stark/Ros-Lehtinen bill, (deceptively named "The Every Child Deserves a Family Act") would do is shutter Christian adoption agencies nationwide, despite the large number of lives these organizations impact. Put in a dramatic but truthful way, supporters of the bill would rather see orphans kept without parents than to see them placed in loving homes with a mother and father!

Of course FRC fails to mention that the problem is that these "Christian adoption agencies" receive tax dollars while specifically barring gays from adopting children - a position having to do more with religious beliefs than with actualities. And it's not that these agencies are "forced" to close down, it's that they refuse to function without these tax dollars.

But the most ironic statement with FRC's attack is the following:

The GOP leadership has done a lot to protect marriage, mostly by appointing a top-notch lawyer to defend DOMA . . .

FRC omits the fact that this "top-notch" lawyer (Paul Clement) has been called to the carpet by Democratic legislators for his use of junk science in defending DOMA.

In all honesty, however, seeing that FRC itself is no slouch when it comes to utilizing junk science, maybe not mentioning that Clement is doing the same is an "innocent oversight."

Democratic lawmakers not happy with Boehner's DOMA defense

Hot damn! This is BIG!:

Democratic lawmakers don't like the "harmful and unreasonable arguments" being used by House speaker John Boehner's lawyer to keep the Defense of Marriage Act on the books.

A contingent from Congress, including all four of the gay members, wrote to Boehner demanding a chance to confront the lawyer with what they say is "discredited" and "biased" research on homosexuality that was used in a legal brief representing Congress in court.

 . . .several Democrats — Tammy Baldwin, David Cicilline, John Conyers, Barney Frank, Jerrold Nadler, and Jared Polis — say Clement doesn't represent them or even the scientists he cites in his legal arguments.

 . . . They cite, for example, professor Lisa Diamond's complaint that Boehner's lawyer has "completely misrepresented my research." A lot has changed since DOMA was passed 15 years ago, they say, but Clement's ideas on why it should remain "do not withstand the test of time or scrutiny."

The representatives are asking Boehner, for the second time, to grant them a briefing about the case so they can hear more about a court strategy they say isn't based in fact.   

Why is this big? Because a while back, not only did Diamond complain that Clement was distorting her work, but at the same time, I published a post clearly showing that Clement was also using junk science and bad studies in his defense of DOMA.

In his defense of DOMA, Clement cites the work of Case Western Reserve University law professor George W. Dent, Jr.

But Dent's work - which Clement uses -  cited both Paul Cameron and George Rekers, two discredited researchers. Cameron has been censured or rebuked by several organizations for his bad methodology in his studies and Rekers lost a lot of credibility for last year's scandal when he was caught coming from a European vacation with a "rentboy."

Also, Dent cited the work of Walter Schumm's study Children of Homosexuals More Apt To Be Homosexuals? A Reply to Morrison and to Cameron Based on an Examination of Multiple Sources of Data.

Schumm's study was criticized for using the same false methodology as Cameron's work. i.e. citing sources "from general-audience books about LGBT parenting and families, most of which are available on Amazon.com"

Furthermore, Dent cited a book called Straight & Narrow by Thomas E. Schmidt to make criticisms about gay health. However, Schmidt is not a credible researcher in the field of gay health. He is a professor of New Testament Greek at Westmont College in Santa Barbara and according to Rev. Mel White of the group Soulforce, Schmidt cited Cameron's discredited studies many times in Straight & Narrow (5th letter to Jerry Falwell.)

And last, but not least, Dent cited the work of the American College of Pediatricians. The American College of Pediatricians is not a credible organization, but an organization created to give credibility to junk science about the gay community. Last year, over 14,000 school district superintendents in the country were sent a letter by ACP inviting them to peruse and use information from a new site, Facts About Youth. The site claimed to present "facts" supposedly not tainted by "political correctness."  Of course these were not facts, but ugly distortions about the gay community, including:

Some gay men sexualize human waste, including the medically dangerous practice of coprophilia, which means sexual contact with highly infectious fecal wastes

As for now, it is not known how or if Boehner will respond to the Democratic legislators. But still, their actions of questioning Boehner on the material that his lawyer is using is a good thing because it puts a spotlight on the distortions those on the right use to defend anti-gay laws.

And it's about time. 

President Obama condemns booing of gay soldier and other Monday midday news briefs

Obama: Booing of Gay Soldier 'Not Reflective of Who We Are' - Thank you, Mr. President.

Toledo Pastor Erects 9 Gay-Hating Billboards, Says He Loves Everyone - Cause we all know that it's not The Church's duty to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and provide comfort, but waste a bunch of money on anti-gay billboards.

NEW YORK: Gov. Andrew Cuomo Signs Landmark Bill Aiding LGBT Seniors - Way to go, Gov. Cuomo.

Retailers Are Put on the Spot Over Anti-Gay Aid - I like what the Southern Poverty Law Center said about this - "Calling out groups for their hatred isn't offensive. Claiming bigotry as a Biblical value is."

Rep. Ros-Lehtinen’s Opposition To DOMA May Be Guided By Personal Experience, Transgender Son - Fascinating piece on Republican representative who opposes DOMA.

Bigot - gays are winning 'culture war' and taking prisoners

Scott Lively

"Many Christians are only now awakening to the seriousness of the threat to our society posed by the homosexual movement. But, unfortunately for us all, it is only the sounding of the victory trumpets by "gay" activists that has stirred Christians from their slumber. The watchman's walls have been broken and breached, the village is in flames, and triumphal "gay" culture warriors are leading a long string of young prisoners by their necks into the woods. Most disturbingly, many of the captives, including some of the children of these still sleepy-eyed Christian parents, seem happy to go."

The above ramblings is paranoid homophobic bigotry of the highest order. And it would be hilarious except when one realizes who it is coming from.

Scott Lively, head of the SPLC-declared hate group Abiding Truth Ministries and author of the discredited piece of garbage, The Pink Swatiska (a book claiming that gays were responsible for Hitler's Nazi Party), wrote the piece which appeared last week in World Net Daily.

And it is pretty much the same vein of trash which Lively has made a living in declaring - i.e. claiming that gays are secretly plotting to take over America, "indoctrinate children," and cause all sorts of mayhem.

It's the same trash one would hear from folks like Matt Barber and Peter LaBarbera, except for one thing. As odious as LaBarbera and Barber are, neither person has the death of an innocent on their heads.

Don't believe Santorum's claim about not hearing the audience boo the gay soldier

There continues to be so much fall out from the recent Republican presidential debate in which the candidates stood by and said nothing while members of the audience booed a gay solder. The gay soldier was merely asking will the candidates make it harder for folks like him to serve openly in the military in spite of the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Now a few candidates, John Huntsman and Gary Johnson,  have gone on record saying that they thought the booing was inappropriate. Others, such as Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney, have dodged responding to the controversy. But one candidate, Rick Santorum, really stepped into it with his answer:

“I didn’t hear it. I didn’t hear the boos,” Santorum told ABC News. “I heard the question and answered the question, so I’ve heard subsequently that happened. I’ve heard varied reports about whether they were booing the soldier or the policy.”

“I don’t know what they were booing,” he said. “If you can go out and find the people who were booing and find out if they were booing because a man was gay or because of a policy they don’t agree with.”

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson simply isn't buying Santorum's explanation:

Johnson added that he could hear the boos from the stage and believes that the other candidates – despite Santorum’s denial – could as well.

Frankly, I don't buy Santorum's explanation either. And even though Santorum later went on record condemning the boos, I think the entire situation reveals something about his character; or lack thereof.

Folks like Santorum claim that they are ridiculed because they believe in "values" and "morality" in a society in which such things are not trendy.

But that's a lie. Folks like Santorum are ridiculed because so many of us don't buy their chest thumpings and phony martyrdom. You see folks like Santorum talk a good game when they can attack other people and call other people's values into suspect. But when it comes down to showing a little integrity, little humility or - in this case - a little honesty, they fail miserably.

To them, Christianity is merely a pedestal to place themselves above others. Christianity is merely a club used to bash others. Christianity is like a barrier which separates them from those of us they consider "untouchables" or the "undesirables" who shall never - at least in their minds - be seen at the same level as them.

But it's always about actions, never words. And  Santorum's actions in this situation - claiming that he did not hear the boos of the audience - is an outrageous lie.

In other words, Rick my friend, many of us don't like you because you are a hypocrite and a liar.

Frank Turek is a liar

The National Organization for Marriage has began a new project which it calls Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance. This project will spotlight folks who are the supposed victims of imaginary gay intolerance:

“If you have been threatened, harassed, or made to feel afraid because you believe in the great, foundational truth of Genesis –we are born male and female and called to come together in love to give children mothers and fathers—Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is here to help you: you are not alone.

We want to hear your story, connect you with others who share your deepest beliefs, with legal and other practical help, and with other Americans of good will, who (regardless of their views on marriage) want to put a stop to the shaming and the fearmongering of our fellow citizens. The goal of the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is to create a supportive community for those who have been threatened for standing for marriage, to nip the climate of fear being created in the bud, to expose for fair-minded Americans on both sides of the debate the threats being made, to conduct high-quality qualitative and quantitative research documenting the extent of the harm, to develop legislative and community proposal to protect Americans right to engage in the core civil rights: to organize, to vote, to speak, to donate, and to write for marriage.

Isolated and alone, we can be suppressed and intimidated. Together we are too many to be treated as second-class citizens.“

In other words, this group will exploit controversies to create new religious right cause celebres who have been supposedly victimized because of their "morality" and push them hard on the American public before the truth comes out that these folks are not victims but individuals who think that their beliefs regarding homosexuality should shield them for normal consequences of acting like homophobic fools.

And first up in the MADA spotlight is a man called Frank Turek. Turek was consultant who lost several lucrative gigs because of his sidework of denigrating the gay community. Take the following video with a grain of salt.



Turek makes himself sound like a pitiful victim. I am of the belief that private companies - who employ gays - have every right to pick and choose who they have as consultants. Some may disagree.

But what we cannot disagree with is the simple fact that Turek is being highly misleading. He makes it seem that his dismissals and inability to get gigs is due to his stance on gay marriage. But he omits the time when he:

said that gays and "radical Muslims are teaming up to destroy Western Civilization because they hate "Judeo-Christian natural law"



Or the time he compared homosexuality to alcoholism and pedophilia:

[B]eing born a certain way is irrelevant to what the law should be. Laws are concerned with behaviors not desires, and we all have desires we ought not act on. In fact, all of us were born with an “orientation” to bad behavior, but those desires don’t justify the behaviors. If you are born with a genetic predisposition to alcohol, does that mean you should be an alcoholic? If you have a genetic attraction to children does that mean you should be a pedophile? What homosexual activist would say that a genetic predisposition to anger justifies gay-bashing? (Don’t blame me—I was born with the anti-gay gene!) Certainly, those that oppose alcoholism, pedophilia and gay bashing are not “bigots”—they are wise.

Or the time he compared gays to sociopaths and gay bashers:



 The question is why didn't Turek - or NOM for that matter - mention his other comments on the video.

But the real fact of the matter is this - Turek has every right to speak his mind, but no company is bound to hire him, particularly if the company has lgbtq employees.

Furthermore, if Turek had said the same awful comments about African-Americans or people of the Jewish faith, we would not be having this conversation.

Is Turek a victim of "gay intolerance?" No. He is a liar who tries to make himself out to be a victim. And he is a man who seems to think that he should be shielded from the normal consequences of being a homophobic bigot - i.e. ostracization from the job market.