'Porno' Pete LaBarbera is back again with funny photos of gays

Peter LaBarbera

Rabid anti-gay spokesman and hate group leader Peter LaBarbera has partly returned to the very thing which made him infamous - snapping pictures of gays and lesbians allegedly doing "naughty things" and posting them on his webpage as proof of the so-called gay agenda to harm children and corrupt values.

He hadn't done this in a while because of much deserved derision he received from all sides of the argument over gay equality (conservative and liberal) over his tendency to attend subcultural events such as leather festivals and take pictures of gays allegedly indulging in all sorts of lurid behaviors while ignoring the heterosexuals also in attendance.

Some folks have played armchair psychiatrists in their attempts to guess his motives behind such an obsession in gays and leather. And he was given the nickname of "Porno Pete."

So apparently LaBabera pulled back from this sort of thing for a while. Now, however, he has returned with a new bent. Supposedly, he attended Philadelphia’s Gay Pride Parade and “PrideDay”festival Sunday, June 10, 2012 and observed all sorts of interesting things there.

I should tell you, however, that the pictures - saving one - are relatively tame in comparison to the stuff LaBarbera used to publish. I  mean we are talking about a man who once published a close up photo of anal warts on someone's rear in an attempt to smear the gay community. But what makes it all funny are the captions LaBarbera uses in an attempt to make the photos seem more lurid than they really are.

For example:

Sadomasochist man in a gown of sorts marches along 7th Street in Philadelphia carrying "Leather Pride" black-and-blue flag. The man to his left is carrying a "Bear Pride" flag. "Bear" is slang for heavier, hairy homosexual men.

Sounds freaky, doesn't it? But check out the photo and ask yourself, does it really match the words:

It's a man in a homemade camouflage dress and while I doubt it would be a huge hit at the Oscars, it's hardly brings up images of whips, chains, and candle wax on the nipples.

And then there is what I like to call the bait and switch photo:

LaBabera says this about TLA:

PORN BOOTH - A banner at the booth for TLA, a distributor of homosexual pornographic videos, offers a "Gay Adult DVD" in its "TLAgaypack" goodie bag for PrideDay attendees.

I don't know the truth about what LaBarbera is claiming (it's interesting that he doesn't even take a picture of the so-called goodie bag), I do know that TLA sells other things besides pornographic movies. The company also sells mainstream movies and gay themed regular movies. 

What a pity that we don't know what was actually on TLA's table during the festival because LaBarbera didn't post any pictures of that either. How convenient.

LaBarbera may have actually struck some type of gold with this next photo:

He said the following:

Go-go boys grind to the music on a float in the Philly homosexual "Pride" parade. Young children both participated in the same parade and watched it from the side streets.

A photo taken of two men dancing can reveal a lot of things, but then it can also give a pretty false image. I don't see anything wrong with it, but I find it interesting that LaBarbera was so shocked by these men dancing that he chose to post two pictures of it. I wonder just how many pictures of these two men dancing did he take?

Now I won't post the last photo because it is extremely lurid. You can see it on LaBarbera webpage (and when you see it, you will know what I'm talking about), however, based upon his description of it, the subject in question may not have been a part of the festival:

The large poster drawing of a naked man wearing a condom was visible from afar at the Penn’s Landing ‘Pride” festival. There was NO warning at this booth that it was off-limits to children, but even if there was, young children would still see this inappropriate poster.

Is it just me or is LaBarbera starting to get boring. I almost miss the old Porno Pete.

Surely there must be another leather festival somewhere.

How much was NOM involved in creation and pushing of anti-gay parenting study?

Maggie Gallagher

A new article in The Huffington Post raises more questions regarding that recent study claiming that children in homes with gay parents have more negative outcomes than those with heterosexual parents.

The study, created by University of Texas professor Mark Regnerus, has caused a lot of controversy because of questions regarding its methodology. In addition, Regnerus has said repeatedly that the study does not establish a relation between same-sex parenting and negative outcomes.

But The Huffington Post article, authored by Andy Birkey of The American Independent, not only looks at those involved in the study's creation and promoting, but also makes the claim that the study's creation and usage may have been a part of an internal plan by the anti-gay group, The National Organization for Marriage:

The use of Regnerus' study by NOM and its allies aligns closely with the organization's 2009 internal strategy documents that were released in court filings earlier this year.

NOM outlined what it called its "Expert Witness Project," an effort to "identify and nurture a worldwide community of highly credentialed intellectuals and professional scholars, physicians, psychiatrists, social workers, and writers to credential our concerns and to interrupt the silencing that takes place in the academy around gay marriage and related family issues." According to NOM, "Marriage as the union of husband and wife has deep grounding in human nature, and is supported by serious social science."

This is the same infamous internal strategy documents which got NOM into trouble because in it, the organization talked about plans of playing the African-American and gay community against one another on the subject of marriage equality.

When it comes to Regnerus's study, several other things Birkey points out should raise eyebrows as to how close those involved with NOM was also involved with funding and promoting the study:

The study was funded by the Witherspoon Institute with a grant totaling $695,000. The Witherspoon Institute is a conservative think tank founded by prominent Catholic intellectuals Luis Tellez and Robert George. George, a professor at Princeton University, also sits on the board of the Bradley Foundation, which gave Regnerus another $90,000 for the study.

Groups closely connected to the Witherspoon Institute and Bradley Foundation touted the study last week as evidence that gay parenting poses risks for children, and that intact, opposite-sex couples make the best parents.

The National Organization for Marriage, which was co-founded by George and shares several board members with the Witherspoon Institute, devoted five blog posts to the study the week it was released.

NOM reprinted part of an article from the conservative Washington Times on the study as well as an article by NOM's other co-founder, Maggie Gallagher.

NOM blogged about an article and an editorial on the study published by the Deseret News, which is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. George serves on that paper's "editorial advisory board."

Then he points out how statewide groups affiliated with NOM are conveniently using the study:

Minnesota for Marriage, a group campaigning for a state constitutional amendment barring same-sex marriage, said the study showed "risks" to children of same-sex couples.

"New study suggests risks from same-sex parenting. '...empirical claim that no notable differences exist must go,'" the group said on Twitter.

And on Facebook, the group wrote, "New, highly respected, rigorous study shows that 'the empirical claim that no notable differences exist must go.'"

Preserve Marriage Washington, a group working to repeal Washington's recent law making same-sex marriage legal, took to Facebook to promote the study.

"Kids are in no way better off," Protect Marriage Washington wrote. "A new study on same-sex parenting by Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas was released yesterday."

On Facebook, Protect Marriage Maine -- which is opposing a ballot initiative that would legalize same-sex marriage -- posted an infographic created by the Washington Times along with a quote from Regnerus.

NOM has close ties to all three of these state groups.

Birkey also points out how Gallagher of NOM and other groups associated with the organization have pushing the study:

Gallagher has been especially active in promoting the study, writing three posts about it on the website of the conservative National Review.  She penned a column for the conservative Town Hall under the headline, "The Gay Murphy Brown Effect."

Gallagher's Culture War Victory Fund, which was incubated at the American Principles Project, a group founded by Robert George in 2009, promoted the same articles that NOM did on its blog.

Another NOM-connected group, the Love and Fidelity Network, also promoted the study.

The Love and Fidelity Network shares an office with the Witherspoon Institute. Gallagher and George, the founders of NOM, are on the Network's advisory board. Luis Tellez, who founded the Witherspoon Institute with George, is also on the advisory board of the Love and Fidelity Network.

For its part, the Witherspoon Institute wrote a lengthy analysis of Regnerus' study under the headline, "The Kids Aren't All Right: New Family Structures and the 'No Differences' Claim."

The Witherspoon Institute also launched a website featuring Regnerus' data.

Regenrus continues to say that the study's funders had nothing to do with its outcome.

We don't know the truth about that, one way or the other.

But what we do know is this:

• In 2009, an organization dedicated to stopping marriage equality (NOM) creates a strategy which calls for the creation of "expert witnesses" and "research" to use against marriage equality. 

• Two years later, a study comes out funded with big bucks by conservative organizations (the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation) which has NOM's founder and chairman emeritus (Robert George) on their boards.

• NOM then pushes the study heavily through several posts on its blog and other publications (The National Review and Town Hall. It also funnels the study through several statewide and national organizations that it is connected with. One of these groups (The Love and Fidelity Network) just happens to share an office with the Witherspoon Foundation, one of the study's funders.

• Another publication which has NOM's founder and chairman emeritus (Robert George - he is on the board of both organizations who funded the study) on its board (Deseret News) writes an article and an editorial praising the study.

• The Witherspoon Institute - one of the study's funders  - writes a lengthy, and positive, analysis of the study and creates a webpage about it.

Regardless of what Regnerus may say, there are too many fingers in the bowl, so to speak, for folks to take his word at face value when it comes the objectivity of his study.

More questions need to asked to and definitely answered by Regnerus and those involved with NOM.

'GoProud taken to task for dumb Romney endorsement' and other Thursday midday news briefs

Dan Savage, my friend, slurring GoProud and allowing them to play the victim for endorsing Mitt Romney is NOT how you bring your point across. THIS is how you do it:



In other news:

 BREAKING: House GOP Leaders Will Ask Supreme Court By the End of June to Take DOMA Appeal - After losing FOUR cases in court in their attempt to defend that awful Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), House leaders seem to be begging the Supreme Court to put them out of their misery. 

 US State Dept Voices “Deep Concerns” About Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill - Remember that awful "Kill The Gays" bill in Uganda? It's not dead yet. 

 Shocker: Vast majority of Minn. For Marriage cash comes from Catholic conference, MFC, NOM - From the Department of No Shit, Sherlock. 

Jim Daly Claims Satan is Behind Push for Same-Sex Marriage - That very, very small bit of credibility Focus on the Family had when compared to groups like the Family Research Council just flew out of the window. 

Religious right suffering from 'gay on the brain' when it come to the military

Is it just me or do some members of the religious right think everything is a part of a gay conspiracy?

Witness this bizarre grouping together of two different issues having absolutely nothing to do with each other:

The Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty says it's a sad state of affairs when the U.S. military decides Bibles are out but "gay pride" is in.

The publishing arm of the Southern Baptist Convention reported last week that its Bibles will no longer display the official insignia of U.S. military branches. The Pentagon had originally granted permission in 2003, but withdrew that last year because of a complaint and legal threat from anti-Christian crusader Mikey Weinstein and his Military Religious Freedom Foundation.

. . . One day after the publisher's announcement regarding military insignia on Bibles, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the military will honor the contributions of homosexual service members as part of "Gay Pride Month." Crews urges people of faith to stand firm.

"Evangelical soldiers, airmen, Marines, they're going to have to make some courageous stands right now to say to their commanders, 'Sir, I cannot participate in this type of ceremony because we believe this is a celebration of something that God's Word is clear about defining as wrong,'" he tells OneNewsNow.

According to Crews, such actions came about only because a lame-duck Congress forced the radical homosexual agenda on the military when it repealed the 1993 law banning homosexuals from serving in the armed forces.

So the removal of military insignias off of Bibles and the decision to honor gay military service members is connected because of THE CONSPIRACY by President Obama and the former Democratic-led Congress to destroy the military and thereby the United States by forcing heterosexual service members to hold ceremonies to honor gay and lesbian service members so that they are recruited in these ceremonies to a homosexual lifestyle.

Apparently the military insignias on the Bibles created a force field which made heterosexual soldiers impervious to the sly come-ons by members of the gay community, come-ons which they will receive at these Gay Pride ceremonies, which now thanks to Weinstein, they are susceptible to.

Or something like that.

Southern Baptist Convention doesn't know the meaning of the word 'irony'

Yesterday, the Southern Baptist Convention recently elected its first African-American president.

From The Washington Post:

When the Southern Baptist Convention met Tuesday, it elected its first African American president, Fred Luter Jr., a former street preacher and current pastor of a church in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward.

Luter’s election marks a watershed moment for the SBC. The organization was founded in a split over slavery before the Civil War and for decades was a largely segregated, all-white denomination. It was not until 1995 that the organization adopted a resolution of racial reconciliation; it has come under scrutiny for racial insensitivity as recently as the Trayvon Martin case, when the president of its policy arm made racially charged comments about the case.

But the election of Luter will not be, at least primarily, about fixing the sins of the past. Rather, it will be about the future of an organization that has seen declining membership for five straight years. The denomination—the largest Protestant body in the United States—will need to seek new growth from urban centers and minority groups, or at the very least, maintain its size by helping struggling churches find ways to stay afloat. “I think they thought racial diversity would happen,” Ed Stetzer, the president of the SBC’s research organization, told the Associated Press. “Now they realize they have to make it happen,” he said.

I would probably applaud the SBC except for the following from The Associated Press:

 A day after electing their first African-American president, Southern Baptists were considering a resolution Wednesday opposing the idea that gay rights are the same as civil rights.

The resolution up for a vote at the denomination's annual meeting in New Orleans affirms Southern Baptists' beliefs that marriage is "the exclusive union of one man and one woman" and that "all sexual behavior outside of marriage is sinful."

It acknowledges that gays and lesbians sometimes experience "unique struggles" but declares that they lack the "distinguishing features of classes entitled to special protections."

"It is regrettable that homosexual rights activists and those who are promoting the recognition of 'same-sex marriage' have misappropriated the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement," the resolution states.

So let me get this correct.  An organization (the Southern Baptist Convention) which started over the question of slavery - it was for it -  and was heavily segregated during the Civil Rights Movement has now its first black leader and but is also presently thinking about passing a resolution accusing gays of  misappropriating the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement; a movement started in part because folks like the people in the Southern Baptist Convention justified the treating of black people as inferiors.

The irony boggles the mind, but it does justify an old saying.

You can't put a new auto body around a crappy engine and expect it to perform.

'GoProud sells out gay community for press coverage' and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Purportedly pro-LGBT civil rights conservative org GOProud endorses Romney - No GoProud, endorsing Mitt Romney doesn't make you look edgy. It makes you look elitist, out-of-touch with your own community, and stupid. It's the equivalent of putting your head in the mouth of a hungry lion and then not expecting the lion to chomp down.  

Here you go: LGBT rights advances under President Obama that President Romney could undo - Just a reminder of how severe the bite of that lion can be. And remember that Romney did sign that National Organization for Marriage pledge.  

A Gay Couple weds at NYC's Midtown Comics Store - Go ahead. You know you want to say it - "Aw how cute!" 

 Obama is Not a Christian Because 'the Bible is Very Clear About Homosexual Acts Being a Very Evil Thing' - ONLY if they are done very early in the morning. Three a.m. is a very inhuman hour for "homosexual acts."

 Rubio: Society Shouldn’t ‘Tolerate’ Same-Sex Marriage - OH REALLLLLY! As long as society "tolerates" my tax dollars, it should (and will) tolerate my rights. 

Family Research Council destroys study's credibility

Peter Sprigg

The anti-gay parenting study authored by the University of Texas professor Mark Rengnerus just received another kiss of death aside from condemnation from social scientists.

Apparently the Family Research Council loves it.

FRC spokesman Peter Sprigg wrote a long love letter to the study, having this to say at the conclusion:

 The myths that children of homosexual parents are "no different" from other children and suffer "no harm" from being raised by homosexual parents have been shattered forever.

Of course that statement is strange, seeing that Regnerus - for all of the faults in his work - clearly said the study does not establish a relationship between same-sex parenting and negative outcomes (see point 2 in the Equality Matters link).

Also, according to the online publication The Daily Beast emphasis added:

In his Slate essay, Regnerus preemptively defends himself against  . . . criticisms with a limited interpretation of the results. “We didn’t have as many intact lesbian and gay families as we hoped to evaluate, even though they are the face of much public deliberation about marriage equality,” he writes. The results reflect on a previous generation of gay parenting, before the legalization of gay marriage in some states, he writes. “I’m not claiming that sexual orientation is at fault here, or that I know about kids who are presently being raised by gay or lesbian parents. Their parents may be forging more stable relationships in an era that is more accepting and supportive of gay and lesbian couples.” Regnerus says his study’s political implications are unclear and are not intended to undermine the legal parental rights of anyone.

But Sprigg has an interesting way of overlooking Regnerus's caveats. This is what he says:

While the Regnerus study is a vast improvement over virtually all the prior research in the field, it still leaves much to study and learn about homosexual parents and their effect on children. Author Mark Regnerus emphasizes the traditional caveat in social science, warning against leaping to conclusions regarding "causality." In other words, just because there are statistical correlations between having a homosexual parent and experiencing negative outcomes does not automatically prove that having a homosexual parent is what caused the negative outcomes--other factors could be at work.

This is true in a strict scientific sense--but because Regnerus carefully controlled for so many other factors in the social environment, the study gives a clear indication that it is this parental characteristic which best defines the household environment that produces these troubling outcomes. The large number of significant negative outcomes in this study gives legitimate reason for concern about the consequences of "homosexual parenting."

In other words, Sprigg is saying "Hey, the study does not say that same-sex homes causes negative behaviors and I won't say that they do either, but since the large number of significant negative outcomes in this carefully controlled study come from same-sex households, by all means feel free to make that assumption."

Herein we see the futility of Regnerus's caveats. Sprigg not only pushes them aside, he does it without apology, as does several other religious right groups and websites who are already claiming that Regnerus's study proves that same-sex households are somehow dangerous towards children.

I guess they didn't read Regnerus's caveats regarding causation. Or maybe, like Sprigg, they just don't care because they now have something which they can use against the gay community, caveats be damned.

Therein lies the immediate danger of Regnerus's work. It's not about science nor the slow process of coming to the conclusion about a social issue through research. It's about the impact of shock headlines and the assumptions that people like Sprigg and organizations like FRC will invite others to make; assumptions designed to denigrate same-sex households and distort images of the gay community before anyone has a chance to delve deeper into the issue.

I seriously wonder if Regnerus knows what he has gotten himself into with this. I also would suggest that Regnerus, if he is truly to be believed about the objectivity of his study, should step in and forcefully speak against the use of it to demonize same-sex households and the lgbtq community in general.

If he speaks out, we will know where he stands regarding the assumptions the religious right is making about his work.

If he is silent then I guess that will still let us know where he stands, won't it?