Family Research Council is NOT happy with increase of lgbt-friendly businesses

Good news, my friends!

According to Baptist Press, lgbt-friendly businesses are continuing to grow:
 

The latest annual report from the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) shows nearly 300 of the country's Fortune 500 businesses offer workplaces with insurance, employment and retirement policies friendly to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) workers.

When HRC released its first Corporate Equality Index a decade ago, only 13 companies made the list.

"The numbers are irrefutable: The more successful a business is in the United States, the more likely it is to embrace equality," HRC President Chad Griffin wrote in a letter accompanying the report.

Did I say "good news?" Well that's not totally true for everyone. For the Family Research Council, it's not necessarily good news. In fact, it's downright depressing:

 But Rob Schwarzwalder, executive vice president of the Family Research Council, believes LGBT-friendly companies miss a bigger picture in light of current profit.

"Companies that actively and openly affirm homosexuality as a valid choice of life and behavior are failing to recognize the toll that homosexual unions will take on society if they become fully legitimated," he said. "They are, in my view, looking for social acceptance and quick profit ahead of principle."

What the hell does that even mean anyway? No offense to Schwarzwalder and FRC, but his statement makes no sense whatsoever. Of course Baptist Press made no effort to dig into these numbers because its article was mostly looking at the rise of lgbt-friendly businesses as a social issue. I personally think it has a lot to do with economics rather than social issues.

As more of us are coming out, getting married, and creating families,  we are getting noticed as not only excellent employees but a community which will spend its hard-earned cash on companies who support us as human beings.

It's that simple.  When all else fails, the desire for money prevails.

God bless America!

'Bryan Fischer talks about sodomy (again)' and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Desegregation, women's suffrage, and—the right to condemn gay people?! - Comparing stopping lgbt equality (i.e. or "sodomy" as Bryan Fischer calls it) to women's suffrage and desegregation? You know, following Bryan Fischer around with a microphone is akin to feeding a laxative to an elephant and following it around with a pooper-scooper. 
 

Obama: Russia’s Anti-Gay Laws ‘Are Violating The Basic Morality’ Every Country Should Uphold - Thank you, President Obama.

 Phyllis Schlafly Was 'Extremely Offended' and 'Personally Insulted' By DOMA Decision -  She should have been happy for her gay son.

  Liberty Counsel's Barber: America Is Inviting God's Wrath By Embracing "Abominable" LGBT Equality - Because apparently God makes His will known to a hypocrite who bears false witness against gays by smearing them as pedophiles.

Gays deserve discrimination because . . .?

According to former chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, gays should be discriminated against. I ask you, does his logic even make sense in Bizarroland?

Right-wing news group makes pathetic attempt to 'call out' SPLC's Morris Dees

A right-wing "news organization," CNS News, recently attempted to confront Morris Dees, head of the Southern Poverty Law Center, in an attempt to yet again exploit the awful shooting which happened last year at the headquarters of the Family Research Council.
Last August, 28-year-old Floyd Corkins attempted a mass shooting at FRC headquarters. Corkins was armed with handgun, a box of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches. He was stopped by a security guard who suffered minor injuries.

Since the time of the shooting, FRC has blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center for Corkins' actions. SPLC had labeled FRC and several religious right organizations as hate groups due to the inaccurate things they have said about the lgbt community, including the claim gay men molest children at a high level.

FRC president Tony Perkins said the Southern Poverty Law Center had given Corkins a "license to kill" by classifying his organization as a hate group. The SPLC stood by that designation, saying the FRC also had spread false propaganda about gays.

Other conservative and right religious right groups and spokespeople also got into the act of attacking SPLC with embarrassing results. On a youtube video, Janet Porter of  Faith2Action falsely claimed that SPLC also named Concerned Women for America as a hate group, published the address of CWA's president, and encouraged people to "pay her a visit."

In regards to its confrontation with Dees, CNS News attempted to make it seem that Dees was flustered, however it appears to me that Dees did well for himself when the new group asked about SPLC's "hate map":

CNSNews.com questioned Dees about the Hate Map when he was in Washington, D.C., last week, asking whether his group has ever considered removing the FRC since the revelation from Corkins.

“Well, first of all, having a group on our Hate Map doesn’t cause anybody to attack them anymore than they attacked us for one thing or another,” Dees said. “This group that says gay people—statements attributed to their people said that gay people caused the Holocaust.

Demonstrably false things they say about gay people. “It’s not on our Hate Map because they’re against gay people—and many, the Catholic Church is against people who are gay, so as others—it’s because of the demonstrably false things they say about people that are just total lies that demean gay people, they cause people to attack gay people,” he said.

Part of the claim against SPLC lies with a video posted by FRC months after the shooting which showed Corkins talking to the police afterwards. SPLC had earlier addressed this video:

The centerpiece  . . . is a video published by the Family Research Council (FRC) last week that shows a man who wounded a security guard at its headquarters telling investigators that he got the FRC’s name from the SPLC list of hate groups as it appears on our website. That is apparently true, although it is false, as some on the religious right have claimed, that the shooter, Floyd Lee Corkins, found the street address of FRC on our website before carrying out the Aug. 15, 2012, attack. In fact, we never publish addresses of the groups we criticize.

As you can tell, we are fast coming on the anniversary of the FRC shooting, which means we can expect FRC and other conservative and religious right groups to raise as much fuss about it as possible. However, what FRC will most likely NOT do - just like CNS News didn't do in its article - is to address the claims made by SPLC regarding the negative propaganda said about lgbts by the Family Research Council and other religious right groups.

Corkins' attempt to carry out an attack on FRC headquarters was justifiably condemned by those on the left and right of the political spectrum. But let's be clear about something. No matter how many times FRC blames SPLC for the near tragedy at its headquarters, It is a lie.

And it is a lie which FRC will continue to exploit in order to NOT address the false claims it makes about the lgbt community.

Related: How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on Gay America

'Two-year-old gets picked on for wearing pink headband' and other Tuesday midday news briefs

A Two-Year-Old Boy Got Assaulted At Wal-Mart For Wearing A Pink Headband - Oh come on! Who cares if the baby was wearing a pink headband. If it were MY mother, the story would have been "homophobic jerk got thrown around, body-slammed, and legdropped at Wal-Mart for assaulting a very handsome and intelligent two-year-old."  - UPDATE  - All might not be true.

House Republicans withdraw from all remaining DOMA cases - And none of us will be getting any refund for this waste. 

 Harry Jackson thinks he's found Hollywood's big secret: Fake gays - Is he for real?

 Rep. Ted Yoho Rails Against Gay Marriage, Food Stamps and Terrorist Immigrants - Why just attack marriage equality when you can throw something in your rant about food stamps and immigrants?

Dear Prop 8 supporters, you lost. Stop now or continue to make fools of yourselves

Those who support Prop 8, the law that once, but no longer, outlawed marriage equality in California, can't seem to get the idea in their heads that they lost:

Alliance Defending Freedom is asking the California Supreme Court to require the state's county clerks to continue enforcing Proposition 8. ADF asserts that the recent ruling on Prop. 8 by the U.S. Supreme Court did not address the measure's constitutionality, which means a judge’s 2010 injunction does not apply statewide. (ADF)

"Public officials should enforce the marriage amendment because they are not bound by the district court's injunction,” says ADF senior counsel Austin Nimocks.

The group responded to the state's attorney general and officials who say Proposition 8 should not be enforced. California's governor and attorney general have mandated all county clerks in the state to issue marriage licenses to homosexual couples.

“The U.S. Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of Proposition 8 and the district court's injunction does not apply statewide,” Nimocks tells OneNewsNow. “Therefore, county clerks in California should abide by the state constitution and Proposition 8." 

Nimocks is correct in one respect. The Supreme Court did not rule on the constitutionality of Prop 8. The court ruled that the proponents had no standing to challenge the ruling of U.S. District Chief Justice Vaughn Walker, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals who all ruled that Prop 8 was unconstitutional.

All in all, it comes down to the same thing - those who support Prop 8 lost in the courts. The law is no longer valid and they really need to stop all of these hijinks because they are making complete fools of themselves.

Although, I am totally enjoying the show.

SC teacher compares gay-inclusive curriculum to witchcraft, pedophilia

South Carolina teacher Ira Thomas is a main reason why South Carolina has such a nasty reputation for being a backwards state.

Quite recently, he has been on religious right radio programs denouncing the National Education Association's gay-inclusive curriculum. Apparently he claims to have made a show out of objecting to it at the NEA's recent convention in Atlanta and is now going "on tour" talking about how he stood up against the so-called gay agenda.

Last week on one radio show, he compared gay-inclusive school curriculum to teaching children how to smoke crack. Over the weekend, he attempted to outdo this awful slander on another religious right radio show, hosted by Linda Harvey.

Harvey, who once advised parents to not allow their children to be seen by gay or lesbian physicians, gave Thomas carte blanche to just say some of the most awful things about NEA's gay-inclusive curriculum:

Transcript:

Thomas: There was another item about showing a video and I can’t remember what video but it was something dealing with the gay and lesbian [sic], but after sitting through several of those I decided it was time to let the voice be heard instead of sitting by and saying nothing.

 Harvey: So what did you eventually say?

Thomas: In short I told them as a person I do not have a right to discriminate, but by the same token they do not have a right to disseminate what I consider to be harmful material to children. I do not have a right to tell them what to choose but they also do not have a right to choose a curriculum for me that I feel is biblically wrong. It’s like with prayer, it’s not right for me to put my Christian beliefs on anybody, it is right for me to share the Gospel, but even Christ gave us the choice. If we’re going to go there then the next thing we know we’re going to have everybody forcing things on us in school that we don’t believe in from witchcraft to even the molestation from children. …

Thomas: I don’t want to take this analogy too far but the best one I can think of is the incident that happened at Penn State. So many people knew what was going wrong but no one spoke out for whatever reason. Even with this, we can believe it in our heart but if we don’t ever speak out we are allowing things to go and to keep going on and on. 

While Thomas has a right to his personal beliefs and I certainly don't want this situation to end up with him playing the martyr, I have to call him out on his self-righteous, sanctimonious tone.  Never have I heard such blatant ignorance wrapped up in false piety.

What's even worse is that he makes the decision that this curriculum is dangerous to children based upon his own personal religious beliefs. Thomas doesn't have that right.  And based upon his words, he certainly doesn't have that knowledge.

Lgbt-inclusive curriculum is not harmful to children. That's a common sense fact, just like the fact that Thomas and others in the teaching profession will be, if they have not already, encountering lgbt students whose very lives may depend upon that curriculum, which lets them know that they are perfectly normal being who they are.

What's dangerous in situations like this are teachers like Thomas who are willing to potentially sacrifice the lives of our lgbt children based on their own personal ignorance and ego.

Huge hat tip to Right Wing Watch for providing the material for this post.