Austin Ruse - the ramblings of a homophobe

Austin Ruse

Last week, there was a controversy regarding a group of American activists who was initially denied a meeting room in the United States Senate:

The office of Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) revoked access to a Senate meeting room for a right-wing confab planning to discuss how American social conservatives can learn from Russia's draconian crackdown on LGBT people. Among the participants slated to speak at the event was Breitbart.com columnist and notorious homophobe Austin Ruse.

BuzzFeed's J. Lester Feder reported on November 14 that Kirk - who supports marriage equality and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) -- had shut down the planned November 15 "Family Policy Lessons From Other Lands: What Should America Learn?" conference. A Kirk spokesman explained that "Sen. Kirk doesn't affiliate with groups that discriminate."

Later that day, Speaker of the House John Boehner managed to secure the room for these activists. However, I found it interesting that Austin Ruse was involved with these activists. But maybe I shouldn't have been. Three years ago, Ruse and I had a serious verbal confrontation via my blog because of a  United Nations General Assembly voted to delete the terms "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" from a proposed anti-discrimination document.

Our back-and-forth confrontation should give you a look at Ruse's anti-gay mindset (his comments are in blue. Mine are in red):

A year ago the Holy See and the Bush administration tried to get the General Assembly to endorse a statement condemning precisely the kind of violence against homosexuals that you cite. The effort was quashed by France and her allies in Europe? Why? Because these efforts are not really about stopping violence. They are about forcing a broad range of homosexual "rights" on traditional peoples using the least democratic venues possible.

Austin Ruse

President

C-FAM

Your statement is a wonderment. Just how do you "force" homosexual rights on "traditional peoples?" Austin, please get rid of the phraseology because you aren't speaking to the choir here. Why don't you be specific in your objections.

It is fairly detailed, but what happens is that UN human rights monitoring bodies re-write language from established human rights treaties. These human rights treaties were negotiated by sovereign states and ratified, largely, by democratically elected Parliaments. This new language is decided by individuals whose names no one knows without looking and voila there is a new human rights category that nobody knows about and nobody has agreed to. This new language is then adjudicated in national courts where they often find ideological friends This is profoundly anti-democratic and indeed is a kind of coercion. The language that was rejected by the GA was precisely as I describe. Last summer the human rights committee reinterpreted the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights to include "gender identity and sexual orientation." Quick, name even one member of that committee! This new language was then placed in a UN GA resolution for the purposes of further banging the drum for a new "treaty norm." This effort this time was defeated. Even so, we expect to see court cases being heard on the committee's original reinterpretation.

But Austin, you didn't answer my question. You went through a lot of legalese and "harum," "harum," but did not defend your original point. How does one force "homosexual rights" on "traditional peoples?" You seem to be talking about the process here. But when you (were) originally quoted, you were talking about the fact that the process had to do with gays and lesbians? Is it the process that you disagree with or the fact that through the process, folks are seeking to protect lgbts. And if the latter is the case, you really need to defend defining "traditional peoples" as countries who would persecute and imprison lgbts.

When non-democratic bodies like unknown UN committees and courts make decisions like this and then impose them on the people, that is force. Should have made that clearer.Thought i did.

But you didn't make it clear.  . . .  in the One News Now article, you were all "how dare they try to elevate the homosexual agenda to a global right." Don't you think you aren't being honest?

'SC judge takes himself off of marriage equality case' and other Friday midday news briefs

EXCLUSIVE: Judge bows out of SC gay marriage suit - Well this is interesting. The judge overseeing the SC marriage equality case has himself removed because as a member of the executive board of the Indian Waters Council of the Boy Scouts of America, he voted for the policy to admit gay Boy Scouts, but not gay Scout leaders. It should give you an indication to just how HOT this case is going to be.  

Illinois Bishop Will Offer Exorcism For Marriage Equality - I won't do it but by all means, feel free to make snide comments about the lack of exorcisms when came to Catholic priests molesting children. 

John Boehner Clearly Doesn’t Understand Why ENDA Is Necessary - Uh, Boehner is bull@#!ing.

California anti-trans coalition has no plan for transgender protection - And this surprises whom? Nobody. 

Houston's Harris County adopts sweeping policy aimed at protecting LGBT inmates - This is a good thing. 

How They See Us: Unmasking the Religious Right War on Gay America - In light of my morning post regarding anti-gay groups in America trying to seek what they can out of Russia's anti-gay law, this link is highly important regarding their claims and lies. If you have a problem downloading it, email me at charlekenghis@aol.com and I will email you an adobe acrobat copy.

Religious right groups want to 'study' Russian anti-gay laws

Sen. Mark Kirk

The bad news - there is a group of American religious right organizations supportive to Russia's anti-gay laws and looking to replicate that madness in the United States.

The good news - Illinois Senator Mark Kirk canceled their access to a room in the United States Senate where they were going to have a Friday event. Kirk's office later issued a comment - “Sen. Kirk doesn’t affiliate with groups that discriminate.”

The bad news - see item one and get spooked:

Late Thursday, Illinois Senator Mark Kirk’s office abruptly canceled access to a Senate meeting room for a Friday event scheduled by a social conservative organization that is supportive of Russia’s “homosexual propaganda” ban, event organizers told BuzzFeed.

LGBT activists were outraged to learn that the World Congress of Families, which is currently planning a global summit of supporters of the “traditional family” to be held in Moscow in 2014, would be holding an event in a meeting room in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. The WCF is a project of the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society, based in Rockford, Illinois.

“Shame on you, Senator Kirk, for allowing vocal radical sexual minorities to drown out the voices of the natural family and faith that have made our nation free, prosperous, and stable for more than 200 years,” said Larry Jacobs, managing director of the World Congress of Families in an email to BuzzFeed. “Obviously Senator Kirk doesn’t care about families and children and freedom and has chosen to side with the policies of decline, death and disease promoted by the Sexual Radicals.”

A spokesman for Kirk, Lance Trover, told BuzzFeed on Thursday night, “Sen. Kirk doesn’t affiliate with groups that discriminate.”

WCF convened a planning meeting in Moscow last month that brought together leading American LGBT-rights opponents — including Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage and Tom Minnery of Focus on the Family — with top Russian supporters of the anti-propaganda law and social conservatives from several other countries. The event scheduled to be held Friday in the Dirksen building was billed in a WCF press release as a discussion of “what can our pro-family legislators learn — positively and negatively — by studying our colleagues’ actions abroad.”

  . . .The panelists include Austin Ruse of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, Dr. Janice Shaw Crouse, Senior Fellow at the Concerned Women for America’s The Beverly LaHaye Institute, and Steven Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute. It was scheduled to be hosted by Howard Center President Allan Carlson. 

Go to Buzzfeed for the rest of this story and see this document via the Human Right Campaign for the anti-gay backgrounds of the panelists.

Throwback Thursday - The Electric Company

I now interrupt the regularly scheduled denunciation of religious right lies with clips of songs from that old 1970s series 'The Electric Company.'

The usual scheduled program of religious right refutations will be back tomorrow morning:

 

 

 

'Anti-gay spokesman implies that potential gay parents lust after babies' and other Thursday midday news briefs

Klingenschmitt: Photo Of Gay Couple With A Baby 'Looks To Me A Little Bit Like Lust' - If the above video gets you mad, then GOOD! It's why I do what I do. We cannot be taken in when the religious right groups and personalities make themselves appear to be innocent and credible. Behind every Tony Perkins is a Gordon Klingenschmitt. And behind every innocuous statement about the "gay lifestyle" and "religious liberty" is tripe like this. Don't get so disgusted that you forget that in the fight for lgbt equality, we have to spotlight the hatred of the other side, no matter how nauseating that hatred is.  

FRC priorities: Pray for marriage inequality, discriminatory photographers, and, oh yeah—the typhoon victims too - If you were praying to God, what would dominate your prayer? Concern for the folks caught up in that awful typhoon in the Philippines or a reverse and defeat pro-lgbt laws like ENDA, and marriage equality. What if you were the Family Research Council? 

REPORT: LGBT Workers Of Color Face Many Barriers In The American Workforce - Something you probably won't see or hear about on African-American networks or news programs. And that's a real shame.  

Daily Caller Publishes Racist, Ableist Op-Ed To Attack Protections For Transgender Students - There is something to offend everyone in this piece.

It's official! Hawaii is a marriage equality state

It's official. Hawaii is now a marriage equality state as of yesterday when Gov. Neil Abercrombie signed the bill into law. And as the video below shows, the final vote in the Senate was contentious. But it should inspire the lgbt community.  Things worth having are worth fighting for, no matter how hard the fight to come may be.

Bryan Fischer and the 'ex-gay Neo Nazi porn star' who was 'swallowed by Satan'

So while Hawaii becomes the 15th marriage equality state (to be followed by Illinois), Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association chose to interview man who claims to be an ex-gay Neo Nazi porn star who was "swallowed by Satan."

What does all of this mean? Other than the fact that moderate Christians need to step up and speak out against these crazy people before more people turn against their religion, I don't know. I'm still scratching my head over this one: