Family Research Council's concern for persecuted Christians contradicts its message about persecuted lgbts

Today, the Family  Research Council sounded the alarm about persecutions of Christians abroad, complete with the image below:

If there's anyone busier than Santa, it's Congress. With just a handful of days left before members jingle their way home for Christmas, most leaders are scrambling to put a bow on the 114^th Session. Hill offices are hoping to crank through a pile of unfinished business before Friday, when the House and Senate hope to adjourn. Before then, the to-do list is a diverse basket of priorities from funding the government to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

One of the bills at the top of our list, which we hope Congress can squeeze onto its schedule, is Rep. Chris Smith's (R-N.J.) "Frank Wolf International Religious Freedom Act," which would help turn the floodlights on the dark world of faith-based hostility. Under this administration, religious liberty hasn't been pushed to the back seat -- it has no seat at the table of U.S. priorities. In the waning days of 2016, conservatives are racing to fill the diplomatic gap left by this White House and help lay the groundwork for a new administration to combat a crisis that's caused the blood of countless innocents around the world to be spilled. Under Rep. Smith's bill, America would create a "special watch list of countries or violent state actors that have engaged in or tolerated such violations, but do not yet meet the criteria for designation as countries of particular concern for religious freedom."

As Frank Wolf and I explained in a joint column on the subject, the bill would hold offending countries to a higher level of accountability. It would also direct the president to appoint a Special Adviser for Global Religion Engagement and International Religious Freedom, a clear sign to the world that Americans take this issue seriously in U.S. foreign policy. If this president won't talk about religious persecution, Congress must. In the absence of strong leadership, our enemies only gain more power to destroy this fundamental right.

The legislation is good idea because no one should be persecuted in any country because of their religious beliefs.But at the same time, FRC's push for this legislation is extremely hypocritical.

'Anti-transgender NC Gov. Pat McCrory concedes race to Cooper' & other Mon. midday news briefs

"Pat you know it's true. Ooh, ooh, ooh, you are THROUGH."

McCrory concedes gubernatorial race to Cooper - McCrory concedes the election. Grand irony that is the mess of the 2016 elections? The one election that could be seen as an outright referendum on  transgender equality turns out to be a winner for the lgbt community.

 
Of course Mike Pence supported ex-gay therapy - Sorry Mike Pence. You aren't going to bull#@!% your way out of this one.

 Anti-LGBT group files brief in Fairfax County schools lawsuit - The Liberty Counsel strikes from Virginia. This ought to be interesting.

GOP Congressman Says Trump Team Has Given “Assurances” On Religious Freedom Measure - The hurricane is coming. Be ready. 

There Is No "War On Christmas," Unless You Count The Battle For Christian Supremacy - Unfortunately this is true.

American Family Association publication links to race-baiting Breitbart article

Apparently this perspective includes race-baiting articles from Breitbart.

With President-elect Donald Trump naming former Breitbart News head Steve Bannon as his chief White House strategist, well-deserved attention is focused on how Bannon made the publication a hot bed of the white supremacist alt-right. 

However, there is something the media is missing about Breitbart; just how much did it's dog-whistle message affect other so-called conservative publications. Or rather in this case, religious right publications such as the American Family Association's One News Now.

This morning, I noticed a news brief on the Latest from Web links on One News Now:

Race Warriors Decry ‘White Jesus’
 
The link led to a Breitbart article The first two paragraph reads as such:

 In their attempt to politicize everything along racial lines, race warriors are now denouncing traditional Christianity as an invention of white people seeking to dominate and control “people of color” (POC).

Writing for the Blavity website, billed as “the Buzzfeed for black millennials,” race warrior Danni Roseman proclaims her progressive alienation from Christianity after being “bombarded with images of this sandy-brown-haired, blue-eyed, White man”—namely, Jesus Christ.

I doubt that this is merely the first time  One News Now linked to  Breitbart  and it does lead one to wonder just how much does race-baiting play a part in the American Family Association's supposed Christian message. It's not as overt as the publication's usual anti-lgbt message but it's just as ugly.

'GLAAD's 'Trump Accountability Project' perfect tool for community, journalists' & other Fri. midday news briefs

GLAAD Launches ‘Trump Accountability Project’ - GLAAD is showing us how to deal with four years under Trump. We've only got two choices - either quake in abject fear of what may happen to our community or jump on that horse and fight him when he and his Administration steps against us while at the same time using their new spotlight as a "sword of Damocles" over their heads to show America that behind their "traditional values" veneer lies a nasty homophobic sheen they can't  even baptize away. You know what choice I've already made. And GLAAD is making the same one: 

 The Trump Accountability Project was conceived in the immediate aftermath of the election and cemented after Trump’s 60 Minutes interview, in which he made statements on LGBTQ issues that differed from things he had said in the past, Ellis says. “We convened and decided that as we started to see possible cabinet members and people that were surrounding Donald Trump,” she says, “We realized that we really needed to create a resource for the media that allowed them to understand where these people actually stood.” The project website already includes pages about Trump as well as Vice President-elect Mike Pence; Steve Bannon, who will be Trump’s chief strategist; future chief of staff Reince Priebus; Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for secretary of education; attorney general nominee Jeff Sessions; and others. Trump’s page, for example, is comprised of sections titled “on LGBTQ equality,” “on race/religion/national origin,” “a history of attacking women,” “on climate change,” “on civil liberties” and “on vaccinations.” 

Trump Accountability Project - GLAAD's project in living color. Let's dance. 

In other news: 

 An Anti-LGBTQ Hate Group Is Wielding Growing Power On Trump's Transition Team - Media Matters jumps on the Wired magazine article I featured last night. More of an example of why FRC should be afraid. There will be a closer scrutiny on its tactics.  

LGBT groups sign letter opposing Sessions nomination - Wonderful beginning.

 Want to Feel Better About the World? Help an LGBT Senior - Let's end today's news briefs with a kind note because in the end, love is what it's all about. . .  

Why These Moms Chose To Travel A ‘Scary’ Path To Becoming A Family - . . . love for ourselves, our communities, and our families

Video: Trump appointees are potential disasters for the lgbt community

Just how bad are President-elect Trump's cabinet appointees look when it comes to lgbt rights and equality. Let my friend, Matt Baume count the ways. The following video isn't meant to depress you. It's meant to motivate you:

Family Research Council called out for using anti-lgbt junk science

Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council constantly uses junk science.

It took the online magazine Wired only one article to do to the anti-lgbt Family Research Council what I have been attempting to do for over a decade and what our lgbt leaders should be doing on a daily basis

Like I've said many times before, it's not enough to call the Family Research Council bigots and a "hate group." You have to go into detail, like Wired magazine does in this wonderful article, Trump’s Transition Team Is All Tied Up With Anti-Gay Pseudoscience:

The Family Research Council isn’t content to oppose homosexuality on religious grounds; instead, it uses pseudoscience to give its homophobia a flimsy veneer of objectivity. And it could wind up shaping the incoming president’s policies.

 . . . That the FRC has found its way back into a position of influence over the presidency shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. The group has been making political moves since the early 1980s. Since then, it’s grown to become the most successful progeny of an effort among social conservatives to move the basis of their policy recommendations away from Scripture and toward sociology. Not that legitimate sociology is where the FRC has arrived. Rather, the group is to homophobia what the National Policy Institute is to the alt-right—a bland, respectable-sounding, quasi-academic front for a hateful, regressive ideology. It comes packaged in a way that looks like real science but is really just cherry-picked data stitched together to serve its agenda.

 . . . The papers the FRC produces often purport to be meta-analyses—studies of studies. Rather than compiling an accurate synthesis of mainstream scientific inquiry, however, the group mis-contextualizes data to arrive at a desired conclusion. This technique is how the FRC manages to link homosexuality to, among other things, pedophilia and shortened lifespans, despite strong scientific consensus to the contrary. When the group is not twisting mainstream scientists’ numbers, it’s citing organizations such as the American College of Pediatricians, which sure sounds like the American Academy of Pediatrics but is actually a far-right breakaway group with only 200 members.

 It’s pretty much the same story with the research FRC produces itself. “The FRC’s research is just a giant exercise in selection bias,” says Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland. “If being rich makes you more likely to be married, a study that says being married makes you rich will always find that result.”

The FRC has mis-designed many sociological experiments. If you want to study whether children fare better emotionally when raised by heterosexual or homosexual married couples, as FRC purported to do, you would need to make sure all conditions besides the parents’ sexual orientations were the same in order to truly compare them. Instead, the FRC study mostly looked at children of same-sex couples that weren’t married, had pre-existing emotional troubles, and were the offspring of previous marriages that ended when one parent came out. The FRC’s findings don’t even pass a basic scientific smell test, according to the American Sociological Association. What’s more, the group’s work isn’t peer-reviewed.

If there is any time a wake up call is due for the lgbt community, it is now.  It's time we stop playing FRC's game and put them on the defensive for a change It's long overdue.

Related post - .16 reasons why the Family Research Council is a hate group

Hat tip to Right Wing Watch

'World AIDS Day should be commemorated with love' & other Thur midday news briefs

Powerful video shows how far the world has come in HIV treatment - Today is World AIDS Day. It's not a sad day but a bittersweet one. Let us remember those we have lost, those who are touched by this situation, and above all, let's celebrate our universal capacity for strength, resilience, and love.  

These Posters Vividly Document The History Of The HIV/AIDS Epidemic - And let's not forget history. 

Related post - Events for World AIDS DAY  

Also - Resources

Trans students sue school district which bans them from using certain bathrooms - Good going, kids! Stand up for yourselves. I support you fully.  

Family Research Council creates false persecution controversy & defends white supremacist enabling publication - Reposting last night's item. Not only is the Family Research Council attempting to create a new so-called victim of "gay persecution," but at the same time, the group trying to shield white supremacists from criticism in order to protect it's "investment" of Donald Trump.  

Man Pleads Guilty for Role in Same-Sex Parental Kidnap Case - It's been a long time, but we haven't forgotten about the Lisa Miller/Janet Jenkins case.

 Michael Brown: Christians Who Accept Same-Sex Marriage Spread ‘Poison,’ Should Not Be Welcomed Into The Church - Just when did God give Michael Brown the right to decide who should be allowed in "the Church?"