Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
Homosexual activists have failed in an effort to impose acceptance of the homosexual lifestyle on the world.
The United Nations General Assembly voted to delete language from a proposed resolution that claimed that two new anti-discrimination categories exist: sexual orientation and gender identity.
"What this body is trying to do is to elevate the homosexual agenda to a global right that governments are treaty-bound to accept," explains Austin Ruse, head of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM). "There was an attempt to have this reinterpretation officially accepted by the General Assembly, and it was defeated."
One News Now does not provide details regarding the resolution but another right-wing publication, Lifesite News, does:
The deleted reference was to General Comment 20 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). The ICESCR was adopted by the UN on December 16, 1966, and declares that states that are part of the agreement will "undertake to guarantee that the rights enunciated in the present Covenant will be exercised without discrimination of any kind as to race, color, sex, language, religion ... or other status."
General Comment 20 states that the phrase "other status" includes "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." This means, according to the Comment, that members of the ICESCR "must ... adopt measures, which should include legislation, to ensure that individuals and entities in the private sphere do not discriminate on prohibited grounds."
This state of affair accentuates the problem for lgbts worldwide.
That by merely wanting to conduct our lives in peace, we are trying to "force acceptance,"
And that somehow we aren't deserving of basic human dignity.
Austin Ruse, the man cited in the article further said:
"Most countries have a very traditional view of human sexuality, of marriage, [and] of the family, so when these ideas percolate through from radicals in the United States and the European Union, and they eventually get to the General Assembly where a lot of traditional people are represented, they get defeated," Ruse notes.
Someone should ask Ruse just what is his view of "traditional human sexuality and people."
Does it involve hanging children like they did to those two innocent boys in Iran?
Or how about butchering innocent activists like what was done in Jamaica?
Or what about the laws in 30 Islamic countries that make homosexuality a criminal offense. In most cases punishment range from floggings to life imprisonment. In Mauritania, Bangladesh, Yemen, parts of Nigeria and Sudan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, convicted homosexuals can also be sentenced to death.
Ruse and those who stand with him not only have a warped sense of tradition but also of right and wrong.
And it leads me again to say while I love and fear God, I have a serious concern about those who claim to represent Him.
As we remember major lgbt stories in 2009 like Maine and Carrie Prejean, let's not forget the so-called minor stories.
One in particular I would like to point out because it was a victory for the lgbt blogging community.
Remember Peter Vadala?
He was the former employee of Brookstone (a Massachusetts retailer store) who was fired for supposedly expressing his Christian beliefs.
As we learned more about Vadala, it turned out that him "expressing his Christian beliefs" amounted to telling a lesbian employee that she is a "deviant" for simply talking about her upcoming wedding. Gay marriage, by the way, is perfectly legal in Massachusetts.
At first glance, the incident looked like a perfect cause celebre for the religious right. A young Christian attacked by the supposedly intolerant and invisible homosexual lobby - a perfect fundraising tool if there ever was one.
But it flopped.
What made Vadala's story different than say the story of Repent America when a supposed religious group was arrested at Philly Pride in 2004 or the group of city workers who filed a lawsuit against the city of Oakland when they were told to remove an anti-gay flyer from their workplace?
Pending something major, many bloggers are either playing it low-key or having a fond look back at some moments in 2009.
For me, it will be time for the 20009 Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters Misinformers of the YearAwards in which I look back at some of the highlights (and lowlights) of anti-lgbt hysteria.
I can tell you right now that there will be a few surprises because unfortunately some of our own went out of their way to help the religious right in their anti-lgbt endeavors via unnecessary ugly words or abandoning an lgbt leader before he even had a chance to defend himself.
But it's still all in fun. And in that spirit, let me announce one award now:
The Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters Video of the Year award (or the Ed Wood Memorial Video Vanguard Award) goes to . . . oh come on, as if you would be shocked:
National Organization for Marriage's Gathering Storm Ad
In April of this year, the National Organization for Marriage launched an ad campaign claiming that gay marriage will have negative consequences for people's freedom and rights. Central to this campaign was a commercial. Naturally, this commercial recycled a bunch of lies about current events involving cases of lgbt rights and families.
But all of that took a backseat because the commercial was bad. I mean just plain awful. Valley of the Dolls bad, Heaven's Gate bad, Plan 9 from Outerspace bad.
See for yourself:
Instead of anger, the ad elicited laughter and a huge amount of parody ads, as well as ads which served to correct its phony claims. Among the funniest and most informative were:
And just when it looked like things couldn't get any funnier, it came out that the people in the "Gathering Storm" ads were actors. We know this because somehow their audition tapes got released on youtube, thereby further revealing the abject phoniness of the entire campaign:
The fight for marriage equality has had some major victories and setbacks in 2009. However the "Gathering Storm" controversy was a watershed moment. It demonstrated the weakness of the argument against marriage equality and also demonstrated that all the money in the world and backing can't replace the integrity of your position.
If you don't have integrity, you will fall on your face.
I hope everyone had a happy holiday. Back to the @!& as they say.
A couple of weeks ago, this segment focused on the Ricki Lake Show and how it did much for positive lgbt visibility.
Now comes the flipside. The Jerry Springer Show is a twisted ongoing train wreck. It actually started out as a legitimate talk show but struck it big by focusing on guest fights and other outrageous topics.
And unfortunately the lgbt community was victimized by this. I can't count how many times the talk show focused "poor straight men" who was "tricked into sex" by trangendered women. And often these segments would end violently for all parties involved.
Or the following segment which features a "former" gay man trying to keep his gay brother away from another gay man.
Now I've heard that the show is staged and the guests are actors, but that's besides the point. The negative lgbt images showcased by the Jerry Springer Show was just flat out wrong:
Media Matters has done a lot this year to fight right-wing nonsense.
They were very helpful in fighting the lies against Kevin Jennings (helpful? Hell, a lot of my information came from them) as well as other lies pushed by some those on the right who seek to exploit ignorance and fear.
So with that in mind, I want to throw out props to the group and encourage you all to support them. Lgbt issues are just one of the things they deal with:
Now secondly, some of you may have noticed that I have been hinting about a second book.
Well to give you more information, I have been working on a second book. But this one won't be as detailed as Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, my first book.
I want to break down religious right distortions in a manner that conveys their nastiness as well as shining a light on the entities who spout them. My goal is to bring more attention to the historical hypocrisy of these so-called pro-family groups.
