Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
Don't even try to ask me what The Hotel New Hampshire (1984) is about. It's a monstrosity of a movie which I am guessing isn't the highlight for the careers of Rob Lowe, Jodie Foster, Matthew Modine, or Paul McCrane.
In the 1950s, Win Berry (Beau Bridges) and his wife (Lisa Banes) have five children, John (Rob Lowe), Franny (Jodie Foster), Frank (Paul McCrane), Lilly (Jennifer Dundas), and Egg (Seth Green). The Berrys decide to open a hotel near the prep school that John, Franny, and Frank attend; they call it the Hotel New Hampshire.
It was originally a John Irving novel which should have stayed as such. I hated it.
But at least it does have a decent portrayal of a gay man (Paul McCrane).And where else can you see a gay bashing, revenge for the gay bashing, nudity, and family acceptance all combined in one scene?
Standing Ovation For North Carolina's James Forrester After Saying Gay People Are 'Unhealthy' - Unbelievable hot mess. And with all due respect, the article merely reported what this man said and offered no refutations. Allow me to. His lie is from either two sources - 1. is the discredited research of Paul Cameron. 2. A 1997 Canadian study. In 2001, the researchers of the study came out complaining as to how the religious right was cherry picking their work to make the phony claim that gay men have a short lifespan. It's not enough to publicized what homophobes say. When we know that they are lying, we need to say this.
According to Equality Matters, the Ruth Institute - a group affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage, is pushing nonsense which attacks same-sex families:
On September 7, the Ruth Institute published excerpts from a column written by David van Gend, a spokesman for the Family Council of Queensland in Australia. Van Gend has previously encouraged gay people to “escape the suffering of same-sex attraction” through so-called ex-gay therapy. Yeah, it’s going to be one of those columns.
In his piece, Van Gend makes clear that it’s not just marriage equality he’s opposed to – it’s any law that allows same-sex couples to raise children:
Obviously there are tragic situations where a child cannot have both a mum and a dad, such as the death or desertion of a parent, but that is not a situation we would ever wish upon a child, and that is not a situation that any government should inflict upon a child.
Yet legalising same-sex marriage will inflict that deprivation on a child. That is why it is wrong, and that is why all laws are wrong that permit single people or same-sex couples to obtain a child by IVF, surrogacy, or adoption. [emphasis added]
Van Gend’s full column is also bursting at the seams with anti-gay misinformation, including:
Asserting that marriage equality will lead to polygamy
Citing MassResistance – a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated anti-gay hate group – to support the (thoroughly debunked) claim that kids are being forced to learn about homosexuality in school
Promoting the (also thoroughly debunked) myth that the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) distributed copies of “The Little Black Book” to high school students
Opposing same-sex parenting, repeating long-disproved anti-gay talking points, and partnering with known hate groups – all in a day’s work at NOM.
They just can't help themselves, can they? Time to add more reasons to my Why NOM is bigoted list.
Those against marriage equality in North Carolina pushing the race card extremely hard.
Yesterday, the National Organization for Marriage pushed a portion of an Associated Press article which focused on a group of black pastors who supported the upcoming anti-marriage equality amendment.
Today, NOM pushed the below video on its blog claiming the following:
An ABC news video on the North Carolina debate. The black church is taking a leading role, to Democrats dismay.
But when one looks at the video, one sees that the claim is false:
Now Focus on the Family has done the same thing, i.e. pushing the idea that the black church is going to "save" North Carolina from "the gays.":
Focus on the Family’s audio and the video featured by NOM have two things in common. Both omit the fact that the state NAACP has been very vocal in opposition to the amendment. And both feature a pastor named Donald Q. Fozard of the Mount Zion Christian Church. He is the man who is speaking in the FOF audio and the man calling another a “liar” in the video.
From the way Fozard has made himself available to NOM and FOF, one gets the idea that he is trying to be the southern Ruben Diaz.
However, one could say that Fozard is a bit more like Fred Phelps. This is him in 2004:
From this past Sunday's sermon, one would think the Rev. Donald Q. Fozard Sr. likes saying the word faggot. The pastor of Durham's Mount Zion Christian Church hollers the word's last syllable as if he were exorcising a demon, or as if he were a movie star who understands that notoriety rises when you do something incendiary.
"Faggots across the nation, heading churches. Homos on the pianos. Faggots in the choir. What kind of spirit is leading that church?" he asked his 150 worshippers.
. . . Fozard continued with his own spectacular show. "And now? Men with men, women with women? Let me remind you of Sodom and Gomorrah. That sin will bring fire from heaven. I tell the homosexual man: repent, turn and get a woman. I tell the woman who wants to get married: get yourself a man."
(If Fozard stresses the last syllable of "faggot," he sounds out each vowel and consonant of "homosexual".) "The Reverend Al Sharpton says it doesn't matter who you sleep with?" he said. "I'll tell you one thing: the Reverend ain't no Reverend. All of them are running around saying it doesn't matter who you sleep with! They want that little 1 percent of faggots that go to vote."
I assure you that this is no joke. Thanks to NOM and those who are trying to stop marriage equality in NC, a slur speaking awful excuse for a reverend has now taken center stage.
This mean unfortunately that yet again the religious right - particularly NOM - is exploiting the black community. And yet again the black church is allowing itself to be used as a tool against its own people.
But most specifically what will a young African-American lgbtq think after seeing this?
That seems to be the one thing which no one thinks about – not the gay community in its justified anger, not the black church in its self-righteous pose, not the black pastors who spew such vitriol in pursuit of attention and monetary gain (because if you don’t think money has changed hands when black pastors come out against gay equality, you are fooling yourself), and certainly not the organizations like NOM or FOF instigating this mess.
For every "faggot" or "liar" that comes out of Fozard's mouth, I see a young lgbtq of color pushed deeper into the closet, sneaking out at night, and engaging in unsafe behaviors because he or she feels that they are going to hell anyway so why bother being careful.
Or even worse, moping in their rooms making unnecessary prayers to God about changing their sexual orientation instead of looking at it as a gift from Him - which it is.
You wanna know why HIV and AIDS is affecting the black community at a high rate? Listen to pastors like Fozard, who seem to be so concerned with the spotlight that they are pushing our children to their doom with their hateful rhetoric.
Well as long as you get camera time and a chance to primp in front of your congregation, who gives a care?
Gay Zombies Want Brains Of Children - And there are people who actually believe this hot mess. I wonder if George Romero will be making a movie about it.
The National Organization for Marriage loses another round in court against Maine's disclosure laws. Meanwhile, a soon-to-be released documentary threatens to expose the questionable tactics of those the organization employed to defeat Maine's marriage equality law.
Don't be fooled by the National Organization for Marriage's public bravado and supposed unstoppable appearance.
Behind the facade,the organization seems to be ever so slowly but surely heading towards a precipice and the thing nudging it along the way is the state of Maine.
NOM was successful in its ballot initiative to overturn Maine's law allowing marriage equality in 2009. But it was a messy win which is turning out to be a pyrrhic victory (a win which ends up biting the victor in the ass) for the organization.
NOM continues to fight against the state's public discloure laws, losing at every turn. The latest loss for NOM came yesterday:
A federal appeals court is denying a request for a new hearing in a public-disclosure case stemming from Maine's 2009 same-sex marriage campaign.
The appeal came after a 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston a month ago rejected the National Organization for Marriage's challenge to Maine's political action committee laws, and upheld Maine's law requiring disclosure of independent expenditures in candidate elections.
In a decision Wednesday, the court denied NOM's request for a rehearing.
NOM was the primary donor in 2009 to Stand for Marriage Maine, a political action committee that helped repeal Maine's same-sex marriage law.
NOM provided more than $1.8 million of the $3 million spent by opponents of marriage equality to pass Question 1 – but it illegally failed to disclose where the money came from. Public disclosure laws create transparency by informing voters who is behind a campaign effort. Maine’s law does this by requiring that any funds raised to support or oppose a ballot question be made public.
. . . Based on an initial complaint filed by Fred Karger of Californians Against Hate, the Maine Ethics Commission launched a formal investigation into NOM’s fundraising tactics in late 2009. NOM has refused to cooperate with the state inquiry each step of the way, stonewalling requests to turn over documents to the Ethics Commission. The Commission’s executive director defended the inquiry in February 2010: “NOM donated almost $2 million in support of the referendum. The Commission needs to understand how NOM solicited the funds in order to determine whether campaign finance reporting was required.” In June 2010, the Ethics Commission unanimously denied NOM’s latest request to dismiss the state investigation into the organization’s finances.
NOM has also attempted unsuccessfully to halt the state investigation in court, suing to prevent release of its Maine campaign donors and, in a far-reaching effort, to dismantle Maine’s campaign disclosure laws. A federal district judge and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit have soundly rejected NOM’s attempts to evade the ethics investigation and ordered NOM to produce records to the state.
And if questions about its flouting of Maine's disclosure laws isn't bad enough, there is a soon-to-be released documentary which will shed light on NOM's questionable tactics. Filmmakers Joe Fox and James Nubile convinced both sides of the Maine marriage equality fight to give them "fly on the wall" access during the campaign.
What they filmed is the basis of Question One: the Battle for Same-Sex Marriage in America. As we all know, NOM and its supporters won that fight. But it's Marc Mutty, the head of the campaign against Maine's marriage equality law, who has become the documentary's lightning rod
In the documentary, Mutty voiced extreme displeasure with how his group was attempting to sway people to vote against marriage equality. According to the Iowa Independent:
The film begins with Mutty describing his role in the campaign as that of the “chief cook and bottle washer,” but in the campaign’s final weeks, it’s Frank Schubert, president of California-based Schubert Flint Public Affairs -– the same publicity firm used to defeat same-sex marriage in California in 2008 –- who is calling all the shots, telling reporters he’s the chairman of SMM, making himself marketable for a future anti-same-sex marriage campaign.
At one point in the film, Mutty admits to being upset over two ads pushed by Schubert Flint, which Mutty admits “when I saw it, I cringed,” because of their insistence that civil marriage in Maine will lead to teachers instructing first-graders about gay sex. The longer version of the ad, which Mutty opted not to use, discussed sex toys. In the car, a visibly frustrated Mutty tells Schubert in clipped tones that his staff signed off on the ad. He then slams his cell phone shut and mutters, “So Frank wins the day again.”
The documentary also reveals that Mutty was forced to run the campaign:
On screen, Mutty says he never wanted to run the ‘Yes on 1′ campaign, but that his boss, Bishop Richard Malone, wanted the diocese to handle it, and Mutty felt as though he had no choice. In the early days of the campaign, he jokes around with his small staff in their Yarmouth, Maine, headquarters and appears to take his position — one he describes as being “impossible” — in stride. But by the campaign’s end, Mutty often appears agitated, saying things like: “This has been a mother-f***ing son of a bitch.”
And according to a piece written by Peter Montgomery of Religious Dispatches, the documentary reveals that Mutty may have been simply a figurehead but not really calling the shots in the campaign:
The documentary exposes several myths promoted by the opponents of marriage equality in Maine, including that it was a Maine-based campaign when California-based Schubert-Flint was clearly calling the shots; and that it wasn’t about homosexuality, when religious objections to homosexuality were clearly a driver for many of the activists and leaders. At one campaign rally, for example, a speaker portrays the campaign as a spiritual battle against the devil himself.
One press conference orchestrated by Schubert-Flint used teenagers as props, including one who claimed that at her public school she was made to feel like a second-class citizen for being straight. It seemed like a ludicrous assertion, so I asked filmmaker Joe Fox who told me that those teens were brought out to read their scripted statements, then declared off limits for follow-up questions.
Question 1 is scheduled to have a limited release in the fall and a national release in January. One wonders how NOM will handle damage control then while continuing to fight the disclosure laws not only in Maine but in also several other states.
As far as I'm concerned, these troubles couldn't have happened to a nicer group of folks.
The battle for or against marriage equality (whichever you prefer) in North Carolina is heating up as the following video shows. Folks who are pushing the anti-marriage equality amendment are pulling out all of the stops, i.e. the religious argument, the racial argument, and even the anatomy argument:
I'm not going to say a word about that lock and key thing. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you haven't seen the video.
And in the midst of this is a little deception from the National Organization for Marriage. NOM pulled the following portion from a larger Associated Press article on the issue:
Several black ministers who spoke at a later news conference said it's contrary to the Christian faith and the Bible for same-sex couples to marry. They called on the Legislature to let the public vote on adding the prohibition to the constitution to protect the institution of marriage. The Rev .Johnny Hunter of Cliffdale Community Church in Fayetteville said gay rights activists have offended black people by equating the efforts to support gay marriage with civil rights activities in the 1960s to remove racism from the law books.
"Blacks know what real discrimination is all about," said Hunter, referring to slavery and Jim Crow-era laws that preventing blacks from voting. "They're disrespecting ... the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement.
The comment itself is ignorant and offensive in that Mr. Hunter and those ministers have taken it upon themselves to speak for the black community, including gays and lesbians of color who would be hurt by the amendment. The comments are even more offensive in the context that NOM is pushing them, i.e. making it seem that the black community as a whole in NC does support marriage equality.
But the state NAACP does not support the amendment. The following is the portion of the article which NOM omitted:
. . . the Rev. William Barber, president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said the sponsors of the amendment bill, who are overwhelmingly Republican, are actually trying to take civil rights backward with the amendment.
"No matter our color or faith traditions, those who stand for love and justice are not about to fall for this amendment trick," Barber said in a statement released by the state NAACP.
The Family Research Council has released a series of radio ads in North Carolina, calling for the state legislature to place a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality for gays and lesbians on the ballot this November. North Carolina already prohibits same-sex marriage by statute, but the FRC says it’s not enough, warning, “Our laws defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman could be overturned.” Organizers of the marriage amendment have called marriage equality an evil plot concocted by Satan and said an amendment is needed to “put a big letter of shame on the behavior.” According to findings from Public Policy Polling published today, while 61% of state voters oppose legalizing same-sex marriage, just 30% support the constitutional amendment.
