The video Bobby Jindal probably doesn't want you to see before his prayer rally

Jindal

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is planning a prayer rally next month in what some say is an attempt to play up to the religious right because he intends to run for president in 2016.

Already there is much controversy regarding who Jindal's office's is partnering with.  Students and faculty members of Louisiana State University, where this prayer will be held, are already up in arms about it. According to The New Orleans Advocate:

LSU students, faculty and other activists have come out against the event, called “The Response,” largely because it’s being paid for by the American Family Association, a controversial conservative religious group that opposes gay marriage and other lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights efforts. A protest has been planned in response to The Response, and a petition has gained hundreds of signatures in just a matter of days.  The Southern Poverty Law Center has described the Tupelo, Mississippi-based AFA as “some of the most hateful anti-gay voices in America” and has classified the organization as a hate group.

 Right Wing Watch has also pointed that the rally will have other controversial participants, including:

Jennifer LeClaire - LeClaire is the editor of Charisma magazine, where she routinely warns that Halloween is demonically evil and that gay superheroes are corrupting your children's souls. She has repeatedly told gay athletes to stay in the closet and repent and warned that the fight for gay marriage is a Satanic plot to send people to Hell.

 EW Jackson - a Religious Right activist and former GOP candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia who has asserted that the push for gay rights has killed more black men than the KKK and said that gay men and women are "perverted," "degenerate," and "frankly very sick people psychologically, mentally and emotionally." He has warned that gay marriage will lead to bestiality and said that there is a "direct connection" between homosexuality and pedophilia. The definition of marriage can never change, Jackson has declared, because "America was ordained by Almighty God." 

Jindal, who earlier called this prayer rally  “a time of prayer, fasting, repentance and celebration.” and a way to turn the nation back to God, seems to be sidestepping all questions about his partnership with the AFA.

'Religious freedom crowd cheer Russia's persecution of gays' & other Wednesday midday news briefs

Pat Robertson: Gays 'Will Die Out Because They Don't Reproduce' - Doesn't Pat Robertson know that we reproduce by the power of Madonna and Cher albums?  

Texas Gets 1st Openly Gay Federal Judge Thanks to Anti-Gay GOP Senators John Cornyn, Ted Cruz - I never thought I would live to see the day when I thanked those two bozos for anything.  

Religious Right Cheers On Vladimir Putin As Anti-LGBT Violence In Russia Surges - In between wringing their hands over the false notion that gays will deny evangelical Christians their freedom in America, the anti-gay right takes time out to praise Vladimir Putin for denial of freedom for gays in Russia.  

How a sheltered housewife became the foremost in-your-face challenger of Christian homophobia - A profile of an awesome facebook friend of mine and one of the best allies for the lgbt community, Kathy Baldock.

Will Michigan's controversial 'religious freedom' bill die in legislative session?

Marchers voicing their opposition to #RFRA pic.twitter.com/sceDqSFuFP
— Progress Michigan (@ProgressMich) December 16, 2014

It is a strong possibility - at least for now - that the controversial Michigan "religious freedom" bill may die in the state Senate.

According to Buzzfeed:

Michigan Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville expects a religious freedom bill, which would allow people the right to refuse service based on their faith, to die in the legislature without a vote, according to his spokesperson.

“He does not expect the bill to come up for a vote in the senate before the end of the term,” said Richardville’s spokesperson, Amber McCann.

The state’s GOP-controlled house of representatives passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) along party lines on Dec. 4. The bill is now in the state senate, where Richardville, a Republican, sets the agenda. Michigan’s legislature session adjourns this month.

“He does not feel the need to rush any bill through for a vote,” McCann told BuzzFeed News. “RFRA is not a priority for Senator Richardville.”

Critics have dubbed the measure the “right-to-discriminate bill,” arguing it would grant people sweeping discretion to discriminate against any sect of society they choose on religious grounds.

Critics, particularly lgbt bloggers have pointed out that the bill is so broad that it can also protect pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for medication to fight HIV or hospitals refusing to admit lgbt patients.

Rana Elmir, deputy director at ACLU of Michigan, told Buzzfeed that thousands of Michigan residents have been contacting lawmakers in protest. She claimed that public opinion is against the bill.

Elmir has a point. Yesterday, according to The New Civil Rights Movement, there was a protest at the state capitol against the bill.

Above picture courtesy of The New Civil Rights Movement.

'Gays are the greatest threat to American liberty? REALLY? & other Tuesday midday news briefs

The greatest threat to American liberty? Gay rights? Sometimes I like to pretend that Bryan Fischer is just saying these things because he has a very sick relative and he needs the money given to him for these outrageous commentaries. It's either that explanation or simply the man is a homophobic sleazeball. Whatever the case may be, I don't feel angry. I feel the need to buy a one piece white suit and a Persian cat which I will then stroke gently while speaking in a faux European accent while commanding a bunch of fearful subordinates.  

An Open Letter to Mainstream LGBT Organizations That Have Remained Silent on Black Lives Mattering - Excellent point AND it underlines the intersection of the lgbt and African-American communities.  

How the anti-gay bill affected Uganda’s tourism - Thanks to folks like Martin Ssempa, Uganda can now 'eat da poo poo.' 

 Marriage Equality Arrives In Scotland - Not bad. Not bad at all!  

Philly Anti-Gay Hate Attack Suspects Determined To Fight Charges In Court - Bring it on!  

Religious Right Group Defends Bogus Ex-Gay Billboard - Of course they do and in the attempt, they underline the point I made about anti-gay distortions of science:

 Greg Quinlan, PFOX’s conspiratorial and extremist spokesman, defended the billboard in an interview today with the far-right outlet WorldNetDaily, insisting that that his group just wants gay people to know that “the truth that homosexuality is destructive to someone.” 

 “The billboard speaks to the scientific fact that to quote the American Psychiatric Association, ‘there still remains no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality,’” Quinlan told WND. “There is zero evidence that a person is born a homosexual. In fact, Dr. Francis Collins of the human genome project with the National Institute of Health, who was appointed by President Clinton to do the project said homosexuality was “not hard-wired.’” 

 But THAT is not true. In 2008 and 2010, Collins has gone on record saying that he didn't make that statement. And Quinlan knows this because during the 2008 situation,  HE WAS MADE AWARE OF WHAT COLLINS SAID.

Family Research Council spokesman gives lukewarm response to proposal that gays be put to death

I don't know what's scarier about the following audio clip - that this caller actually proposes executing lgbts or the lukewarm way the Family Research Council's Craig James addresses the man's proposal.

In all honesty, I don't blame the caller for what he said. I blame people like James, Tony Perkins, and the rest of the anti-gay right (especially Fox News' Todd Starnes) for consistently ginning up the lie that gays want to harm Christians. What do you expect when you conjure up visions of gays recreating the Holocaust on evangelical Christians? When you are constantly feeding people fear, what the heck do you expect the outcome will be?

Anti-gay billboard the latest in a long line of scientific lies by the religious right

PFOX's inaccurate billboard highlights the organization's willingness to lie.

Last week, the anti-gay group PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays) suffered a huge embarrassment because of a billboard it put up on a Virginia interstate:

 The billboard appeared recently beside I-95 in Richmond, Virginia, according to NBC affiliate WWBT. The sign depicts two males, one dressed in a suit and the other in a white T-shirt, and says: "Identical twins: One gay. One not. We believe twin research studies show nobody is born gay."

As it turned out, the two males featured in the billboard sign was only one man, Kyle Roux, who happens to be openly gay.  This slip provided a delicious degree of schadenfreude
for the lgbt community.

However, in the midst of the laughter and derision, the lgbt community seem to be missing the larger picture which can be potentially beneficial to the community.

The way PFOX cited twin studies is inaccurate, according to lgbt activist and Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen:

“PFOX’s billboard underscores the groups scientific illiteracy and shows that ‘ex-gay’ activism is about demagoguery and marketing, rather that truth and results,” said Besen. “In reality, twin studies prove that there is a genetic link to sexual orientation. It is stunning that PFOX would pay for a billboard to showcase its ignorance and incompetence.”

A Truth Wins Out press release accused PFOX and other anti-gay groups of continuously distorting science:

 . . . anti-gay activists consistently distort research. They point to twin studies and say, “if homosexuality was truly genetic, the concordance rate for identical twins would be 100-percent.” Scientists say that this is a gross misunderstanding of the research. According to Dr. Eric Vilain, Professor of Human Genetics, Pediatrics and Urology at UCLA, and the Director of the Institute for Society and Genetics:

“All sorts of traits that are clearly genetic do not show 100% concordance [in twins]. I’ll give you examples, if people look at obesity. Or autism, looking at twins. There is undeniably, no one will even challenge that there is a genetic cause for both obesity and autism.

The twin studies do not show that it is 100% genetic. They just demonstrate that there is a genetic influence. There could be other influences on sexual orientation. Some of them might be environmental. For instance, the older brother effect [studies showing the more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be gay] is an environmental influence. That’s what has happened in the past, in the same womb seems to influence the sexual orientation of future pregnancies. So, it is certainly not an all or nothing phenomenon.”

Truth Wins Out's  press release also quoted  Dr. Marc Breedlove, Michigan State University, Rosenberg Professor of Neuroscience and Dr. Simon LeVay, author of Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation. They both went into detail about what was omitted by the simplicity of PFOX's billboard.

PFOX's  billboard is the latest in a long history of scientific inaccuracies and distortions undertaken by various anti-gay groups to bolster their negative claims against the lgbt community.

'Horses, marriage equality & ex-gay billboards' & other Monday midday news briefs

No One Is Born Gay? Hundreds Join In Protest Of 'Ex-Gay' Billboard - Nothing like an idiotic anti-gay happening to get the folks stoked up. I hope they stay stoked up.

  Mississippi Pastor Edward James Protests Gay Marriage With Horse In Wedding Dress - Somehow I don't think he successfully made his point. What I want to know is how did he get the dress on the horse.

No, My 10-Year-Old Son Isn't Looking for a Girlfriend. He Likes Boys. - I read this piece over the weekend and I think it should have a wider audience. THIS is what parental support looks like. 

 Scott Lively claims homosexuality worse than mass murder 'from God's perspective' - Because apparently God speaks His word through a two-bit homophobic #@!% who exploited homophobia and fear in foreign countries to further the persecution of lgbts. Who knew? 

 Bobby Jindal Is Predictably Partnering With Anti-Gay Radicals For His Prayer Rally - Bobby, Bobby, Bobby! The key to pandering is to not make it look so obvious.