Family Research Council exploits religion, homophobia to side with the NRA against Delta Airlines

The Family Research Council is exploiting religion & LGBTQ community to attack Delta Airlines.

Yesterday, I wrote about how the American Family Association is pushing an inane solution to the problem of gun violence in schools. Today, I am sad to report, the Family Research Council has sunk even lower. The hate group is attacking an organization attempting to lessen the violence and has involved the LGBTQ community in its attack.

Delta Airlines is in the middle of a huge controversy because recently it announced that it was ending a discount program for National Rifle Association (NRA) members. This action was done because of the recent Florida school shooting and activism by the survivors of that tragedy pushing for gun control laws. The NRA has vehemently opposes this, therefore it and its supporters have been pushing back rather aggressively.  Due to this, Delta and other companies have announced that they are breaking ties with the NRA.

But Delta seems to be getting a large part of the backlash for this announcement, particularly in Georgia. The Lt. Governor of that state, Casey Cagle, threatened to kill legislation giving Delta tax breaks unless it reinstate ties with the NRA.

While there is a serious back-and-forth going on about the legality and ethics of this threat, the Family Research Council has stepped in to attack Delta, making it seem as if the company is bullying Georgia and the NRA by throwing in a little homophobia and "religious liberty."

'Georgia faces danger of Hollywood boycott if anti-gay adoption bill becomes law' & other Tue midday news briefs

Hollywood Stars, Producers Call For Georgia Boycott If Anti-LGBTQ Law Passes - I like the idea of Hollywood boycotting Georgia if this awful bill becomes law. But I wish the media would focus on others who are also calling for a boycott because the religious right will definitely push the "Hollywood weirdos vs. normal folks" angle. This would take away from the real point of the matter which is saying that adoption agencies who use LGBTQ tax dollars shouldn't have the right to discriminate against LGBTQs for any reason. And that there is nothing wrong with a child growing up in a same-sex household.

Why LGBT rights groups are worried about Georgia's Keep Faith in Adoption and Foster Care Act - More about the awful bill in the above news briefs, plus this little point not mentioned in the article - regardless or not this bill is successful, one has to wonder if it's the start of a religious right tactic of keeping our community from fostering and adopting. If this is so, let's call it for what it is. Our opponents would claim that these bills are for the children, but we know that's a lie. It's all about discrimination. The facts are on our side and if this becomes a huge fight, we need to get the narrative on our side, too. 

In a first, openly transgender recruit signs contract for U.S. military - Another reminder that Trump's attempted trans ban is bupkiss. If transgender men and women want to serve in the military, let them.

Hawaii court rules ‘Christian B&B’ can’t use religion as a weapon against gay couples - Another wonderful ruling by the courts. 

What are the challenges for getting gay men at risk of HIV to take PrEP? - One problem is fear of "slut shaming." "Slut shaming" is an awful thing to do because there is nothing wrong with a healthy sexual appetite. Hell, my problem is that I don't get any. 

American Family Association thinks posting one of the '10 Commandments' in schools will reduce gun violence

The American Family Association wants schools to post one of the '10 Commandments' to reduce gun violence.

While the country has been reeling from the latest school shooting (this time, two weeks ago in Florida) and the survivors of the shooting have been leading the charge to demand action about gun control,  the supposed Christian group, the  American Family Association, has been taking a different road in the debate.

When one takes a gander at the articles and columns from its supposed news source, One News Now, about the shooting and the aftermath, it's easy to see whose side AFA is on:

NRA boycott backfiring on dozens of companies

Why school shootings: Not enough God, not enough guns

Cruz blasts Hollywood's gun control hypocrisy

Lott: Let's have fair debate on guns, our laws


Aside from these items, AFA has just sent a fundraising email suggesting an idea to combat the problem of gun violence in our schools. According to the subject of the email, the group claims that "The liberals are gonna hate this great idea!"  ;

American Family Association is asking every school in the country to put this statement on their school marquee or school sign for one week: "You shall not murder." 

While the country is discussing gun control laws, we think our young people should also be reminded that innocent human life is precious. Murder is against the law in every state, and these four words also emphasize that it's morally wrong. 

Schools regularly use words to encourage and discourage behavior. We tell students, "Say no to bullying," "Don’t text and drive," and "Say no to drugs." In light of the increasing violence in our schools, let's send the clear message, "You shall not murder." 

This is the sixth of the Ten Commandments. 

TAKE ACTION 

Add your name to our Open Letter to America's Schools. 

Contact your local school administrators and ask them to post "You shall not murder" on the school marque for one week. 

Share this alert via Twitter and Facebook. Be sure to use Twitter hashtag #Number6. 

Tweet a picture of your school sign using Twitter hashtag #Number6. 

Pray for the families of victims of school violence. 

If our mission resonates with you, please consider supporting our work financially with a tax-deductible donation. The easiest way to do that is through online giving. It is easy to use, and most of all, it is secure.

It's no secret to anyone who knows me or follows this blog that I very much despise the American Family Association for its long history of pushing homophobic propaganda under the guise of being a religious organization.

But I feel safe in assuming that no one will accuse me of bias when I say I hope the AFA is accurate in saying that liberals will hate the idea. In fact, I would venture to say that I hope people with good sense in general hates the idea.

Because it's not a great idea. It's a stupid, shallow, inane idea.

And it is not an adequate substitute for a much-needed debate on gun control as well as violence in our schools? It's ignorantly lazy, totally devoid of any understanding of nuance. It reminds me of a book report given by a lazy child who tries to stretch it to a required word count.

It's not what we need. At all.  And its suggestion underlines just how useless right-wing evangelical groups like the AFA are in situations such as these.

Family Research Council couldn't find any LGBTQ villains, so the hate group created some

The Family Research Council just made an attack against the South Carolina LGBTQ community and I'm not going to play "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms with the hate group.

From the Family Research Council's Washington Update:

First, the LGBT lobby tried to take away custody from parents. Now, it wants to stop people from becoming parents altogether! That's the goal in South Carolina, where some extremists are trying to shut down a religious adoption service for trying to place kids in Christian homes. 

"For 29 years," attorney Betsy Tanner wrote, "Miracle Hill has gladly served all foster children of any race, national origin, religious beliefs, sex, disability, or political belief. And for 29 years, Miracle Hill has recruited foster families who share its nondenominational Christian religious belief. Miracle Hill has always been clear regarding its religious identity and conviction that all staff -- paid and unpaid -- are followers of Jesus Christ." 

That was never a problem, until last year, when the state's Department of Social Services insisted the organization doesn't have the right to make religious beliefs a requirement of foster parents. That was devastating news to the leaders at Miracle Hill, who had probably watched this controversy play out with other Christian agencies in places like D.C., Illinois, and Massachusetts – and knew the ending wasn't a happy one. Faced with the choice of closing their doors or violating their convictions, Catholic Charities chose the former. 

Fortunately for Miracle Hill, they have an advocate in South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who's promised to fight for a waiver with federal officials. "The licensing and participation of faith-based entities in the state foster care system is a constitutionally-protected practice," he argued. "It is important that religious organizations not be required to sacrifice the tenets of their faith in order to serve the children of South Carolina." 

For now, Miracle Hill will hold its breath and wait. But they certainly appreciate the governor's support for religious freedom. "I think he'll get a clarification from Washington that our practice is not illegal," CEO Reid Lehman explained. "And then we just ask that the state recognize that as well." Thanks to the Trump administration, there's already a year's worth of precedent defending organizations like Lehman. Maybe eventually, the other side will get the message: fighting the First Amendment is a losing battle!

FRC is telling a two lies with its first paragraph:

First, the LGBT lobby tried to take away custody from parents. 

FRC is, with the help of a link from right-wing fake news source The Federalist, distorting a situation in Ohio in which the grandparents of a transgender boy was awarded custody because his parents did not want him taking hormone therapy. The grandparents supported the child's change of gender, as did the child's medical team.   There was no implied invisible gay lobby attempting to snatch children from parents.  There were only grandparents concerned for the health of their grandchild because his parents's actions were triggering suicidal thoughts in him. And a medical team which wanted the child to receive the therapy as soon as possible so as to decrease his suicidal risks.

Now for the BIG lie:

Now, ("the LGBT lobby'') wants to stop people from becoming parents altogether! That's the goal in South Carolina, where some extremists are trying to shut down a religious adoption service for trying to place kids in Christian homes.

Here is the problem. The article FRC linked and referred to in order to get its information (from The Greenville News) said NOTHING about this being a case of religious liberty vs. the LGBTQ community. In fact, there is nothing in the article about the LGBTQ community.

According to the article, this is the controversy:

In an op-ed delivered to The Greenville News, Betsy Tanner, an Upstate foster parent and adoption attorney, wrote that Miracle Hill has become one of the largest private foster-care providers in the state, supporting families in eight counties.

Currently, she wrote, 161 children receive care in those foster families. Last year 31 of those children achieved permanency when adopted by the families caring for them.

"For 29 years, Miracle Hill has gladly served all foster children of any race, national origin, religious beliefs, sex, disability, or political belief," Tanner wrote. "And for 29 years, Miracle Hill has recruited foster families who share its nondenominational Christian religious beliefs. Miracle Hill has always been clear regarding its religious identity and conviction that all staff — paid and unpaid — are followers of Jesus Christ."
But in 2017, Tanner wrote, the state Department of Social Services began interpreting federal and state regulations to say that Miracle Hill does not have the freedom to require foster families share its religious beliefs.

"Based on this new interpretation, SCDSS has given Miracle Hill 30 days to either abandon its religious convictions or shut down its ministry as a foster child placing agency," Tanner wrote.

And there is NOTHING mentioned about the LGBTQ community in Tanner's op-ed. either .

In other words, neither the South Carolina LGBTQ community nor the LGBTQ community in general have anything to do with the Miracle Hills situation. It's simply a case of a state agency battling an agency which only recruits foster parents sharing its religious beliefs.

It's plain to see that FRC manufactured LGBTQ boogeymen out of thin air for this situation. After all, their supporters need someone to attack and we are always their best targets.

'Mattis to support keeping transgender troops in the military' & other Fri midday news briefs

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis 

Mattis Likely To Support Transgender Military Service - DAMN RIGHT! Sweet! 

Slew of state and local bills are targeting LGBTQ people - We are the straw which stirs the drink. Bring. It. On. 

White Evangelicals, This is Why People Are Through With You - This was posted last month but it speaks a basic truth which should be constantly repeated.

Republicans are trying to pass a bill that would stop same-sex couples adopting in Georgia - Apparently we aren't done as of yet in Georgia.

Black Panther and the Promise of a Queer-Affirming Africa - You really didn't think us African-American queer folks would be left out of the excitement over Black Panther, did you?

Family Research Council blames immorality for shootings, doesn't say a word about those 'mulligans,' though

FRC's Tony Perkins

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins claims to know  what is to blame for the tragic school shooting last week in Florida:

Torn apart by grief and rage, Americans are frantic to know why our nation is unraveling in one act of violence after another. "We're done with thoughts and prayers!" an angry man shouted at a Colorado townhall, when Rep. Mike Coffman (R) asked for a moment of silence for Parkland. But isn't that the problem? Too many schools and colleges are done with prayer. They've been so busy kicking God out (and his standards) that they haven't noticed what's coming in. Every moral vacuum is filled with something. And maybe it's time we stepped back as a nation and take a long hard look at what those things are and how they're impacting our culture. Violence, relativism, promiscuity, and suicide didn't get their start when God was expelled from school. But they've certainly been given a culture in which to thrive now that we've removed the Judeo-Christian foundation that anchored the country.

Donald Trump's opponents are scratching their heads over these shootings, saying, "We've got to control the instruments of the violence." No, what we have to do is impact the hearts and minds of children and let them know their lives have meaning. "It had to have broken Billy Graham's heart," Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) told me on radio yesterday, "to see our nation get to the point where we refuse to teach morality, we refuse to teach right or wrong. The two-parent home has come under attack and been destroyed. And really, I've given this a lot of thought. When you get rid of teaching morality, when you destroy the foundational home that's been the foundation for every civilization, then if you want to stay safe, you're gonna have to give up all of your constitutional rights -- at least most of them."

Since Perkins is going all "Carrie Nation" on morality, I wonder how he feels about supposed Christian groups giving a corrupt and incompetent political leader a free pass on his bad behavior simply because he is giving them more power and influence?

Donald Trump is still the answer to many conservative evangelical leaders’ prayers. Or at least to their continuing grievances. They embrace Trump the policymaker, despite being uneasy about Trump as a man, says Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a prominent evangelical activist group.  

 Perkins knows about Stormy Daniels, the porn actress who claimed, in a 2011 interview, that in 2006 she had sex with Trump four months after his wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron. He knows of the reports that Daniels (real name: Stephanie Clifford) was paid off to keep the affair quiet in the waning weeks of the 2016 election. He knows about the cursing, the lewdness and the litany of questionable behavior over the past year of Trump’s life or the 70 that came before it.  

 “We kind of gave him—‘All right, you get a mulligan. You get a do-over here,’” Perkins told me in an interview for the latest episode of POLITICO’s Off Message podcast.

Never mind.

But please remember that Perkins is totally aware of the hypocrisy behind his positions here. And he simply doesn't care.  Whatever the solution may be to the problem in America with guns, shooting, and anger, it's one which we will not reach if we allow people like Perkins and groups like the Family Research Council to be the arbiters of our moral principles. They seem to think one can turn morality on and off as if it were a light bulb.

''Defiantly different' 10-yr old reminds us not to forget about our LGBTQ children' & other Thur midday news briefs

Meet The ‘Defiantly Different’ 10-Year-Old Set To Steal The Show At NYC Pride - Some folks - even some on our side of the spectrum - will probably disagree, but I'm not changing my mind. Children are coming out at younger ages and androgynous children exist. We need to accept this and deal with it in a way in which they are embraced and supported. Period.

No recommendation from Mattis yet on trans military service - Come on, Mattis. Get off your butt.

Outspoken Parkland Survivor Emma González is President of School’s Gay-Straight Alliance - Let's not forget that LGBTQ children were also affected by that awful Florida tragedy.

Before Moonlight: 10 films that celebrate the African American LGBT experience - Sweet!

"Queer Eye" Is The Most Empowering And Positive Show On TV Right Now - I didn't particularly care for the earlier version, but this one looks like a real winner.