Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
I've written extensively on the situation in Holland, MI involving the anti-gay Family Research Council and the fraudulent ad the organization paid to be published in the Holland's local newspaper.
The ad, which cited FRC-created pamphlet, The Ten Myths About Homosexuality, was the organization's attempt to speak against the city's broadening of its anti-discrimination ordinance to include the gay community.
Now I am glad to report that many of the residents of Holland, MI aren't happy with the ad, nor are they silent about their anger.
On Facebook is the group Holland Is Ready where residents of the city and others who support lgbt inclusion are interacting as well as passing along information.
And in the Holland Sentinel, the newspaper which originally ran FRC's ad, is a plethora of letters to the editor all voicing opposition to the ad.
Lastly, anger over the ad has caused its co-sponsor, Request Foods, to disavow the ad:
. . .the listed co-sponsor of the ad, Request Foods, said on Friday that it did not support the effort to stop the ordinance and should not have been listed in the ad.
"The ad was paid for by one [investor] without our management team's knowledge or permission," the company said in a statement emailed to FoxNews.com. "The opinions expressed in the ad do not reflect Request Foods' views and the ad should not have included our company name."
I don't know about you, but any day that FRC's homophobic efforts blows up in the organization's face is a good day.
Brian Brown and the National Organization for Marriage are always claiming that they are "unfairly under attack for merely defending the idea of marriage." But the above video is what happens when Brown is asked simple questions about his position. He doesn't get violent nor hateful. But he dodges with the dexterity of a teenager playing dodgeball. It's pretty embarrassing for him and his group.
The Family Research Council has finally sunken to a level that even I can't begin to ponder.
In the current news, there is a huge controversy involving a website called Wikileaks. This site has displayed classified documents of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In the center of this controversy is Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old gay soldier suspected of leaking documents to Wikileaks. He is currently awaiting court martial.
There is much speculation as to why Manning may have leaked these documents. But not to the Family Research Council. A post on the organization's webpage says the following:
It turns out that Manning is an extreme homosexual activist, whose fury over the services' homosexual policy may have led him to publicize highly classified documents about the wars. According to the U.K.'s Telegraph, Manning has an extensive history of campaigning for gay, lesbian, and transgendered causes and sources say he may have even been considering a sex change when he leaked military secrets on the Internet.
Although the U.S. press is relatively mum on his personal life, the British paper questions how Manning got away with "flaunting" his sexuality when DADT is still in effect.
There are several serious problems with FRCs claims. If you look at the link to the British article so generously provided by the organization, nothing in it connects Don't Ask, Don't Tell to Manning's alleged leaking of documents.
Furthermore, there is nothing in the British article about Manning seeking a sex change. And lastly, there is nothing - not one thing - in the British article which poses any question about Manning allegedly "flaunting his sexuality."
FRC attributes these speculations to the British article when they actually came from another source - Cliff Kincaid of the right-wing group Accuracy in Media.
Kincaid's speculations came from an original column he wrote on Wikileaks controversy. However, the manner in which FRC wrote its piece makes it seem that Kincaid's claims were included in the British article.
It is worth mentioning that neither Kincaid nor his organization, AIM, are accurate or unbiased sources when it comes to lgbt issues. Earlier this year, AIM had to retract a blog post falsely accusing a gay Obama appointee, Kevin Jennings, of being a pedophile. Kincaid has also made the vile claim that disease-tainted gay blood threatens our troops.
The Family Research Council has been known for distorting legitimate statistics to stigmatize the lgbt community, but in this case it seems that the organization has sunken to a new low - distorting news articles.
Could it be that the group falsely attributed Kincaid's claims to the British article because it's aware of his unsavory reputation for attacking the lgbt community with lies?
Allow me to indulge in a little South Carolina horn tooting here.
I always have a fun time at the annual South Carolina Pride Festival but this one will be extra special for a number of reasons.
Not only will it be my ninth SC Pride Festival but I am also one the guest speakers. In addition, I have been chosen to receive the prestigious Order of the Pink Palmetto.
It's going to be an awesome time!
Multi-platinum recording artist Taylor Dayne to headline SC Pride 2010
Drag performer Pandora Boxx & other entertainers to appear at free festival in the park
The South Carolina Pride 2010 festival to be held in Finlay Park, Columbia, South Carolina on September 4, 2010 will feature a star-studded line-up of local and nationally know entertainers. Headliners include multi-platinum recording artist Taylor Dayne, as well as singer-songwriter Cris Williams, performer Janice Robinson, and local entertainer Danielle Howle. Pandora Boxx, star of RuPaul’s Drag Race and RuPaul’s Drag U on LOGO, will open the festival after serving as Celebrity Grand Marshal of the Parade. Admission to the park & parade is free.
The SC Pride day on September 4, 2010 starts at noon with the Parade down Main Street, Columbia, with commentary hosted live on the radio by WXRY 99.3FM. Live entertainment in Finlay Park will kick-off immediately following the end of the parade. The official after-Pride block party will be held at PT’s 1109 at 1109 Assembly Street featuring dance music by world-renowned DJ Chris Cox.
“Live PROUD!” is the theme selected for SC Pride 2010 by the organization dedicated to organizing Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride events in South Carolina. SC PRIDE 2009 had approximately 8,000 attendees according to police estimates with over 70 vendors. The Pride Festival draws attendees from across South Carolina, Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and beyond.
All South Carolinians, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, are encouraged to attend the exciting, family-friendly SC Pride events. Enjoy food, fun, music, and vendors all day! Sponsored by Richland County, City of Columbia, WXRY, the Free-Times, Food lion, Q-Notes, and many more. Visit www.scpride.org for a complete list of sponsors and the official calendar of events.
The South Carolina Pride Movement is a non-profit organization dedicated to advocacy, education, support, and celebration of the GLBT community in South Carolina. The South Carolina Pride Movement is located on 1108 Woodrow Street in Columbia. For more information contact Tamera Tedder, President, at (803) 771-7713, mtt156@yahoo.com, or visit www.scpride.org.
Peter LaBarbera's phony "Truth Academy" is going to be held this week. It will interesting to see who will be attending. It will be even more interesting to see how the protest by The Chicago Gay Liberation Network (GLN) will play into the proceedings.
Naturally, the American Family Association's One News Now is allowing LaBarbera to cast his collection of mess as some sort of accurate and moral event.
But I also found something else extremely fascinating and highly unusual. The One News Now article made it a point to fairly give the GLN's position on the situation:
"We're giving free scholarships to young people because we know that, let's face it, young people in America are brainwashed in favor of the gay rights movement," the AFTAH (LaBarbera) founder laments.
Some pro-homosexual groups are already showing opposition to the Truth Academy, claiming that its teachings are hateful "bigotry."
"The Chicago Gay Liberation Network (GLN) has already announced it's going to protest the truth academy," LaBarbera reports.
That is the same group that celebrated the firing of a University of Illinois professor who taught the Catholic view against homosexuality. In reference to AFTAH's efforts, GLN's website contends that "youth should not be taught to hate their peers and thus fuel the cycle of self-loathing, depression and suicide which too many LGBTQ youth experience. Bigotry must be vocally and publicly opposed, especially when haters try to recruit young people."
The conservative leader, however, feels that defending biblical truths and the natural family is not "hate," and he suspects that some of the opposition might be because of the lineup of nationally known speakers the academy has invited to speak.
Let's take a look at these speakers. They include:
Cliff Kincaid- a man whose organization(Accuracy in Media), when not having to apologize for inaccurately labeling a gay Obama official (Kevin Jennings) as a pedophile, is busy defending a Ugandan law which penalizes people - with imprisonment and death- simply for being gay.
Robert Knight of Coral Ridge Ministries - who has spent years demonizing the lgbt community even to the point of freely citing the discredited research of Paul Cameron (a man who publishes "research papers" accusing gays of such things as wallowing in feces and plunging gerbils up their rectums.) Knight has also in the past described lesbians as "pretty big heavy set women who look like they’ve been over working October Fest for the last six years "
Ryan Sorba, Young Conservatives of California - a man so nastily anti-gay that he was booed off of the stage at a right-wing conservative conference for his comments.
Greg Quinlan, Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays - who, when he is not distorting the words of prominent researchers such as Dr. Francis Collins, attempts to spin court defeats into victories for his fraudulent group.
Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel - a man who described gay relationships as “one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love.’” Barber is also the same man who encouraged attendees at a conference last year to go into more detail in describing gay sex acts as a way to disgust people.
One more thing - JONAH is presently embroiled in an ugly scandal in which two former clients charged one of the organization's lead therapists with sexual misconduct.
All of this makes one wonder just what is LaBarbera's definition of "biblical truths."
Any parent who thinks that their children would benefit from being exposed to this collection of homophobic misfits needs his/her head examined.
A Different Story (1978) was a controversial movie because of what I think was a cheap ploy to attract an audience.
Here is the story - boy meets girl, boy and girl marries so that boy can stay in the country, boy and girl have sex and a child, girl catches boy cheating with another woman, boy and girl make up.
It's a standard love story except for one thing - the boy (Perry King) is gay and the woman (Meg Foster) is a lesbian.
Not bisexual, mind you, but gay and lesbian.
Hence the title, A Different Story.
This story could have worked without using sexual orientation as a cheap ploy. And don't get me started on the other lgbt characters - neurotic, hedonistic hot messes.
The movie wasn't that successful (no wonder).
But at least Perry King has nude scene. Cute tush, too. It's in the above clip.
Like I said last night - if you give the religious right enough rope and they hang themselves. Courtesy of David Pakman and Midweek Politics.comes an interview with your friend and mine, "Porno" Pete LaBarbera. If you have time and want a good laugh, check it out:
Once religious right groups find an item which can be used to demonize the lgbt community, they repeat this item ad naseum, even if they have to omit some crucial facts which could change the flow of what they are trying to push.
For example this quote by AIDS researcher Ronald Stall:
One of the nation’s leading AIDS researchers, Ronald Stall, has declared, “It may be a fallacy to say that HIV is the dominant, most dangerous and most damaging epidemic among gay men in the United States today. There are at least four other epidemics occurring among gay men that are intertwining and making each other worse. This is called a syndemic.” The “four other epidemics” are “substance abuse, partner violence, depression and childhood sexual abuse.”
That is how the Family Research Council spun the quote while using it to make the case against a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
FRC also manipulated it to use against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) (item 7 with Peter Sprigg).
But like so many other things they use, the Family Research Council distorts the meaning of Stall's words.
“It may be a fallacy to say that HIV is the dominant, most dangerous and most damaging epidemic among gay men in the United States today,” Stall said. “There are at least four other epidemics occurring among gay men that are intertwining and making each other worse. This is called a syndemic.”
Stall cited the population-based Urban Men’s Health Study, which demonstrated that at least four other epidemics – substance abuse, partner violence, depression and childhood sexual abuse – may be affecting this patient population.
“What do these other factors have to do with HIV infection?” Stall said. “The analysis further demonstrated that men who were most affected by this syndemic were also more likely to have recently engaged in high-risk sex and/or be HIV positive. Therefore, we now have these co-occurring psychosocial conditions that are intertwined and are making each other worse driving an infectious disease epidemic.”
Stall added that other marginalized populations – including ethnic minorities and the urban poor – may also be suffering from a similar syndemic; this may be further exacerbating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in these patient populations as well.
In other words, Stall isn't implying that it is the lgbt orientation causing these problems but the marginalization of lgbts.
How FRC manipulates Stall's words is similar to how the organization manipulated medical information in its pamphlet The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality.
In the pamphlet, FRC cited information that listed the medical problems facing the lgbt community (i.e. depression, drug abuse) but omitted the part of the data calling homophobia the cause of these problems.
It's a cagey thing to do. Not very Christian or moral, but highly cagey.
And one more thing, Box Turtle Bulletin says the following which throws another monkey wrench in FRC's claims:
According to our estimates, the prevalence of HIV is probably below 10% of the total LGBT population. (Those estimates however are fought with unknowable variables, so caution is advised whenever anyone attempts to estimate HIV prevelance in the LGBT population.) All people entering the military are tested for HIV, and all military personnel are retested at periodic intervals.
It's interesting how the Shirley Sherrod story demonstrates the similarities between the African-American and lgbt communities. Both communities are seeking equality and both communities have to combat forces who seek to dominate the narrative with the idea that they are either overly complaining or attempting to unfairly "change the definition" of normalcy.
For those who have been complaining that Fox News has been unfairly targeted in the Shirley Sherrod debacle comes this item, which as far as I am concerned, is an admittance of a faux pas on the part of the company:
The first mention of the Sherrod video, which surfaced on Monday, July19th on Andrew Breitbart's BigGovernment.com, was made later that day on Bill O'Reilly's 8 p.m. show. O'Reilly later apologized for how he characterized Sherrod.
But FoxNews.com did run a story about the existence of the video, titled "Video Shows USDA Official Saying She Didn't Give 'Full Force' of Help to White Farmer" at 5:58 p.m. on Monday, an hour before the Agriculture Department announced Sherrod’s resignation. And Wednesday, (Fox News Senior Vice President of News Michael) Clemente told POLITICO that was a mistake.
"There was a breakdown in the system, and it is being addressed," he said. "But it must say something about the power of Fox, that a week after she resigned, we're still talking about this."
The breakdown occurred following Fox's afternoon news meeting that day, when Clemente, according to The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz offered the following advice: "Let's take our time and get the facts straight on this story. Can we get confirmation and comments from Sherrod before going on-air. Let's make sure we do this right."
Clemente said he gave the advice in the meeting, not in a memo to staff, and his guidance clearly did not make it down to the reporter and producers who put the story on FoxNews.com.
Clemente was wrong about one thing. It does not demonstrate the power of Fox News that people are talking about the Sherrod incident a week later.
It demonstrates the bullheadedness of Fox News to not admit its error.
I thought I had seen it all when it comes to the Shirley Sherrod debacle.
At first the incident was an embarrassment for the Obama Administration and the NAACP, but apparently members of the right are getting jealous. Some are obviously trying to outdo both parties in terms of humiliating themselves:
On Monday, former Reagan administration official Jeffrey Lord astonished the left and the right by penning an article in the conservative American Spectator attacking former-USDA official Shirley Sherrod for using the term "lynching" to describe the murder of one of her relative years ago. The problem, according to Lord, was that the victim, Bobby Hall was beaten to death by a blackjack, rather than being hanged by the neck. "It's...possible that she knew the truth and chose to embellish it, changing a brutal and fatal beating to a lynching."
Critics, even at his own magazine, pounced, noting that a lynching is an extrajudicial murder by a mob, whether or not the weapon of choice is a rope.
Lord was referring to the story Sherrod told about the murder of her relatives in the infamous speech which was truncated to make it seem as if she was a racist:
I should tell you a little about Baker County. In case you don't know where it is, it's located less than 20 miles southwest of Albany. Now, there were two sheriffs from Baker County that -- whose names you probably never heard but I know in the case of one, the thing he did many, many years ago still affect us today. And that sheriff was Claude Screws. Claude Screws lynched a black man. And this was at the beginning of the 40s. And the strange thing back then was an all-white federal jury convicted him not of murder but of depriving Bobby Hall -- and I should say that Bobby Hall was a relative -- depriving him of his civil rights.
Because of the criticism his piece received from both the left and the right, Lord goes farther in his criticism of Sherrod:
. . . Lord later expanded his critique of Sherrod by arguing that Hall wasn't beaten to death by enough people to constituted a mob, and therefore it couldn't have been a lynching in two different ways. He stands by that assessment.
"Certainly the image in my head of a lynching is rope around the neck," Lord told me. "And when we really got into this, it was quite apparent to me that there was all sorts of other things. That there has to be a mob -- mob action. Well what is a mob? Is it two people? Is it three people?"
Unbelievable. I have always believed that electing a black man as president would bring all sorts of strange people out of the woodwork.
And here is Jeffery Lord bending over backwards to prove my point.
Give it another week and they will be saying that Sherrod isn't an African-American.
NOM's hurtful voices: 'One hand, one woman' edition - More proof of the National Organization for Marriage's hypocrisy. It's joining forces with a pastor who lied about "gays teaching children to masturbate."
A religious right cause celebre has been knocked down by federal courts on Monday:
A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit brought against Eastern Michigan University by a master's student who said she was removed from the school's counseling program because of her strong religious views against homosexuality.
As part of her course work, Ward had refused to counsel homosexual clients, saying she believed homosexuality was morally wrong.
The university removed Ward from the counseling program after determining her actions violated university policy and the American Counseling Association (ACA) code of ethics.
Julea Ward sued the university in 2009, alleging violation of her First Amendment and religious rights.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh ruled in favor of the university and granted it summary judgment.
"The university had a rational basis for adopting the ACA Code of Ethics into its counseling program, not the least of which was the desire to offer an accredited program," Steeh said in a 48-page opinion.
"Furthermore, the university had a rational basis for requiring its students to counsel clients without imposing their personal values.
"In the case of Ms. Ward, the university determined that she would never change her behavior and would consistently refuse to counsel clients on matters with which she was personally opposed due to her religious beliefs -- including homosexual relationships."
The judge said Ward's "refusal to attempt learning to counsel all clients within their own value systems is a failure to complete an academic requirement of the program."
Ward had been touted as the lastest "victim" of the so-called homosexual agenda by members of the religious right, including your friend and mine, Peter LaBarbera.
My feeling is that if you can't do the job completely and for everyone then we have a serious problem, especially if you are seeking to be a healthcare worker.
Let's hope that the court's ruling is the last we hear of this nonsense.
Hat tip to Ray Whiting, one of my new online buddies.
The Family Research Council is speaking against broadening an anti-discrimination ordinance in Holland, MI. How the organization has chosen to do so is raising alarm:
A community group that is trying to make Holland more accepting of gay people planned to meet Wednesday, July 28, to decide how to respond to a full-page advertisement in the local daily newspaper that one of its leaders said included "blatant untruths" about gay people.
. . . The ad, which was sponsored by the Family Research Council and Request Foods and published July 23 in The Holland Sentinel, made reference to efforts toward broadening the city's anti-discrimination ordinance to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The Holland City Council has referred the measure to its Human Resources Commission for review.
The ad stated that "pro-homosexual activists" were trying to give Holland gays and lesbians "special protections" under employment discrimination laws and called homosexuality a choice that is "harmful to individuals and to society."
The ad, which can be viewed here, contains the standard religious right propaganda about the lgbt community, i.e. we are mentally diseased, we don't need protection from discrimination, and people can change their sexual orientation.
But here is where things get interesting. FRC doesn't provide references for any of their claims in the ad except one. On the far lower right corner of the ad is the image of a pamphlet that the ad invites people to consult.
The pamphlet is called The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality.
To recap, The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality is a fraudulent piece of work with many problems in regards to veracity including:
1. Ten Mythsrepeats the lie that the Robert Spitzer study proves that homosexuality is changeable, excluding the fact that Spitzer has said on more than one occasion that his research was being distorted.
2. Ten Myths utilizes the work of the organization National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). The website Truth Wins Out calls NARTH a discredited "ex-gay" fringe organization that peddles fraudulent "cures" for homosexuality.
3. Most importantly, Ten Myths intentionally distorts information to make it seem that negative behaviors, i.e. drug and alcohol abuse, are indicative of the lgbt orientation. The pamphlet accomplishes this by citing data in regards to the lgbt community and such negative behaviors while omitting the fact that much of the data places the blame on homophobia for these negative behaviors.
It is apparent that in the fictional world inhabited by the Family Research Council, lgbts being able to live without fear of discrimination is a sin, but lying about the lgbt community is allowed.
The American Spectator’s embarrassingly ignorant attack on Sherrod - As this story ebbs away, members of the right can't help using it to make total fools of themselves. The spin here is that Sherrod was "lying" when she said a relative was lynched because he was "merely" beaten to death.
During its failed Summer Marriage Tour, it is obvious that the National Organization for Marriage is trying to incite anger in the lgbt community and allies in order to fuel their propaganda.
It's all a part of their routine of being fake victims. But before this can succeed, NOM needs to not only address those in its ranks, such as Lou Marinelli, but also those who support their cause, like this guy:
This is Larry Adams and if you think his comments are interesting, check out his sign which he envisions his "solution" to marriage equality:
Maggie Gallagher really needs to talk to her people. If you are going to pretend like you are a victim, it's helpful not to advocate the lynching of those you claim to be victimized by.
