Let us fight for the right to love, not to destroy

I'm sorry but I can't post any news briefs today.

My heart and prayers go out to all of those caught up in that awful madness in Aurora, CO. I simply can't comprehend why someone would take it upon himself to do what this man did. Did he think that his cause was so righteous that it was perfectly okay to attack a bunch of innocent people?

I know I am not alone with my puzzlement or my prayers for those caught up in this tragedy. And I hope I am not alone in my soul-searching.

We all must learn something from this, particularly those of us who fight for lgbtq equality. There are times when we (myself included) personalize our fight against certain individuals due to their nasty comments and lies. While we are perfectly justified in pointing out hypocrisies, let's never personalize our fight so much that we lose perspective in what exactly are we fighting against and for.

Our struggle for equality is not against any person or religion. Our struggle for equality is against fear and ignorance. It's against entitlement and thoughts of supremacy which deceives people into thinking that they own the patent on the words "morality," "love," "values," and "family." We fight not to destroy nor to hate but for the right to love.

Because it is our right.

The following video is dedicated to us all, but especially the victims of the recent tragedy. Remember that we are ALL pulling for you:

THESE bigots have too much time on their hands

From Right Wing Watch comes something so ridiculous that there are no words:

The Public Advocate, the fervently anti-gay group led by Virginia politician Eugene Delgaudio, devised a protest song, complete with references to Jerry Sandusky and child abuse, to condemn Ernst &Young CEO James Turley’s attempt to overturn the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on gay members, a ban that was recently reaffirmed:

Transcript:

We've heard about dear Turley's plan,
And we're here to say,
It's sad that such a senseless man
Is with the B.S.A!

Morally, Morally,
That's the way we like.
Do not touch our girls and boys,
Just go take a hike.

We have seen just what can come
When anyone at all
Can get quite close to little ones
And frankly, we're appalled!

Morally, Morally,
What will it be like
If we let the unsavory
Get close to our dear tykes?

Morally, Morally,
That's the way we like.
Do not touch our girls and boys,
Just go take a hike.

You say that we should open doors
And welcome one and all.
With no attention to the boors
Who'll make our children bawl.

Morally, Morally,
Whatever shall be done
If we hire Sandusky,
and let him near our sons?

Morally, Morally,
That's the way we like.
Do not touch our girls and boys,
Just go take a hike.

Public Advocate is the same group which recently stole a gay couple's wedding photo to use in a homophobic ad.

Between you and me, I don't think P. Diddy will be pushing a remix of that song any time soon.

Chick-Fil-A exposes NOM's phony call for company neutrality

Maggie Gallagher of NOM

With the news of Chick-Fil-A's stance against marriage equality, some of us were waiting for the National Organization for Marriage to show its hypocrisy.

You may remember that a while back, NOM was demanding that companies in Minnesota adopt a neutral stance on the amendment the state will be voting on in regards to gay marriage. It sent the following letter to 50 Minnesota companies:

As a cultural matter that has little to do with your corporate mission to serve customers, earn profits, and provide good jobs for the people of Minnesota we would request that _____ adopt a neutral stance on the Minnesota marriage amendment. We do not request that you endorse our efforts to protect the age-old definition of what is a marriage, but only that you stay neutral and respect the conscience rights of your customers and employees who are on both sides of the issue.[...]

Wading into a culture war over an issue where _____ has no business interest is to invite public backlash, much like what Starbucks is experiencing in the DumpStarbucks.com campaign, with little upside. Polls have put support for the Minnesota marriage amendment at 56% – higher than polls in North Carolina had support for the marriage amendment there just prior to the 61-39% victory for marriage in that state.[...]

We are carefully watching what _____ will do on this important measure, with the expectation that you will not be engaged on one side or the other. Please let us know if this is not the case.

Naturally, NOM has taken a different tone with Chick-Fil-A's stance, calling the company's president, Dan Cathy, "a corporate hero for marriage" on its blog.

This two-faced hypocrisy reeks of something former NOM president Maggie Gallagher would think of. She does have a habit of speaking out of both sides of her mouth such as praising same-sex families on one side while condemning them on the other while at the same time attempting to fool people into thinking that she is not being two-faced.

People are not stupid, NOM.

'US Gay Black Men face highest risk of HIV/AIDS in the world' and other Thursday midday news briefs

U.S. Black Gay Men Face Highest Risk Of HIV/AIDS In The World - I can't BEGIN to tell you how it feels to wake up one morning and realize that you are in a high-risk group for HIV/AIDS. And there are so many people to THANK. First to the black community: thank you for your hypocrisy over sexual matters and your desire to keep us gay men hidden from the public spectrum in spite of the fact that we are your brothers, sons, nephews, choirmasters, and pastors. Thank you so much your desire to make us ashamed of who we are. Thank you gay community for smothering us with crap which has nothing to do with us. Thank you for focusing on nonsensical things in a bad attempt to homogenize the gay community into some bland, Borg-like community and ignoring the fact that not all of us are white and skinny or white and muscular or celebrities or attendees at some ridiculous upper crust cocktail party. Thank you for inadvertently rendering us as invisible as the black community does.  Thank you to the religious right who is sure to use this information to smear gay men. How can I forget about you? And last but not least, thank you other gay black men - those who will not speak up, the ones (particularly the celebrities who KNOW who they are) who are in the closet, and the rest who just don't give a damn.

NOM unveils its new Corporate Hypocrisy Project - Apparently NOM thinks only those who support gay equality should practice neutrality. The organization believes in different rules for those who support homophobia. 

 Barton, Green & Barber Agree: Not Voting for Romney is a Sin - Wait until the Black Church community hears this!  

Gay Harassment Case - This is sad. We need to pray for this couple. 

Romney targeted over flip flops and positions on gay rights

From Think Progress:

Modeled as satire on the anti-bullying “It Gets Better” project, American Bridge 21st Century and Courage Campaign Super PAC have launched the “Mitt Gets Worse” campaign. In testimonials, various activists explain how harmful Mitt Romney’s anti-LGBT positions are and how much worse he would make the U.S. for LGBT people if he were president.

The campaign features testimonies from Adam Bink of the Courage Campaign, Julie Goodridge, whose suit led to marriage equality in Massachusetts, Jennifer Chrisler of the Family Equality Council, and Kathleen Henry, who chaired the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. However, if you ask me, the most powerful videos features Romney talking. That way, we can see his flip flops and negative positions on gay rights.

The follow video is Romney in 2007 attempting to explain his support of Don't Ask, Don't Tell in contrast to public comments he made supporting gays and lesbians serving openly in the military. It underlines the danger that the gay community will have should Romney be elected:

Mike Huckabee spreads confusion about homosexuality and pedophilia

The reason why the Boy Scouts made such a ridiculous decision regarding keeping gays out is because people like former Governor and now radio talk show host Mike Huckabee. Listen how he and a caller who was molested as a child makes it seem that gays want to be in the Boy Scouts to "go after" children.

I feel sorry for this caller but he is wrong. A gay man did not molest him. A pedophile (a person who TARGETS children) molested him. And it's sad that Huckabee aided and abetted this poor man's ignorance:



This isn't accidental on Huckabee's part. He has in the past:

• aligned himself with Southern Poverty Law Center – identified hate group Mass Resistance whose leader Brian Camenker once made a claim in 2006 that “gays were trying to get legislation passed to allow sex with animals” in Massachusetts,
• attacked lgbt families by comparing them to people raising puppies,
• bent over backwards to assure Ann Coulter that he wasn’t  “pro-gay” and “pro-sodomy.”

Just count this as another notch on his belt of homophobic ignorance.

'Gay man survives 'ex gay' exorcism' and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Alec Exeter: I Survived ‘Ex-Gay’ Exorcism - A sad story with a somewhat happy ending.  

Noted peddler of extremism: 'The Boy Scouts called me' about gay policy - Any organization consorting with hate groups is not an organization I would want my child to participate in. 

Texas University Settles Suit With Lesbian Professor, Passes Nondiscrimination Protections - Good news out of Texas!  

HIV Criminalization May Discourage Testing, Study Shows - WHICH the religious right will exploit no doubt. 

Defender of anti-gay parenting study has history of distorting science

Stanton

Mark Regenrus' faulty study on gay parenting has gained a new defender. But one should ask is it a defender which would help its credibility:

 . . . analyst Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family paints a different picture of the professor and his work.

"Professor Regnerus is an imminently good scholar -- very careful, very thoughtful," Stanton asserts. "I've read his study. He bends over backwards to really try to be measured … thoughtful and fair with the data. He doesn't slam anybody; he doesn't implicate anybody."

So the family analyst is shocked that the university would undertake this investigation based on one letter from a homosexual activist blogger. "We do need to understand that it's not scholars complaining about that and making that charge; it's one gay activist blogger who is," Stanton notes. "And unfortunately, the University of Texas at Austin kowtowed to that request."

That's the crux of Stanton's defense - "Professor Regnerus' study isn't faulty because it's really really good and Regnerus is a really, really, really nice guy."

It shouldn't surprise anyone that Stanton can't offer a suitable defense of Regnerus' study. Though Focus on the Family anoints Stanton as an "expert," he himself a history of getting into trouble for distorting scientific work in his attempt to denigrate the gay community. In March 2008,  he claimed that there’s a “clear consensus” among anthropologists that “A family is a unit that draws from the two types of humanity, male and female.”

However, those with expertise in such matters vehemently disagreed with this claim.

The American Anthropological Association in particular wrote a letter to Focus on the Family blasting Stanton for his error, calling it a gross misrepresentation of the position of the anthropological community on gay marriage.

This year, he was called out by Think Progress for distorting one study to oppose marriage equality. And then Equality Matters, another site, refuted his attempt to attack a pro-gay parenting study.

I had a personal discussion with him (which I posted online and you can read here) taking him to task for citing a fictional anti-gay term - gay bowel syndrome - to denigrate the gay community in a piece he wrote. His defense of using the term says a lot more about his bias than his alleged expertise.

Basically it comes down to this - Glenn T. Stanton defending any study against claims of distortions is like a rabid wolf defending another wolf from Little Red Riding Hood.

I don't care about the Boy Scouts

I am probably one of the only few people who get exasperated at the gay community on the subject of the Boy Scouts. The announcement today put me in a bad mood:

The Boy Scouts of America announced today that it will continue its long-standing policy of discrimination against LGBT scouts and scout leaders and will take no action on proposals to reconsider that policy. This comes despite growing pressure to lift the ban from Eagle Scouts, an Ohio mom who was removed from her position as a Cub Scout den leader purely because she is a lesbian, and two prominent national board members.

A spokesman said a secret 11-person committee, appointed in 2010 to study the issue, “came to the conclusion that this policy is absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts.” The group dismissed the announcements by Ernst & Young CEO James Turley and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, both members of the BSA national board, that the group ought to lift its ban.

I'm in a bad mood partly because of the decision to keep this stupid policy. Another reason for my anger is the fact that religious right groups are praising the Scouts while implying that gay men are sleazy individuals who want "access " to children.

But the single largest reason for my anger is at my own community.

I don't care about the Boy Scouts and I don't agree with my community's decision to fight this battle the way it is being fought. I didn't like it when the James Dale case was fought all the way to the Supreme Court because I knew we would lose that one. Dale was the young gay man who was a scout leader until his sexual orientation became public. When he was kicked out, he sued all the way to the Supreme Court

And the court ruled  in 2000 that the Boy Scouts had a right to free association.  I agree with that.

I don't see the Boy Scouts in the same manner as I see employment discrimination or housing discrimination. This is an organization which should have a right to dictate who its members are so long as it doesn't receive public funds.

And therein lies the rub, so to speak. Our argument with the Scouts should not be the fact that it doesn't allow gays in. It should be with the question does it receive tax dollars or the things which are paid for by tax dollars while pursuing a discriminatory policy.

Seems to me that based upon its recent history, the last thing the Boy Scouts should fear is gay men. We are not the reason it had to pay $18.5 million to a victim of sexual abuse in 2010.

Nor were gay men involved in the 2011 case in which it was discovered that Boy Scout officials in this country and Canada knew that a pedophile was in their ranks and did nothing to stop him.

In spite of its reputation, the Boy Scouts sounds like an organization I wouldn't allow my dog in, much less my child. We don't need to force this group to allow us in. What we need to do is not only stay far away but also keep our tax dollars far away.

I say let the Boy Scouts keep the gay community out so long as our tax dollars are kept out also.

'AFA spokesman: Deny gay parents custody of their children' and other Tuesday midday news briefs

One has to ask will the following thoughts by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association  about gay households with children be repeated by other members of the religious right (i.e. Maggie Gallagher, Linda Harvey, Tony Perkins, etc.):



Fischer: Gay Biological Parents Should be Denied Custody and Only Allowed Supervised Visits 

 In other news:

 Help us send the Bermea Family to Family Week! - A same-sex family has been the victim of threats of intimidation. Here is a way you can help them remember that what's happening is not their fault but that of ignorant people. 

 Boy Scouts Reaffirm Ban on Gays - The Boy Scouts can do whatever but tax dollars shouldn't go to affirm their prejudice.

 I have a new ‘non-cognitive elite’ celebrity spokesbot for NOM: Jimmie ‘J.J.’ Walker - So tell me. Do you think NOM will stoop this low?  

Maine poll shows strong support for marriage - I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.

  CDC Launches New Campaign Against HIV Stigma And Complacency - This campaign is needed.

Religious right fail to overturn pro-gay law in California (again)

Some awesome news last night out of California:

Anti-gay groups tonight said they have failed to gather enough signatures to force a November referendum to nix the FAIR Education Act (SB 48), California’s law that requires public schools to integrate age-appropriate and factual information about historical roles of LGBT people, people with disabilities and people of color into existing social science instruction.

The Stop SB 48 coalition said they fell short of the 500,000 valid signatures needed to force a vote on the Children Learning Accurate Social Science (CLASS) Act, which would have essentially repealed the FAIR Education Act.

The petitions were due today to state officials, but coalition officials estimated that they only had 446,000 valid signatures after eliminating ones judged to be faulty.

"Placing a measure on the ballot through grassroots efforts alone has not been done in California in recent memory. Although history was against us, our conscience compelled the coalition to fight this battle rather than doing nothing," said Kevin Snider, chief counsel to Pacific Justice Institute and the author of the wording for the CLASS Act.

The coalition included well-known anti-gay groups in California: Calvary Chapel Chino Hills, Faith and Public Policy, Capitol Resource Institute, Advocates for Faith and Freedom, Pacific Justice Institute, Western Center for Law and Policy, Traditional Values Coalition, Korean Gospel Broadcast Co., Organization for Justice and Equality, United Families International, Alliance Defense Fund, Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America.

To date, at least five initiative attempts have been launched, and failed, in a blatant attempt to remove all references to LGBT people in school textbooks in California. All five initiatives are clearly discriminatory in nature because they target LGBT people for exclusion in textbooks. Some of the initiatives also target people with disabilities and Pacific Islanders, and change racial identities, for example, from Mexican Americans to Mexicans.

The FAIR Education Act, authored by state Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and sponsored by Equality California and Gay-Straight Alliance Network, was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown last year and went into effect on Jan. 1, 2012.

My guess is that the opposition won't take the hint and give up. That's just fine. They will lose again.


Related posts:

Family Research Council recycling tacky Prop 8 video

Bigots fail in California! Anti-gay referendum doesn't get enough signatures

Group endorsing Romney behind black pastor protest of Obama

According to the following video, the "cat's is out of the bag" in regards to a group of African-American pastors protesting President Obama's and the NAACP's supporting of marriage equality:



As it turns out, this is not a genuine protest of anger stemming from the African-American community, but rather an astroturfed effort by the National Organization for Marriage. The video is probably the first time NOM has attached its name to this protest, but to be honest, many of us lgbtq bloggers knew that NOM was involved from the beginning..

William Owens, the leader of the Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP) -  the group pushing this protest, has been described by NOM as it's "liaison to the Black Church." This is significant for two reasons.

 1. Remember that NOM got into trouble earlier this year when it was discovered that the organization planned to create a "wedge strategy" to divide the African-American and gay communities on the subject of marriage equality:

As you can read above, NOM planned to recruit black leaders to speak out in an effort to get the gay community so enraged that they verbally attack these leaders. Then the black community would respond hostilely to these attacks. The end goal is definitely cause confusion between two groups who support President Obama in wide numbers. And that has a lot to do with Reason 2.

2. NOM has endorsed Mitt Romney, President Obama's challenger:

“We are proud to endorse Mitt Romney for president,”  (NOM President Brian) Brown said. “Gov. Romney was an early signer of NOM’s presidential pledge which represents his commitment to the nation to take specific actions as president to preserve and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

In August, Romney was among the candidates who signed a pledge from NOM committing himself to back a Federal Marriage Amendment, defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court and establish a commission on “religious liberty” to investigate the alleged harassment of same-sex marriage supporters.

“Now is the time for all people who recognize the importance of marriage to come together to support a true champion, Mitt Romney, against an incumbent who has done virtually everything in his power to undermine the institution of marriage,” Brown continued.

The goal of the CAAP protest (which NOM has so generously proven) is not to take a stand against marriage equality. Nor is it to get President Obama to rescind his support of marriage equality.

The point of the CAAP protest is to generate a hostile division between gays and blacks which would help Romney get elected.

And don't be fooled by Owens and other pastors in the video. Odds that they are in on the con.

So as it becomes clear that this protest is yet another attempt by NOM to divide the black and gay communities, we must insist that the media not approach this story half-assed. We must state and insist with every chance we get that the media take the time to tell the ENTIRE story.

Granted, I don't see this strategy working because black folks aren't monolithic. We don't buck every time a pastor says "jump."

But educating people on what's going on with this astroturfed protest would go a long way to prove that while the black and gay communities may have different struggles to reach our goals of equality, we generally have the same enemies with the same mindsets. They see us as either pawns or less than nothing.

It's time that African-Americans and gays stop fighting each other over the subject of marriage equality and recognize when these enemies are trying to exploit us.

Hat tip to Jeremy Hooper.

 

'Religious right blaming gays for Penn State child abuse scandal' and other Monday midday news briefs

As these items from People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch demonstrate, the religious right care less about the children harmed in the Penn State tragedy than they care about blaming it on the gay community: 



Fischer: Lesson from Penn State is to Keep Gays Out of the Boy Scouts  

Sandy Rios: Child Abuse is tied to 'Homosexual Recruitment' 

Linda Harvey: LGBT-Inclusive Schools Facilitate Child Abuse 

In other news (if your stomach hasn't given out on you from reading the above mess):

 The latest weapon in our Homosexual Agenda™: The 'Ice Age' movies, of course - A good reason why we call Joseph Farrah's online publication World NUT Daily.

Seattle Shop Supports Marriage Equality Campaign Selling Gay Cupcakes - This is pretty cool.  

Professional anti-gay Matt Barber: the NAACP has been brainwashed by ‘white sexual anarchists’ - Matt Barber is as crazy as stir-fried cat poop. 

Homophobe compares gay equality to chicken pox

Scott Lively

Very few individuals epitomizes the vileness and absolute absence of moral integrity of the religious right more than Scott Lively.

For the uninitiated, Lively is a long-time foe of the gay community who wrote a discredited book linking gays with the Nazi Party. However, his reputation for homophobia reached new depths after he and a bunch of other American homophobes traveled to Uganda and stoked the country up against the gay community by pushing the false notion that gays are trying to "convert" children.

We all know what happened next. Now Uganda is attempting to pass an ugly bill which would make homosexuality a crime punishable by death.

The blowback from the international community over this infused Lively with a schizophrenic approach towards gay equality. There are times when he claims to want to get away from the entire war over gay rights. And then there are times when he hits the homophobia full throttle.

His recent appearance in Springfield, Missouri was very much part of the latter:

Standing next to a sign reading “Human Rights Commission is a Trojan horse for the gay agenda,” Scott Lively told his audience of nearly 70 that a culture war currently raged between those fighting for sexual anarchy and those fighting for family values.

And with the chairman of the mayor’s human rights commission listening intently in that audience, the noted anti-homosexual rights activist and president of Abiding Truth Ministries exhorted listeners to kill a proposed ordinance extending civil rights protections to gay, lesbian and transgendered people.

“Don’t let this anti-discrimination ordinance go through,” said Lively during his Friday night presentation at The Library Station on North Kansas Expressway. “It’s like chicken pox. It’s in your system forever. You’ve got to kill this thing before it goes in.”

. . .Lively, who said he paid his own way to Springfield to share this message, argued that homosexual activists have capitalized on what he called the black civil rights movement by bundling their rights with those he called “legitimate ethnic minorities” and riding their coattails to social legitimacy.

“Since when is sodomy a civil right,” said Lively, who lives in Springfield, Mass. “It’s a ridiculous, preposterous notion! There’s absolutely no correlation between sodomy and skin color.”

The grand irony of Lively's talk is when he said that the city should have a "family first commission." Of course we all know that if this were the case, Lively wouldn't necessarily think that gay families should be a part of this commission.

It would seem, however, that Lively's talk may have backfired on the folks attempting to keep the ordinance from passing. According to the article, George Davis, chairman of the Mayor's human rights commission was there, but he walked out after hearing Lively's words. And apparently he wasn't one of the only ones. Davis, however, pointed out the myriad of contradictions in Lively's talk:

Davis pointed out that Lively repeatedly said that sex should take place only within the confines of marriage, but he opposed allowing gay and lesbian people to marry. He said Lively argued that society should fight to protect families, but he didn’t believe gay and lesbian people should be able to adopt. He said Lively seemed to suggest that Springfield was overrun with gay activists, but continually asserted to the audience that they were in the overwhelmingly Christian and conservative majority.

Know Your LGBT History - Homoeroticism in Fright Night

For today's Know Your LGBT History segment, I thought I would do something entirely different.

Fright Night is a movie I already featured here a few years ago. The 1985 horror movie is about a high school student (William Ragsdale) who discovers that his next door neighbor (Chris Sarandon) is a vampire.

For the purpose of this blog, I talked about the scene in which Sarandon's character transforms the friend (Stephen Geoffreys) of the high school student into a vampire. I said that I found the scene to be incredibly homoerotic for the time in which it came out:



Fright Night was remade last year with the characters pretty much intact, albeit with more detail. Colin Farrell portrayed the vampire neighbor and the scene in which he transforms the high school student's friend (this time portrayed by Christopher Mintz-Plasse)is a bit more sinister and foreboding.

But I think there is still a touch of homoeroticism:



Comments?

Past Know Your LGBT History posts:

'More proof of black vs. gay election wedge strategy?' and other Friday midday news briefs

More proof of the attempts to create a blacks vs. gay wedge strategy just in time for the November?:



Reverend William Owens’ Offensive Anti-Gay Politics - The above video is audio of Williams Owens at a press conference talking about marriage equality. Owens, NOM's liaison to the black church community, is spearheading a campaign asking African-Americans to "withhold" their votes from Obama because of his support of marriage equality. How convenient it is that NOM is endorsing Romney.

 Related post - Group seeking to divide blacks and gays before November election?  

In other news: 

 Hate Groups Hate Condi Rice - When I heard the RUMOR that Romney may pick Condoleeza Rice as his VP, I knew it was bull. This is why.

 Maggie makes case for 'non-scary' Huckabee; 'not scary?' ask my ring finger, peace of mind - Mark it in your books. The one time I actually agree with Maggie Gallgher. Please Romney, pick Huckabee as your VP because I've got so much anti-gay dirt on him. It's just going to waste.  

Tehachapi parents worried about gay education - Because apparently these folks obviously think that gay parents and children in same-sex households are simply myths.

 Maggie Gallagher’s Institute Attacks APA Support Of Marriage Equality With Vague Generalizations - And it took them 11 months to get this trash together. Pathetic.

Religious right exploiting Sandusky's crime to hurt gay community

Matt Barber

The scandal about Penn State and former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky is awful and the children who were victimized by that awful man need our prayers.

But apparently some members of the religious right are using this terrible tragedy to score points against the gay community. Diane Gramley of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania and Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel seem to be practically drooling as they made the following comments:

"Through all this we cannot ignore the fact that Jerry Sandusky's victims were all young boys. We can't ignore the homosexual aspect of this," Gramley offers. "And through Graham Spanier's tenure as president, he has brought more and more homosexual-oriented programming and events to the campus than ever before."

Adds Barber: "There also is an element of political correctness run amok here," he explains. "Anytime homosexuality is involved -- even though in this case it's a homosexual predator preying on children -- people seem to have this innate fear that they are going to be crushed by the sexual anarchist lobby if they speak out against it." Yet Barber says it is a fact that percentage-wise more sexual crimes are committed against children by homosexuals than by heterosexuals.

Neither Gramley nor Barber know what they are talking about. In fact, American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Child Psychiatrists and the Child Welfare League of America, all say that the homosexuality and pedophilia are not linked.

Furthermore, Dr. Greg Herek, Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Davis, says the following:

The distinction between a victim's gender and a perpetrator's sexual orientation is important because many child molesters don't really have an adult sexual orientation. They have never developed the capacity for mature sexual relationships with other adults, either men or women. Instead, their sexual attractions focus on children – boys, girls, or children of both sexes. 

It's bad enough that Jerry Sandusky victimized children. It's equally sad that Barber and Gramley are attempting creating new victims in their attempt to exploit the scandal to attack the gay community.

Related post - If Matt Barber hates gay sex so much, then why does he keep talking about it?

Group seeking to divide blacks and gays before November election?

William Owens

A group of black pastors who call themselves the Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP) recently traveled to the NAACP annual convention in Houston with a message demanding that President Obama meet with them to discuss his support of marriage equality. They are also supposedly angry that the NAACP has come out in support of marriage equality.

According to the Huffington Post:

The Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP), headed by Rev. William Owens of Memphis, Tenn., said that the NAACP had abandoned its core mission by supporting same-sex marriage.

"This is supposed to be an organization for black people who were beaten, who were mistreated and who were enslaved," Owens told The Huffington Post. "You're advocating for something that's not normal, that's not natural. It's still out of line, it's against moral law."

Owens and CAAP is asking that African-Americans withhold their votes until supposedly this issue is resolved.

Personally I think that asking African-Americans to withhold our votes is a worse insult to the civil rights movement than marriage equality. Many people have been beaten and killed for us to have that simple right to vote so I have a serious problem with anyone attempting to speak for our community in that regard.

And I also think that this story needs a bit of levity before it blows up - and it will.

Owens and his Coalition of African-American Pastors have a history participating in anti-gay actions.

In 2007, he was involved in campaign which falsely claimed that adding gays under present hate crimes legislation would lead to pastors being arrested in their pulpits if they called homosexuality a sin. The following full page ad ran in a DC newspaper:

You can see Owens on the lower left hand corner. The claim about pastors being arrested in their pulpits was a lie:

 . . . the Hate Crimes Prevention Act only addresses violent crimes causing “bodily injury” – not speech, not preaching.

A larger copy of the ad can be seen here.

The Don't Muzzle Our Pulpits campaign was led by Bishop Harry Jackson’s High Impact Leadership Coalition. The People for the American Way published a huge expose on Jackson, accusing him of being a point man for a wedge strategy of dividing the black and gay communities:

Apparently Owens is of the same ilk as Jackson. Last year, he partnered with the National Organization for Marriage in its unsuccessful fight to stop marriage equality in New York. He was even the star of a NOM video called “Will the Black Church Rise Up in New York For Marriage?”

To make matters worse, he continues to partner with NOM as a liaison to the black church even after documents came out that the group was attempting to sow division between the black and gay communities on the subject of marriage equality.

 And NOM is supporting Romney.

You see, that's what this entire protest is about.  It's a sham. Owens knows that President Obama will not meet with his group and that the NAACP will not change its mind on marriage equality.

The entire protest by him and CAAP is simply a way to divide the black and gay communities because they are two groups who support President Obama heavily.

If these two groups are divided over a hostile war over marriage equality, Obama will have problems.

So to folks in both communities who may hear about Owens and his organization's protest, I say this:

Folks are attempting to manipulate your emotions. Don't fall for it.

'Religious right trying to help churches bypass the law' and other Thursday midday news briefs

Churches can't endorse candidates; this is how FRC helps them circumvent that - To me, this is as bigger danger to churches themselves than it is this country's political system. Somehow I never pictured followers of Jesus as concerned with attaining political power. This sort of thing totally ruins the integrity of churches.  

National Organization for Marriage hires ‘non-cognitive elite’ celebrity spokesbot: Kirk Cameron - By now, I am sure you have heard of the partnership between NOM and Kirk Cameron.

 NOM Tries, Fails To Cast Kirk Cameron As A Victim Of Defamation - Equality Matters explains how this will be next in a long line of "victims of the gay community" failures for NOM.  

The Contenders: Hot LGBT Prospects for Office - Sweet! Just think that decades ago, very few open and out lgbtqs would have run for public office.

Did author of anti-gay study collude with religious right groups?

Did Mark Regnerus collude with the religious right?

Those of us who have been saying for a while now that the Mark Regnerus study on gay parenting was bought and paid for by religious right groups now have a bit more proof of that charge thanks to an Advocate article.

The article points out that the study - in spite of the complaints about its fraudulence (over 200 professors and therapists complained about it) - has been cited in a federal court case defending DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act).

And the time between when the study was published and when it was submitted in a brief should raise many eyebrows (emphasis added) :

Just one day after the results of a controversial parenting study were released to the public, the research was used — and misrepresented — in a federal court brief defending the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act.

The brief was filed by a conservative medical group at the urging of the Alliance Defending Freedom, an influential religious right legal organization. It illustrates the right’s strategy of using the new research — which was funded by two conservative organizations — in legal battles to preserve bans on gay marriage.

On June 10, the journal Social Science Research published the findings of University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus’ “New Family Structures Study,” which compared people raised in biologically intact two-parent families to people raised in families in which one of the parents had a same-sex romantic relationship at some point. Regnerus found that the children of parents who had a same-sex relationship fared poorly by comparison. Almost immediately, the study was criticized for using a “loaded classification system” to engage in an apples-to-oranges comparison.

The day after Regnerus’ study first appeared online, a conservative group called the American College of Pediatricians cited it in a “friend of the court” brief in Golinski v. United States Office of Personnel Management, one of the ongoing federal lawsuits challenging DOMA. The ACP’s use of the study was first reported on The New Civil Rights Movement website.

Unfortunately the article didn't go into detail regarding the American College of Pediatricians as it should have. But I have talked about this group several times and do not mind exposing them again.

The American College of Pediatricans is not a legitimate organization. It is a shell group designed to pass along anti-gay junk science as fact. In 2010, it attempted to pass along a junk science brochure in high school across America. The brochure, Facts About Youth, claimed to present "facts" supposedly not tainted by "political correctness."  Of course these were not facts, but ugly distortions about the gay community, including:

Some gay men sexualize human waste, including the medically dangerous practice of coprophilia, which means sexual contact with highly infectious fecal wastes.

Isn't it convenient that this group was able to get their hands on this study and submit it in a brief a day after it was published? Could there have been some collusion between Regnerus, the American College of Pediatricians, and the Alliance Defending Freedom?

It certainly seems that way.

I have written many posts like this one exposing religious right lies and for those familiar with these posts, this is the point where I generally make a plea to the mainstream medical organizations and the media to please do something to stop the ease in which religious right group are able to distort science for their own benefit.

I'm glad to report that this time I don't have to make that plea because prominent medical organizations have in fact called out ACP's brief and Regnerus' study in a brief of their own.

According to Think Progress:

The nation’s major mental health organizations have filed an amicus brief in the Ninth Circuit case Golinski v. Office of Personnel Management, arguing that the Defense of Marriage Act stigmatizes against gays and lesbians and should be overturned. The brief recounts the scientific evidence that explains the nature of sexual orientations, but also takes time to debunk Mark Regnerus’ flawed study that attempts to draw negative conclusions about gay parents. Proponents of DOMA have already used the paper to defend their arguments, but the medical professionals explain why it should be ignored.

These organizations include the American Psychological Association, the California Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers and its California chapter, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychoanalytic Association.

So that's one problem taken care of. But there is still the big question which needs to be asked of Regnerus continuously until he provides an answer.

Just how much did he collude with anti-gay and religious right organizations in the publishing of his study?