Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
It doesn't amaze me how those who are against marriage equality continues to bring up the same lie time and time again - i.e. that marriage equality will endanger children. Such scare tactics generally work.
This video is being run the so-called "Protect Marriage" group in Maine. The state will be voting on marriage equality next month:
If you recognize the video and the family involved in it - The Parkers - then you know that anti-marriage equality forces used the same video in the Prop 8 fight. They claim that the father, David Parker, was arrested for merely voicing a disagreement to his son supposedly being taught about marriage equality in Massachusetts schools.
It is a lie. The entire situation was a fraud perpetrated by David Parker and a Massachusetts anti-gay group, Mass Resistance. Mass Resistance, by the way, has been designated as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of the myraid of deliberate inaccurate things it does to propagandize against the gay community, such as the Parker controversy.
The Parker video should remind one of what Marc Mutty, the head of the campaign which defeated marriage equality in 2009, said about the false claim regarding children and marriage equality in a recently release documentary about the fight, Question 1 :
When the entire incident took place in 2005, I covered it and found out several things that neither the Parkers nor Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council - who is hosting the video - will tell you:
Distortion - David Parker objected to his child being exposed to homosexuality because it was an issue of sexuality and Joseph Estabrook Elementary refused to accommodate him
Truth - In a January 17, 2005 email to the school, Parker said: “There is a book included entitled, Who’s in a Family (with pictures) that include lesbian and homosexual couples with children—implicitly equating this family structure as a morally equal alternative to other family constructs. We stand firmly against this book or any other subject matter pertaining to homosexuality ever being indoctrinated to our child, discussed in school, or sent home. We don’t believe gay parents constitute a spiritually healthy family and should not be celebrated.”
Joseph Estabrook Elementary principal, Joni Jay, wrote Parker an email clearly saying homosexuality is not a part of the kindergarten curriculum. She also said she cannot control what students say to one another and that many children attending Joseph Estabrook Elementary live in same-sex households.
Point of fact: The entire controversy began because Parker’s son brought home a “diversity bookbag” with several items in it. Among them was a book showing certain types of families, including same-sex families. It was the only book in the packet that talked about anything of a homosexual nature.
When the media talks about the small group of black pastors attempting to sabotage President Obama's African-American support, there is something that I think they should give first mention.
It yanks my nerves when folks jump into the discussion about this non-controversy regarding black pators angry over Obama's support of marriage equality WITHOUT expressing the point first of all that these pastors are bought and paid for by the National Organization for Marriage, who has endorsed Obama's opponent, Mitt Romney.
So the following quote from Bill Owens from a September article in the Washington Blade should bring it home to those confused - whether willfully or not - about the situation:
In the wake of internal documents from NOM leaked earlier this year, Owens was asked by CNN’s Dan Merica about having a connection with the anti-gay group. The pastor confirmed the anti-gay group compensates him.
“They pay my salary,” Owens said. “My wife … has an earned doctorate from Vanderbilt University and I have three degrees, we make a combined salary of $20,000 a year because they were kind enough to pick us up, because we did not have funds, and they said we can put you in the budget for $20,000. So we are in relationship with them and I’m very proud of it.”
Owens, by the way, is one of the ring leaders of the nonsense. He is the leader of CAAP (Coalition of African-American Pastors), the organization which began the plan to sabotage Obama's African-American support.
NOM siphoned $80,000 to Jackson
He is also a member of God Said, another group of African-American pastors seeking to siphon 25% of the African-American vote from Obama.
My opinion is that CAAP and God Said are comprised of the same members.
I'm guilty of something that I am ashamed of. Sometimes when I talk about lgbt equality, I forget about "t" - our transgender brothers and sisters.
Therefore, I thought I should feature Christine Jorgensen, the first person to become widely known for receiving sexual reassignment surgery. Jorgensen was not the first person to receive sexual reassignment surgery, but in 1952, a cover story in the New York Daily News made her a celebrity and her willingness to be open and forthcoming with such dignity and poise made her an icon as far as I am concerned.
But what particularly makes Jorgensen a heroine of mine is her determination to live her life on her own terms, particularly in a time in which such things weren't as open as they are now.
Frank Schubert, Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Mastermind, Crumbles Under Questioning (AUDIO) - This is HUGE! Frank Schubert is the NOM strategist behind the Prop 8 campaign and is behind the "marriage equality will harm children" lie. However, during an interview with Michelangelo Signorile, Schubert seems to have what can be called a breakdown under intense questioning. This has to be heard to be believed. Try to listen to it all, but the real good stuff starts at 10:00. According to Signorile:
Schubert seemed to crumble when I played a clip of Marc Mutty, his campaign manager in Maine in 2009, admitting in the new documentary Question One that the campaign had used hyperbole and engaged in distortions and untruths (and saying that he was worried that he would be remembered for that ugly campaign). Schubert responded to me by oddly distancing himself from the campaign while also saying that Mutty was "misrecalling" events.
... Several times he said he is not trying to stop gay adoption because he just wants to "protect" traditional marriage and is not "on a crusade" to take away the rights of gays -- including those of his own sister. (I raised the fact that she, a Sacramento deputy district attorney, is a lesbian in a relationship and has children, as has been reported in the media.) But why isn't he on that crusade if he truly believes that children do better in heterosexual households, as his campaign rhetoric claims? The only answer is that his money is coming from the folks trying to ban gay marriage, not from those trying to ban gay adoption. And that's what it seems to be all about for Schubert: money.
Apparently according to religious right leader Rick Scarborough, marriage equality is one of the reasons for that awful attack in Benghazi, Libya which left four American, including Ambassador Chris Stevens dead.:
In Isiah 5:5, God warns Israel of the punishment which will befall the disobedient nation: “Now I am going to tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard, I will take away its hedge, and it will be destroyed. I will break down its wall and it will be trampled.”
And again in Deuteronomy 28:25: “The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: Thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them: and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.”
Like Biblical Israel, America is mired in sin – 1.2 million abortions a year, the assault on God’s institution of marriage, an explosion of pornography, children robbed of their innocence, skyrocketing rates of divorce and out-of-wedlock births, the Church persecuted – need I continue?
And yet we blithely go on as if there was no connection between this and the way we violate God’s commandments? Too many Americans act as it the Bible’s prophecies are charmingly poetic, but bear no relation to today’s events?
How many more 9/11 attacks, how many more wars, how much more turmoil – how many more Benghazis – will it take before we finally begin to make the connection between our behavior as a nation and the horror unfolding before our eyes?
If you recognize this awful stream of thought, it's because it was the same one that the late Jerry Falwell used to partly blame gays in the aftermath of 9/11:
And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."
It was nauseating when Falwell did it and its equally nauseating when Scarborough does it.
It's sad when anyone exploits tragedy for their own agenda. It's especially sad when so-called religious leaders do it.
By now, you have probably seen this controversial video of a presumed heterosexual man verbally slurring a group of gay men and getting beaten down hard.
It's generated a lot of discussion.
There are some lgbts who applaud what happened because they figured the man brought it upon himself.
And another camp worries about what effect would it have if the religious right would use it to attack gays.
Lastly, there are many who say that violence under any circumstances is wrong, i.e. it was wrong to attack this man no matter what he said.
I'm kinda in the third camp . . . with a caveat.
I don't condone this type of violence, period. There was no need for it. But the caveat I have was how many who condemned this action was so caught up in denouncing the violence that they missed the bigger picture.
When one looks at the group of gays in the video, one would probably brand them as violent thugs. I don't because I know folks like them. And I know why they were so quick to gang up on the man.
These are the lgbts you hardly ever know or see. Part of it has to do with the fact that they are African-American and urban. Let's be honest about some things in our community. There are times that if you don't look a certain way, dress a certain way, fit a certain social strata, or don't run in a clique, you might as well be invisible.
Unfortunately this problem bleeds into our equality organizations
And the problem with being invisible is that a lot of times, your issues get ignored. The progress that is seen in the gay community skips over you. Yes DOMA is being defeated in the courts, but how does it help a young lgbt of color who can't seem to find a group indigenous to his or her needs? We see folks like Ellen DeGeneres, Ricky Martin, and Neil Patrick Harris daily, but again let's be honest. How many young lgbts of color know who these folks are as opposed to white lgbts. And how many lgbts of color regard these folks as role models?
Also, another problem being invisible is that you have to adapt. You have to survive on your own with very little support systems and unfortunately young lgbts of color are put in that situation. Who is there for young gay black men in schools when they get jumped in school for "acting too feminine?"
And say they make it out of high school and into college? They have two choices - either go to a predominantly white university where they most likely won't fit in with the gay crowd because they are considered "too ghetto" or go to a predominantly African-American university where homophobic attacks against them are at times ignored by faculty members who assume that these children bring it on themselves for "acting like a punk."
But the beauty of mankind is how we survive. When someone closes a door, we open a window or knock down a wall. Young lgbts of color form loose groups of friends and organizations that are underground. They love each other, support each other, and - as I suspect what I saw in the video - stand up for each other when the time call for it.
There are solutions to this problems. All of us need to recognize that the gay community is not a bland, homogenous concept of folks. We are multicultural and multi-ethnic. We do not like the same things. We don't admire the same heroes and we don't celebrate our sexual orientation the same way.
We need to get out of our cliques and celebrate our differences. If you are white, don't assume that black pride events preach separation. If you are a gay man, educate yourself on the transgender community.
Don't look for things that force us to come together so much that you ignore the things that make us unique as gay people.
And above all, each of us must take a stand - whether it be verbal with our friends, volunteering, or even emailing our organizations - about those in the lgbt community we don't hear about - the lesbian community, the elderly gay community, the different cultures of the gay community.
When we recognize that our differences make us strong instead of attempting to force each other to blend in, we as a community become stronger.
E.W. Jackson: Pro-Gay Rights Liberals 'Have Done More to Kill Black Folks' than the 'Ku Klux Klan' - My lgbt brothers and sisters have to learn that when it comes to the religious right, there is a certain degree of style which must be applied. For example, hearing about a young lgbt youth committing suicide is something we should get angry about. E.W. Jackson going on one of his tangents is not something we should be mad about, but rather use for our own benefits. You should never get angry at a nut, but if he is bound and determined to make a fool of himself, you give him room. With his words, Jackson is indicting famous African-American lgbts as Barbara Jordan, Bayard Rustin, Billy Strayhorn, Johnny Mathis, James Baldwin, Wanda Sykes, Keith Boykin, LZ Granderson, Don Lemon and so many others of killing their own people. He is personally attacking the sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers in the African-American community of killing more black folks than the Klan. Rather than shake with anger or shake our heads, we need to point out the basic inane hatred of his words to everyone, especially folks in the black community.
Gay Pride Month: Black LGBT Icons (PHOTOS) - According to crazy E.W. Jackson, it is these folks who are helping to kill more African-Americans than the Klan. No it doesn't make sense. Let's hammer that point a bit.
If you can stomach it, here is 12 minutes of the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer going on tangents on several things.
He briefly talks about the recently lovely smack down he received from CNN's Carol Costello when he attempted to spout his lies on her show. I would link to my post about it, but there is no need. Fischer reruns the entire embarrassing interview himself.
Also, his callers are a hoot - especially the one who is distressed that "evangelicals" are supporting Mitt Romney.
However, towards the end, a caller challenges him on his lies about the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Editor's note - Those CDC studies and such Fischer talks about when he goes on about the supposed dangers of homosexuality have also said that homophobia (which leads to a lack of knowledge about good health care) plays a part in when some gays are beset with bad health and such.Of course Fischer would never tell you that.
I wish this was funny, but according to Right Wing Watch, it's actual fact:
The American Family Association without fail hurls some of the most derogatory and incendiary rhetoric at the gay community,. For example, the group’s spokesman Bryan Fischer claims that gays are like drug addicts, domestic terrorists and Nazis and are responsible for the Holocaust, and the organization’s general manager blamed gays for Hurricane Isaac and linked the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to an increase in suicides in the military.
But now the anti-gay group hopes to teach people how to “reach out with biblical compassion” to gay youth, which they routinely call “Big Gay.”
The AFA’s Rightly Concerned blog reposted an article from Kerby Anderson Probe Ministries about the “gay agenda in schools,” fitting with the AFA’s new campaign to stop “Mix it Up at Lunch Day” out of the fear young people will eat the gay “poisoned candy.”
The blog post warns that homosexuality in and of itself leads to health and psychiatric problems and suggests anti-bullying efforts are simply attempts to “increase homosexual behavior among students.” Ironically, Anderson cites a study which concludes “educational efforts, prevention programs, and health services must be designed to address the unique needs of GLB youth” to argue that schools should not assist their gay, lesbian and bisexual students in anyway…unless it is with ex-gay therapy.
“We should reach out to those caught in the sin of homosexuality and offer them hope and point them to Jesus Christ so that they will find freedom from the sexual sin that binds their lives,” Anderson writes, claiming that “many in the homosexual lifestyle are there because of some emotional brokenness in their families” and are “trying to meet their emotional needs in ungodly ways.”
I got only two ideas for the AFA. If you want to reach gay youth, then stop making them feel like they are freaks with your nasty rhetoric. Or better yet, why don't you just cease to exist.
At the very least, FIRE this guy. Quickly. As in last year:
There is a HUGE irony with Richard Land exploiting the civil rights movement. Earlier this year, he faced an ugly controversy for accusing President Obama and other African-American leaders of using the Trayvon Martin case to "gin up votes" for Obama. And the controversy gets funnier. It turns out that Land plagiarized his comments from someone else's piece. Ultimately, he was reprimanded by the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and lost his weekly radio show.
The conservative gay group GoProud has been tweeting its support of Mitt Romney and bragging on twitter about appearing on Fox News and such.
But for me, it's all about presentation.
To whit, check out what the lgbts who are supporting Obama have been doing:
To my knowledge, GoProud has yet to film a pro-Romney commercial and my guess is that the organization probably won't. After all, it would really piss off the religious right supporters of Romney such as the National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council.
So I bet Romney really appreciates GoProud. Not only does the organization give him undeserved credibility on gay issues in the eyes of some pundits (i.e. Fox News), but it embraces its second-class citizen status like it was a hungry lover.
I guess it's always good for SOME PEOPLE to know their place.
Did you know that Dinesh D'Souza, the author two vicious anti-Obama books and that ridiculous movie Obama 2016 is not in favor of marriage equality either?
In 2008, he published a piece entitled Gays Rights vs. Democracy, in which he maligned marriage equality with diatribes like such:
. . . states have a legitimate right to define marriage. State legislatures, drawing on tradition and appealing to the values of their constituents, have defined marriage in a very particular way. Marriage requires a) two people who are b) of legal age and c) not closely related to each other who are d) one male and one female. Note that this definition excludes people who want to marry children, or guys who want to marry their sisters, or Muslims who want to take four wives, or that strange guy who wants to marry his dog.
Now gay activists, with the acquiescence of the California high court, want to remove one of the criteria of marriage while keeping all the rest. Yet if it’s discriminatory to gays to require that marriage be between a man and a woman, why isn’t it discriminatory to Mormons and Muslims to require that it remain between two people? Isn’t incestuous marriage also between “consenting adults” who have a right to equal protection of the laws? And why doesn’t the Fourteenth Amendment protect the fellow who wants to walk down the aisle with his poodle on the grounds that “I love my dog and my dog loves me”?
The point is not that gay marriage is indistinguishable from child marriage or polygamy. The point is that any definition, and marriage is no exception, includes some people and excludes others. Consequently it’s unreasonable to say that gays have a constitutional right to over-ride the definition but other groups do not. The court’s real justification seems to have little to do with constitutional reasoning and everything to do with an assertion of political power.
Now why am I bringing this up? Simply because recently, D'Souza reportedly attended a Christian conference with a young woman who he introduced as his fiance.
Nothing wrong with that, except that it was news to everyone who knew that D'Souza has been married for 20 years to a woman named Dixie.
According to WORLD’s Warren Smith, D’Souza, whose $10,000 per speech honoraria places him in the “top tier” of Christian speakers, was in South Carolina to speak at a Baptist church, which was hosting “high-profile Christians speak on defending the faith and applying a Christian worldview to their lives.” (Cue guffaws here.)
Smith describes one conference organizer, Alex McFarland, being “distressed” at the behavior of their celebrity speaker. According to Smith, D’Souza told McFarland that he had “recently” filed for divorce, although Smith found in court records that D'Souza filed for divorce about a week after the South Carolina conference took place.
D’Souza is also the president of The King’s College, and Smith reports that he's expected to be under scrutiny by the school’s board over this incident. (Smith’s boss, Marvin Olasky, resigned his post as TKC’s provost shortly after D’Souza was named president in 2010.) After TKC began looking into the matter, D’Souza texted Smith: “I have decided to suspend the engagement.”
Don't you just love it when anti-gay hypocrites fall on their faces. Dixie! Don't take him back! Take half of his money!
A supposedly African-American-led group, God Said, working to siphon black support from Obama just released its first ad
It's nothing particularly shocking, but one thing did catch my eye. See if you can stop the video at 17 seconds so you can see who is involved. I recognize four faces.
E.W. Jackson
There is E.W. Jackson who has been attempting to lead an "exodus" of African-Americans from the Democratic Party, claimed that Obama has "affection" for Islam, and has made pointedly homophobic statements, including one about gays serving openly in the military:
"What of Christians who believe that homosexuality is sin? Are they to
be silenced? Subjected to discipline or discharge? Will they live in
close quarters with men or women attracted to the same sex? When
homosexuality is given protected status, Christians are muzzled or
persecuted for their beliefs, and their First Amendment Rights are
trampled. This has happened in corporations all over America. The
message is 'be silent or lose your job.' In the military, you cannot
merely find another job. If keeping qualified people is the priority,
what about the Christians who may be forced to leave the military
because the environment is hostile to their faith? The message from
Gates and Mullen is, 'Get out.' The repeal of the 'Don't Ask Don't Tell'
law is a disaster of historic proportions and it must be reinstated. My
organization and others will to fight to make sure that happens.
Alveda King, who has made a career out of exploiting the fact that she is Martin Luther King, Jr.'s niece. However, while she has insulted King's late wife, Coretta, on occasion, she is not as forthcoming as to what she herself accomplished in the Civil Rights Movement.
Harry Jackson
And last, but certainly not least, Harry Jackson, who People for the American Way calls the point man for the religious right's attempt to exploit the black community.According to Mother Jones magazine,
Jackson has received $20,000 from the National Organization for
Marriage's "education fund" for his efforts to exploit the opinions of
those in the black community who do not agree with marriage equality. In addition, in 2010,
Jackson attempted to get a measure on the ballot opposing marriage
equality in D.C. In pursuit of that effort, he led the group Stand for
Marriage DC. According to documents attained by Mother Jones magazine, NOM gave $60,000 for that effort.
So what it all comes down to is that this group is a phony concoction comprised of the same African-American sellouts who clutch their Bibles with one hand while having their other hand held out for that religious right and conservative money.
Those of us who remember the classic manic comedy Airplane! (1980) remember actor Stephen Stucker who literally walked away with the movie with funny lines like such:
Stucker was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on July 2, 1947. His family moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio, where he distinguished himself in school as a pianist and class clown, and graduated from high school in 1965.
Stucker made his screen debut co-starring in the 1975 comedic sexploitation film Carnal Madness as Bruce Wilson, a gay fashion designer who escapes an insane asylum with two fellow inmates, fleeing to an all-girls school.
He went on to perform in the 1977 earthquake-in-Los-Angeles comedy Cracking Up, alongside Fred Willard, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer.
Stucker was a scene-stealing member of the cast of the Madison, Wisconsin Kentucky Fried Theater sketch comedy troupe founded by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker.[1] In 1977 he appeared in the film based on it, directed by John Landis. This led to his memorable supporting role in the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker comedy Airplane!, which he reprised in Airplane II: The Sequel. For the initial film, the writers gave Stucker the straight lines for his scenes and let him write his character's off-the-wall responses.
In 1982 he had a guest role in a three-episode sequence in the TV series Mork and Mindy and, in 1983, he had a small featured role in Landis' Trading Places. In 1984, Stucker had a co-starring role as the sex-obsessed psychiatrist, Dr. Bender in the teen comedy film Bad Manners (aka: Growing Pains).
However, there is another reason why the lgbt community should remember Stucker. He was one of the first celebrities to go public with his HIV infection in 1985. As such, he appeared on talk shows like Donahue, where his wild and acerbic personality sometimes bumped hard against an audience ignorant and fearful of the disease AIDS. Some may criticize Stucker for his behavior, but I found him refreshingly honest and uncompromising:
Stucker died of AIDS-related complications in 1986.
While we mourn this man's life and what could have been, let's never forget Stucker and those who lived before the age of Ellen, Will and Grace, and the openess regarding who we are as a people.
Coming Out Improves LGBT Youth Happiness, Family Ties - Remember that when religious right spokespeople (I'm especially talking to you, Peter Sprigg) trot out numbers about how "detrimental" the supposed homosexual lifestyle is, they always omit that it's because that we have to deal with homophobia. This study proves that point.
Former child star Kirk Cameron recently gave a speech at Liberty University in which he talked about the controversy stemming from his interview on Piers Morgan's talk show. Naturally, he made himself look like the victim:
For the edification of those who do not know what Cameron actually said, this is the portion of the interview in question:
My personal opinion is simple. When Cameron voiced his disagreement with marriage equality, that was fine. He had every right. However, where I draw the line is when he called being gay "detrimental" and "destructive." He wasn't talking about an "ism." He was talking about actual people and actual families, many whom he had never met.
As a matter of fact, when a group of gay students wanted to have a meeting with him about his comments, Cameron refused.
That's the problem with folks like Cameron. Their words and actions are not about bringing glory to God or understanding to the human experience as it relates to God.
It's all about them and their so-called "strong convictions." It's all about their egos.
Despite of what Cameron claimed in his Liberty University speech, there is no love in his words to Piers Morgan nor is he a victim.
To me, the real victim is a young gay child who hears those words and hates him or herself a little more. Who is there for them while Cameron basks in his martyrdom and self-victimhood? Who is going to be there for them while Cameron basks in his media attention and receives praises from religious right groups and their supporters?
In Matthew 25:40, Jesus said " . . .whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."
I don't think he meant kicking an anonymous gay child in the face and then bragging about it later.
