Family Research Council sued by former employee

To paraphrase Rosalind Russell in The Women, "get a grip on yourself because you are simply going to swoon." The Family Research Council is getting sued for retaliating against an employee who filed a sexual harassment suit

The former director of women’s and reproductive health at the Family Research Council, a prominent Christian conservative advocacy group, is suing the organization, claiming it retaliated against her and fired her after she filed a sexual harassment complaint against her boss.

According to court documents first obtained and reported by journalist Evan Gahr, former FRC employee Moira Gaul, 42, filed a complaint in 2009 with the District of Columbia Human Rights Commission in which she accused her supervisor of gender discrimination. She claimed that her boss, the director of the Center for Human Life and Bioethics at the time, referred to the use of birth control pills as "whoring around," addressed emails to her with the words "hi cutie," pressured her to attend parties, and referred to her as a "young, attractive woman."

"His attitude toward me and other women was rude, belittling, and at times, angry," she wrote in the complaint.

Gahr identified Gaul's former supervisor as prominent anti-abortion lawyer William Saunders, who now works at the anti-abortion group Americans United for Life. Saunders and his attorney, William J. Hickey, did not respond to requests for comment on the case.4

The FRC fired Gaul shortly after she filed the complaint, citing a loss in federal funding for abstinence -- Gaul's area of expertise -- and the need for someone with more experience on abortion issues. Gaul claims the FRC also retroactively canceled her health insurance for the time that she was on short-term disability for systemic lupus. 

According to the Huffington Post article, the complaint was settled in 2009. And there lies the interesting rub. Gaul is suing FRC for unfair retaliation to her filing the complaint:

The suit claims that Gaul had received excellent reviews and no reprimands at the FRC up until she filed the gender discrimination complaint. Then, three months after she was fired, abstinence funding continued to the FRC, and the organization "created a new position with duties substantially similar to those previously performed by Ms. Gaul."

J.P. Duffy, vice president of communications at the FRC, told The Huffington Post that "D.C.'s Office of Human Rights made no finding" on the gender discrimination case, "and the case was withdrawn." Duffy did not comment on the retaliation case, which is ongoing.

However this ends, I know one thing for sure. FRC can't blame the gay community for THIS one.

'Todd 'legitimate rape' Akin goes after gays in the military' and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin Now Going After Gay Troops - So Todd Akin, who lost a sure bet Senate seat for his unbelievable comments about women and rape, now seeks to serve as a roadblock to gays serving openly in the military. Somehow, I don't think that this is a good idea for Akin.  

SC: Governor Haley names anti-gay, gun-promoting teabagger black Republican to U.S. Senate seat - Why is it that almost every black Republican out there is practically loony. For once, I would like to see one challenge his/her own party on their errors as much as they attack Democrats.

UPDATE: USNews.com readers reject Brian Brown's flawed arguments - Any day Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage gets publicly embarrassed for his flawed arguments is a good day.  

Jeffress: Stopping Gay Marriage Must Be Part of U.S. Defense Policy - Why oh why are these people so scared of marriage equality. The worst that could happen are tacky wedding outfits . . . naw, we are the gay community. We don't DO tacky.  

Helena, Montana Passes LGBT Nondiscrimination Protections - Not bad. Even with folks pushing the "transgenders in the bathroom" scare story, the protections passed unanimously.

Religious right member 'cherry-picks' study to brand gays as pedophilies

This is an old clip, but I want you all to pay attention to something:



Barber claims that molestation leads to homosexuality by citing a passage from the Archives of Sexual Behavior.  He makes it seem like the study in question backs him up, but the study in no way has ever said that molestation leads to homosexuality.  In fact, one wonders if the phrase "homosexual pedophile" even existed in the study. When citing the study in another piece, Barber said:

“46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender.”

The phrase "homosexual pedophile" is a creation solely of Barber and it proves that he is "cherry-picking" the legitimate study from the Archives of Sexual Behavior to reach the conclusion that he wants. And that conclusion is wrong.

Pay attention to that word, "cherry-picking." It plays heavily into the religious right repertoire of anti-gay lies and you will be hearing it a lot in the future.

Religious right reaction to Newtown tragedy has been APPALLING!

In my last post, I defended Christianity in light of a Texas pastor who voiced support of the Ugandan anti-gay bill. The jackasses in these news briefs are making THAT job more difficult:

Religious Right Reacts to Sandy Hook Shooting by Blaming Lack of Government-Dictated School Prayer 

 James Dobson Blames Marriage Equality And Abortion For Newtown Shooting

 Mike Huckabee Explains Bizarre Claim That God's Absence From Sandy Hook Led To Massacre

 Operation Save America Calls Sandy Hook Interfaith Memorial Service an 'Affront to Almighty God'

And the disgusting finale? The following tweet was sent last night by the Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber:

It was a 180 degree turn for Barber who issued a beautiful prayer for the victims of the shooting earlier this weekend.

This shooting has been a colossal tragedy for the country and it is a warning sign to folks who practice true Christianity.

You are losing support because of people like these. If you are going to blame "demonic forces" for people getting turned off of Christianity, you had best check the next Values Voters rally, take a deep sniff, and hope that the overwhelming smell of sulfur don't make you sick.

American pastor gives support to Ugandan anti-gay bill, claims other Christians will support it also

When the evil of men cripples you, God carries you until you can walk again. Time to start walking.

 Box Turtle Bulletin provided this video and it ain't pretty.

American pastor David Dykes from the Green Acres Baptist Church in Tyler, TX is very vocal in his support of that awful Ugandan anti-gay bill. He is even saying that if the Uganda passes that bill, "Christians" will put pressure on our government not to cut aid to Uganda and if our government does such, then the Church will try to take up the slack and send resources to Uganda.

Don't even start any nonsense about how supposedly "evil" Christianity is because those who would even consider supporting Dykes are NOT Christians in any shape or form. That goes the same for criticizing the state of Texas.

I feel safe in saying that no amount of spin can make what this man proposes look good.

 It ain't gonna happen. Mr. Dykes has the same verbal disease that Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer has in that he thinks he can speak for all Christiandom. It's a shame the disease if farther along with him than Huckabee and Fischer.

I can't process today

Everything seems so needless by comparison to Friday. I'm sure my fire will return, but for now, I can't process today. Let Patti be our comfort:

'NOM affiliate compares marriage equality to Nazism' and other Friday midday news briefs

NOM's Morse: Same-Sex Marriage Is Part Of A "Pagan Ideology," Like Nazism - Keep talking. You only help us.  

Antonin Scalia's church promoted event dealing w/ 'challenge of same-sex attractions'; son was key speaker - We all knew that Justice Scalia didn't like us, but geez!

  STUDY: Marriage Improves Mental Health Of Same-Sex Couples - Well hell, we all knew this.

  Uruguay deputies overwhelmingly support equality - It's not bad for all of our people in foreign countries.  

Barber: CA Law Will Tell Minor Victims of Sexual Abuse That They're Gay or Transgender - We need to follow this fool around with a tape recorder. He already made me add a new part to my upcoming booklet (cheap plug but come on, it's Matt Barber. A cheap plus is appropriate for a post about a cheap man)

Religious right suffers from sense of false entitlement

Linda Harvey

One of the biggest lies told by religious right groups and their spokespeople is that they are merely defending their personal religious beliefs and that they want to promote fairness by interjecting their opinion into the talk about sexual orientation.

Recent comments uttered by two leaders of religious right groups contradict that argument.

Linda Harvey from Mission America - a minor yet influential person in religious right circles - said that the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law, shouldn't apply to gays:

Why should the equal protection argument be made in favor of homosexual behavior, which is changeable?  People are not naturally homosexual, so the definition of "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment is being twisted to make this assumption.

"Person" should be understood based on historic, beneficial, or at least neutral and fact-based traits; it should not be twisted to incorporate behavior that most religions and most cultures have said a firm "no" to.

It's also behavior for which there's no recognized science demonstrating a genetic or hormonal origin.  And it's also not beneficial and does not stand the definition of marriage, used for millenia - that is, the act of consummation. It's another sad fact of homosexual behavior that two men or two women can never consummate a marriage; they can never conceive children together.

Peter LaBarbera

Before you can even attempt to wrap your head around that nonsense, Peter LaBarbera from the group Americans for Truth - who is always lurking around religious right circles like the hyenas in The Lion King - issued this forewarning of a "shocking" meeting sponsored by the federal government:

I’m writing you from Oklahoma, having just attended a pro-homosexual conference funded with YOUR tax dollars and sponsored by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a branch of HHS.  We will have a full report on this one-day conference, which not only was devoid of pro-family advocates but featured speakers who were explicitly anti-biblical in their ideology, e.g., claiming that Romans 1 does NOT proscribe homosexual acts as sinful.

Here’s an excerpt from a conference flier titled, “What does the bible say about homosexuality?” passed out by presenter Kathy McCallie, in a session called “Spiritual Wellness in BGLT (sic) Communities, a Primer”:

“[The Apostle] Paul had no inkling that for some persons, a same-sex orientation might be natural, that is, part of who they are created to be. If he had known this, he would have had to argue that, for such persons, heterosexual acts would be unnatural.”

Whatever happened to liberal demands for “Separation of Church and State” (which is actually a twisting of the First Amendment)?! Here we have Americans’ tax dollars being used to assault historic biblical teaching against homosexuality as sinful.

 . . . the Oklahoma conference, although supposedly focusing on substance abuse, devoted much energy to promoting gender confusion and homosexuality. Can you imagine comparing gender-confused men who believe they are “women” but are denied use of the ladies’ restroom to Blacks suffering under official Jim Crow racism — as male-to-female trans “woman” Celeste Flemming did? The very first speaker at the conference, Randy Roberts Potts – the openly homosexual grandson of the late Oral Roberts – maligned my friend and Oklahoma St. Rep. Sally Kern, accusing her of being “hateful” toward homosexuals and going on a “witch-hunt” against them.  Stay tuned to this story, which also sheds like on the Obama administration’s radical use of the federal bureaucracy to promote the homosexualist agenda across America.

I fail to see the problem here. So what if  SAMHSA conducted an all-day conference devoted to gay health? That's a good thing. SAMSHA seeks to provide education regarding the needs of the lgbt community. When there is a problem with substance abuse in the gay community, one of the root causes happens to be homophobia - like the homophobia expressed by LaBarbera in his statement, i. e. the vicious attack on Ms. Flemming and the transgender community at large.

And what if at this conference folks posed a different interpretation of the Bible's view of homosexuality? Is that against the law? Is LaBarbera's interpretation the only one which should be allowed? What in the world gives him the right dictate how people interpret the Bible? Even the title of his piece is offensive - Federally-funded 'LGBT' conference in Oklahoma Undermines Scripture

And don't even get me started on LaBarbera's attempt to "defend" the Civil Rights Movement."

The main point I am trying to make is this - some members of religious right groups seem to have a feeling of entitlement in regards to the gay community. They feel that they entitled to dictate our lives and whether or not tax dollars should be used in the advancement of our well-being.

It's only a feeling, guys. It's not fact. And that's something that people like Harvey and LaBarbera had better get used to.

 

Republicans secretly authorized additional $500,000 for faulty DOMA defense

Republicans in Congress are starting to cheese me off. They want to cut monies on Social Security and Medicaid, while at the same time doing the following, via Think Progress:

It has come to light that House Administration Committee Chairman Dan Lungren (R-CA) secretly approved a $500,000 increase to a contract with a private law firm to defend the unconstitutional Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in federal court. While the increase was approved in September, neither the public nor the Democratic House minority was informed until this week, Roll Call reports. The contract now authorizes Bancroft PLLC and former Solicitor General Paul Clement (R) to spend up to $2 million in to defend DOMA — the second increase to what was originally a $1 million cap. The U.S. Department of Justice stopped defending the 1996 law in February 2011 after determining the law to be in conflict with the U.S. Constitution.

Two million dollars in an attempt to deny gays the right to marry. And if that's enough to get you angry, remember the fact that Clement, their lawyer, is using faulty research and tactics in his case. I wrote about this last year but let's recap:

1. Clement tried to sneak in the testimony of former NOM chair Maggie Gallagher in a way which would have kept her from being cross-examined.

2. A professor cited by Clement in a brief defending DOMA, Lisa Diamond, complained that her work was being distorted.

3. Clement is also citing - in a second hand fashion - junk science from discredited researchers. In his defense of DOMA, Clement cites the work of Case Western Reserve University law professor George W. Dent, Jr.

But Dent's work - which Clement uses -  cited both Paul Cameron and George Rekers, two discredited researchers. Cameron has been censured or rebuked by several organizations for his bad methodology in his studies. He has published work which claimed, among other nauseating false things, that gays stuff gerbils up their rectums. (Editor's note-  the piece Cameron cited to make this claim - The Straight Dope - actually said that this claim was not true. Cameron dishonestly "flipped the script" to make it seem that The Straight Dope was affirming this claim.)

Rekers lost a lot of credibility for last year's scandal when he was caught coming from a European vacation with a "rentboy."

Also, Dent cited the work of Walter Schumm's study Children of Homosexuals More Apt To Be Homosexuals? A Reply to Morrison and to Cameron Based on an Examination of Multiple Sources of Data.

Schumm's study was criticized for using the same false methodology as Cameron's work. i.e. citing sources "from general-audience books about LGBT parenting and families, most of which are available on Amazon.com"

Furthermore, Dent cited a book called Straight & Narrow by Thomas E. Schmidt to make criticisms about gay health. However, Schmidt is not a credible researcher in the field of gay health. He is a professor of New Testament Greek at Westmont College in Santa Barbara and according to Rev. Mel White of the group Soulforce, Schmidt cited Cameron's discredited studies many times in Straight & Narrow (5th letter to Jerry Falwell.)

And last, but not least, Dent cited the work of the American College of Pediatricians. The American College of Pediatricians is not a credible organization, but an organization created to give credibility to junk science about the gay community. Last year, over 14,000 school district superintendents in the country were sent a letter by ACP inviting them to peruse and use information from a new site, Facts About Youth. The site 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.

If this isn't enough to get you angry at Boehner and company, then you need to check your pulse. You may not have one.

'Ridiculous video makes NO point against marriage equality' and other Thursday midday news briefs

With all due respect, this video I pulled from Jeremy Hooper's blog is super inane:


And the reason that allowing gays to marry would hurt the above concept is how . . .. ? This video is from the Iona Institute in Ireland. Man they need to do something better to explain their point of view.

 In other news:

WND Promotes Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill - Via "World Nut Daily," arch-bigot Scott Lively speaks up for Uganda's anti-gay bill. He should because he helped start the panic which created it. And get this - while he doesn't believe in the death penalty for gays, he is all for life in prison. Well gee. "Thanks a lot, @!%$"

 Regnerus Scandal Ripped Wide Open As UT Confesses To Major, Systemic Ethics Failures - Looks like NOM's bought-and-paid for anti-gay parenting bill is catching more problems.

  Zero-Tolerance Policies Perpetuate A School-to-Prison Pipeline For LGBT Youth - You have to read this. It's an awful thing for our children and a lot of folks aren't aware that it's taking place.

Family Research Council, NOM caught in lies about gay parenting study

FRC and NOM tries to lie about families like this one.

I have talked about how the religious right distorts legitimate studies to attack the gay community.  There have been many times in which this has happened. And today comes another one. From the Family Research Council:

According to a new study, having two married parents may be the best educational advantage you can give your kids. Based on data from 1.6 million children, Michael Rosenfeld confirms what FRC's research has shown for some time: children from intact, married families were 35.4% more likely to do well in school than kids in homosexual homes. Also, children adopted into heterosexual families fared better -- with a 24% edge in school progress over kids in same-sex families.

If the "new study" sounds familiar to folks who have read this blog, it's because I talked about it days ago. That time, the National Organization for Marriage was touting it and I pointed out how one of the study's authors - Douglas Allen -  was affiliated with the National Organization for Marriage's Ruth Institute.

In the comments section of this blog, readers were alerting me to something that I confess I should have been paying more attention to.  And now that the Family Research Council is touting the study - and inadvertently revealed an important fact about it - I am wide awake and raring to raise hell.

Both FRC and NOM are misleading folks in far more detail than I realized.

NOM omitted the fact that technically Allen didn't necessarily create an original study. Allen told The Washington Examiner the following:

The study also looked at similar scholarly work that had determined no difference in children of same sex and traditional marriages. The authors said that those studies filtered the sample of children to get their result.

"The previous study claiming no differences between the children of same sex parents and other children had serious problems," said study co-author Douglas Allen, an economics professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. That study, he said, "excluded children who were not biologically related to the household head, and children who did not live in the same place for five years. That threw out over half of the observations. When we put those children back into our analysis, but controlled for these factors, we found that the children of same sex parents are less likely to make normal progress through school."

 In other words, Allen took another study, published in 2010 and added new details in an attempt to get a conclusion more desirous to his position.

FRC is misleading folks making them believe the study is new and that the actual author - Michael Rosenfield - interprets it as a knock on same-sex families.

This is not true because of a letter Rosenfield wrote in November. In the letter, published in the same issue of  Demography,  he blasted Allen for manipulating his original work. It reads in part:

 In Rosenfeld (2010), I was very careful to include only children who lived with their current parents for at least five years because those children’s current family structure influenced their progress through school. In their revision of my analysis, Allen et al. preferred to analyze the outcomes of all children, regardless of how long they had lived with their current families. Allen et al. therefore attributed to the current family (at the time of the census) child outcomes that may have been produced years before the current family was formed. Allen et al. violated a fundamental rule of causal order, which is that later characteristics ought not be used to predict earlier events.

It is a long point-by-point take down that you can read in its entirety if you wish. But the main gist is at the end. Rosenfield says:

Allen et al. reached the conclusion that children in same-sex-couple families fare worse in school by including all children regardless of how long the child has lived with the family (see their Models 2 and 4) and by including adopted and foster children along with the head of household’s own children (their Models 3 and 4). Allen et al.’s finding of worse school performance by children living with same-sex couples is due to their conflating the initial disadvantage of children who come into same-sex couple families (a disadvantage that appears to be substantial) with the progress children experience during the time when they are actually being raised by same-sex couples (progress that is excellent).

There is no statistically significant difference in making normal progress through school between children raised by same-sex couples and children raised by heterosexual married couples after family socioeconomic status is taken into account (see Table 1, column E). Allen et al. noted that even if the difference is not significant, the children of heterosexual married couples appear to be faring better. By the same logic, the children raised by unmarried heterosexual couples appear to be faring worse (with higher rates of grade retention) than children raised by same-sex couples (all of whom were unmarried according to U.S. law), though the difference in grade retention is not significant after socioeconomic controls are applied.

If formal marriage of the parents is beneficial to children, and if the goal of public policy is to maximize children’s chances of success, then perhaps the logical public policy prescription would be to extend marriage rights to same-sex couples in the United States.

So it seems that both NOM and FRC both tried to pull a fast one at the same time and got caught. This is certainly a first for me - the first time I am able knock two religious right groups at the same time for lying.

And it was fun. I wish it would happen more often

Editor's note - To the readers who were trying to point out the main problems with Allen's study to me, I profusely apologize for not paying attention like I should have.

One of the bigots I am putting on the cover of my upcoming booklet

Matt Barber

I look at the Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber the way I view Linda Harvey from Mission America.

Don't get mad at their anti-gay speech. By all means, let them talk. They only serve to help us.

A perfect example of what I am talking about today is Barber on a radio show today labeling gay rights activists as "insatiable beasts."

It's truly hilarious to hear him and the host, Janet Mefferd, talk about how we are never satisfied, as if they control what we should and shouldn't get in terms of civil rights.

And that line he throws out about gays wanting to turn schools into "indoctrination  centers?" Classic ironic comedy.

The more I hear Barber's rants, the more I am glad with my decision to put him on the cover of my upcoming booklet, How They See Us:

Transcript:

 Mefferd: You look at how the LGBT activists are operating in California and it just seems like there is no limit to what they want, it’s just one thing after another out there, they get one thing and then they move on to the next thing and they move on to the next thing and with great vigor.

Barber: That’s right. The homosexual activist lobby is an insatiable beast, as I’ve often said before. They do want everything that we’ve said that they wanted and that is not just affirmation of homosexuality but celebration of homosexuality under penalty of law, they absolutely want to turn our public schools into indoctrination centers and the narrative that people can and do leave homosexuality does not align with their political, cultural and legal goals so they are throwing children under the bus here—in order to try ends justifies the means agenda here.

Video from Equality Matters

Transcript from Right-Wing Watch
 

'Anti-gay hate group furious at UPS' and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Family Research Council Dumps UPS For Not Humoring Boy Scouts’ Discrimination - Awwww, poor FRC. Another excuse for me to give UPS more of my business.

  Desmond Tutu Pens Op-Ed for Ugandan Newspaper - Desmond Tutu has always been my hero in part because he stands up for the abused such as the lgbt community in Uganda.

  O'Reilly: It's Not Bigotry To Oppose Marriage Equality - It's all about tactics, Bill, which of course the folks at Fox News are always careful never to talk about.

 Photograph Of Little Boy Wearing Pink Shoes To Preschool Sparks Heated Blogosphere Debate - A little boy wears pink shoes to preschool and the blogsphere freaks out about it. Meanwhile, the child only wore the shoes because they reminded him of zebras, his favorite animal. I mean REALLLY people! It's preschool! These kids just want to play. Let them, pink shoes and all!  

Bryan Fischer thinks he's entitled to his own facts; is wrong - Bryan Fischer is entitled to his own padded cell.

West Point wedding reveals sad fact about how some Christians have sense of entitlement

Leave it to and old stand by in demeaning the gay community, Robert Knight, to actually make the case against those upset at the recent same-sex wedding held at West Point.

Who knew that when Penelope Gnesin and Brenda Sue Fulton, a West Point graduate, recently exchanged vows in the Cadet Chapel that it would cause so much consternation amongst the religious right.

Various not very nice comments have been leveled at West Point and the couple. So while  Robert Knight's comment doesn't take the proverbial cake, they do reveal the weakness of the arguments behind those angry at this wedding:

"It's a disgrace that West Point allowed same-sex so-called 'marriage' in the chapel. That's a blasphemy against God. It goes against the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law. It's a finger in the eye of God and the American people who still hold to biblical morality, and it was done deliberately. They did it there to make a point."

First of all, I don't think the wedding goes against the Defense of Marriage Act. Secondly, and most importantly, I fail to see how this wedding is an insult to those who supposedly hold to biblical morality seeing that they weren't forced to be there.

Knight's comments underscores a discussion which is sorely needed in this country. Not all Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin. In fact, some LGBTs are Christians. But for those Christians who feel that homosexuality is a sin, how far should the nation go to accommodate their belief, even when it comes to situations that do not directly involve them? Unfortunately, there are some Christians who believe that this country was founded solely for them and the rest of us who don't believe as they do are only here for their will and pleasure. And when challenged on this, they revert to the victimhood mentality, implying that if some of us -particularly lgbts - take full advantage of rights afforded to us, we are somehow targeting them.

This sense of entitlement needs to be nipped because this nation was not created as a homeland for Christians who believe as Knight does, but for all Americans.

Ain't gay love grand? More 'just married' gay couples

Sorry to folks who may feel the need to roll their eyes, but I am going to post more pictures of gay couples just married in Washington state this week:

I can't help it. But be honest. Wouldn't you rather be staring at this rather than Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, Tony Perkins, Linda Harvey, Matt Barber, or the rest. Of course that's not to say that I won't be on my soap box tomorrow throwing out thunderbolts as usual. But for tonight, let's just bask in the glow of progress:

Photos courtesy of Buzzfeed.

'Anti-gay counseling student wins settlement' and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Julea Ward, Michigan Counseling Student Expelled For Gay Views, Wins Settlement - Expect the religious right to be crowing over this one. However don't be deceived. Ward didn't win on merits but solely because the university decided to settle. In other words, she was lucky to be backed by a religious right group with deep pockets and eager to appeal every loss she suffers. Still, it sends a message about counselors who don't want to counsel us or our children - we won't put up with the disrespect. And in light of our recent victories, I say let the religious right enjoy this minor victory. Let them savor it and make sure it's the last victory they receive for a long time.

 NOM moves forward with 'Gays Against Gay Marriage' meme - So NOM will move with its supposedly secret, nefarious plan of astroturfing a gay movement against marriage equality even though it's not so secret to us all. Now that's just tacky. There is no style in duplicity and master plots of evil anymore. It's almost depressing.  

Politico Poll Needlessly Skews Marriage Equality Favorability - Nate Silver accused Politico of treating politics like a sports game. I would say he was as exact about that as he was about the 2012 election.(In case you don't know, Silver predicted an Obama landslide in the face of a lot of derision and opposition, which ended up making him look like a king while his opponents looked like a stable of horses' asses.  

Barber: Almost Half of Gay Men Were Sexually Assaulted by Pedophiles as Children - Oh Matt, you are going to fit nicely in my upcoming booklet. You should see the picture of yourself on the title page. And now you give me something new to add. I swoon with thanks.

Ellen DeGeneres, JC Penney defeats religious right group without breaking a sweat

The religious right group One Million Moms is obviously not a glutton for embarrassment. Unlike so many other religious right groups, after it makes a public fool of itself, it knows that it's time to pull back:

The conservative group One Million Moms says it is "moving on" from its recent protest of Ellen DeGeneres and J.C. Penney.

One Million Moms (OMM), a media watchdog group founded by anti-gay, conservative Christian group American Family Association, spoke with The Christian Post about its ongoing protest of "strong gay activist" DeGeneres as a J.C. Penney spokesperson, telling the publication that the group is moving on from the most recent feud.

The group made headlines this week after blasting a new J.C. Penney Christmas ad featuring DeGeneres. "JCP has made their choice to offend a huge majority of their customers again," read a portion of the statement posted to the group's website.

"We're not taking action, we're moving on. We've already contacted the company," OMM Director Monica Cole told The Christian Post Thursday. 

This is the second time the group has attacked JC Penney and DeGeneres. Initially when it was announced that DeGeneres would be the company's spokesperson, One Million Moms demanded that she be fired.

That demand backfired as folks rallied around DeGeneres and JC Penney.

With this new development, OMM recognizes that its face is cracked and on the ground.

Forgive me for saying so, but part of me hopes that this clarity doesn't strike other religious right groups when they get embarrassed during a public protest.

Then what will I write about?

NOM tries give 'study' some credibility and fails miserably

You simply have to give the National Organization for Marriage points for braziness, if not honesty.

On its blog is the following:

Washington Examiner: "Study Finds Children of Same Sex Couples Lag in School"

December 10, 2012 at 10:00 am

Paul Bedard of The Washington Examiner:

Countering previous studies that found little difference between kids of same sex couples and those in a traditional marriage, a new report reveals that children of gay parents are 35 percent less likely to make normal progress in school that those living with their own married parents.

Based on the largest sample to date for such a study, the new work from three economists raises anew the impact state laws approving of same sex marriage have on children. The new study provided to Secrets said: "Children of same sex couples are significantly less likely to make normal progress through school than other children: 35% less likely than the children of heterosexual married parents, 23% less likely than the children of never married mothers, and 15% less likely than the children of cohabiting parents." The study also looked at similar scholarly work that had determined no difference in children of same sex and traditional marriages. The authors said that those studies filtered the sample of children to get their result.

Sounds interesting, except when you see the original article in The Washington Examiner and read the last two paragraphs which is conveniently not a part of NOM's excerpt:

"The previous study claiming no differences between the children of same sex parents and other children had serious problems," said study co-author Douglas Allen, an economics professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. That study, he said, "excluded children who were not biologically related to the household head, and children who did not live in the same place for five years. That threw out over half of the observations. When we put those children back into our analysis, but controlled for these factors, we found that the children of same sex parents are less likely to make normal progress through school."

Allen's study was just published in the journal "Demography." He is a member of the Ruth Institute Circle of Experts, a group dedicated to traditional marriage. The other authors were Catherine Pakaluk of Ave Marie University and Joseph Price of Brigham Young University.

Did you see that? Douglas Allen was identified as the co-author of this study. He was also identified as a member of the Ruth Institute.

And the Ruth Institute is a "project of National Organization for Marriage Fund." This is clearly seen on the Ruth Institute's webpage.

In other words, NOM seems to be trying pass this "study" as objective when in reality, one of the study's authors, Allen, is affiliated with NOM. Lastly, Allen and the other two other professors - Pakaluk and Price - deal in economics.

It's the usual shuck-and-jive we have come to expect from NOM. 

Geez guys, can you come up with any new deceptions? This is beginning to get rather boring.

'Conservative pundits 'giving up the ghost' on fighting marriage equality?' and other Monday midday news briefs

Conservative Pundits: Accepting Same-Sex Marriage Is Common Sense - Love the capitulation, but remember how the religious right are. They are like a rash which won't go away so I doubt they will be swayed. Also, didn't some of these pundits predict a Romney landslide?

  Merck Foundation Severs Boy Scouts Funding Over Anti-Gay Policy - The Boy Scouts don't have to let our gay children in. But suffering the consequences of their actions isn't an attack on religious freedom. Sorry.  

NOM Plans To Drive Wedge Right Into Middle Of Gay Community - NOM gets major points for being brazen.

 Photo of couple applying for marriage license goes viral - I know that you all have seen the picture of the elderly male couple applying for their marriage license in Washington state. The story behind the couple is as awesome as the picture.

Washington state gay couples should bring a tear to your eyes

This is what love looks like. The following photos of are couples in Washington state getting their marriage licenses:

Okay, if there are any anti-marriage equality folks out there reading this post, I am calling you out. Tell me just what is wrong with these couples getting married? I'm serious so you had better be. No nonsense about "the parts don't fit" and no discredited or cherry-picked science (I will tear you apart for that one).

Tell me, what's wrong with these lovely soon-to-be married couples?

More pics at Buzzfeed.