alvinmcewen
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A story about an anti-bullying workshop at New York's Red Hook school district has been playing huge in religious right and conservative circles lately. The story, which not only includes the tale of a forced lesbian kiss between middle school girls at the workshop but also boys being told to carry condoms in their pockets, has been the talk of several conservative sites from Free Republic to The American Thinker to World Net Daily. The National Organization for Marriage referred to this story in three separate emails last week as an example of what will happen should marriage equality become legal across the country.
Not surprisingly, the story isn't necessarily true.
According to the school district, during the workshop at Linden Avenue Middle School, no female student was forced to engage in any lesbian kissing, male students were not told to carry condoms, and sexual activity between students was not condoned in any way. The district also said:
During the week of April 9, eighth grade communication sessions were held at Linden Avenue Middle School. These sessions were designed by building leadership and the guidance department. The goals of these sessions were to encourage students to treat one another (and all marginalized groups) with more respect as well as to further develop an appreciation for personal dignity. In response to parental concerns about these sessions Dr. Zahedi, the middle school principal, held an evening informational forum on April 16. This session was well attended and the subsequent feedback has been positive. In addition, the Board of Education and Superintendent of Schools, Paul Finch, addressed the community at the April 24 board meeting on the topic of these sessions. Here again, feedback from the community and students was overwhelmingly positive.
Here is an interesting fact you do need to remember - this story gained steam when it was picked up by Fox News reporter Todd Starnes. While Starnes did cite the area newspaper, The Poughkeepsie Journal, in his post, he choose to add more lurid detail about the alleged lesbian kiss. Also, while The Journal talked about the entire workshop as a whole, Starnes chose to take the "they didn't even notify the parents" route, thereby playing up a semantical tone that the school was trying to "indoctrinate" students.
On Monday of last week, the district sent Starnes an email asking that he update his story with correct information. It is not known whether or not Starnes chose to update his story but now the school district has to deal with what it calls "hostile and hateful emails" from many who don't even live in the area. It puts the blame for this solely on Starnes and the organizations - such as NOM - who chose to repeat Starnes' "inaccurate" story.
My guess is that Starnes had already made up his mind what the "true story" about the workshop was once he heard of the alleged lesbian kiss and condoms.
According to Equality Matters as the "culture reporter" for Fox News, Starnes uses his role as a mouthpiece to not only funnel information from several anti-gay groups, but also to push anti-gay information into the mainstream. Equality Matters points out several other incidents in which Starnes has made it a point to report stories which "depict LGBT equality as a threat to religious and personal freedom."
In the case of the Red Hook School District, the only threat was most likely Starnes himself. A reporter on a crusade to push a point of view instead of the facts is always dangerous.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, earlier this week opened his big mouth and verified the Southern Poverty Law Center's charges of anti-gay hate against his organization.
On his show, Washington Watch, he played host to Dave Agema, the Michigan Republican leader catching flack for posting discredited information about the lgbt community on his Facebook page. To call it a vile conversation would be a supreme understatement. The vindictive, yet condescending tone towards the gay community from these two would take about three or four blog posts to fully explore.
Amongst other things, Agema compared being gay to alcoholism and wished that he could supply high schools with the information he put on his Facebook page. But for my money, a significant portion of the interview came when Perkins said:
I’m joined by Dave Agema; he is the Republican National Committeeman from the state of Michigan. We’re talking about a post that he put on his Facebook page citing facts, statistics regarding the homosexual lifestyle during the oral arguments before the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. What is troubling to me is that your post has been called a form of hate but simply what you are doing is having a conversation presenting the truth. These are documented facts. I looked at what you put up there and some of it is the same information we have on our website, some of it comes from the CDC, comes from other medical sources, it’s all footnoted, there’s nothing hate in here it is just talking about the facts.
Let's take a look at some the statistics that Agema placed on his Facebook page - statistics both he and Perkins said are "facts" and statistics that Agema want children, including our lgbt children, to know:
50% of suicides can be attributed to homosexuals.
About 50% of the women on death row are lesbians.
There is a notable homosexual group, consisting of thousands of members, known as the North American Man and Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). This is a child molesting homosexual group whose cry is "SEX BEFORE 8 BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE." This group can be seen marching in most major homosexual parades across the United States.
Many homosexuals admit that they are pedophiles: "The love between men and boys is at the foundation of homosexuality."
Homosexuals live unhealthy lifestyles, and have historically accounted for the bulk of syphilis, gonorrhea, Hepatitis B, the "gay bowel syndrome" (which attacks the intestinal tract), tuberculosis and cytomegalovirus.
Homosexuals are 100 times more likely to be murdered (usually by another homosexual) than the average person, 25 times more likely to commit suicide, and 19 times more likely to die in a traffic accident.
Perkins said that these claim are accurate, as well as fact checked. But that's a lie. One source listed as a citation on the post Agema cited, Paul Cameron, is a charlatan who has been either censured or dismissed from several medical associations for his bad research methodologies and outrageously homophobic claims, including the claim that gays stuff gerbils up their rectums.
And another source of Agema's post, Edward R. Fields, has been recently revealed to be a white supremacist and a Holocaust denier.
Perkins also said that some of the information comes from the Centers for Disease Control. While he is accurate about that, he is still being highly deceptive. Dr. Judith Kovach, director of the Michigan Project for Informed Public Policy, recently told a Michigan newspaper that while the CDC does say that the gay community has more general health problems, it is not because of the orientation (which Perkins and Agema implies) but because of the stress which comes from having to deal with homophobia and discrimination:
"A member of any group that experiences discrimination, stigma and oppression is going to react to that stress with higher degrees of anxiety, depression and hopelessness. But there's absolutely no evidence that if you control for stress that there are any higher frequencies of mental health disorders."
The same article points out that the CDC clearly says homophobia and discrimination - and NOT the lgbt orientation - can contribute to mental and physical health problems.
So why is Perkins' statement, intended no doubt to give Agema some type of credibility, significant? Because he has unintentionally proven the Southern Poverty Law Center correct.
In late 2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center designated FRC and several other religious right organizations as hate groups because of the information they spread about the lgbt community:
Even as some well-known anti-gay groups like Focus on the Family moderate their views, a hard core of smaller groups, most of them religiously motivated, have continued to pump out demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities. These groups’ influence reaches far beyond what their size would suggest, because the “facts” they disseminate about homosexuality are often amplified by certain politicians, other groups and even news organizations.
Since this happened, FRC and Perkins have consistently claimed that SPLC targeted them simply because they are a Christian group which opposes homosexuality and marriage equality.
But now, because of Perkins' need to vouch for incredibly bad anti-gay statistics by claiming that some of those same statistics are on FRC's webpage, that talking point has perhaps been revealed as a careful dodge.
After all, what Christian group do you know vouches for statistics partly created by a discredited researcher who thinks that gays stuff gerbils up their rectums and a white Supremacist who denies that the Holocaust happened?
Two years ago, I wrote a post entitled 16 reasons why the Family Research Council is a hate group.
Thank you, Mr. Perkins for giving me reason number 17.
As if it's a surprise to anyone, the Family Research Council is rushing to support Dave Agema, the Michigan Republican leader who is facing a firestorm for putting outdated anti-gay propaganda on his Facebook page.
Last week, Agema posted on his Facebook page something called Everyone Should Know These Statistics on Homosexuality, a vicious anti-gay litany of lies, including:
Many homosexual sexual encounters occur while drunk, high on drugs, or in an orgy setting.
Homosexuals live unhealthy lifestyles, and have historically accounted for the bulk of syphilis, gonorrhea, Hepatitis B, the "gay bowel syndrome" (which attacks the intestinal tract), tuberculosis and cytomegalovirus .
25-33% of homosexuals and lesbians are alcoholics .
Homosexuals are 100 times more likely to be murdered (usually by another homosexual) than the average person, 25 times more likely to commit suicide, and 19 times more likely to die in a traffic accident.
Since that post, Agema has been catching a lot of flack, including from members of his own party demanding that he resign.
The Family Research Council has just backed Agema. In an email recently sent out, the organization said the following:
When leaders like Republican National Committeeman Dave Agema so much as raise questions about the harms of homosexuality, the RNC throws them under the bus faster than you can say "political correctness." Agema, a staunch Michigan conservative, is taking fire from his own party for a Facebook post that detailed the harms of homosexuality. And while people may not agree with everything in his column, they should agree on his freedom to call for a discussion. But under this new "inclusive" and "welcoming" RNC, simply raising awareness on certain social issues is off-limits. A group of GOP officials is calling on Agema to resign--including state party chairman Bobby Schostak, who claimed that statistics about the consequences of homosexual behavior (consequences which even the Left acknowledges!) are a "form of hate."
While Agema's research may be somewhat outdated, FRC's "Top 10 Myths about Homosexuality" highlights a summary of recent data, which all point to the high rates of physical and mental illness associated with homosexuality. Several of these hazards are echoed by the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association, which makes a point of posting the risks so that people can discuss them with their doctors. To his credit, Agema isn't backing down. He insists that we shouldn't cut off debate about a lifestyle with direct public policy implications.
While FRC rightfully calls Agema's information outdated, it replaces the information with some distortions of its own. The post it highlighted, "Top 10 Myths about Homosexuality," has several problems with accuracy. For one thing it repeats the same lies as Agema, but backed with cherry-picked studies.
A perfect example of this is FRC's claim about the work taken from the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. FRC cherry-picked the GLMA's work to give it a totally different meaning.
While FRC lists the health problems which may affect gays and lesbians, the organization is careful to omit the information from the GLMA which points to how homophobia and societal rejection plays a part in creating these health problems and hindering lgbts from receiving adequate care. By omitting this information, FRC incorrectly makes it seem that the sexual orientation itself is a factor when it comes to gay and lesbian health problems.
For the record, Agema was not debating. He was spreading lies and distortions derived from bad sources. One source listed as a citation on the post Agema cited, Paul Cameron, is a charlatan who has been either censured or dismissed from several medical associations for his bad research methodologies and outrageously homophobic claims, including the claim that gays stuff gerbils up their rectums. The problem here with Agema is that he is so wrapped up in his own self-righteousness that he fails to realize no one is persecuting him or trying to hinder his right to free speech.
With free speech comes responsibilities and the main responsibility is the hope that one doesn't use his or her free speech to spread lies and deceptions. Caught up in his own phony martyrdom, Agema doesn't want to realize that in bearing false witness against the lgbt community, he has betrayed those Christian values which he is seeking to defend.
The Family Research Council, on the other hand, is another case entirely. It wasn't that long ago when the group peddled the same lies in the same unabashed form as Agema. However, knowing fully well that the information was propaganda, FRC dialed back the rhetoric and is now attempting to portray a more "kinder, gentler" image of homophobia.
And a central part of this false image is portraying every ugly offense it lodges against the lgbt community as merely a way of "starting a debate." What FRC does to the lgbt community is no different than a reporter asking a politician, "so when did you stop beating your wife," and then whining about being silenced when the politician objects to the offensive nature of the question.
This is not debating. It's called demonizing. It's called lying. And it has no place in the public square. The question is how long will it be before the media stops being fooled by FRC's shuck-and-jive?
It wouldn't be allowed if Agema and FRC were talking about African-Americans. It wouldn't be allowed if Agema and FRC were talking about people of the Jewish faith. And it certainly wouldn't be allowed if Agema and FRC were talking about women.
What is about the lgbt community which makes it permissible to treat us any different?
I've read many reasons why same-sex couples shouldn't be married from religious right groups and all of them are either distortion-filled or just plain nasty. But the following from the Family Research Council's Robert Morrison goes beyond the boundaries of good taste. He exploits the murder of Matthew Shepard to somehow connect marriage equality to the problem of absent fathers:
When we see dozens of Democrats abandoning their previously held positions and a few Republicans also willing to betray the voters who put them in office, it would be easy to become cynical about everyone in politics. But we have to stand firm and push back. Marriage is a blessing to families. Three-quarters of the teen rapists in our prisons are fatherless young men, so are two-thirds of the teen murderers. Even gay martyr Matthew Shepherd [sic] was killed by two fatherless young men. Marriage bashes no one. Marriage benefits everyone.
Barring some profane words which I have not used in years, I can sum up Morrison's passage in three descriptions: tacky, tasteless, and totally un-Christian.
Those two men who murdered Shepard didn't commit their crime because a father was absent in their households. They murdered Shepard partly because of the fact that they were hateful individuals. But I would wager what they may have heard in their homes regarding gays had more to do with their crime than a father possibly not being at home. And also in a society which taught them to look at lgbts as slugs not worthy of respect (no doubt aided and abetted by past words and actions of the Family Research Council and other anti-gay groups)
At any rate, it doesn't make any difference. They were adults and made their choice to take this young man's life. There is no excuse for that. I also find it extremely distasteful that after years of besmirching Shepard's name, i.e. claiming that he was murdered in the case of a drug deal gone bad or claiming that he flirted with the men and caused his own death, someone from the religious right camp would actually have the temerity to exploit his murder via the result of physical homophobia to justify institutional homophobia.
Most of all, I don't like what I read in Morrison's description of Shepard. Folks will read what they want in his turn of phrase but I detect a sublime nastiness in how he termed Shepard as a "gay martyr." It's a ugly transference by Morrison because he implies that the lgbt community predatorily used Shepard's death to further our supposed "agenda." The only one with an agenda here is Morrison because he doesn't seem to care a whit that Shepard was an innocent child more than he is a talking point.
After all, why would he even cite Shepard in the first place.
Hat tip to Right Wing Watch.
Former National Organization for Marriage head Maggie Gallagher is the latest religious right figure to throw a distortion-filled hissy fit over the American Academy of Pediatricians’ recent support of marriage equality and same-sex households.
In a recent piece in the National Review, Gallagher repeats the lie that the AAP ignored scientific data in its statement:
There are at least four reviews or studies in peer-reviewed literature that contest the claim that children do equally well with same-sex parents. (Regnerus, Marks, Sirota, Allen). None of which are mentioned by the American Academy of Pediatricians in their endorsement of gay marriage. They cannot cite a single scientific study in a peer-reviewed journal showing children with gay parents are better off if their parents are considered legally married. None of this matters. How serious are we about children’s well-being in this country?
Gallagher is not telling the truth. Or to put it another way, she is lying through her teeth. The other studies she mentioned (Marks, Sirota, and Allen) are merely cocktail canape.
Loren Marks did not create a study of same-sex households but rather a review of studies looking at same-sex households. His piece was considered to be a companion piece to the Regnerus study.
Dr. Theodora Sirota actually complained about how her work was being distorted to make the case against same-sex families.
Douglas Allen is a Canadian economist and a professor of economics who actually supported Regnerus’ work.
The big prize here is the Regnerus study. And that is what Gallagher’s lie entails. The AAP did in fact look at Regnerus’ work and destroyed it. On pg. 1378 or pg 6 of the link, starting in the third column, the AAP lists four reasons why the Regnerus study cannot be considered credible in terms of looking at children raised in same-sex households.
Aside from Gallagher and Brian Brown of NOM, the Family Research Council, and Focus on the Family have also tried to push the lie that AAP ignored credible research on same-sex households. Maybe it’s just me but I detect a note of fear in regards to the immediacy of these claims.
And for the life of me, I can’t figure out why of all of the briefs or statements supporting marriage equality for tomorrow and Wednesday’s upcoming Supreme Court trials, does there seem to be some fear regarding the AAP’s statement.
Whatever the case, the fear is hard to ignore.
By now, many have heard of the comments uttered by National Organization for Marriage chairman John Eastman regarding Justice John Roberts’ adopted children and adoption in general.
The leader of a prominent anti-gay organization called Supreme Court Chief John Roberts’ decision to adopt children the “second-best option,” the AP reports.
“You’re looking at what is the best course societywide to get you the optimal result in the widest variety of cases. That often is not open to people in individual cases. Certainly adoption in families headed, like Chief Roberts’ family is, by a heterosexual couple, is by far the second-best option,” said John Eastman, chairman of the National Organization for Marriage.
Eastman was responding to a question about the Chief Justice’s position on the rights of same-sex couples. Roberts and his wife adopted two children, Jack and Josie, in 2000. Both children are now 12 years old.
No doubt there will be some claiming that we are making too much of Eastman’s statement or that it was a simple gaffe which takes needed attention away from the important subject of marriage equality
But attention over Eastman’s words are not a phony moral panic and to label his comment as a simple “gaffe” is trivializing its harm.
What Eastman did was to push a concept into the idea of family which has no business being there. Families should never be judged on a tier. They aren’t baked goods at the state fair to be given ribbons marking 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
Nor should it be implied that families exist in a caste system where the designated “gold standard” grabs all of the attention while other families who are not that “standard” are either hardly mentioned or downgraded.
When it comes to families, there is no such thing as a “second-best option,” except unfortunately in the head of Eastman and his organization which – I may point out – has never offered any new ideas of placing orphaned or foster children into any family households at all, including the two-parent heterosexual household it holds so dear.
Nor has NOM ever offered any solutions to the real problems facing families of all stripe such as poverty, unemployment, lack of decent health and education options, or lack of good housing.
Eastman and NOM are like charlatans from days of old who would roll into town after town masquerading as physicians while hawking a useless cure-all with flowery rhetoric and flashy bottles.
In this case, the cure-all seems to be keeping members from the gay community from getting married and keeping same-sex families in the background. And like those charlatans, Eastman and NOM talk a good game, but when you get past the rhetoric and the flash you realize that the cure-all cures nothing.
Keeping gays and lesbians from getting married and keeping same-sex families in the background has never improved the quality of life of any household. It has never saved a family’s mortgage nor gotten a family’s children into a decent college.
Keeping gays and lesbians from getting married and keeping same-sex families in the background has never paid overdue utility notices, rent, or medical bills.
What this rhetoric does is pits us against one another by fooling us into thinking that the love and support each family is capable of giving should be judged not by how much good it does but who is the giver.
The rhetoric places status above love, support, and the willingness to sacrifice – three qualities which all good families have in abundance.
Eastman and NOM’s rhetoric is a game, i.e. a vulgar exercise in passive-aggressive homophobia which cushions some from accepting the simple fact that maybe their disagreement with marriage equality has less to do with saving the family and more to do with their inability to deal with innate inaccuracies about the gay community and same-sex families.
And unfortunately, as Eastman’s comments demonstrate, other families are becoming collateral damage in this passive-aggressive game.
I've said it once and I will say it again. Once the religious right finds a factoid or meme to use against the lgbt community, they will continue to repeat it even though the factoid or meme has been refuted.
Earlier this week, I wrote about how the Family Research Council was repeating a lie that the Obama Administration declared war on mothers in its Supreme Court brief against the California anti-marriage equality law, Prop 8.
Yesterday, FRC took that lie further via an employee, Kenneth Blackwell, in a recent piece he wrote, Obama Drops His Family Friendly Mask:
Last week, President Obama dropped the family friendly mask. He sent his Solicitor General, Donald Verrilli up the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court with a simple message:
Dump Dads. Lose Moms.
That's because the Solicitor General speaks for the President. In the most august and formal way, it is this officer who carries the President's deepest convictions to lay them before the nation's High Court. What the Solicitor General actually said was this:
"As an initial matter, no sound basis exists for concluding that same-sex couples who have committed to marriage are anything other than fully capable of responsible parenting and child-rearing. To the contrary, many leading medical, psychological, and social-welfare organizations have issued policy statements opposing restrictions on gay and lesbian parenting based on their conclusion, supported by numerous scientific studies, that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are as likely to be well adjusted as children raised by heterosexual parents."
"The weight of the scientific literature strongly supports the view that same-sex parents are just as capable as opposite-sex parents."
Actually, the weight of scientific evidence proves no such thing. All the work of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (www.marri.org) shows that children do best in a family where mother and dad are married and where the family worships regularly.
As for children raised by two adults of the same sex, the most extensive study ever done was that of Dr. Mark Regnerus. Dr. Regnerus of the University of Texas conducted the largest, most rigorously controlled study in history. Here's what the U.T. study found:The results of the NFSS [National Family Structures Study]research revealed that the "no differences" claim -- the claim that children raised by parents in gay or lesbian relationships fared no worse and in some cases better than children raised by intact biological parents -- was not true. On the contrary, the children of these households, on average, did worse than children raised by their biological, still-married parents.The weight of scientific evidence -- as opposed to Donald Verrilli's politically correct posturing -- shows that his statements before the High Court are "not true. Remember, we are talking about the well-being of the children, not whether the adults in these relationships are well-satisfied with their domestic arrangements.
Mr. Blackwell omits a lot of truth to reach the point of this passage.
He said the weight of scientific evidence does not prove that same-sex parents are just as capable as opposite-sex parents in the raising of children.
Mr. Blackwell conveniently forgets that the Obama Administration brief he tears down clearly cited both the American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics as well as the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry as proof that same-sex parents are just as capable as opposite-sex parents in the raising of children (page 21 of the brief).
Furthermore Mr. Blackwell did not mention that independent from the Obama Administration brief, the APA submitted another brief to the court saying the same thing (i.e. same-sex parents are as capable as opposite-sex parents in the raising of children). And joining them in this brief was the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the California Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychoanalytic Association and the National Association of Social Workers.
Finally, it is very ironic that Mr. Blackwell cites the Regnerus study as proof that his scientific proof that same-sex parents are not just as capable as opposite-sex parents because of the following simple fact:
The American Sociological Association condemned the Regnerus study in its brief submitted to the Supreme Court. In the brief, the ASA also said that same-sex parents are just as capable as opposite-sex parents when it comes to the raising of children.
So when Mr. Blackwell says that the weight of scientific evidence does not prove that same-sex parents are as capable as opposite-sex parents in the raising of children, he is clearly not being truthful. Not even a little bit.
Do me a favor, folks. Don't shake your head, suck your teeth and go "there they go again" at yet another time you have seen the Family Research Council blatantly lie about the gay community. Demand that more time and knowledge be invested in uncovering how organizations like FRC distort science or push blatant lies against the lgbt community.
Organizations like the Family Research Council don't rely on truth. They rely on repetition. They repeat a point while deliberately ignoring the simple fact that the point has been refuted by those who know better.
And they also rely on the gay community and others becoming blase or jaded about their constant lying. The Family Research Council and other so-called "pro-family" groups can't use facts against the gay community, so they hope to beat us down through the constant repetition of lies.
It's not necessarily the Christian thing to do, but I guess they figure God will turn a blind eye because they feel that they are lying on His behalf.
You see, this is the problem. This is the reason for the lgbt community's anger towards groups like FRC who claim to uphold their version of Christian values. It's not that we are intolerant of their beliefs or views.
We are just intolerant of their lies.
You gotta give the religious right credit for one thing – when they get a talking point, they hammer it to death.
To hell with truth. They seek to dominate the conversation by repetition.
With President Obama’s mention of gay equality in his inaugural address, several groups are hammering the point home that the mention was not needed because “gays already have civil rights.”
Of course this is a dumb point which is easily refutable – that is if lgbt groups such as GLAAD and HRC put out a press release in response (hint, hint, hint, guys)
But in pushing this talking point, several religious right figures can’t help but push forward their bigotry. Take former Family Research Council head and religious right journeyman Gary Bauer for example:
And then there is Peter Sprigg from the Family Research Council during an interview yesterday morning on CNN:
“We as social conservatives do not agree with the president’s attempt to link the modern homosexual movement with the women’s rights movement or the civil rights movement for African Americans,” Sprigg said. “The irony is that homosexuals already have all the same civil rights as anyone else.” Sprigg continued to say that “all sexual behavior” is not created equal, nor do “all personal relationships have an equal value to society at large, that serve the same public interests.”
Obama didn’t say a word about sexual intercourse in his speech. But he didn't have to. When people like Peter Sprigg and Gary Bauer hear about gay couples, they see this:
Sprigg, Bauer, and those who support their madness can believe what they want, but it doesn’t make what they believe as fact. And it certainly doesn’t make what they believe a model this nation should remember when thinking about gay couples and families.
Related post – How They See Us: Unmasking The Religious Right War on Gay America
Here we go again. We've seen this so many times. A national figure disrespects the gay community. That's the first act and today, it features nationally known pastor Rick Warren. Recently, he said the following to Piers Morgan on CNN
WARREN: Here’s what we know about life. I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and I feel like punching a guy in the nose. It doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women who are not my wife. I don’t act on it. Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right. Not everything natural is good for me. Arsenic is natural.
Now allow me to predict what will probably happen next:
Act II - The gay community, justifiably insulted by the comments, will make our displeasure known.
Act III - Rick Warren will play the victim by either whining about how the gay community is intolerant of his opinion of them as arsenic. Groups like the Family Research Council will hail him as "standing on Biblical principles," and the entire situation will be looked at as us gay folks not being accepting of "someone else's point of view."
What always gets my goat is how when public figures attack the gay community, they are always quick to be technically dishonest and plead ennui. They refuse to acknowledge that they are attacking an actual group of people. Not a lifestyle, not state of being, but real people with real families.
Gays are not puppy dogs who should be "tolerated" or "condoned."
Gays are not hypothetical entities.
Gays are not streams of arguments in a philosophy class.
It's insulting enough when folks like Warren make such awful statements about our lives. It's even worse when after their attacks, they dismiss our basic and normal reaction of righteous indignation as "intolerance."
It's as if they don't think we are human beings and should instead take their insults with a good natured smile.
In regards to the recent election when voters approved marriage equality measures in Maryland, Washington state, and Maine and defeated an anti-marriage equality constitutional amendment in Minnesota, the one thing that will not be talked about but needs to be discussed is the utter failure of the National Organization for Marriage's attempt to play the black and gay communities against each other.
We've witnessed the organization garnering much success with this tactic in the past, most recently in North Carolina. However on election day, the tactic failed miserably. The following are three reasons why NOM's strategy failed:
1. The wedge strategy becomes public - Ironically enough, the seeds of yesterday's embarrassment were sowed in March of this year when lgbt bloggers (myself included) published a secret memo from the National Organization of Marriage detailing how the organization plotted to specifically divide the gay and black communities by seeking out black spokespeople to publicly speak out against marriage equality in hopes of using these spokespeople as targets for the ire of gays:
The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks - two key democratic constituencies. We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; and to provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party.
Marriage equality supporters long suspected that the partnership between NOM and the black leaders who supported their cause was less noble than suspected (at least on NOM's part) and this memo confirmed it. While the revelation was too late to save NC from falling to an anti-marriage equality vote, the constant mention of this memo in later articles and interviews every time NOM trotted out a black leader to speak against marriage equality could have proved ultimately devastating because it was a constant reminder to the African-American community that NOM was using them.
2. NOM overestimated its power - Though the National Organization for Marriage never publicly declared it to be so, the organization had a lot to do with the plan of asking African-Americans to withhold their votes. While the front organization for this plot was the Coalition of African-American Pastors, it wasn't too difficult to discover that the leader of CAAP, Bill Owens, was NOM's religious liasion and that he was on salary with NOM. It was a plot that was doomed to failure from the start and it gave an indication of what NOM truly thought about the black community and the civil rights movement. NOM seems to have thought that they could trot out several black pastors who would tell African-Americans what to do and that the community would follow lockstep. One of the biggest misconceptions about black people is that we are ruled by what pastors say. While we see pastors as spiritual advisors, we are not monolithic. And we are also not stupid to note simple irony. Or more specifically, allow me to reveal a few questions that ran through the mind of black Americans - What's more insulting to the legacy of the civil rights movement? Marriage equality or refusing to vote even though a hallmark of the civil rights movement was to receive the right to vote in the first place? What's more of an insult to Fannie Lou Hamer, Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner and the thousands of people beaten or killed for American-Americans to be able to vote? Marriage equality or refusing to vote at all. These were two questions which NOM conveniently did not address, but trust me when I say that they ran through the minds of millions of African-Americans.
3. The Obama factor - Let's be honest. There was no way in the world that black people were going to miss this election. People can gripe about black people voting for Obama simply because he is black but you know what? Big deal. So what. That was only a small portion of it. The fact of the matter is that Obama is a very popular person in the black community. He has passed legislation that many African-Americans considered important. In my church, when the Supreme Court declared Obamacare to be legal, several folks called that decision an "act of God." He has been personalized as a brother, son, or comrade by millions of African-Americans, which means many African-Americans took what they felt disrespect given to him very personally. When AZ governor Jan Brewer had that argument with him on the tarmac, all I heard in my community, particularly from old black women, was how dare she stick her finger in his face. To us, Obama became the personification of the trials and tribulations that African-Americans face in this country, i.e. no matter how intelligent we are or how successful we become, there will be always folks who will look at us as if we are second-class citizens and will treat us accordingly. Every time Fox News came out with something ugly about Obama or the tea party marched with their signs, it sent a message to black folks; messages that while we didn't make any noise about, we quietly noted. And we didn't forget. To those not supporting marriage equality, standing against it played second fiddle to supporting "our president." And when he announced his support of marriage equality, it wasn't a strong enough factor for him to lose support in the black community. We either rationalized his support away or began to take a second look at the issue. In other words, Obama is so strong of a hero in the black community, NOM's plans to make him a pariah was doomed from the start.
