Here are just a few of the thousands of LGBT people who have been assaulted or killed in hate crimes in the past decade.

And here are pictures and remembrances of many more.

These are the faces of people whom Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and other Christian Rightists believe are undeserving of equal protection under federal hate-crime law.

These organizations today protested President Obama’s signing of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which revised existing federal hate-crime law to protect victims of felony violence committed on the basis of the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Focus on the Family joined Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund in asserting that while “all victims deserve equal justice,” LGBT people should be excluded from that equal justice, as they were under the previous federal hate-crime law. The two organizations favor the earlier law, which only offered protection for victims in some demographics — race and religion — but not others.

Then and now, the federal law explicitly limits hate-crime punishment to felony violence, and both the law and the First Amendment of the Constitution explicitly protect and preserve free speech. Nevertheless, Focus and the ADF equated the punishment of felony violence with “the criminalization of speech that is not deemed ‘politically correct.’” In short, ADF and Focus both maintain that violence is a valid (albeit incorrect) form of religious and political expression.

The Family Research Council, a spinoff of Focus, declared that the equitable punishment of felony violence “is part of a radical social agenda that could ultimately silence Christians and use the force of government to marginalize anyone whose faith is at odds with homosexuality.”

The Traditional Values Coalition has long contended that gay and transgender Americans should not be protected from violence, as other targeted “minorities” are. Exodus International spokesman Randy Thomas has repeatedly insisted that the punishment of felony violence against LGBT people amounts to punishment of “thought crime.” And PFOX frequently claims that ex-gays are the most persecuted minority in America.

The Washington Post notes tonight:

According to the FBI, law enforcement agencies around the country reported 7,624 hate crime incidents in 2007, the most recent year for which data were available. More than half were categorized as racially motivated, and about 17 percent were based on sexual orientation.

No such violence against ex-gays was reported.

The United Church of Christ was one of several religious institutions that applauded the newly revised law.

For three decades, Exodus International has tried to fool the U.S. Christian Right into believing that homosexuality is caused by bad parenting and abuse that can be reversed if one simply prays hard enough and if one adheres to tiresome and unimaginative activities that are stereotypical for one’s gender.

With the U.S. white evangelical market nearly saturated by these myths, Exodus International is now turning its attention to Latin America, where Exodus has political “ministries” in just two countries.

Earlier this month, Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas interviewed Oscar Galindo, executive director of Exodus Latin America.

Thomas paraphrases Galindo as stating that EXLA conferences will convince pastors and antigay parents “about the basis of homosexuality, roots, prevention, reorientation, how the church should be involved, sexual abuse, accountability, practical suggestions to help.” Exodus’ superstitious views regarding homosexuality and “reorientation” are contrary to well-established science.

Galindo’s anti-scientific re-education plan resembles that of Exodus board member Don Schmierer, who took the same agenda to a March 2009 Uganda ex-gay conference whose intent — announced in advance — was to launch that nation’s current campaign of vigilantism and arrest, imprisonment, and execution of LGBT Ugandans.

Exodus Latin America will hold its next conference in Costa Rica.

Aging gay people face a few more obstacles than their heterosexual counterparts, according to Newsweek: They face discrimination in housing, medical, and social services, and elder couples are denied the benefits that are taken for granted by heterosexual spouses. (Newsweek video.)

Decades of safer-sex education and decreasing social stigma have made it possible for LGBT senior citizens to live a normal lifespan and to live in the open. And in order to help this growing population of citizen taxpayers overcome barriers, the U.S. government is creating a resource center to assist them, much like other federal resource centers already assist other elderly demographics.

This step toward equality has outraged Christian Rightists, who fear that public awareness and equal assistance will call into question the Rightists’ false claims that gay people live short, diseased lives.

The Family Research Council is outraged that gay elders will enjoy a $250,000 share of the United States’ $1.4 trillion budget deficit: Senior citizens are said to be less deserving than, say, Christian Rightists who have received approximately $2 billion in “faith-based initiative” handouts from taxpayers. FRC also flatly rejects the existence of millions of LGBT senior citizens, no matter how many surveys and federal filings have shown otherwise.

FRC appears determined to sacrifice the health and wellbeing of the nation’s senior citizens in its culture-war quest to smear a growing segment of the world’s population.

Hat tip: Good As You, Holy Bullies

For more information: Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Elders

How To Find A Masculine Halloween Costume For Your Effeminate Son

The Liberty Counsel — the lawsuit-friendly organization that helps Exodus International and other Christian Rightists sue defenders of religious freedom — is defending the new president of the United Nations General Assembly, former Libyan Foreign Minister Ali Abdussalam Treki, who on Sept. 15 disagreed with a 2008 General Assembly statement by 66 nations urging decriminalization of homosexuality.

According to PrideSource, Treki said: “As a Muslim, I am not in favor of that. I believe it is not accepted by the majority of countries (and) it is not really acceptable by our religion, our tradition.”

In an Oct. 24 statement to American Family Association’s OneNewsNow propaganda service, Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel rose to defend Treki, who rose to his position at the U.N. through the sponsorship of Libya’s longtime terror mastermind Muammar al-Qaddafi. Barber said Treki’s views on criminalization were in tune with much of the world.

On that count, he may be right:

Private consensual homosexual behavior is punishable by imprisonment in 70 of 195 nations.

But Treki’s statement is contrary to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Act.

Barber’s public support for imprisonment of gay people worldwide might be considered refreshing by cynics; his allies at Exodus continue to offer discreet support to vigilantism and imprisonment in Uganda and Barbados, and they refuse to offer an official public statement condemning imprisonment and vigilantism.

According to the AFA, Barber says that groups which voice disagreement with Treki and imprisonment…

“…are completely intolerant of other people’s belief systems [and] of other cultures,” says the Christian attorney. “We hear talk of cultural diversity — [but] there is no cultural diversity as far as the left is concerned and as far as homosexual activists are concerned. It’s either their way or the highway.”

Barber’s support for tolerance of terrorism, imprisonment, and vigilantism against LGBT people takes the Christian Right’s notion of “tolerance” to a whole new level.

A Republican lawmaker who tried to pass tougher public lewdness laws was convicted Friday of agreeing to pay for gay sex with an undercover officer in a men’s park restroom. State Rep. Bob Allen faces up to 60 days in county jail and a $500 fine for soliciting prostitution, a second-degree misdemeanor. The Merritt Island Republican was accused of peering over a stall at Titusville officer Danny Kavanaugh, then agreeing to pay $20 to perform oral sex on the policeman.

More at BlogActive

Is it not obvious that those who are closeted gay people are leading the anti-gay movement? What they are doing is working out private issues on the public stage. If they can convince themselves that homosexuality is awful, they might be less tempted. If they can pass draconian laws to punish gay people, maybe they will be too afraid to come out.

Many of these hypocrites claim to be people of faith. But, religion and family values is just an unhealthy form of drag – an elaborate costume to cover-up their all-consuming battle against their nature.

Note to the family values hypocrites who regularly read this blog (and there are many of you):  We are all on to your game. You fool no one and you would be much happier and more fulfilled if you were true to yourself and lived honestly and openly with dignity and respect.

Please come out, before you become Bob Allen.

One more point: Why are Florida law enforcement divisions wasting taxpayer money entrapping and harassing people in parks? Having lived most of my life in Florida, I can assure you there are still real criminals on the loose. There is no reason why the police are diverting officers for such trivial nonsense.

Pope’s Effort To Unite Conservatives By Promoting Discrimination Is Divisive, Says TWO

Truth Wins Out today condemned the Vatican’s effort to steal conservative members of the Anglican Church by promising that Rome will remain hostile against women and gay people. In his naked appeal to prejudice, the Pope solidified his reputation as a divisive figure that is out of touch with modern society, said TWO.

“The Vatican’s efforts to unite conservatives through ‘The Dogma of Discrimination’ is disgraceful,” “said Wayne Besen, Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director. “Bonding through bigotry against women and gay people seems to be the Vatican’s strategy to lure disaffected Anglicans. The Catholic Church is defining itself by who it stands against, rather than the principles it stands for.”

In a divisive move that will likely set back relations between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, Pope Benedict XVI ordered the Vatican to create a new plan to incorporate Anglicans and enable the faith’s married priests to transition into Catholic clerics.

Rome’s opportunistic recruitment plan is in response to fissures in the Anglican Church over allowing gay bishops and ordaining women. In the 1990’s social conservatives were angered when the Anglican Church allowed women to become clergy. They went ballistic in 2003 when openly gay V. Gene Robinson was selected as Bishop of New Hampshire. Since then, conservative Episcopal factions in America – egged on by anti-gay peers in developing countries – have threatened to bolt and take every bit of property that isn’t bolted down to the church floor. During this crucial time period, Rowan Williams, (Pictured Right) Archbishop of Canterbury, refused to take a firm stand against discrimination, while also failing to placate conservatives.

“The feckless and ineffectual leadership of Rowan Williams opened to door for the Vatican’s unseemly power grab,” said TWO’s Besen. “When one stands for nothing, the void is always filled by those with a more lucid vision. At an historic time when the Anglican Church needed a leader, it got a lemming, and so it is not surprising that the Pope moved to fill the leadership vacuum.”

In August, the American Psychological Association released a report that explicitly said  “there is insufficient evidence” for therapists to claim conversion therapy works.

The APA report also admonished so-called “ex-gay” counselors to not mislead clients by telling them that their sexual orientation can be changed.

The experts who crafted this report made it crystal clear that such efforts to “pray away the gay” are a sham. That, however, has not stopped a trade group of quacks from planning to sell their snake oil in West Palm Beach next month.

The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) is holding yet another conference that runs counter to science and reality. What makes this group dangerous is that it pretends to be secular, but consists of hyper-religious counselors whose goal is to make it appear as if science backs their rigid belief system.

A wide range of tactics will be used to counter this hate symposium. I will be speaking at Compass, the GLBT community Center, on Nov. 17^th at 6:30PM. There will also be a protest on Nov. 21^st (10-2PM) organized by various student groups in South Florida.

The centerpiece of our opposition will be The 2009 Anti-Heterosexism Conference (Nov. 20-22), created by SoulForce and sponsored by a host of other organizations. Several of the leading experts who fight the “ex-gay” industry will be on-hand to educate the community about this continuing scourge.

We tend not to think much about heterosexism, but it is both prevalent and pervasive. Much of society – even some of our allies – can’t seem to wrap their brains around the fact that we are equal, our love is on par with theirs, and that our families are valid.

For example, on blog comment sections, I have consistently read critiques from supposed “friends” that we should sublimate our equality to other concerns, such as healthcare or the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.

These people – and some are well meaning – would do almost anything to protect their families. Yet, they expect us to leave our families vulnerable. They assume we will stay silent so their families can receive benefits, while our own spouses and children are left to fend for themselves.

There is also the societal assumption that everyone is heterosexual, a bad cultural habit, considering GLBT people are everywhere. The primary reason that GLBT people must come out, is the idea that all people are heterosexual until they declare otherwise.

The “straight” assumption plays into the hands of group’s like NARTH that have very narrow views of sexuality and gender identity. They specialize in placing men and women in a behavioral box, with any deviation from that narrow 1950’s model labeled deviant.

NARTH thrives on such stereotypes and often confuses them with science. They make their money by finding insecure gay men and teaching them how to walk and talk so they will be perceived as “normal.” Women are urged to stay home and avoid masculine projects or jobs – lest they reject men and become lesbians.

In essence, groups like NARTH create a fake standard of what it means to be a man or woman. They actively bash anyone who does not adhere to their version of masculinity or femininity. Once a culture of persecution has taken root – they pretend to be the solution to the discrimination and abuse. NARTH ensures that anyone who is outside their approved model is labeled a freak, and for a hefty fee they can de-freak you.

Most heartbreaking, NARTH preys on parents and encourages them to send in children as young as three to be “fixed”. They tell parents that if a child is gay their life will be more difficult – even as NARTH is the one ensuring it will be so. There is a conflict of interest when those responsible for causing rejection and harassment claim they are there to only help those who want to change. They never seem to ask, “Why do people want to change?”

The answer, of course, is clearly the existence of NARTH.

NARTH is a backward organization run by fringe ideologues whose ideas have been soundly rejected by every respected medical and mental health association in America. It is crucial that we continue working to shine a light on its shenanigans, so people understand that NARTH is extreme, not the mainstream group it pretends to be.

Learn About Attending The Exciting Conference

In March, American anti-gay activists traveled to Uganda for a conference that pledged to “wipe out” homosexuality. Seven months later, a draconian bill has been introduced that pledges to make good on this threat. The “Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009” is so severe that it is designed to shred the spirit and suffocate the soul of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Ugandans. If it passes, Uganda will become a predator state that actively hunts down GLBT people to destroy them.

Uganda already punished gay intimacy with life in prison. But, apparently that was not harsh enough, with this bill penalizing anyone who “attempts to commit the offence” with up to seven years in jail. Additionally, a person charged will be forced to undergo an invasive medical examination to determine their HIV status. If the detainees are found to be HIV+, they may be executed.

This barbaric legislation stifles free speech by threatening anyone who is accused of “promoting” homosexuality with five to seven year prison sentences. Snitching on gay friends and family members is strongly encouraged because “failure to disclose the ‘offence’ within 24 hours of knowledge makes somebody liable to a fine or imprisonment of up to three years.”

Sadly, this witch-hunt has the blood stained fingerprints of leading American evangelicals. The Fellowship, (aka The Family) one of America’s most powerful and secretive fundamentalist organization’s, converted Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni (pictured top) to its anti-gay brand of Christianity, which is the “intellectual” impetus behind the anti-gay crackdown. The clandestine organization’s leader, Doug Coe, calls Museveni The Fellowship’s “key man” in Africa. Jeff Sharlet, author of “The Family”, writes of the African strongman’s conversion:

“So,” Doug Coe told us, “my friend said to the president, ‘why don’t you come and pray with me in America? I have a good group of friends—senators, congressmen—who I like to pray with, and they’d like to pray with you.’ And that president came to the Cedars (a religious retreat), and he met Jesus. And his name is Yoweri Museveni…And he is a good friend of the Family.”

(Read More)

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again: Anti-gay organizations have a profound disrespect for their followers. It is accurate to conclude that they believe their flocks are stupid and can be counted on to not think for themselves. Thus, we see these sheep force fed obvious lies and distortions – and the membership of such anti-gay groups appear to eat it up.

To the point, the American Family Association put out a breathless article basically making stuff up about hate crimes legislation winding its way though Congress. According top the AFA:

Here’s what wrong with the “hate crimes” bill:

• AFA: It criminalizes thought. For the first time in American history, criminal penalties are being attached to thoughts, not actions. Perpetrators will receive extra punishment not for what they did but for what they were thinking when they did it.

FACT CHECK: No one will be prosecuted simply for what they think or say. The law only applies if violent action is also involved. One would think that a “Christian” group would approve of this – but apparently, the AFA is opposed to all efforts to stop anti-gay violence. Furthermore, hate crime legislation is not new, it has existed for years in several states and the federal level covering categories, such as race, national origin and religion. All the current legislation would do would add sexual orientation and gender identity these other categories. The AFA would have more credibility if it worked to strip religion from existing hate crime laws.

• AFA: It endangers freedom of religion and speech. Everywhere in the world “hate crimes” laws have gone into effect, they have quickly been used to harass, intimidate, silence and punish people of faith. Your pastor could go to jail if even a tenuous link could be established between a sermon on homosexuality and some act of violence.

FACT CHECK: According to the Human Rights Campaign, all but five states (Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, South Carolina and Wyoming) have laws addressing hate crimes. Indeed, 36 states have hate crime laws that include sexual orientation. In these states – representing the vast majority of Americans – the dire warnings by the AFA have not come to pass. In other words, if you are an AFA follower, this group is lying to you and trying to scare you into giving them money.

• AFA: It destroys the American principle of equality under the law. It creates a judicial caste system, in which some victims get more legal protection than others. It actively discriminates against heterosexuals by giving them less protection in law than victims who engage in non-normative sexual behaviors.

FACT CHECK: As stated above, several classes – including religion – are already covered by state and federal hate crime laws. So, the only people suffering inequality are gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans who are not yet covered. The passage of this new law will change this injustice.

• AFA: In a devious maneuver by Democrats, it’s attached to a Defense Appropriations bill. Our military deserves a stand-alone vote on funding.

FACT CHECK: Attaching small measures to larger bills is the way Washington works. If the AFA has an issue with it, they can’t just speak up and whine when it is bill that will protect gay people. To do so reveals that AFA is a narrow special interest group with an anti-gay agenda.

The bottom line is, if I sent such inaccurate, anti-intellectual garbage to the Truth Wins Out membership, they would laugh in my face and quit the organization. Yet, the members of The American Family Association are continuously mocked and disrespected by the AFA – yet they keep sending money and support.

Folks, get educated and think for yourself, it will change your life.