This photo was widely shared on Facebook yesterday after it was posted in a group called “Wipe Out Homophobia.” According to the initial posting, Vanessa Raymond, one of the group’s members, spotted an awful sign in front of a church on her way to work yesterday that read, “Two Men are Friends, Not Spouses.” She was so upset that she made a sign of her own with a pro-LGBT message, bought a rainbow balloon, and affixed both the sign and the balloon to a fence in front of the anti-gay message. Raymond’s handwritten sign reads:

You may not be welcome in this church, but ALL people are welcome in this community! Spread LOVE, not hate!!!

I wasn’t able to get in touch with Ms. Raymond to confirm the location or denomination of the offending church (although I assumed it was a Catholic parish, as Francis Xavier is a Catholic saint), so I held off on posting about it at that time.

Today, Andy Belonsky over at Towleroad was kind enough to fill in the gaps: the church in question is St. Francis Xavier Catholic Parish in Acushnet, Massachusetts, and malicious message was written and posted by the parish’s pastoral services director, Steven Guillotte, who insisted that it wasn’t really anti-gay at all. Said Guillotte, ““We don’t feel that there’s anything hateful in it.”

Two local women protesting outside St. Francis Xavier disagreed. One of them, Kim Miska, told the paper: ““I think it was bigoted … very ignorant. You can believe in what you want to believe in, but there’s no reason to shove it down everybody’s throat.”

Of course, the church removed Raymond’s balloon and sign, but interestingly, it also replaced the patronizing anti-gay quip with an inane reminder about tomorrow’s daily Mass. The pastor of St. Francis Xavier, Monsignor Gerard O’Connor, denies that the uproar over Guillotte’s divisive message factored into that decision.

This sign might not be remarkable except for the fact that it unmasks, in my opinion, the deep contempt that Catholic leaders have for the loving marriages of same-sex couples like my husband and me. Slick, media-savvy personalities like New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan can talk about how much they love LGBT people until they’re blue in the face, and church employees like Guillotte can pretend they’re not haters all they wish, but it’s all a lie. The sign in Massachusetts speaks to an ugly truth: Catholic leaders don’t simply oppose the recognition of our marriages, they deny even the fact that our marriages exist.

Enjoy that denial while you can, dudes. That whizzing sound you’re hearing is the sound of society blowing past you, discarding your Stone-Age views about LGBT people in the landfill of history where they belong. Or is it the sound of pro-equality Catholics scrambling for the doors?

Today, during an interview with nationally-syndicated progressive radio host David Pakman, crackpot Paul Cameron — a discredited “researcher” who was kicked out of both the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association for peddling virulently anti-gay junk science — served up an especially nutty word salad in which he claimed, among other things, that he knows President Obama to be a gay man because of a remark Elizabeth Taylor once made about gays in Hollywood and that he was “seduced” and “raped homosexually. . . as a three-year-old,” which he said caused him to be attracted to men. But never fear, America, because Paul Cameron wants you to know that he is not, not, not gay anymore. “On a scale of 1 to 100, it’s zip,” he reassures Pakman’s viewers after chortling uncomfortably. (You believe him, right?) “As a matter of fact” says Cameron, “if anything, I’m repelled by it. I’m probably about a minus 100 (-100).”

That’s basically how the entire interview transpires: Pakman asks Cameron a simple question, i.e. “Why do you think President Obama may be gay himself?”, and Cameron responds with an extended romp through the garden of free association. In this case, he initially cited a press conference in which “homosexuals [claimed] that they had sex” with the President. (I believe he was referring to a tabloid-worthy incident in June 2008, where a man of dubious mental stability named Larry Sinclair rented out a room at the National Press Club and held a press conference in which he made wildly fantastical allegations of gay sex, drugs, and murder against then-candidate Obama, ignored a request from an incredulous reporter to release his mental health records, and told the assembled throng that he preferred not to wear pants because of the disproportionate size of his genitalia. According to Ben Smith at Politico, Sinclair was promptly arrested after the event concluded.)

After Pakman attempts to bring Cameron back on task by reminding him that unsubstantiated allegations do not, in fact, equate to proof, Cameron agrees, then redirects, this time alleging that the President’s homosexuality can be confirmed by the fact that — I kid you not — the Denver Post has gay reporters on its staff and writes about LGBT issues. And by the way, “If you look at [President Obama's] church, where he went to church with [Rev. Jeremiah] Wright and so forth, uhh, hmmmmm…” And then there’s the President’s connections with Hollywood, which must mean he’s gay, because “as Liz Taylor said, ‘Without gays, there is no Hollywood.’”

And so it goes. We “learn” that Cameron doesn’t get very excited downstairs anymore at his age, Harvey Milk had relationships with several teenagers, over half the children in Afghanistan and Pakistan are molested by their teachers because of the “fair degree of prominence” homosexuality has in those societies, the heinous crimes of Jerry Sandusky were caused by American acceptance of homosexuality, only 20% of gay men abstain from anal sex, and that men in general are incapable of thinking sexual thoughts that they don’t act out.  As proof, Cameron cites the biblical story of randy ol’ King David, who “looked out and he saw a good-looking broad [sic], [but] he didn’t have to… invite her in…”

I’m not exaggerating. Watch the video. Before you simply write Cameron off as a quack, though, realize that his bogus research is still cited by major anti-LGBT hate groups including the Family Research Council, American Family Association, and Concerned Women for America. And do you remember that thoroughly debunked wingnut canard about the supposed “health risks” of homosexuality? You know, the one about how gay men, on average, live only half as long as their heterosexual counterparts? The lie that, although it’s been discredited for years, still resurfaces today in legislative testimony, city council hearings, and public comment forums across the country? You guessed it, that whopper originated in the so-called “research” of Paul Cameron. So while the man may be a nuttier than a fruitcake, he’s still — almost unbelievably — a menace.

Today, nationally-syndicated progressive radio host David Pakman interviewed Michael Brown, a self-proclaimed “expert” on the issue of marriage and why loving same-sex couples should be excluded from it. For those of you not familiar with Michael Brown (we’ve covered him before), he’s one of the most vile homophobes in America. He spreads his toxic bigotry on his daily radio show, “Line of Fire,” and through his catalog of more than twenty books, including his latest, A Queer Thing Happened to America, which Brown self-published in 2011 because no publishing house thought it was fit to print. Perhaps most insidiously, Brown also likes to invade LGBT Pride festivals with gangs of fundamentalist Christian theocrats who wear anti-gay T-shirts and hand out homophobic religious tracts, attempting to shame LGBT people on what is supposed to be a day of affirmation and celebration.

As usual, David’s done his homework, calmly citing, among other things, the oeuvre of prominent Yale historian John Boswell, who wrote prolifically about the intersection of LGBT issues and religion. Brown’s only response is to dismiss Boswell completely, because after all (as Brown says), he “practically died of AIDS.”

And it only goes downhill from there. When Pakman challenges Brown’s tired (and totally discredited) talking point about the immutability of the historical definition of marriage, Brown resorts to condescension. Check out the video below — he tries to lecture Pakman on how to prepare for an interview, seizing the opportunity to hawk his self-published book (which, apparently, must be a respectable source, despite the fact that no publishing house — reputable or otherwise — would print it, because it includes “1500+ endnotes and massive research.” (Hmmmm, overcompensating much?) When Pakman presses Brown further to cite the specific sources he drew upon to formulate his exclusionary “historical definition of marriage,” he suddenly chickens out remembers that he has something else to do, saying that he didn’t realize this wasn’t a “serious interview” and mischaracterizing Pakman as a ‘gotcha’ journalist out to “[set] people up for quotes.” Then, after essentially telling Pakman again to read his book before he conducts any further interviews with him, Brown hangs up.

I’ve long been appalled by Michael Brown’s putrid bigotry, but after watching his disgustingly smarmy performance on today’s episode of the David Pakman Show, I’m also aghast at such a blatant, cowardly display of ageism. I highly doubt Brown would have behaved nearly as dismissively to a journalist closer to his own age, but apparently, when it’s a young person handing his you-know-what to him, Michael Brown has no problem resorting to ageist, ad hominem attacks.

Kudos to David Pakman for keeping his cool, sticking to his guns, and being persistent in his attempt to hold Michael Brown accountable for his distortions of the truth. Watch the video below — you won’t believe it.

David Badash at the New Civil Rights Movement tipped me off to a disturbing story in the Washington Post this morning about Mitt Romney’s high school days at an elite college preparatory school in Michigan (Trigger warning for anti-gay bullying):

Mitt Romney. . . spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.

“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.

A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.

For me — and I’d venture to guess I’m not the only one — the above account of Mitt Romney attacking John Lauber brings back painful memories of the anti-gay bullying I endured when I was in school. My stomach tightened into knots as I read it. Perhaps, though, it was an isolated incident — right? Wrong.

In an English class, Gary Hummel, who was a closeted gay student at the time, recalled that his efforts to speak out in class were punctuated with Romney shouting, “Atta girl!” In the culture of that time and place, that was not entirely out of the norm. Hummel recalled some teachers using similar language.

According to Romney and his campaign, the candidate has no recollection of either incident. But Hummel never forgot the way Mitt Romney teased him for his failure to conform to the gender and sexuality norms of the time. And neither did John Lauber — one of his former bullies, David Seed, ran into Lauber in an airport in the mid-1990s and approached him, apologizing for his role in what happened all those years ago. Lauber told him that the attack was “horrible” and recounted how frightened he felt as it took place, then acknowledged, “It’s something I have thought about a lot since then.” We’ll never know whether those scars ever fully healed for John Lauber — he died in 2004.

The Post‘s Jason Horowitz spoke to five of Romney’s prep school classmates about the Lauber incident. All of them gave similar accounts, completely independently of each other. And, like Seed, all of them feel terrible about it, even decades later. Friedemann noted that the school never punished Romney for what happened and expressed regret that he failed to intercede to stop it. He said that Romney targeted Lauber because “he was just easy pickins.” Phillip Maxwell, a childhood friend of Mitt Romney’s and a witness to Lauber’s attack, called it “vicious” and a “hack job.” And Thomas Buford, who admits to having helped Romney hold Lauber down as the governor’s son cut his hair, later apologized to the “terrified” man and described the attack as “. . . a senseless, stupid, idiotic thing to do.”

As for Mitt Romney himself, the most he could muster was a qualified apology – not for anti-gay bullying, but for unnamed high school “hijinks and pranks.” He declined to comment on the accuracy of his former classmates’ allegations, although he did offer a sort of half-hearted, ho-hum defense, telling FOX radio host Brian Kilmeade that “I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s.” So to hear Mitt Romney tell it, while his memory is completely blank with regard to that specific gay-bashing incident, he does know with absolute certainty that the attack — which again, according to him, may or may not have even happened — was in no way motivated by John Lauber’s real or perceived sexual orientation. It couldn’t possibly have been — after all, Mitt’s mind was completely unsullied by icky things like homosexuality in those halcyon days. Right.

This story disturbs me on a level that goes far deeper than the political. In fact, it isn’t political at all. I find it troubling for the same reason that I was so bothered by the now-infamous story about Romney driving to Canada with a crated Irish setter strapped to the roof of his car: you can tell a lot about the content of a person’s character by how he or she treats the vulnerable. In the case of Seamus the dog, Romney a.) thought, unbelievably, that it was appropriate and/or humane to strap a dog to the roof of a moving vehicle and b.) was so wedded to his rigid itinerary of predetermined rest stops that he sprayed the dog down with a hose in a gas station parking lot after the understandably terrified canine wet itself at an inconvenient time. In the case of Gary Hummel, Romney had no compunction about publicly humiliating a closeted gay man. And then there’s John Lauber. The attack he endured scarred him for the remainder of his life and haunts its participants nearly half a century later, but Romney? You know, the “prankster” who pinned a gay man down and came at him with scissors  as he screamed for help because he didn’t like the way he styled his hair? He claims not to remember that it even happened at all.

Horowitz notes that the Romney presidential campaign has taken to citing the candidate’s youthful antics as a way to counteract the public’s perception of him as wooden, detached, and aloof. Romney’s wife, Ann — whom he met while in prep school — recently said of her husband that “there’s a wild and crazy man inside of there just waiting to come out.” I, for one, hope it doesn’t. With these disturbing accounts of anti-gay bullying on the part of Mitt Romney and his seemingly indifferent response, I’ve already seen more of that wild and crazy man than I ever wanted to.

This sure brought a tear to this former Catholic’s eye:

David Lohman is a faith work coordinator with the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. He’s also a composer with a deep background in musical theater. Those tracks of Lohman’s life came together when he composed the hymn “For All the Children.”Catholics for Marriage Equality, at the urging of former priest Jim Smith, recently funded and organized the making of a music video around that hymn. More than 300 Catholics and others packed Cavalry Lutheran Church in Minneapolis for fellowship and song in front of the cameras. Faith Forward MN captured the day.

Watch:

What a beautiful gesture. With the hierarchy of the Catholic Church — from the pope on down — making anti-LGBT spiritual bullying a priority (especially in Minnesota, where the Catholic Church is throwing its weight behind a proposed marriage discrimination amendment to that state’s constitution) it’s easy to lump all Catholics into the same bigoted bunch. But as I’ve said over and over again, we must resist the impulse to do so even as we speak out against these injustices. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of Catholics support LGBT rights, including marriage equality. Many of them are finding their voices for the first time, summoning up the courage to overtly challenge the homophobia of their church’s leaders.

And yes, it does take courage. Take the people in this video, for example. Taking a stand on marriage equality was so important to them that they left the comfort of their home parishes to gather in a safe, welcoming space (most Catholic parishes wouldn’t be able to host a gathering like this, even if they wanted to) and sing their support for their LGBT friends and loved ones. If any of them minister publicly in their churches — as volunteer cantors (songleaders), lectors (readers), ushers, greeters, or communion ministers — or if any of them work for the Catholic Church in a professional capacity as pastoral associates, liturgists, business managers, teachers, music directors, etc., participating in this video could get them pushed out of ministry or even fired.

Yet they came anyway, sang anyway, spoke out for equal marriage anyway in spite of those very real risks. For them, sending a message of inclusion to the LGBT community and standing up to Minnesota’s mean-spirited, divisive, and discriminatory amendment was worth it.

Bravo.

In case you happen to have slept through the day yesterday, President Obama made civil rights history by coming out in support of full marriage equality. It was a watershed moment for our country and the LGBT movement.

But in a crass and cynical move, House Republicans used the occasion of yesterday’s presidential announcement to approve an anti-gay amendment to a piece of Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations legislation. Because they want you to know that regardless of what the President does, they still really, really despise Teh Gay.

From the Washington Blade:

The U.S. House voted late Wednesday night in favor of a measure that aims to stop the Obama administration from taking any action in violation of the Defense of Marriage Act — even though the administration continues to enforce the law.

In a 245-171 vote, House lawmakers approved the amendment, introduced by freshman Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas), as part of Commerce-Justice-Science appropriations legislation. The amendment reads, “None of the funds made available under this Act, may be used in contravention of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Ian Thompson, legislative representative for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the amendment in effect does nothing because although the Justice Department is no longer defending DOMA in court, the Obama administration is still enforcing it.

“The Huelskamp Amendment is a solution in search of a problem,” Thompson said. “While there are multiple legal challenges to DOMA working their way through the federal courts, it is still binding. This amendment serves absolutely no purpose other than to score political points at the expense of gay and lesbian couples.”

After the Obama administration declared DOMA unconstitutional, the Justice Department filed legal briefs against the anti-gay law and sent Justice Department attorneys to argue against the statute in court during oral arguments. However, the administration continues to enforce the statute, which prohibits federal recognition of same-sex marriage.

According to Roll Call newspaper, Huelskamp had initially planned an amendment that would barred the use of funds for arguing against DOMA in court — which, if passed into law, would have had real impact. Huelskamp ultimately didn’t press forward with that amendment.

Huelskamp reportedly said he introduced the amendment not only because the Justice Department stopped defending DOMA in court, but also because of Vice President Joe Biden’s endorsement of same-sex marriage Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“The most immediate reason was the comments of the vice president of the United States,” Huelskamp was quoted as saying. “Stating his position is fine, but you tie that together with the issues with the lawsuit in California in which, essentially, the attorney general walked away from DOMA and said, ‘I’m not going to defend that.’”

Unbelievable. I’m with Andrew Sullivan on this: We’re watching “the slow beaching of the elderly, white GOP on the shore of a multi-cultural and increasingly tolerant America.” Oh, the humanity.

Enjoy the view as society passes you by and your bigoted views recede further and further into history, dudes.

Yes, he just did.

An historic day in the struggle for LGBT equality. Thank you, Mr. President.

More later, after I wipe away the tears.

UPDATE 1: Here’s something like a personal statement, now that I’ve had time to collect my thoughts a bit:

“Evolution complete: Today, Barack Obama made history by becoming the first U.S. President to publicly say that ALL loving and committed couples deserve the freedom to marry. In my lifetime, I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder to be an American. On behalf of my beloved husband Michael and myself, thank you, Mr. President. Thank you, through my tears, thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

UPDATE 2: Click on the link below for video of the President’s remarks from ABC News.

Obama Affirms Support for Same-Sex Marriage | Video – ABC News.

The blogosphere is buzzing with rumors that President Obama, who will sit for a hastily-arranged interview with ABC’s Robin Roberts this afternoon, will officially endorse marriage equality today.

The New York Times, Politico, and others are reporting that the issue will be discussed at length, and that Roberts will press the President to clarify his position. Richard Socarides, who served as an LGBT adviser to the Clinton White House, told Politico, “I’m hopeful that the president is going to speak directly on this issue. When he does, I think it will be an important moment.”

A tweet from Marc Ambinder, White House correspondent for National Journal and contributing editor at The Atlantic, added fuel to the fire. Ambinder wrote: “So do I think President Obama will endorse same-sex marriage today? Yes. Yes I do.”

Not holding my breath here, but needless to say, if the evolution does happen today, it will be a watershed moment. We’ll keep you posted.

A new study released today by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, the primary resource for independent research and scholarship on sexual orientation and gender identity issues in the United States, analyzed FBI hate crimes data and found that gay men report higher rates of hate-motivated physical violence than other at-risk minority groups. The study is the first to consider lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals separately.

These results come on the heels of previous research by the Southern Poverty Law Center showing that LGBT people are far more likely to be victims of hate crimes than any other minority group in the United States; the Williams Center’s news release also notes that crimes motivated by the victim’s real or perceived sexual orientation tend to be more violent. It also calls the study’s findings “troubling” and calls for further research into the reasons “why gay men are more likely to experience and/or report physical victimization and crimes against their property.”

From the release:

Among the research findings, 26 in 100,000 gay men reported being victims of hate-motivated crimes against persons, compared to 10 in 100,000 lesbians, 5 in 100,000 African Americans, and 5 in 100,000 Jewish Americans. Gay men also face the second highest risk of being victims of hate-motivated property crime (9 in 100,000 gay men). Further, reporting of such hate crimes is likely under represented since data reflect only those who report such crimes to local law enforcement, who then choose whether to report the data to the FBI.

Although prior research has suggested that lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, Jews, and African Americans experience similar levels of overall victimization, this study is the first to demonstrate that when lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals are considered separately, gay men experience more hate crimes.

As Evan mentioned last week, Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage Discrimination challenged Dan Savage to a duel in a revealing moment of compensatory bravado. Brown’s challenge, written in a breathless blog post, came in response to a speech Savage made last month to attendees at a high school journalism convention in which he said that the Bible contains “bull***t. . . about gay people.” He noted (correctly) that Christianity’s holy book is chock full of authoritative pronouncements on a plethora of other topics (shellfish, dinner, farming, menstruation, virginity, masturbation. . .) that are emphatically rejected by every person, Christian or otherwise, living in the 21st century as opposed to the Stone Age. Savage also accurately pointed out that turning to the Bible for questions of morality is a dubious exercise at best, due to the fact that the Bible is “a radically pro-slavery document” that “got the easiest moral question that humanity has ever faced wrong.”

Savage’s point — just in case it isn’t already abundantly obvious — is that it’s absurd to suggest that the Bible is infallible on the issue of homosexuality when it is so demonstrably fallible on a host of other issues. And he made that point, without disrespecting or slandering any religion, by simply describing what the Bible actually says.

According to Brown, though, accurately describing what the Bible says is tantamount to bullying. And he won’t stand for it:

Let me lay down a public challenge to Dan Savage right here and now: You want to savage the Bible? Christian morality? Traditional marriage? Pope Benedict? I’m here, you name the time and the place and let’s see what a big man you are in a debate with someone who can talk back. It’s easy to make high-school girls cry by picking on them. Let’s pick on someone our own size!

. . . I’m here, any time, any place you name, Dan Savage. You will find out out how venal and ridiculous your views of these things are if you dare to accept a challenge.

So yeah. Brown is man, hear him roar. Blah blah blah. Incidentally, if you’re currently unoccupied and have a couple minutes to spare, read Brown’s post in its entirety. It’s rather entertaining — what starts off as an indignant letter to NOM’s “marriage supporters” ends up reading, by the time the screed concludes, like a half-hearted mélange of great moments in presidential speeches: “With charity towards all, with malice towards none, we will fight for the right, as God gives us the power to see what’s right. God bless you and may God bless America.” I can’t tell if Brownie intended to re-purpose Lincoln’s Second Inaugural or deliver the State of the Union Address. . .

But anyway, lo and behold, last Friday Savage responded. His message to Brown? It’s on.

I will name the time and the place, per your offer, as soon as possible. Looking forward to it, NOMnuts.

Color me thrilled. As an LGBT activist and media-consuming American, I’ve seen a lot of both Dan Savage and Brian Brown on TV, YouTube, and the like. As such, I’m more than a little surprised that Brown challenged Savage in the first place, since I’m willing to bet NOM’s Bigot-in-Chief would get his you-know-what handed to him in any serious debate. Perhaps Brown, too, recognizes this: as of this writing, he’s made nary a peep in public about Savage accepting his offer. Stay tuned, folks; we’ll see what develops.

Oh, and in case either Dan or Brian happen to be reading: consider this my formal request for two front-row seats. I don’t want to miss a thing.