I hope no vulnerable LGBT teens see Tony Perkin’s latest fundraising screed. I assume he sent this out to the true believers he built off of David Duke’s warm list. [Click to embiggen, of course.]
Well, then. Let’s dissect this load of unadulterated, hateful crap, shall we?
If you’ve not yet heard about this true story, get ready to be shocked–and to take action.
For President Obama to use the power of his office to promote such aims is truly appalling. I was especially disappointed to see pro-homosexual videos aimed directly at young people recorded at the White House. They were made in partnership with Dan Savage, a homosexual extremist who built a career on hatred of Christians and their values.
The videos are titled “It Gets Better.” They are aimed at persuading kids that although they’ll face struggles and perhaps bullying for “coming out” as homosexual (or transgendered or some other perversion), life will get better.
Horrors! Can you imagine telling kids that, “although they’ll face struggles and perhaps bullying” for simply being who they are, life will get better?! Moreover, it’s TRUE! Millions of happy LGBT people are living proof!
Can you imagine George Washington, Ronald Reagan, or any other president telling school children that it’s okay to be immoral and that they’ll eventually feel better about it?
Oh, but they’re not, you lying toad. And neither is Barack Obama. You see, the only way anyone would ever get the idea that being gay is “immoral” is by listening to the uneducated fever ramblings of fearfully, not-so-wonderfully made bigots like Tony Perkins. If a child grows up and is LGBT, and is surrounded by love and support, they will not feel “sinful,” because there is no sane reason to believe such an asinine thing. However, if they’re raised around people like Tony Perkins, they’re, sadly, a lot more likely to become statistics.
What a lovely confirmation bias racket Tony and his cohort have worked out. They drive kids to suicide, and then when the bodies are still warm, they point and say “Look there! Being gay is obviously awful!”
I mean, those of us with souls, who actually care about human beings, could never do anything like that, but it seems to work for Religious Right hate groups.
It’s disgusting. And it’s part of a concerted effort to persuade kids that homosexuality is okay and actually to recruit them into that “lifestyle.”
Uh, no, there’s no “recruiting.” But we understand that the average Family Research Council donor can’t put on shoes without flinging poo at the protective glass, so you have to say stuff like that. Republicans use dogwhistles because they work on idiots, you see.
Anyway, Tony ends up with an appeal to his donors to please give all your munnies to the Family Research Council, so that they can continue injecting hatred against vulnerable kids into the national discourse, a dying gasp of a dinosaur sort of mythology that we can all [read: the other 80% of the nation who thinks the Religious Right is batsh*t crazy] be grateful is losing its influence more and more each day.
The LGBT kids who will go on to lead happy, fulfilled, productive lives are especially grateful.
Since Tony is asking for money, Truth Wins Out does our best with three staff members to fight against and rebut this kind of hate every single day, so if you appreciate what we do and want to see more of it, please consider helping us out with a donation. Thanks!
to recruit them into that “lifestyle.”
I remember when we still had recruitment drives. You’d get a free toaster with every Gay you brought to the meetings we all have. Then we learned about carbs. Those were the days though.
#sarcasm
LMAO at NotSoDeepSouth! Love it!
I just donated. Proudly.
Since when does Tony Perkins, or any of the other right wing haters, speak for all Christians in this country? And why aren’t these other Christians speaking out?
Thank you so much Reese!!
And good question John — where are all the other Christians that should be speaking out but remain silent as their religion is bastardized by Perkins and other hate group leaders.
I don’t know about that NotSoDeepSouth, I don’t know any gay people with an excess of toasters — have a hard time believing that ALL of my gay friends are slackers. . . :)
I need a damn toaster, but I need a new coffeemaker more.
Maybe if I unjoin Gay Inc. and then rejoin they’ll give me all kinds of presents.
“transgender or some other perversion” How unbelievably irresponsible. This man and the likes of Lou Engles and Michael Brown will have blood in their hands for their theology. F.Y.I. You can read my long exchange with Dr. Brown here: http://canyonwalkerconnections.com/2011/08/16/exchange-between-lisa-salazar-transwomen-and-michael-brown-god-has-a-better-way/
John – I guess it all depends on what you mean by “speaking out.” There are dozens of gay Christian/religious organizations out there (Soulforce, Dignity, Affirmation, Call to Action, etc.) who do work tirelessly to make their faiths inclusive of the LGBT community. I believe that they do “speak out” against the likes of Tony Perkins with their actions, their mission statements, their protests, and even their written rebuttals. But, their sole purpose is not to churn out press releases every time some “Christian” asshat out there shoots off his/her mouth. (Honestly, if they did that then they would have no time to work for the change desperately needed in their respective faith communities.)
Also, don’t forget, many Christians do speak out against the Tony Perkinses, the Brian Fishers, and the Maggie Gallaghers of the world in the traditional sense with articles to newspapers, open letters on blogs, press releases, etc. However, these don’t necessarily make it to the front pages of our media. After all, what sells more papers “Christians Unite Together in Love and Prayer to Combat Bigotry” or “Angry Christians Quote Biblical Law and Protest LGBT Rights/Opening of Mosque/Marriage Equality Law/etc?”
Nick:
All the groups you mentioned combined do not have even a sliver of the membership of any mega-church. What we need are denominations and powerful preachers to get up at the pulpit and on TV and rail against the fake Christians and false prophets of the Religious Right. So far, they have failed miserably and disgracefully.
If real Christians fought back against fake Christians, they too would make the headlines.
Wayne:
Could you please clear something up for me? Are you implying that members of the organizations mentioned previously are not “real Christians?” Is it because their efforts and work with the LGBT community don’t make the headlines that that means they are ineffective against organizations like FRC and NOM? Do you further imply that the only way for LGBT inclusive Christian organizations to be effective is for them to act like the hate groups and use bombastic rhetoric and cause public disturbances in order grab the leading spots on the 5 o’clock news? Please clarify.
In contrast, I don’t think it is the work of pro-LGBT Christians that is at fault here. I think much of this blame lays with our media. What we truly need are “real” media organizations that will do actual investigation of “Christian” anti-LGBT groups and not make it appear as though they speak for all or even the majority of Christians. Our media need to stop portraying Christians as a monolithic block and emphasize that there is diversity of thought within the Christian community. When asshats like Tony Perkins issue statements like that, our media should make the effort to contact pro-LGBT Christians and their leaders for official responses just like they would do for any other controversial topic. (Additionally, the media need to stop using “Christian” only to mean “Evangelical Christian.”) But something tells me that that won’t happen any time soon.
Nick:
Obviously, the fake Christians are FRC etc., not these groups which do great work.
Calling the fundies out on their lies is not “bombastic” as you falsely present it, but a duty of all Christians who care about the reputation and future of religion and country.
Please stop blaming the media. The religious right has outworked mainstream Christians and they are receiving their reward for doing so, which is defining the word Christian.
Mainstream Christians have done an embarrassing, inferior job countering the religious right. You can spin it all you want. They have failed miserably and thus been defined by extremist Christians.
Time for them to wake up and get off the sidelines.
Wayne, I’m pleased that you are speaking up about so-called moderate Christians.
We are often reminded that many moderate or nominal Christians are in favor of equality, and surely that is true. But when they do write or speak supportively about us, usually it seems they are not speaking on behalf of their version of God – and that’s probably because they are not fanatics, and thus they don’t filter everything in their lives through religion. The public may never know if those writers/speakers are Christian or not. So that still leaves the public perception that God must be anti-gay.
Our crusading Christian opponents are loud, motivated, focused, organized, well funded, and united, whereas our supposed Christian allies are quiet, unmotivated, unfocused, unorganized, unfunded, and not united to do much of anything on our behalf. While the mainline denominations may issue supportive position-statements on gays, they don’t say it too loud or too often out of fear of offending the fundamentalist factions within their denominations who will threaten to leave. And those factions are one of the dirty little secrets of the mainline denominations.
As I see it, the moderates function as enablers for the fanatics. If you believe the foundational stories that define Christianity, I don’t think it’s a huge leap to get into fundamentalist territory.
So, Tony Perkins, do you want us to lie to the teenagers and tell them that it gets worse? And what is your version of getting better – marrying someone of the opposite sex while still feeling attracted to the same-sex inside? AND, Tony Perkins, you have NEVER answered my question: would you allow your daughter to marry Alan Chambers when he admits to still fighting his attraction to men on a daily basis? I can’t see how this would be a better life for me; not only am I being dishonest with myself, I would be dishonest with my wife as well and hurting her/completely upsetting her life and dreams by entering a marriage that should have never taken place.
OK, if Perky is just now getting around to freaking about the IGB series, inquiring minds want to know what he’s been up to for the past few months. (But only if we haven’t eaten recently.)
I absolutely agree with Wayne Besen’s posts 10 and 12. \
The mainstream Protestant unwillingness to publicly and repeatedly oppose the fundamentalists in the media has born its unmistakeable fruit: the often rabid hostility of many LGBT people toward ALL Christians. This is ignorance on the part of almost all of those LGBT people, but this isn’t seen among us alone. If you look at younger straight people, a great many of them will tell you that they too don’t like “Christians”, but when you listen to them enough, it’s clear what they mean are the bigoted Christian Right, whose dominant cohort is the fundamentalists. The fundies bray their hate of us and a lot of other groups in the media, and the mainstream Protestants barely have a thing to say in reply. It really is their fault if they’re mistakely hated for being bigots too. They never put up a fight in the public square against fundamentalist appropriation of the word “Christian”.
I understand that among churchy people it’s considered uncouth to speak out publicly against other Christians, but mainstream Protestantism needs to get over that delusion and step up.
“It really is their fault if they’re mistakenly hated for being bigots too.”
Great comment.
It is exactly like what happened to the term “Conservative.” I still hear people who identify as conservative grumbling about how unfair it is that the brand has been tarnished by a bunch of Bible humping maniacs.
Back when the Ronnie Raygun joined forces with the Moral Majority I had some sympathy for this view. Many of the conservatives I knew were gay and so, not surprisingly, thought less government intrusion into our personal lives was a good thing.
Now I think if the brand has been tarnished, it is due in no small part to a failure of those who didn’t like what was happening to do a little polishing.
FRC etc getting ever more shriller to try and be heard. Its Gets Better is a year old!!!
Sure sign of desperation.
Fewer and fewer voices sounding ever more shrill and bigoted and twisted. We always saw through them, now mainstream too.
Donny, I must take exception to this: “…the often rabid hostility of many LGBT people toward ALL Christians. This is ignorance on the part of almost all of those LGBT people…”
No, it is not. My hostility toward Christianity is a direct result of how Christianity profoundly and negatively impacted my life. My hostility toward Christianity is based on Christianity’s hostile and arrogant assertion that they, and only they, and only their particular brand of they, are the keepers of the “truth.” My hostility toward Christianity is based on its insistence that my very humanity (never mind the whole gay thing) is reason enough to be tortured for all eternity.
Which is also why I take exception to Wayne’s distinction of “real” and “fake” when what I think he should say is “more” and “less” tolerant. The branches of Christianity that, IMHO, are truly tolerant are so liberal as to almost not be recognized as Christian by anyone else. Which brings me to my next objection…
Donny wrote: “I understand that among churchy people it’s considered uncouth to speak out publicly against other Christians…” Infighting among Christian denominations is nothing new. The number of times I have heard the protestation “but we believe what the Bible really says (implying that all those other Christians have it wrong and are going to hell)” would be funny if the un-self-awareness that accompanies that arrogant assertion weren’t so horrifyingly blatant.
We may as well start talking about what a “real” man is or what a true “red-blooded American” is…
If their faith helps them get through the night, if it makes them kind and compassionate, I don’t have an issue with Christians. My tolerance for them ends the moment they start acting like jerks – which begins the moment they tell me for whatever wretched justification they want to offer that there is something wrong with me and that I need their effing “good news.”
“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes”
Thomas Jefferson, 1813.
Old Bald Guy,
Thank you for your post on the nature of Christianity. It beautifully mirrors my own understanding of the religion based on my experience of growing up in it.
The doctrine of hell is one of the most insidious, manipulative ideologies ever devised by man. It preys on human weakness and low self-esteem, and children are especially defenseless against it. I began questioning it when I was 9, but it took more than a decade before I was finally able to rid myself of it. Even now emotionally I sometimes fear it, even though intellectually I know it is nonsense and incompatible with a just and loving God.
I believe hell evolved as a fail safe device to keep people from leaving the faith. If someone was not convinced in the “truth” of Christianity, you could always scare them into it by telling them if they refused to accept it then they would burn forever in the afterlife.
I reject Christianity because of its fundamental belief that human beings are broken and doomed to hell, and we can only be “saved” from this fate by believing in the divinity of Christ and asking him into our hearts. I know from experience that Christians are no more “moral” than any other particular demographic. In fact, they would be the first to admit that even the “saved” continue to sin, but they are going to heaven because they accepted God’s “gift” of forgiveness by believing in the “sacrifice” of his son. I guess God has nothing better to do than to listen to people apologize to him all day and confess their belief in something illogical and unprovable. You know, instead of behaving like a rational adult.
It makes me angry when Christian’s try to put a positive spin on their warped ideology, claiming that Christ died for you because he loved you. God created hell, or allows it to exist, and he could take it away it any time. Yet he threatens us with it, and then he says the only way out is to believe in the impossible, which he dares to call a gift. Imagine if for your birthday your father’s present was to sit you down and tell you that he was not going to stick you in an oven as long as you praised him constantly and asked him to forgive you. Some gift!
[...] disgusting,” Perkins wrote in a fundraising letter, “And it’s part of a concerted effort to persuade kids that [...]