Here’s a video from CPAC, where Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family came together with Austin Nimocks of the Alliance Defense Fund for a forty minute session on how to preserve the Fundamentalist Christians’ special right to bully LGBT kids in the name of their “religious freedom.” It’s not short, but it’s worth spending the time to see just how evil these people really can be. Short version: the fundamentalists are always the victims. Even when gay kids are dying [and none of the wingnuts are], the fundamentalists are always the victims.
[h/t Joe]
I’ve had to swear off watching anything with Candi Cushman in it; that woman is so vile that I am afraid that one day I will simply take a hatchet to my monitor and this is a practically brand new computer.
I find it interesting, that love is not the message of this group of Christians. “As you do to the least, you do to me.” Jesus did not make exceptions, for why you can hate. Hate is not a value, that GOD excepts.
I can’t watch this. I have to monitor my blood pressure.
Love hasn’t been the value of a large portion of the christian community for at least 1700 years. Coercion, power and control (think Crusades, Inquisitions, slavery, racism, misogyny, christian nationalism) are part and parcel of the history of christianity. Why should “Fucus on the Family” be any different? Same patriarchal BS, spun by credulous women spokesmen.
I went over to Day of Dialogue (the parent group of TrueTolerance) to comment. I cannot stand using kids to join in a blend of faith and politics to do harm. i wrote:
“I just watched your CPAC video from TrueTolerance and would encourage you to look far deeper to the issue of “bullying” of Christian kids for expressing their faith.
you seem to be approaching in as a “if they can do that, we can do this”. Oops, this is not a Christian perspective in my opinion with the revelation I have of the actions of Jesus and the message of the Gospel.
When we use ANY excuse to withhold the civil rights of others (my rights, fallen world, it is sin, it is not healthy, it is wrong), then we have overstepped the higher calling to fight against oppression and for justice.
Sexual orientation is not a choice, hop on over to Exodus to see what they are saying. And check out what RESEARCH, the only real research on acceptance vs intolerance has on the mental and physical health of gay youth at The Family Acceptance Project.
Adult Christians have a difficult time of expressing themselves in this area without condemnation; if you thing teens do it better, you may well be wrong.
It would be a better use of FotF resources to truly focus on our Christian behaviors. Love and serve. Part of service is not being part of the oppression of others. There is NO excuse, none to be involved in that. The verse that directly follows “love your neighbor” in Romans, says “love does no harm”. Using an interpretation of verses in English to withhold civil rights extended in 1864 in the 14th Amendment IS doing harm. Glbt people are a CLASS of people, not a fallen group of people or people of a behavior.
Teach Christian kids to do as Jesus did, love and serve, not condemn and tell. Your DoD is a version of a political agenda set in the 80′s and using Christian kids to blend faith and politics. It cannot succeed because it is not based in love. You say it is, go ask those gay kids. “Do you feel loved? Am I doing you harm ?” People, even teens know what love looks like. DoD is not loving.”
The life of even one child is worth more than the beliefs of a whole church full of people who want to freely tell students they are going to eternal hellfire for being gay. Freedom of religion does not extend to entering what should be a safe place for students in order to harass and bully students who are different.
Why is the Marriott taking blood money from a gay-bashing hate group?
Hey, the CEO of Marriott is a BIG Romney supporter. Why WOULDN’T they take money from Fucus on the Family?
‘Fact based’ and ‘tolerance’ are not words that these people know ANYTHING about… it’s galling that they even try to use them! Cushman can hold her views all she likes, but if she uses them to bash gay people, reduce/remove our rights, she can go screw herself!
Scott Rose asked, “Why is the Marriott taking blood money from a gay-bashing hate group?”
The Marriott family themselves are members of a gay-bashing hate group: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons).
Our religion is being oppressed blah blah blah why can’t these poor religious children push there beliefs on anyone in school blah blah blah we must do it for the children blah blah blah blah blah.
I think my ears are bleeding.
These people are such gigantic morons. The law isn’t for the children to follow it is for the adults to follow why can’t they get that through their thick skull! Children don’t consider OH law such and such says I can’t bully so I’m not going to or OH the law says gay people are special and I’m not. NO the law is for the teachers to force teachers principals and etc who would sit idly by and let these things happen since it is in accord with some of their beliefs!
I “love” the ADF guy’s model policy on bullying. There needs to be “objective harm” — while he sneers at people getting their “feelings hurt”. Objective, measurable harm like lower test scores or grades, oh, or students cutting themselves? Or suicide attempts? So if a student is being wrecked inside while maintain their grades, there’s no bullying? “Objective harm” sounds like a high standard for any kind of bullying to meet.
I also “love” Candi Cushman’s rhetoric. I got the sense she was lying a lot when she discussed specific incidents. And then there was that remark essentially that some people are more equal than others. Cute, too, that she only sees the Constitution as what the “founding fathers” wrote and ratified, leaving out contributions by later generations — like the Fourteenth Amendment.
I suspect a lot was left out from the Chicago suburb woman’s story about her school district’s actions, and the rest was skewed. I have no idea how much of her story was untrue.
From all of them, I saw close to zero concern for bullied LGBT kids.
What none of them seemed to get is that the reason for inclusive anti-bullying policies is to make school personnel deal with types of bullying they would otherwise discount or ignore.
I don’t even see how “debates” figure into it. A kid who is beaten down by bullying won’t be “debating”, she or he will just be taking the abuse.
Finally got the time to check this out in its entirety. Glad I did; very insightful.I love that one part at 38:54 when the lawyer said that, “No student deserves to be bullied for any reason. Period. Paragraph. And I dare anybody to argue with that principle.” Oh yeah, and that part in like, I don’t know, the ENTIRE video where all of the panelists nearly have a stroke a scream that religion is under attack. Oh wait, the latter never happened.
Freakin’ wingnuts…