By Wayne Besen
The last few weeks have shown that so-called pro-family organizations are some of the most useless, money-sucking scams in the world. With real families suffering from economic hardship in America, a declining birthrate in Europe and Google doubling the price of daycare for employees, the only thing right wing family groups want to discuss is their bizarre and all-encompassing fagela fetish.
Recently, The Brooklyn Paper, had a huge headline, “SPLITSVILLE: Brooklyn divorces up 30%.” The article cited a number of reasons including, “when the economy tanks, so do many marriages.”
One would think this would alarm so-called pro-family organizations and they would be out in force repairing marriages — or at least looking for economic solutions to take the stress off couples. Unfortunately, as I walked around my Brooklyn neighborhood, I saw not one representative from the American Family Association.
Well, I take that back. I did encounter one of the group’s representatives on CNN Headline News as we debated a Heinz mayonnaise ad in the United Kingdom that featured two men kissing. I’m sure the children of these broken marriages in Brooklyn will feel much better knowing Heinz pulled the ad and they can have gay-free mayonnaise at both mommy and daddy’s separate houses.
A new study by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University showed that in 2006, for the first time in U.S. history, a majority of births to women under 30 — 50.4 percent — were out of wedlock. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert points out that, “By comparison, when John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, just 6 percent of all births were to unmarried women under 30.
One imagines that this report might have startled “pro-family” organizations and they would have put their millions of dollars towards stopping this trend. No such luck. Instead, they are investing huge piles of money and manpower to pass anti-gay marriage amendments in Florida, Arizona and California. The upshot for “pro-family” groups is that if heterosexuals keep screwing up marriage, by the time gay people finally win the right nationally, we won’t want to use it.
“Evangelicals of the older generation have become obsessed in almost a technical psychological sense in opposing gay rights,” David Weddle, a professor of religion at Colorado College told the Colorado Springs Gazette. “The irony is that homosexuality is not a biblical theme.”
Right wing organizations and their flocks want to be taken seriously, but their priorities and actions are reprehensible. For example, a middle school teacher was fired in Mount Vernon, Ohio last month after preaching in the classroom, refusing to remove his Bible and burning crosses onto the arms of pupils. You read that correctly — he seared crosses on the body parts of impressionable students, as if it were a gang ritual.
Surely, reasonable people can agree that such behavior is inappropriate in the classroom. But, oh no, some of the yahoos in Mount Vernon believe their religion places them above the Constitution - so they are holding demonstrations in the town square. I wonder if these zealots would have the same reaction if a teacher were burning a Stars of David or Muslim crescents on the forearms of students?
A recent New York Times magazine article, “Childless Europe,” explored why certain countries in Europe are losing population. The hopelessly out of touch Pope Benedict chimed in with his typically sunny advice. “Europe is infected by a strange lack of desire for the future,” the Pontiff said. “Children, our future, are perceived as a threat to the present.”
Instead of selfishness, as the Pope implied, it was the traditional values of the Pope that contributed to the problem. In societies that either offered a safety net or where men shared the burdens of child rearing, women were having more babies. However, when educated women were stuck at home and forced to do all the work - such as in Italy - they chose to have less children. Will the Pope now call on men to help out more at home or for countries to ensure daycare for families?
Finally, the Wall Street Wonder, Google, plans to raise the amount it charged for in-house day care by 75 percent. Under the revised plan, parents with two children in Google day care could see their yearly bill increase to more than $57,000 from around $33,000. This crushing blow to the family drove a few employees to tears.
Was the American Family Association in Silicon Valley raising hell and standing up for families? No, they ignored grimacing parents, so they could punish Ronald and Grimace by launching a boycott against McDonald’s for supposedly having a gay agenda. Maybe the delusional scolds at the AFA thought they saw rainbow color fries, in much the same way they once accused the cartoon character Mighty Mouse of snorting cocaine.
Right wing organizations can be considered many things - but certainly not advocates for the family. They inhale money, exhale anti-gay pollution and have done absolutely nothing for the traditional families they claim to represent. It seems the more such groups proliferate, the more the family deteriorates.
Tags: American Family Association, ex-gay, Exodus, fanatics, gay lesbian, GLBT, Google, homosexual, lunatics, pro-family, religious right, right wing, scam artists, Truth Wins OutRelated posts
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Wayne, thank you for this article. I have been sending it around to many people I know who are unfortunately very ill-informed about these right wing “pro-family values” groups whose main function is to be obsessed with sex…especially GAY sex. Instead of allowing them to define the debates and what “family values” are, we on the free-thinking, enlightened side should start drumming the point home that conservative religious folks seem to be obsessed with controlling sex rather than helping children or the needy, or ending war (and in fact often support dropping bombs on children…as long as it’s someone else’s children!).
The Freedom From Religion Foundation recently began setting up huge billboards stating “Imagine No Religion,” much to the chagrin of loving, tolerant christians across America. Perhaps another billboard stating “THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IS OBSESSED WITH SEX” posted all over will begin to get people thinking about this weird fetish-like concern that organizations like AFA have. TIme to start turning the tables!
Comment by DaveTheWave — July 18, 2008 @ 12:48 pm
So, I have a question. Is it your stand that if Gay Marriage passes in Illinois (where I live) that you have a right to force the Pastor to perform a gay marriage ceremony? Second, do you feel that you should have the right to use a church’s property or facilities to have this ceremony?
I apologize if this is not the right place to ask this question, you do not seem to have a general email address.
Comment by Ferrell Gummitt — July 18, 2008 @ 1:11 pm
How will making gay marriage legal force churches to marry gay couples? Are christian churches forced to marry jewish couples? Are catholic churches forced to marry protestant couples? Churches are free to marry or not marry whomever they choose…where is it written, in what bill or law proposing to legalize gay marriage, that churches will have to perform gay wedding ceremonies? This is just another right-wing alarmist myth.
Gay marriage is about legalizing same-sex couple’s unions in the eyes of the state, not any church.
Why any gay couple would want to marry in a hateful, bigoted, dark-age place like a church is beyond me.
So here is MY question to all religious folks…why ARE you obsessed with sex? Why DO you support wars that kill children, no matter if they are children of the ‘enemy’? Is your frequent anti-abortion stance really about saving babies, or is it about controlling sex and women’s bodies? Why should your definition of family be the only one? Why should you particular religion receive validation from the state? Just curious.
Also please point out where it is written or implied that legalizing gay marriage will force churches to marry gay couples.
Comment by DaveTheWave — July 18, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
Actually, my friend it is not a “right wing scare tactic”. In the years since VT and MA have legalized Gay marriage, there have been numerous law suits by gay couples suing churches to force them to have the pastor marry them or use their facilities to perform the ceremony or have their tax exempt status removed. Why would a couple want to marry in a “dark place” like a church? Sentimentality. One of them got confirmed there or remembers how beautiful the sanctuary was, whatever.
Since you brought abortion into this, I will respond. Abortion is murder, plain, clear and simple. When the sperm hits the egg cell and is an embryo that is now a human life. Since Roe v Wade, there have been 48,500,000 abortions performed in the US. That is 48,500,000 wasted potentials of having someone break Hank Aaron’s home run record (without steroid use), finding a treatment for cancer or having an operatic voice that would bring down the heavens. Why abort when there are more couples who would give anything to adopt a baby.
Comment by Ferrell Gummitt — July 18, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
No takers??
Mr. Wave??
Maybe you should consider changing the name of this site to: OUR Truth Wins Out.org.
Comment by Ferrell Gummitt — July 18, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
Mr. Ferrell Gummit,
Only MA and CA have same sex marriage. VT has civil unions.
I am unaware of any lawsuits filed in MA or VT trying to force a church to perform a wedding ceremony. Even if they were filed, they would get nowhere due to the 1st Amendment and the Separation of Church and State. The person or group foolish enough to file such a suit would just end up having to pay the legal bills for the church that was defending itself, because the suit would have no basis for going forward.
The CA marriage ruling clearly spells out that no church, synagogue, mosque or other religious entity would be required to perform same sex marriages against their will.
So, again, where is this all coming from? If this is your primary concern, then you have nothing to worry about and should immediately start supporting same sex marriage efforts in Illinois, because it truely is no skin off your nose.
Comment by John — July 18, 2008 @ 6:17 pm
LOL I can’t believe he took the abortion bait.
Separation of Church & State prevents Churches, et al from being forced to perform same-sex ceremonies. PERIOD. And if for some reason it does become legal to do so, I will fight that all the way. My mom was actually turned away from her protestant church of her upbringing when she got remarried because she was marrying a non-practicing Catholic and had Jewish children with her Jewish ex-husband. SHE was still protestant - but they turned her away anyway. Which was their legal right.
Comment by Emily K — July 18, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
Ferrell Gummint you did not answer some questions:
Why ARE religious conservatives obsessed with sex? Why are they striving to control it?
Why DO they support wars that kill children, no matter if they are children of the ‘enemy’?
Here’s a twist on the abortion question: Do you oppose abortion of all babies, including those with severe deformities, or babies that are not caucasian who are being born to single mothers who are also not caucasian? If abortion is murder, why is not dropping bombs on children also murder? Why do so many religious conservative christians in the US support war?
Why should your definition of family be the only one?
Why should your particular religion receive validation from the state?
Another: Why do religious conservatives frequently oppose birth control and social programs that would support children and families? Why do religious conservatives vote for the rich/wealthy and against these social programs?
I believe in strict separation of church and state and I support a church’s right to refuse to marry couples they disapprove of, and I support their right to speak out on social issues as long as they do not endorse candidates. If the state ever tried to force churches to marry gay couples, I would fight them all the way, as that would be a clear instance of the state attacking the church. However, no matter what the right wing alarmists argue, today it is the churches, and members of religious communiites, who are attempting to rewrite laws and constitutions to discriminate against the LGBT community, force creationism into schools, and force women back into male-dominated subservience.
Why ARE you religious folks so obsessed with gay sex? Get laid already!!!
(If we are going to remember the aborted kids, then let us also remember the thousands of gay children who have been murdered or exiled by their loving, religious families.)
Comment by DaveTheWave — July 19, 2008 @ 12:05 pm