Gingrich May Have Done the Impossible by Setting a New Standard for Political Hypocrisy, says TWO
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out called on GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich to quit the presidential race today if allegations by his second ex-wife, Marianne, are true about the former House Speaker demanding an open sexual relationship. This is hardly the behavior one would expect from a promoter of “traditional values” and a fervid opponent of marriage equality for same-sex couples.
“If the allegation is true, Newt Gingrich has done the impossible by setting a new standard for hypocrisy in politics. I’d call such actions unconscionable, but that would wrongly suggest that Gingrich has a conscience,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Gingrich has worked to deny LGBT people the right to marry based on his professed family values, but may have failed to disclose that his definition of family might include an open relationship with a mistress.”
ABC’s Brian Ross will be airing a story that, if confirmed, would do irreparable damage to Gingrich’s campaign:
ABC Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross, told WMAL’s Morning Majority program that Marianne Gingrich claims her ex-husband wanted an ‘open marriage.’ “He came to her and said, ‘I want to stay married to you and still have an affair with Callista, his current wife,” said Ross. “According to Marianne, he said ‘You need to share me,’ and she said ‘I don’t want to share,’ and the marriage ended,” he added.
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
There is something seriously wrong with a political party where it is more controversial and exotic to speak French than in tongues. Given this acid trip facsimile of reality, it was inevitable that the Republican presidential primaries have come down to the Slickest vs. The Sickest.
On the slick side is Newt Gingrich, the career politician who got rich off lobbying and switched wives and religions three times, yet is running as a “family values” Washington outsider.
Mitt Romney also personifies slick with his perfectly coifed hairdo and a propensity to take more positions than a triple-jointed hooker. He keeps talking about personal responsibility and demanding that Americans take a spoonful of castor oil, even as the silver spoon dangles from his mouth. Today, Romney admitted that he pays an effective tax-rate of only 15%, much lower than middle class Americans, and significantly less than President Barack Obama who paid just over 26% on his 2012 tax returns.
Romney, the pampered patrician, keeps pretending he’s slumming but we all know he’ll be “summering” if he doesn’t get the nomination. During one debate in Iowa, he foolishly challenged Gov. Rick Perry to a $10,000 bet as if it were pocket change. Today he solidified his “out of touch” image by saying,
“I got a little bit of income from my book, but I gave that all away… I get speakers’ fees from time to time, but not very much.” The New York Times reports, however, that Romney earned $374,327.62 in speakers’ fees from February of 2010 to February of 2011, at an average of $41,592 per speech.
Romney’s gaffe is reminiscent of George H.W. Bush who looked disconnected from real Americans in 1992 when he came across a grocery store scanner for the first time. The New York Timeswrote about the incident in a story headlined, “Bush Encounters the Supermarket, Amazed”:
As President Bush travels the country in search of re-election, he seems unable to escape a central problem: This career politician, who has lived the cloistered life of a top Washington bureaucrat for decades, is having trouble presenting himself to the electorate as a man in touch with middle-class life.
Today, for instance, he emerged from 11 years in Washington’s choicest executive mansions to confront the modern supermarket…he grabbed a quart of milk, a light bulb and a bag of candy and ran them over an electronic scanner. The look of wonder flickered across his face again as he saw the item and price registered on the cash register screen.
Obviously, Bush lost his race and I suspect that President Barack Obama will be able to defeat a man who believes that $374,327 is little more than Monopoly Money.
When it comes to “The Sickest,” obviously we are talking about Rick Santorum, since Michele Bachmann has dropped out of the race. If he actually mattered, we could also be talking about Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who invokes Jesus’ name so often that he makes Tim Tebow look like Dr. Richard Dawkins.
In his infinite wisdom, Perry wants a part-time Congress so House and Senate members can go back to their home states and get “real jobs.” Which will work out fine until we have to hold off on declaring war against an enemy state because the night manager at Waffle House won’t let Congressman X leave the late shift to return to Capitol Hill. Indeed, we already had a part-time president in the endlessly vacationing George W. Bush and look how well that turned out.
In his Senate office, on a shelf next to an autographed baseball, Sen. Rick Santorum keeps a framed photo of his son Gabriel Michael, the fourth of his seven children. Named for two archangels, Gabriel Michael was born prematurely, at 20 weeks, on Oct. 11, 1996, and lived two hours outside the womb. Upon their son’s death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen’s parents’ home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass.
This story is remarkable considering Santorum’s wife had previously dated a well-known abortion doctor forty years her senior! With her incredible flip-flopping on abortion, maybe she should have married Mitt Romney?
Most of the media is afraid to admit the obvious: The GOP contenders are loopy clowns selling a field of schemes. The Religious Right ensures that one can only get the nomination through insanity (Santorum) or by faking insanity (Romney). Until this radical special interest group is permanently expelled from the Republican Party, the fringe binge will continue and Ron Paul will often look like the sanest one on-stage.
When former Focus on the Family leader James Dobson told The Daily Oklahoman in 2004 that,“Homosexuals…want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth,” reasonable people dismissed him as a crank. And, for the record, six states have since legalized marriage equality and the earth is still here.
Now we learn that Pope Benedict XVI did his best Dobson imitation when he delivered a New Year’s address to diplomats representing 180 nations. According to reports, the pontiff said that the marriage was “not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies (such as gay couples marrying) which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.”
Really? Because I just married my same-sex partner in Vermont, a state that allows for such unions. South of us is Massachusetts and Connecticut, which both allow gay people to get hitched. To my east is New Hampshire, another state where gay couples get equal treatment under the law. In this cluster of states, marriage equality has had no visible effect on heterosexuals, unless you count the extra money their businesses have made from gay tourists who visited New England to marry. Meanwhile, for the LGBT people who live in the region, there has been an obvious increase in human dignity. Whatever evidence Joseph Ratzinger possesses to back his outrageous claim must be shrouded in more secrecy than a Pope-picking conclave.
As for the claim that the future of humanity is in jeopardy – it seems to be a figment of the Pope’s vivid imagination. Life in New England has not changed one iota since marriage equality was established and anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or a lunatic. Which camp is the Pope in?
It is time for people to be honest and admit that this pope is becoming a joke and his reign is an abject failure. He arrogantly swept into office and preposterously lambasted the secularization of Europe, as if the continent was more humane when ruled by the Church and its countless bloody religious wars.
Fortunately, his goal of turning back the clock has been unrealized. Once staunchly Catholic Spain now has marriage equality and the Vatican had to recall its ambassador to Ireland after the Irish prime minister lambasted the Roman Catholic Church over pedophile priests.
Why are we even listening to the pronouncements of a “moral leader” who presides over a church that has spent billions of dollars to settle child molestation cases? If a church and its leadership do not protect the interests of children and cover-up the misdeeds of monsters, they forfeit the right to point the finger and preach. The last thing hardworking, taxpaying, law abiding LGBT families need is to be scolded by the enablers of the child sexual abuse scandals.
The pathological homophobia of Pope Benedict XVI has filtered down the food chain. Last month, Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George compared the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan. After a huge public backlash, he finally apologized.
In Minnesota, Saint Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt recently posted a letter to the local diocesan website that infuses a prayer for marriage discrimination into the Catholic Mass. Nienstedt’s pathetic “prayer” was to “assist in the strengthening of our state-wide efforts to defend marriage in our civil constitution.”
Can you feel the spirituality?
Sadly, gay bashing is a way to ascend the career ladder in Rome. For instance, the Pope will promote New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan to cardinal next month. Dolan worked mightily, yet unsuccessfully, to keep gay couples from marrying in New York. Like the Pope, Dolan should either admit he was blowing holy smoke where the sun don’t shine or produce solid evidence that he was correct in asserting that gay couples marrying would harm society.
Of course, his attacks on innocent LGBT families are not the Pope’s only notable gaffes, which include:
In 2006, the Pope enraged Muslims when he quoted a 14th-century Christian emperor as saying the Prophet Muhammad had introduced only “evil and inhuman” ideas into the world.
In 2009, Benedict decreed that Anglicans who leave their Church because they believed it was too liberal could join the Catholic Church, which would allow them to keep some of their traditions.
In 2009 the Pope revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops from the far right order, St. Pius X Society. One of the bishops the Pope embraced, Richard Williamson, is a conspiratorial holocaust revisionist who claims the extermination of six million Jews was a hoax.
The pontiff’s rule can best be described as insensitive, indecent, and intolerant, and his latest anti-gay comments should be put into context of his overall reprehensible record. While LGBT marriage equality does not threaten the future of humanity, the out of touch pronouncements and actions of Pope Benedict XVI may very well threaten the future of the Roman Catholic Church.
Ladies and gentlemen, we always ask “ex-gay” leaders and their supporting cast of wingnuts to provide numbers, and dangit, Alan Chambers did it this past weekend on a panel discussion at the Gay Christian Network conference! Warren Throckmorton’s blog:
Alan Chambers is asked, I think by GCN Executive Director Justin Lee, about the way Exodus and member ministries describe the work they do. Specifically, Lee asked about the slogan “change is possible.” Chambers responds by discussing his views of sexual orientation change, saying
The majority of people that I have met, and I would say the majority meaning 99.9% of them have not experienced a change in their orientation or have gotten to a place where they could say that they could never be tempted or are not tempted in some way or experience some level of same-sex attraction. I think there is a gender issue there, there are some women who have challenged me and said that my orientation or my attractions have changed completely. Those have been few and far between. The vast majority of people that I know will experience some level of same-sex attraction.
For those who are not familiar with Math, 100% minus 99.9% equals 0.1%. For every one thousand gays who enter “ex-gay” reparative therapy, one of you might be successful, and really you were probably bisexual anyway, so meh.
So speaketh the guru, who, we gently remind readers, has admitted that he is still into guys.
Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director Phone: 917-691-5118 E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Fake Religious Freedom Argument Used In Debate to Mask Red Meat Bigotry, Says TWO
NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out expressed its revulsion over the unrestrained anti-gay bigotry expressed by Republican candidates in tonight’s ABC News debate. The contenders bent over backwards to slap loving gay couples in their faces and hid behind phony religious liberty arguments to mask their anti-gay animus, says TWO.
“We are completely disgusted by virtually the entire GOP field which panders to prejudice and bows to anti-gay bigotry,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “The unabashed extremism witnessed in this debate is a disgrace and an embarrassment to both the Republican Party and to this nation.”
The most outrageous view expressed this evening came from former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum who said that he would support a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex couples from marrying, as well as breaking up gay couples who are already legally married. “If the Constitution says marriage is between a man and a woman, then marriage is between a man and a woman,” Santorum said. “Those who are not men and women and are married would not be married.”
“I think the radical idea of destroying families and invalidating their marriages is so preposterous that it will cost Rick Santorum any chance of ever becoming President of the United States,” said TWO’s Besen, who married his partner of five years, Jamie Brundage, last month in Burlington, Vermont. “Santorum is just too extreme and the cruel position he took on this issue will lead to the unraveling of his campaign.”
Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum defended their anti-gay positions by falsely claiming that marriage equality conflicted with religious liberty. Perry actually claimed that allowing LGBT couples to marry is a “a war against religion.”
“The red meat may work to some degree in the primaries,” said TWO’s Besen, “But homophobia will haunt the eventual nominee in the general election.”
The most laughable moment of the evening came when Newt Gingrich expressed his opposition to marriage equality and invoked “the sacrament of marriage.” He did so with a straight face as his third wife, Callista, sat in the audience and applauded.
Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a nonprofit that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director Phone: 917-691-5118 E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
TWO Calls Cardinal Francis George’s Apology to the LGBT Community a Positive Development
We Called for His Resignation But Remorse Is a Good Start, Says TWO
CHICAGO – Truth Wins Out commended Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George today for apologizing to the LGBT community after he made intemperate remarks comparing the LGBT movement to the Ku Klux Klan.
“I am truly sorry for the hurt my remarks have caused,” George said in an interview with the Chicago Tribune. “Particularly because we all have friends or family members who are gay and lesbian. This has evidently wounded a good number of people. I have family members myself who are gay and lesbian, so it’s part of our lives. So I’m sorry for the hurt. When I was talking I was speaking out of fear that I have for the church’s liberty and I was reaching for an analogy which was very inappropriate for which I’m sorry. I didn’t realize the impact of what I was saying. … Sometimes fear is a bad motivation.”
Truth Wins Out placed a full-page ad in last Sunday’s Chicago Tribune headlined “Hey, Cardinal Francis George, Gay is not like the KKK.” TWO also started an online Change.org petition calling on George to step down that reached more than 5,400 signatures. Pressure continued to build with the Gay Liberation Network and the Rainbow Sash Movement planning to protest the Cardinal this weekend.
“We called for Cardinal George’s resignation but we think remorse is a positive step in the right direction,” said TWO’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It is gratifying to see the Cardinal take personal responsibility for the hurt he has caused and we hope this incident leads to improving relations with the LGBT community.”
George’s offensive remarks first came during a dispute over the scheduled starting time of the annual gay pride parade in June. The event was originally set to begin at 10am, but a priest bitterly complained that the starting time would interfere with morning services. In an interview with Fox News in Chicago, Cardinal George said: “You know, you don’t want the Gay Liberation Movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism.”
Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a nonprofit that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Wednesday announcement that she is ending her White House bid comes as no surprise. While the Minnesota congresswoman was one of the first GOP candidates to experience a surge in the polls last summer as the party’s base searched frantically for a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney (she even won the Iowa straw poll in August), her campaign had been dogged by a series of high-profile missteps.
They included: suggesting that cervical cancer vaccines cause “mental retardation,” pledging to close the non-existent American embassy in Tehran, reassigning the location of the “shot heard ‘round the world” to New Hampshire rather than Massachusetts, and confusing movie star John Wayne with serial killer John Wayne Gacy.
The withering heat of the presidential vetting process also yielded an embarrassing and disturbing revelation about Bachmann: The “Christian counseling” clinic that she co-owns with her husband, Marcus, offers so-called “ex-gay therapy” that purports to turn clients from gay to straight.
The Bachmanns had long denied that their clinic endorsed this form of “therapy,” which has no basis in research, inflicts substantial harm to patients who are falsely told they can “pray away the gay,” and is denounced by every mainstream professional medical and mental health organization. However, working for the LGBT rights group Truth Wins Out and at the behest of founder Wayne Besen, I conducted an undercover, hidden-camera investigation last summer that provided incontrovertible proof of reparative therapy taking place at Bachmann & Associates.
TWO’s investigation disrupted the momentum of Rep. Bachmann’s campaign, highlighting the congresswoman’s virulently anti-LGBT views and the extent to which those views are out of step with those of most Americans. It helped to define the public perception of Michele and Marcus Bachmann as religious extremists, drew attention to her long legislative record of anti-LGBT bigotry, and made it more difficult for her to recast herself as a mainstream presidential candidate.
Equally important, it cast a glaring spotlight on ex-gay therapy and helped reinvigorate the ongoing national conversation around this issue.
However, we shouldn’t kid ourselves into thinking that today’s announcement will mean we’ve heard the last from Michele Bachmann. She will return to Congress, where she will undoubtedly remain a forceful opponent of any and all efforts to advance LGBT equality. Bowing out of the presidential race allows Bachmann to focus her time and effort on her upcoming congressional re-election campaign in Minnesota, where it’s probable that she’ll lend her now-amplified voice to the effort to pass a proposed constitutional amendment banning any recognition of same-sex marriages or civil unions in that state. And Rep. Bachmann will most likely intensify her homophobia now that she no longer has to concern herself with attempting to appear presidential.
Finally, let’s not forget that the field of remaining presidential candidates is littered with homophobes, including a now-surging Rick Santorum, who most recently stated that his administration would attempt to forcibly divorce legally married same-sex couples.
So while the end of Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign is undoubtedly a positive development for America’s LGBT community, it’s definitely not cause for complacency. To the contrary, our efforts to protect and expand upon the victories we’ve achieved must intensify, because in this election year, our opponents are just getting started.
Note: this op-ed was written for, and initially appeared at, the Advocate.
Screen shot: Andy Towle
When Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George recently compared the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan he probably thought that there would be limited push back against his offensive remarks. Instead, his ugly smear was immediately met head-on with outrage and disgust. The way in which the LGBT community rapidly responded is a textbook example of successful advocacy and should be used as a model of how the movement takes on its opponents.
Windy City Times editor Tracy Baim got the ball rolling in a powerful editorial: “In comparing the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan—in his remarks about the potential disruption and inconvenience of the new Pride Parade route and start time—Cardinal George has gone too far, and he should graciously apologize, and step down from his post.”
My organization, Truth Wins Out, started a Change.org petition calling for George’s resignation that has been signed by more than 5,300 people. We helped keep the controversy alive during the holidays with a full-page Chicago Tribune ad headlined, “Hey, Cardinal Francis George, Gay is not Like the KKK.”
The Chicago Tribune editorial page called the comparison to the KKK a “bizarre analogy.” Robert McClory blogged at the National Catholic Reporter: “If he sees this latest broadside as an effective argument, he has badly missed the mark. Critics have suggested that George’s rash comments do more to spread anti-Catholicism than do the pronouncements of those who do hate the church.”
Chicago Sun-Times columnist Esther Cepeda body slammed the Chicago Archbishop: “George expressed an opinion that reinforces one of the many reasons Catholics leave the church. One out of every 10 Americans is an ex-Catholic — like me — and if they didn’t run away screaming because of the Church’s stance on abortion, birth control, divorce or the inadequate prosecution of priests who have sexually abused children, it’s because of its attitudes toward women and sexual orientation.”
George’s primary defenders were the Illinois Family Institute and the Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, both deemed hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Even troglodyte William Donahue of the Catholic League has so far not pounced on this issue, preferring to spend his time defending the Vatican’s handling of pedophile priest cases.
The juxtaposition of the Ku Klux Klan and law abiding LGBT citizens was simply too great a mental leap for all but the most ardent gay bashers. It would be nice if George apologized or stepped down, however if he does neither, the Cardinal has still lost the battle of public opinion. To mainstream Americans, including Catholics, he appears alarmist and extreme. His intransigence has only further tarnished his legacy and damaged the image of the Roman Catholic Church.
George can still escape from his self-inflicted bind if the LGBT community overplays its hand. This issue exploded after George went on Fox News Chicago and said that the gay-rights movement was at risk of morphing “into something like the Ku Klux Klan, protesting in the streets against Catholicism.”
On the cusp of victory, Chicago LGBT activist Lair Scott called for – you guessed it – a protest in the streets of Chicago against the Catholic Church. The demonstration will occur during Sunday mass at the seat of the Chicago Archdiocese. Lair is best known for his controversial Change.org petition demanding that PBS, “Let Bert and Ernie Get Married On Sesame Street.”
The Gay Liberation Network and the Rainbow Sash Movement, an organization of LGBT Catholics, have backed this protest, which has all the makings of a potential PR disaster. If the controversy switches from a debate over George’s KKK remarks to a FOX-fueled media frenzy about Bert and Ernie our message has been lost. If the protest becomes unruly, disrespectful, blatantly anti-religious, or if mass is disrupted the support of the sympathetic middle that believes George went too far will evaporate.
I’m not necessarily against a demonstration if it will keep the issue alive. However, let’s be honest and acknowledge that it is a risky venture that must be carefully planned and exquisitely executed or it could horribly backfire. Do we really want to hand FOX News and the Vatican a gift on a silver platter?
In the past, the Gay Liberation Network has organized important demonstrations in Chicago. Indeed, I worked with them on a successful protest against the Radio Hall of Fame when it inducted Focus on the Family’s James Dobson. They are good people who care very much about the LGBT community. Rainbow Sash also appears to have our best interests in mind.
I am sure that both organizations comprehend the gravity of this situation and understand the global ramifications if events spin out of control. While Cardinal George is fully responsible for sacrificing himself at the altar of idiocy, poor choices by the LGBT community could sadly lead to his unlikely resurrection.
Today, I’m going to make a rare and radical request.
I’m going to ask you directly for an end of year tax-deductible donation to Truth Wins Out based on the unique idea of rewarding RESULTS.
In 2011, Truth Wins Out has had some amazing accomplishments:
TWO exposed Marcus Bachmann and proved that he lied when he claimed his quack clinic didn’t practice “ex-gay” therapy. Our investigation gained national attention including, ABC World News, Nightline, Good Morning America, the Today Show, and the New York Times. Can you think of another LGBT organization that would have gone undercover to prove that Marcus Bachmann practices “ex-gay” therapy?
TWO launched a petition drive collecting 160,000 signatures that persuaded Apple Inc. to nix Exodus International’s “ex-gay” iPhone app targeting youth.
TWO broke the story of Saturday Night Live comedian Tracy Morgan’s homophobic rant at a Nashville comedy club. The incident quickly became a major story that led to Morgan publicly apologizing.
TWOundermined the “ex-gay” myth by holding educational seminars at universities including: University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, North Dakota State University, Concordia College, University of Nebraska, Oklahoma State University, Oregon State University, West Virginia University, and University of Alabama.
TWO fought back against Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George when he compared the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan. We placed a full-page ad in the Chicago Tribune and launched a petition drive calling on George to resign.
Investigating and exposing anti-LGBT extremism and the “ex-gay” industry takes money. We can only continue to undermine these groups in 2012 with your kindness and generosity. Truth Wins Out is a unique organization and deserves your support because we uncover original information – and then we know how to turn it into action. Few other groups have the capacity to monitor anti-gay organizations and then make them pay dearly when damning data is found.
I’m not asking you to fund pie-in-the sky promises, a fancy mission statement, or a slick brochure to tell you what we plan to do. I’m asking you to invest in an organization that has had a tremendously successful year in activism.
In a world full of broken promises and disappointing politicians – Truth Wins Out stands out because it has delivered. We are having an impact, making a difference and providing tangible results in front of your eyes.
Without your help, the “ex-gay” industry and religious extremists will continue their dishonest and destructive ways and not be held accountable. With your assistance, we will keep exposing these charlatans and hypocrites for the scam artists that they truly are.
At Truth Wins Out, we do exactly what we say we are going to do. We believe that results matter and should be rewarded.
Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
Email: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
More than 4,000 People Have Already Signed TWO’s Petition Urging George to Step Down For Comparing LGBT Community to Ku Klux Klan
CHICAGO – Truth Wins Out stepped up its campaign calling on Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George to resign today by placing a full-page ad in this upcoming Sunday’s Chicago Tribune. The ad is headlined, “Hey, Cardinal Francis George, Gay is not like the KKK,” and slams the Cardinal for foolishly comparing the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan. It satirically includes a picture of a rainbow-robed Klansman and debunks the lies and misinformation disseminated by the Archbishop about the LGBT community. The ad comes as an online TWO petition calling on George to step down has reached more than 4,000 signatures.
“We felt compelled to place this ad after Cardinal George compounded his initial smear with further insults disguised as an apology,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “It seems the sin of pride is keeping George from saying he is sorry for his outrageous and misleading remarks about Gay Pride. At this point, the only road to redemption is his resignation.”
George’s offensive remarks first came during a dispute over the scheduled starting time of the annual gay pride parade in June. The event was originally set to begin at 10am, but a priest bitterly complained that the starting time would interfere with morning services. In an interview with Fox News in Chicago, Cardinal George said: “You know, you don’t want the Gay Liberation Movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism.”
Instead of backtracking this week, George tried to rationalize his below the belt smear with an offensive statement from the Archdiocese: “When the pastor’s request for reconsideration of the plans was ignored, the organizers invited an obvious comparison to other groups who have historically attempted to stifle the religious freedom of the Catholic Church. One such organization is the Ku Klux Klan which, well into the 1940′s, paraded through American cities not only to interfere with Catholic worship but also to demonstrate that Catholics stand outside of the American consensus. It is not a precedent anyone should want to emulate.”
“This is not a legitimate fight over religious liberty as George wrongly implies, but a vivid example of religious bigotry fueled by a mean-spirited analogy that linked innocent, law abiding families with the KKK,” said Besen. “We will stand up against such lies and speak out when LGBT people are unfairly maligned.”
Earlier in the year, TWO launched a 160,000-signature Change.org petition that helped persuade Apple, Inc. to eliminate an “ex-gay” iPhone app by the group Exodus International.
Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a nonprofit that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Rep. Michele Bachmann’s Wednesday announcement that she is ending her White House bid comes as no surprise. While the Minnesota congresswoman was one of the first GOP candidates to experience a surge in the polls last summer as the party’s base searched frantically for a conservative alternative to Mitt Romney (she even won the Iowa straw poll in August), her campaign had been dogged by a series of high-profile missteps.
When Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George recently compared the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan he probably thought that there would be limited push back against his offensive remarks. Instead, his ugly smear was immediately met head-on with outrage and disgust. The way in which the LGBT community rapidly responded is a textbook example of successful advocacy and should be used as a model of how the movement takes on its opponents.
Today, I’m going to make a rare and radical request.
CHICAGO – Truth Wins Out stepped up its campaign calling on Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George to resign today by placing a 
complained that the starting time would interfere with morning services. In an interview with Fox News in Chicago, Cardinal George said: “You know, you don’t want the Gay Liberation Movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism.”
