Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) has filed a frivolous discrimination complaint with the Montgomery County (Maryland) Board of Education against its school Superintendent Joshua Starr (pictured). The kerfuffle started in February when PFOX disseminated 8,000 fliers at five Montgomery County schools, which led Starr to rightfully call PFOX “reprehensible and deplorable.”

FStarr claimed that although he vehemently disagreed with PFOX’s noxious message, the school district was legally bound to hand out the fliers because the law stated that the literature of all registered non-profits must be included for distribution. This has led to a reassessment of policy, with the school district considering the termination of the entire flier program. In this case, one rotten apple may ruin the entire barrel.

As the record unequivocally shows, Starr’s assessment of PFOX was correct. Robust and unambiguous evidence proves that PFOX is a radical anti-gay hate group that distributed deeply misleading and offensive fliers. The organization advocates discredited therapy models, denigrates LGBT people, brazenly uses outdated studies, deliberately inflates its credentials, demonizes its opposition, engages in false advertising, and refers students to disgraced therapists who use bizarre techniques.

The Montgomery Country School Board has an obligation to address PFOX’s deception and actual record, not the sophistic public relations campaign evidenced in its trivial complaint. The school board has a duty to protect students from harm and it is clear by PFOX’s own statements that the goal of the organization is to ridicule, malign, and shame LGBT pupils.

Here is the case against PFOX and why the Montgomery County School Board should dismiss its latest empty threat:

1) PFOX is a hate group that loathes LGBT people

In a press release outlining the group’s complaint against Superintendent Starr, PFOX’s Executive Director Regina Griggs wrote that PFOX’s flier “discouraged student name calling and labeling, and urged tolerance for former homosexuals.”

To the extent this is true, it highlights how the flier is deeply deceptive and is intended to conceal the true message of PFOX. While PFOX claims to oppose name-calling, its history tells another story. For example, in August 2010, PFOX president Greg Quinlan spoke at a conference organized by SPLC-certified hate group, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. In his speech, Quinlan made an outrageous and offensive anti-LGBT slur:

“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” Quinlan said. “I can say that because I’ve been there and done that. You know, the one’s whose wrists are so limp that when the wind blows they slap themselves in the face. I wasn’t one of them.”

Let’s not beat around the bush – Quinlan’s recorded comment is reason alone for Montgomery County Schools to prohibit distribution of PFOX’s flier. It also gives credence to Starr’s assertion that PFOX’s message is “reprehensible and deplorable.” Had any other minority been publicly subjected to such a slur we would not be having this debate. Quinlan’s comments do, however, lay waste to the claim that PFOX stands for tolerance and diversity and is opposed to bullying and name-calling.

PFOX’s press release goes onto say: “Starr does not respect diversity and is creating an unsafe school environment. As School Superintendent, Starr’s actions make it impossible for Montgomery County public schools to provide an atmosphere where differences are understood and appreciated, or where everyone is treated fairly and with respect free of discrimination and abuse, as mandated by its Nondiscrimination Policy ACB.”

This rhetoric is fascinating considering PFOX board member Peter Sprigg, who works for SPLC hate group, the Family Research Council, once said that he wanted to “export” LGBT people and that he supports criminalizing homosexuality.

In March 2008, Sprigg responded to a question on Hardball with Chris Matthews about uniting gay partners during the immigration process by saying: “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them.” He later apologized, but then went on to tell MSNBC host Chris Matthews, “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior.” “So we should outlaw gay behavior?” Matthews asked. “Yes,” Sprigg replied.

Arthur Abba Goldberg (pictured), a convicted felon who is a key member of PFOX’s speakers bureau, has smeared LGBT people with ugly stereotypes disguised as scientific observation:

“By the way, did you notice that a lot of gays who remain in the gay lifestyle also do a lot of body building,” said Goldberg in a live recording at an Americans for Truth About Homosexuality conference. “They will be in the gym a lot trying to build up their pecs…Because they have these body image issues and don’t feel they are masculine enough.”

Another PFOX board member, Matt Barber, recently responded to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s speech declaring that gay rights are human rights by saying, “How dare we, the U.S., export our decline in morality to other nations?”

Barber, who disparagingly calls the gay rights movement “the sexual anarchist lobby,” and the lives of LGBT people “The Gay Deathstyle,” is so extreme that he has even defended the debunked work of holocaust revisionist Scott Lively. Here are a few “loving” gems from PFOX’s Barber:

• “It boils down to this: there is nothing ‘conservative’ about one man violently cramming his penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love.’ Or two women awkwardly mimicking natural procreative relations or raising a child together in an intentionally fatherless home.”

• “Indeed, it seems the common moniker ‘homosexual lifestyle’ has it exactly backwards. As opponents of the extremist ‘gay’ lobby have long illustrated, homosexuality falls dead center within our nation’s burgeoning culture of death.”

• “Unfortunately, however, we live in a society where this particular sin is embraced, promoted and even celebrated. People erroneously equate this unnatural and sinful behavior with ‘identity’ and ’orientation’ even taking ’pride’ in an objectively deviant lifestyle.”

• “It’s tragic when people yield to disordered sexual temptations that can literally kill them spiritually, emotionally and physically. Nobody with any compassion enjoys watching others ‘[receive] in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.’”

• “There are even self-professed Christians today who inexcusably join in with the secular Left in affirming homosexual sin as a good thing. There’s a word for these types: apostate. There’s no wiggle room here. If you defend or seek to justify homosexual conduct, you defy God. Not good.”

• “I don’t mean to be flip (okay, maybe a little flip) but can someone please tell me why on earth the Left insists that we ‘tolerate’ homosexual behavior while – as the CDC has once again confirmed – it continues to have results similar to brick-walling?” (Running head first into a brick wall)

The insincere “love” caveat aside, such extreme rhetoric should surprise no one familiar with PFOX. The group’s founder, the late Anthony Falzarano, once referred to hate crime victim Matthew Shepard as a “predator to heterosexual men” and once told CBS News, “AIDS comes from the devil, directly from Satan. He uses homosexuals as pawns and then he kills them.”

To recap: We have a crass organization that refers to LGBT people as “flaming faggots.” PFOX’s disparages and mocks gay men by claiming they, “engage in violently cramming [the] penis into another man’s lower intestine and calling it ‘love.’” And a key board members want to criminalize homosexuality or gay people exported.

Incredibly, this remarkably nasty and virulently homophobic group makes the outrageous claim that they carry the banner of true tolerance? I hope the Montgomery County School Board is not buying what they are selling.

Obviously, PFOX is using its relatively milquetoast flier to conceal its discriminatory actions, mean-spirited remarks, and mask its shocking level of malevolence towards LGBT people. And once vulnerable students read the flier, they are directed to the PFOX website where they will be subjected to poisonous anti-gay rhetoric or quack therapists.

2) PFOX misrepresents its credentials

To boost its credentials and bolster its failed attempts to appear mainstream, PFOX applied for and received a perfunctory “Certificate of Appreciation” from the District of Columbia. What PFOX isn’t telling people is that former DC mayor, Adrian Fenty, said in 2010 that the “honor” was a clerical error. After PFOX refused to take the “award” down, the Secretary of the District of Columbia sent a letter demanding that PFOX “remove Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s Certificate of Appreciation from your website.”

Arrogantly, PFOX refused the request and the certificate is still on the bottom right-hand side of the organization’s website. This brazen action demonstrates of pattern of gross deception and illustrates that PFOX is deliberately misrepresenting itself as an organization valued by the DC government.

3) PFOX intentionally uses outdated science to deceive its members

Last month, Dr. Robert Spitzer disavowed his infamous 2001 study claiming that some gay people could become heterosexual. This was a major news event that was covered by the mainstream media. Yet, PFOX still has a video up of Dr. Robert Spitzer on the lower right hand side of its website where Spitzer’s is discussing his now retracted information. The disputed Montgomery County fliers direct students to the PFOX website, which contains the outdated Spitzer interview. This is a vivid and indisputable example of PFOX outright lying and distorting reality. This is not a simple difference of opinion or a political or religious dispute, as PFOX wrongly suggests, but a conscious effort to misrepresent the facts.

4) PFOX demonizes and lies about its opponents

PFOX smears LGBT advocates with whom it disagrees and literally demonizes them. For example, on October 7, 2011 PFOX President Greg Quinlan was interviewed on NewsPlus with Mark Segraves (WDCW-TV).

“Truth Wins Out if you look further, including Wayne Besen. He’s asked for people, you know, somebody needs to run Greg over. He needs to be hit with a bus. Somebody should inject him with AIDS. Those are the things that Wayne Besen and Truth Wins Out says about me. That’s pretty hateful rhetoric.”

As a result of this comment, Truth Wins Out sued PFOX and Quinlan (pictured). A Virginia judge quickly dismissed the case claiming that Besen was a public figure, which significantly raised the bar for proving defamation. However, when confronted with TWO’s original threat of a lawsuit, Quinlan abruptly changed his story on PFOX’s website: “The truth is that Besen once said to me in a private conversation that someone should run me over with a bus or inject me with AIDS.”

First Quinlan alleged that Besen made these statements to other people, then he reversed course and said that Besen addressed him directly in a private conversation. TWO challenged Quinlan to disclose when and where this alleged private conversation occurred or to provide e-mail or phone records that would confirm his telling of events. As of this date, PFOX and Quinlan have not provided evidence to back their contrived, defamatory, and fabricated tale.

Quinlan also outright lied on PFOX’s website about Besen being fired from the Human Rights Campaign (He wasn’t). During the court case TWO provided Quinlan and his legal team with a letter from HRC refuting the bogus charge. Yet, Quinlan is still unrepentant and brazenly repeating the false story, which brings into question the character of PFOX’s leadership team.

Last week, in a PFOX website post, the organization requested that people send harmful information about TWO’s Wayne Besen to the e-mail address WackyWayne666@hotmail.com, with the “666” symbolizing the “devil.” This is not the first time that Besen has been literally demonized by PFOX. The group’s former webmaster, who went by the name Burning Black Triangle, distributed a picture on the Internet that portrayed Besen as satanic.

A PFOX ally and former PFOX board member, DL Foster, once drew an Adolph Hitler mustache on Besen, who is Jewish, and circulated it on the Internet.

Despite his propensity to draw Hitler mustaches on opponents, here is PFOX’s description of DL Foster’s ministry:

Powerful Change Ministry Group (PC) is a national fellowship of 11 Christian African-American led ministries whose goal is to advocate change for same-sex strugglers among people of color.  PC members work diligently to raise awareness in the Black community on the need for holistic ministry to affected individuals as well as their families. Contact:  DL Foster, National Coordinator

Do Montgomery County Schools really want to place students in the hands of people with such alarming and extreme views?

5) PFOX recommends students go to bizarre and discredited therapists

The former president of PFOX, Richard Cohen, was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association for multiple ethics violations:

Cohen is the individual most associated with the discredited mental health techniques trumpeted by PFOX. When students read PFOX’s flier, they presumably go to the website. Once there, they are directed to either Cohen or those trained in his bizarre methods to “cure” homosexuality. Watch Cohen in action and then decide if this is the healthiest atmosphere for LGBT students who attend Montgomery County Schools:

PFOX also relies heavily on the “ex-gay” organization the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Here is an example of NARTH’s “unbiased” and “scientific” views:

“We, as citizens, need to articulate God’s intent for human sexuality,” Dr. Joseph Nicolosi, President of NARTH, said in CNN’ 360 Degrees with Anderson Cooper, April 14, 2007.

At the Feb. 10, 2007 Love Won Out conference in Phoenix, Nicolosi told the audience, “When we live our God-given integrity and our human dignity, there is no space for sex with a guy.”

NARTH was co-founded by late Dr. Socarides who told The Washington Post on August 14, 1997, “Homosexuality is a psychological and psychiatric disorder, there is no question about it. It is a purple menace that is threatening the proper design of gender distinctions in society.”

In 2006, NARTH was ensnared in two major controversies. In the first, psychiatrist Joseph Berger, MD, a member of their “Scientific Advisory Committee,” wrote a paper encouraging students to “ridicule” gender variant children.

“I suggest, indeed, letting children who wish go to school in clothes of the opposite sex–but not counseling other children to not tease them or hurt their feelings,” Dr. Berger wrote on NARTH’s website. “On the contrary, don’t interfere, and let the other children ridicule the child who has lost that clear boundary between play-acting at home and the reality needs of the outside world. Maybe, in this way, the child will re-establish that necessary boundary.”

In the second controversy, Gerald Schoenwolf, PhD, also a member of NARTH’s “Scientific Advisory Committee,” wrote a polemic on the group’s website that seemed to justify slavery:

“With all due respect, there is another way, or other ways, to look at the race issue in America,” wrote Schoenwolf. “It could be pointed out, for example, that Africa at the time of slavery was still primarily a jungle, as yet uncivilized or industrialized. Life there was savage, as savage as the jungle for most people, and that it was the Africans themselves who first enslaved their own people. They sold their own people to other countries, and those brought to Europe, South America, America, and other countries, were in many ways better off than they had been in Africa. But if one even begins to say these things one is quickly shouted down as though one were a complete madman.”

It is critical that the Montgomery County School Board understand that when students take home PFOX fliers and are directed to its website, they are urged to contact NARTH:

Call NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) at 818-789-4440 for the names of therapists in your area who specialize in reorientation therapy.  To learn more about NARTH, they have a website at http://www.narth.com

How does the school board rationalize sending gay teenagers to a “therapy” group that justified slavery, calls homosexuality a “purple menace,” and believes that gender variant children can be “corrected” by allowing “the other children ridicule the child.”

It is also worth pointing out that PFOX directs students to JONAH and People Can Change. Both organizations are affiliated with unlicensed counselors, including Alan Downing, who allegedly acted inappropriately with at least four clients.  Neither organization properly investigated or took action against the serious allegations.

It is essential to note that all respected medical and mental health organizations oppose “ex-gay” therapy, with the American Psychiatric Association saying that attempts to change sexual orientation can lead to, “anxiety, depression, and self-destructive behavior.”

Why would Montgomery County want to place LGBT youth, already at an elevated risk for bullying, depression, and suicide, in dangerous situations that can lead to tragedy? To continue allowing PFOX into the school system is to court disaster. It is grossly irresponsible, reckless, and a dereliction of the primary duty of administrators, which is to protect students from potential predators.

6) False Advertising 

PFOX talks a good game about people going from gay-to-straight, but they have no evidence to back up their false claims. PFOX President Greg Quinlan exaggerated the success rate of Richard Cohen by saying that he cured 90% of his clients.

Where is Quinlan’s or Cohen’s proof to back up such wildly optimistic assertions? It is interesting how they conceal their “amazing” results and the methods they used to achieve them.

Ironically, PFOX is making such outrageous claims at a time when other so-called “ex-gay” activists are scaling back their empty promises. Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, had this to say at the Gay Christian Network conference in January:

“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.”

John Smid, the former director of the “ex-gay” organization Love in Action, recently said:

“I’ve never met a man who experienced a change from homosexual to heterosexual.”

Last year, Former Brazilian “ex-gay” activist Sergio Viula admitted:

“In fact, ex-gays don’t exist – it’s pure self-suggestion.”

Even with such strong testimony against “change”coming from the least likely quarters, PFOX still uses the following billboard, which can be seen on its website:

If this isn’t an example of false advertising, I don’t know what is.

The record of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) really is “reprehensible and deplorable.” The Montgomery County Board of Education and its  Superintendent Joshua Starr should dismiss their frivolous complaint and do everything in their power to keep this toxic hate group’s lies away from students.

Remember a few weeks ago when I made fun of Pastor Ken Hutcherson for trying to “reclaim” the rainbow? Now he wants to reclaim the word “gay,” claiming that he is the gayest person he knows. I always had my suspicions, but it’s not polite to judge:

Dr. Ken Hutcherson, the pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Redmond, Wash., posted an announcement earlier this week that many close to him – including his wife – have known for years. Hutcherson revealed that he is the “gayest man I know.”

“Coming out of the closet is a difficult decision to make, especially when close, personal relationships are at stake,” Hutcherson wrote in his column, Hutch Speaks Out, that was published on WorldNetDaily.

Bwahaha, this is going to backfire on him.

“Will my family abandon me? Will my friends still look at me the same? Will this announcement be worth the risk? These are indeed valid concerns that can make a person live like a double agent for years. And even though this decision is acutely personal, it does help to stand alongside someone else who is ready to announce the very same thing,” he continued.

The announcement of the burly NFL-linebacker-turned-evangelical-minister-and-author sent some initial shockwaves through the Christian community. He and James Hansen, one of his ministry leaders who is married with three children, are challenging others, especially evangelicals, to come forward and also admit that they are gay.

Haha, okay, Peter LaBarbera, you and Bam Bam do it next.

But the thing is Hutcherson is not a homosexual, nor does the happily married man have a same-sex attraction of any kind. He is, however, on a mission to take back words, phrases and symbols he believes groups, such as homosexual activists and other liberal organizations, have “hijacked” from the American lexicon.

Okay, next I would like Ken to publicly take back loving Madonna and the freedom for two dudes to make out in public. Because we gays have just cold hijacked those things. Go ahead, Ken.

“Seriously, I am the gayest guy I know,” Hutcherson reiterated in an interview with The Christian Post.

God, you don’t have to broadcast it.

“My frustration is that some groups have taken words and symbols away from the Church and from society in general. When I say I’m ‘gay,’ what I mean is that I am happy, that I am joyful and that I love people. That is precisely what a Christian ought to be so in my opinion we just need to be as gay as we can.”

It’s great to be joyful and love people. Tony Perkins, Ken Hutcherson is asking you to be as gay as you can. Do you have what it takes?

“Dan Savage (a pro-gay activist) says he is gay. He’s not gay, not anywhere close. Yeah, he may be a homosexual but he certainly doesn’t appear to be happy or joyful when he stands up in front of a classroom and uses profane language. Nope, nothing gay about that.”

To be serious for just a moment: why do wingnuts think Dan Savage is unhappy? He has a great husband, a great kid and a great life. The fact that he makes fun of wingnuts doesn’t mean he’s unhappy. It means he’s quick on his feet and knows how to laugh at people, like Ken, who would seek to destroy his family unit.

Anyway, wingnuts, you have your marching orders from Hutch. Come out of the closet and be super-gay, like he is! Here is Ken’s full column, if you want to subject yourself to that.

Since the theme of the week is The Bullies Are The Real Victims, I must ask you, dear Bam Bam Barber — are we bullying God?

Recently it dawned on me that so-called “same-sex marriage,” to use the term “marriage” isn’t even appropriate. It’s not same-sex marriage, it’s mock marriage because it’s not real marriage, it’s a mock marriage. And same-sex marriage and the attacks on marriage mock God and his design for the institution of marriage.

And God will not be mocked, Shawn, and as we turn our face from God, relative to marriage and our larger culture on a number of these issues of morality and sexual morality, why should be we surprised when God turns his face from us?

So if God is “abandoning” this nation or whatever, at least the wingnut version of God, why don’t people like Bam Bam go to a country that their version of God hasn’t abandoned? Just a question.

Anyway, here’s the video, where you can watch Matt Barber attempt to run away from the real world in real time:

Ryan Sorba, who thoroughly embarrassed himself at CPAC a while back, and also every other time he opens his mouth, spoke at the “Awakening 2012″ conference, where he offered this nugget of information:

Sorba: The other issue is, a lot of people lose their confidence when they talk about this issue, because the other side is so good at putting you into a corner with their terms, which is why this panel is so important, because he who defines the terms controls the debate. Stop using the word gay, because implicit in the notion of a gay identity is the fact that they’re born gay and that it should be a fundamental human right, but fundamental human rights are based on human nature not on capricious desires. If fundamental human rights are based on capricious desires, guess what, we’d have every group on this planet with a different hobby arguing for fundamental rights and benefits based on the fact that they play hockey, based on the fact that they play basketball or surf, or anything that they’re interested in.

Barber: Did you catch that, Brian? I can see the Right Wing Watch headline now, ‘Sorba Calls Homosexuality a Hobby.’ I just gave it to you, go ahead and use that.

First of all, wingnuts have already lost the battle of terminology here. Sorry! Also, if gayness is a hobby, is that what caused my foot injury? Because I’m sitting here having a hard time finding a way to write because my foot has to be elevated at all times, and I didn’t realize it was my gayness that caused this. I was under the impression that my sixty pound dog finally, after eight years, managed to be underfoot in just the right way that I tripped over her last night and landed wrong. Thanks, dog.

Anyway, here is video:

Last week, Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner appointed Dr. Robert George — co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage — to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). George’s two-year appointment that comes with a taxpayer-funded federal salary.

GLAAD’s newly-launched Commentator Accountability Project – which aims to unmask the extremist views of anti-LGBT activists frequently consulted and quoted by the media – names George as one of the 36 homophobes most often cited in news reports. George appears on the list alongside other famously outspoken bigots like Scott Lively, Tony Perkins, Alan Chambers, Matt Barber, Peter LaBarbera, and NOM’s own Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher.

For those of you who may not be familiar with him, Dr. George is an anti-LGBT extremist who once described being gay as “beneath the dignity of human beings as free and rational creatures” and said that committed same-sex relationships have “no intelligible basis in them for the norms of monogamy, exclusivity, and the pledge of permanence.” The organization that he co-founded, the National Organization for Marriage, is the nation’s foremost opponent of marriage equality, fighting to preserve the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on the federal level and pushing constitutional marriage discrimination amendments in the states.

NOM was disgraced earlier this week when internal documents revealed that the group engages in disrespectful and unsavory race-baiting tactics in its fight against marriage equality. The confidential memos asserted that NOM’s strategic goal is to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks” and “make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker” among young Latinos, “a badge of youth rebellion to conformist association to the bad side of ‘Anglo’ culture” and “a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation.”

Last year, Speaker Boehner and House Republicans decided to defend DOMA themselves after President Obama’s Justice Department halted its defense, citing the law’s unconstitutionality. Boehner hired a team of private attorneys and committed to spend as much as $1.5 million in taxpayer dollars to defend the discriminatory measure in court.

By appointing an extremist like Robert George, Speaker Boehner is again using taxpayer funds to further an aggressively anti-gay social agenda. This stunt makes it clear that the USCIRF is the equivalent of a kangaroo court intent upon casting victimizers as victims. It is utterly farcical that Robert George — a man who has dedicated his life to curtailing liberties and limiting the freedoms of those who hold different beliefs — would be named to a commission that oversees liberty. But given George’s demonization of LGBT people and his group’s appalling use of racial politics, Boehner’s appointment may ultimately backfire with Latino and African American voters.

You see, back when the SPLC was primarily concerned with the most overt racists among us, it was fine, because Matt Barber was not weaned in a time when it was socially acceptable to wear one’s racism on one’s sleeve. Now that the SPLC has broadened its scope to include other vicious, hateful, dishonest groups like the Family Research Council and his friend Porno Pete’s Americahs for Truth on their list of hate groups, it’s not okay, because they’re espousing an “extremist left-wing agenda.” You know what else used to be an “extremist left-wing agenda?” That’s right, the Civil Rights Movement.

Same dishonest, bigoted arguments, from the same people, different minority.

So this happened today, apparently. Porno Pete brought all his worldly friends together to go down to the SPLC and cry:

A coalition of African American pastors and pro-family Christian and Jewish leaders is holding a press conference at noon tomorrow (the day after Martin Luther King Day) outside the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center — to protest the SPLC’s smearing of pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups”:

Ooh, Porno Pete got to go on vacation! Of course, the SPLC doesn’t brand groups as “hate groups” simply for opposing gay people. They have to be known liars and slanderers. Porno Pete = one of those.

Scheduled speakers:

Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), Chicago, IL (the SPLC has smeared AFTAH as a “hate group”);
Dr. Patrick Wooden, pastor, Upper Room Church of God in Christ (COGIC), Raleigh, NC;
DL Foster, founder, Gay Christian Movement Watch, Atlanta, GA;
Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs, Liberty Counsel, Lynchburg, VA;
Tim Johnson, Fredrick Douglass Foundation, Washington, D.C.;
Rachel Conner, representing Abiding Truth Ministries (smeared by SPLC as a “hate group”)
Pastor Glen Sawyer, New Mt. Zion Church of God in Christ, Elizabeth City, NC
Pastor Wil Nichols, Victorious Praise Fellowship COGIC, Durham, NC
Pastor Jon Robinson, Kingdom C.O.M.E. Ministries, Clairton, PA
Pastor Kenneth Jefferson, Greater Harvest COGIC

The following pro-family leaders and groups will issue supporting statements:

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, Rabbinical Alliance of America;
Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute (smeared as “hate group”)
Arthur Goldberg, author, “Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change”;
Linda Harvey, Mission America, Columbus, OH
Brian Camenker, Mass Resistance, (smeared as “hate group”)

Awwwww, Porno Pete got to go on vacation and Matt Barber was there! Did the wives come along? Just curious. Let’s see…so Rachel Conner was there, representing the most vicious, dishonest male anti-gay hatemonger in the country, Scott Lively. D.L. Foster, the purported “ex-gay”  who blames gay kids for their own depression and suicide, was there. I’m not familiar with the others, but my thinking is that the only thing the SPLC was confronted with today was the integrity of their own work.

Looking at the supporting cast, we have ol’ Yehuda Levin, probably the most unhinged rabbi in the United States, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Association, who would be the most vicious, dishonest female anti-gay hatemonger in the country if Linda Harvey would ever step aside and let her talk, convicted felon Arthur Goldberg, and Brian Camenker, who holds the title of Peter LaBarbera’s Jewish Friend.

These are the leaders of your anti-gay movement, ladies and gentlemen. Quite a stellar cast of characters. I will say, though, that we should appreciate their work, in a way, because we wouldn’t be gaining quite as much public support as we are if people like those above weren’t spreading their hate around on a daily basis. Sadly, their work does embolden some of the most violent, uneducated hicks in this country, which leads to a higher gay teen bullying/suicide rate, but normal people hear the words of the people at that press conference today and it nudges them a little bit closer to our side.

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth, which is sponsoring the press event, recently interviewed Pastor Wooden, who said that the SPLC’s gambit of labeling mainstream pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups” is seriously damaging the SPLC’s credibility.

No it isn’t.

Wooden also debunked the “civil rights” analogy used by “gay” activists, saying it is wrong to compare “my beautiful blackness” with homosexual perversion.

I simply cannot make that quote better.

LaBarbera said the SPLC is engaged in a thinly-veiled, one-sided campaign to demonize adherents of traditional Judeo-Christian morality. He noted that despite the considerable hatred and anti-Christian bigotry emanating from homosexual activists (e.g., Dan Savage’s vile hate-site, Santorum[dot]com), the SPLC has never labeled a “gay” organization or website as “hateful.”

Because we don’t:

1. Lie about you people. We let your words speak for themselves.
2. Advocate for denying you wingnuts your constitutional rights, and instead defend your right to believe whatever bullroar you want, as embarrassing as it must be for your ancestors.
3. Embolden people who would want to hurt bigoted Christian wingnuts — indeed, it’s widely recognized that our side is STILL the only one with a bodycount in this “culture war.”

We do:

1. Report your words verbatim.
2. Make fun of you sometimes. Grow up.
3. Correct the constant, alternate-reality lies perpetuated by extremist religious fanatics who are unwilling to live as adults in a world where not everybody is the same as they are.

The wingnut reaction to Hillary Clinton’s historic speech on international LGBT issues has been predictably lame, so it’s no surprise that Porno Pete has decided to weigh in, expressing his heartfelt support for the most homophobic nations on earth and their right to discriminate against gay people however they see fit. Here, let us comment on his latest emanation, and then move on to making fun of the WorldNetDaily column Peter posted along with it:

With their new escalation of promoting homosexual behavior to other nations through U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have raised America’s defiance toward her Creator to a new level — while needlessly alienating nations less morally compromised than our own. Not content to keep our decadence between our shores, the United States – through aggressively pro-“gay” Democratic administrations – now demands that other countries sink to our level by embracing homosexuality as a “human right.”

Nations “less morally compromised than our own” = places like Iran and Uganda. Those countries didn’t stop killing pr wanting to kill gay people just because it wasn’t “cool” anymore.

Who knew that when President Ronald Reagan spoke idealistically about America becoming a “shining city on the hill,” that city would turn out to be Sodom? Hillary earned plaudits from the Left with her U.N. speech on international “gay rights,” but her words were an affront to our Declaration of Independence, which appeals to “Nature and Nature’s God.”

Americans gang rape angels? [Pssst, Porno Pete: if you don't get that joke, it's because you're not smart enough to read the Sodom and Gomorrah story for what it actually says, rather than what your homophobic twit brain needs it to say.]

By redefining “human rights” to include the normalization of same-sex behaviors and gender confusion, Obama and Clinton have turned God’s natural moral order on its head. There are many countries – including Muslim-dominated nations and major powers like Russia – that reject homosexuality. By pushing sexual deviance on these nations, we only confirm their perception of America as a corrupt and declining – and very arrogant — superpower.

And wingnuts are so well known as crusaders against American imperialism and colonialism.

America, rooted in the Bible, historically embraced anti-sodomy laws, but now we are in the grip of an unprecedented moral and spiritual crisis that blackens our reputation worldwide. As one Muslim tweeted in reaction to Obama’s international “gay rights” plan: “There is a great divide between the Founding Fathers and the pro-gay regime ruling America [today].”

“One Muslim tweeted.” Well, that sounds like a consensus to me!

Aberrant sexuality is not a fundamental liberty, and defending morality is not hateful “bigotry.” Hillary claims, “Being gay is not a Western invention, it is a human reality.” But homosexuality is about changeable behavior – not intrinsic, innate identity – as evidenced by countless men and women who now live happy lives apart from homosexuality, despite once considering themselves “gay” or “lesbian.”

Actually, Hillary is right and Porno Pete needs to stick to fetish photography. Meanwhile we’ll keep on keepin’ on trying to keep track of all the “ex-gay” leaders who are coming out of the closet, again.

(There are no “Adultery Pride Parades” or “Porn-Users Pride Months.”)

Well, Pete, considering what you post on your “family blog,” maybe you should lobby for the second one. Might bring a few more hits to the old AFTAH site.

All Americans who love God and respect His wonderful design for mankind should be ashamed of Obama’s and Hillary’s campaign to force a deeply flawed sexual ideology on innocent nations that do NOT want to emulate American decadence.

That’s the end of his press release, and I feel like it’s missing an “Allahu akbar!”

Anyway.

So Pete links to another wingnut called Bob Unruh, who wrote about the same thing. Let’s make fun of him for a minute. First, the headlines:

Obama offers plan for U.S. to be global LGBT sex cop

Wait, have we moved onto the Bob Unruh guy? Because that sounds like something from Americans For Truth or some other similar kinky sexytime website. Sub-headline:

Wants to import homosexuals with special asylum privileges

Well that’s just crazy. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council hate group told us several years ago that gays should be an “export,” NOT an “import.” [It's because our currency is weak.]

And, you know, honestly, having read Unruh’s article, there’s nothing in there that remotely tops those two headlines. Oh sure, there’s mewling from Matt Barber and Randy Thomasson — Unruh basically called the first three third-rate wingnuts in his rolodex, I guess — but nothing that interesting.

In summary, anti-gay wingnuts have looked at this issue and decided that it’s best to side with nations like Iran, where they still hang people for being gay.

I wouldn’t expect any better from them, and neither should you.

Surprise, everybody, it’s The Holidays [I just victimized a buncha Fundamentalists right there, I sure did], which means that while the normal people of America are gearing up for some sort of The Holidays festivities [even Christmas!], wingnuts have reached the point in their liturgical calendar where they pause their usual whining and give thanks give to the poor simply stop yammering for five minutes to give the other 85% of the country a moment of respite ratchet up their whining about one particular fake issue: the liberals and atheists and gays and educated people who supposedly want to steal Christmas from them. Matt Barber decided to get a head start:

One conservative attorney says he has no sympathy for the atheists who have launched a holiday advertising campaign to promote their stance and attack Christians.

The billboard and newspaper ads that read “Bias Against Atheists is Naughty, Not Nice” are being placed in towns where atheists have made an effort to push religion out of the public arena.

“I have very little sympathy for atheists, the ones who are perpetrating anti-Christian bias,” admits Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel Action. “And when they receive a little push-back and people point out the reality that we are a Christian nation, they get in a huff.”

Let us break down his stupidity in three easy sentences:

1. Christians are a majority in this country, and atheists are simply making their voices heard. This is not, in and of itself, a crime against Christianity.

2. The billboards in question actually directly reference Christmas, which Matt Barber may be surprised to find out that many if not most atheists celebrate.

3. No, the United States is a secular nation which happens to be majority Christian, though those numbers are slipping every year. Only the willfully ignorant actually believe this is a “Christian nation.”

One more thing:

“It kind of falls on deaf ears when they start to play the victim card here, when atheist organizations across the United States like the ACLU and People for the American Way have religious liberty in their crosshairs,” the attorney contends.

Oh, those mean terrible atheists, who want to prevent Fundamentalist Christians from exercising rights that the Constitution never actually granted them in the first place. I mean, to backwards yokels like failed Allstate employee Matt Barber, it is a God-given [and therefore Constitutional, because they don't really understand how America works] right to freely discriminate against and exercise bigotry against anyone who is different from them, and that decidedly includes atheists.

Anyway, welcome to The Holidays, Truth Wins Out readers, and please be aware that by enjoying them, however you enjoy them, you are making wingnuts like Matt Barber burst out of their suspenders in rage-filled jealousy and bitterness, as they just aren’t very happy people.