FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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.

Sign TWO’s Petition

The Catholic League’ Bill Donahue Is More Interested In Scapegoats Than Solutions, Says TWO

NEW YORK – Truth Wins Out today harshly condemned the Catholic League and its President Bill Donohue for its full-page New York Times ad in which the organization served as an enabler for sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and sought to deflect blame for the crisis by smearing the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

The offensive ad sought to exonerate the Pope and other priests of blame who are ensnared in a widening sexual abuse scandal that reaches across the globe. Instead of offering an apology for sinful behavior, the Catholic League served as apologists and used the ad to try to deflect the crisis by attacking gay priests.

“This was a disgraceful ad and an unconscionable attempt to smear gay and lesbian people,” said Truth Wins Out’ Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Clearly, the Catholic League is more interested in finding scapegoats than solutions.”

In today’ ad, entitled, “Going for the Vatican Jugular”, Donohue wrote, “The Times continues to editorialize about the “pedophilia crisis,’ when all along it has been a homosexual crisis.”

“We should remind Donohue that there is no child sexual abuse crisis in gay community centers, neighborhoods, churches or social organizations,” said TWO’ Besen. “This nightmare has to do with Catholic pedophile priests and those who served as their enablers. The Catholic League thinks it is mounting a defense, but it is only exacerbating the pain felt by the defenseless who were taken advantage of by authority figures in the church.”

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that defends the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community against anti-gay misinformation campaigns, counters the so-called “ex-gay” industry and educates about the lives of LGBT people. Our goal is to help individuals be true to themselves and lead genuine lives of honesty and integrity.

Be warned: Those new National Organization for Marriage anti-GLBT actor auditions videos Wayne reported about this week are gone. NOM noticed that its evil ruse had been exposed and demanded that YouTube take them down. Even a clip of a recent MSNBC Rachel Maddow clip that included the audition tapes is gone. NOM’s reason: copyright infringement.

YouTube has to develop a bigger pair. The fact that a national organization is working to deny equality under law to millions of certain citizens makes the story newsworthy. Showing at least excerpts is fair use — under law.

Why are people so afraid of the anti-equality crowd? It’s so obvious that the organized fundies are the ones to fear. NOM was willing to lie, manipulate, and terrify the ignorant segment of the public, low-info types who can be compelled en masse to do what is right for their brand of Christianity, but wrong for anyone who really believes in basic American ideals. The tactic is cynical, selfish, immoral, and destructive. And it works: Remember Proposition 8?

At HuffPo, Lambda Legal’s Evan Wolfson provides a description opf the ads and refutes their vicious claims, so that at least some of those unable to view the outrage can see clearly the threat with which we are dealing. It’s a long excerpt, but it is an important one:

Consider what the actors in the NOM ad pretend to be:

A doctor who wants to discriminate against her patients, despite civil rights laws and medical ethics that the California Supreme Court upheld – in a case having nothing to do with marriage.

An officer of a New Jersey group that for years voluntarily operated a beachside pavilion with special tax-breaks that required it be open to the public – but then tried to turn down a lesbian couple. The case did not turn on marriage, since New Jersey doesn’t yet allow gay couples to marry, but, rather, basic civil rights laws about open access to public accommodations.

A Massachusetts parent who sought to dictate public school curriculum about the diverse families children will need to be aware of to thrive in a diverse world, and then wanted to remove her child from classes in a way that would have disrupted class and imposed unreasonable burdens on the school and other kids.

The law in California, as elsewhere, is that doctors can’t discriminatorily refuse to treat patients ‚Äî Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, gay or non-gay; that has nothing to do with marriage, and yet NOM incites fear. The law in New Jersey, as elsewhere, says that organizations running public accommodations such as restaurants or rental halls cannot discriminatorily exclude people ‚Äî African American, Latino, or Asian, gay or non-gay; that has nothing to do with marriage, and yet NOM says that the discriminators are somehow the victims. The law in Massachusetts, as elsewhere, of course allows parents to teach their kids whatever they want, and even to send them to private schools or do home-schooling. The law also rightly sets rules for determining public school curriculum without having every parent, or special interest with an agenda, coming in and imposing their views on everyone else’s kids ‚Äî yours or mine, gay or non-gay.

I encourage you to read Wolfson’s entire piece — he has worked on the front lines of this fight and knows the terrain. And he’s a lawyer.

National Organization for Marriage may believe that its copyright trumps our right to know the truth, but the group is wrong. Here is an opportunity to dtake action and do some good: Anyone with a thirst for a truly equal US will share descriptions of the ad — along with the truth about marriage equality and the fact that is is no threat to anyone, save those who need legal supremacy — with everyone they know. It is particularly urgent that we talk with those who question the need for civil-marriage equality. If we can’t trust YouTube to stand up to transmit the truth, we must do it.

Here is a debate between NOM’s Maggie Gallagher and Human Rights Campaign Joe Solmonese on CNN’s “Hardball,” where the HRC chief handily obliterates his opponent’s position using truth and fact.

HRC\’s Joe Solmonese on Hardball 04/08/09

Christian evangelicals, posing as defenders of the Mormon Church, jointly published a Dec. 5 ad titled No Mob Veto in the New York Times. The ad falsely accused gay pro-marriage protests of violence and intimidation.

Five days later, Truth Wins Out responded with a full-page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune which exposed the evangelicals’ anti-Mormon bigotry and pointed out that the gay protests in 300 cities were peaceful.

Public reaction to the ad is growing.

Here’s a sampling of blog commentary about the ad:
Justin McLachlan
Right Wing Sparkle
Towle Road
Queerty
Obama Is America
California Gay Marriage Blog
Mike Tidmus
Band of Thebes
Chris Crain
Michael Hamar
Ron’s Log
A Soft Answer: ‘An unseemly mix of politics and Mormonism
Michelle Malkin
Peter’s POZ Blog

Especially noteworthy: (Read More)