If you live in Indiana, you can now get a special license plate, a portion of the proceeds from which will go to the Indiana Youth Group, which works with issues related to LGBT teens across that state. If you are a normal person, your reaction to this is somewhere between shrugging and being happy that an LGBT youth group has been added to the myriad organizations which benefit from customized license plates. If you are a wingnut from the American Family Association, you are blowing a gasket:
A pro-family activist has said Indiana ignored the health issues involved in the homosexual lifestyle when it decided to issue an LGBT license plate.
[...]
Micah Clark, Executive Director for the American Family Association, said the DMV’s decision to approve the plate was troubling when one considers the tremendous health risks associated with the homosexual lifestyle.
The Center for Disease Control says that practicing homosexual men accounted for 61% of new HIV infections, despite being only 2% of the U.S. population. Homosexual men aged 13-29 accounted for 27% of the new cases.
“You have to question what the DMV was thinking when they approved a license plate for a group which recruits teens into the homosexual lifestyle. Since health risks do not seem to matter, what is to prevent a cigar club from now getting a license plate from the DMV?”
Oh, Micah is one of those really, really confused wingnuts who still thinks that gays recruit. Poor thing. Most of the wingnuts who believe that died in the 80′s. How did reality miss him?
Also, we will simply note that it’s still grotesque to watch “pro-family” leaders, who seriously do not care about how many gay people die, whether from being bullied to death, or from AIDS, concern troll about the “health risks of homosexual behavior.” If they actually cared, they would get on board with real, grown-up sexual education, for all people, including LGBT people, and with making prevention a priority. They would not be spewing alternate-reality hatred about groups “recruiting teens into the homosexual lifestyle.” As usual, it is their ideology they care about, and nothing more.
One more thing, to the journalist who wrote the piece: it is highly misleading to refer to Clark as a “pro-family activist.” He is the spokesperson for a well-known and certified hate group, and nothing more.
You see, if gay guys stop having sex and using poppers, all the AIDS will go away. Because that’s the problem with sub-Saharan Africa.
It happened just before the black-out, but no less than Rick Warren sharply rebuked Bryan Fischer for his HIV/AIDS denialism. Apparently the American Family Association has chosen to isolate itself further, even within the conservative Evangelical world. They’re earning their hate group label, yes indeed.
There is literally no anti-science conspiracy theory far-fetched enough for a dim bulb like Bryan Fischer to latch onto. So we are not surprised that the most hateful spokesperson for one of the country’s most ridiculous hate groups, the American Family Association, is now an AIDS denialist:
I recently came across several articles commemorating the 20th anniversary of Magic Johnson’s HIV diagnosis. I still remember the screaming headlines in 1991, the abrupt termination of his NBA career at the height of his powers, and his subsequent and short-lived come back.
One would have expected pictures of Magic, taken 20 years after this life-sentence diagnosis, to be a withered, shriveled version of his former self, his life force eaten away by this killer virus.
“One would have expected,” said the renowned scientist and medical researcher Bryan Fischer.
So why is Magic the picture of health 20 years after this supposedly terminal diagnosis? Easy: the HIV virus does NOT cause AIDS. Since, as one of the world’s leading virologists, Peter Duesberg of U.C. Berkeley, says, HIV is a “harmless passenger virus,” Magic is likely to carry HIV with him to the end of a long and healthy life.
Duesberg wrote a bombshell book in 1996, Inventing the AIDS Virus, which exposes the myth of the so-called AIDS virus.
Peter Duesberg’s theories have been widely disproven, and hundreds of thousands of people have died in Africa, in part because certain leaders over there took him seriously for a while. He’s a quack, pure and simple. Right up Bryan Fischer’s alley…
In fact, in this respect, the bogus HIV/AIDS link is just like the hysterical anthropogenic global warming scam.
And only true idiots or those who stand to profit from huge corporations for propagating the idea that anthropogenic global warming is a myth would lend credence to that statement. As I highly doubt that Bryan Fischer is making that much money from the AFA, I’m going to continue believing he’s simply hysterical, incredibly easily led and simply not that smart.
Anyway, there’s no reason to go through Bryan’s piece line by line — that would be giving him more attention than he’s worth — but he sums up by blaming the entire AIDS crisis on gay men and poppers. This, of course, discounts the lives of the untold numbers of AIDS victims around the globe who are heterosexual, women and children. But wingnuts are pretty casual about discounting other people’s lives when it comes to pushing their propaganda, I’ve found.
It’s World AIDS Day. Know your status. Protect yourselves.
[h/t Joey]
For the piggish, hateful, uneducated counterpoint to this, visit Porno Pete’s Dungeon of Doom at Americans For Truth Dot Com. [No link for the fetish-photographer, and no need to waste any time rebutting him.]
Bryan Fischer is so stupid that he thinks that guys had unprotected sex and contracted HIV/AIDS because Barney Frank “modeled a lifestyle” for people. Yes, everybody was just a-followin’ Barney Frank’s lead.
It’s sad that there are people in this country who are uninformed/fearful enough to believe this crap. The good news is that their numbers go down every day. Fundamentalist idiots just aren’t replacing themselves in actuarial tables.
Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Greg Quinlan’s Defamatory Claims Are a Complete Fabrication and a Brazen Attempt to Smear LGBT Organization, Says TWO
Burlington, Vt. – Truth Wins Out reacted with outrage and disgust today to a television interview with Greg Quinlan, President of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX), who falsely claimed that TWO Executive Director, Wayne Besen, put a hit out on his life. Quinlan is also a lobbyist for the New Jersey Family Policy Council.
On October 7, 2011 Quinlan was interviewed on News-Plus with Mark Segraves (WDCW-TV). The comments, first noticed by Ex-Gay Watch, came to TWO’s attention on Tuesday.
Throughout the show, Quinlan distorts reality and flat out dissembles on several subjects. However, at the 10:38 mark he fabricates an alleged hit on his life. According to Quinlan:
“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.”
“The bizarre and defamatory scenario portrayed by Quinlan exists only in his own mind,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “What he said is entirely fabricated and a dishonest and brazen attempt to smear me personally, destroy my reputation, and discredit the good work of Truth Wins Out.”
The integrity of PFOX has long been questioned. Its former president, Richard Cohen, was expelled for life from the American Counseling Association for multiple ethics violations. A key member of the organization’s Speaker’s Bureau, Arthur Abba Goldberg, is a convicted felon sent to prison for financial fraud. In 2010, Quinlan attended a conference organized by Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, a group that is listed as a certified Southern Poverty Law Center hate group. During his speech at the meeting, Quinlan disparaged LGBT people and said that when he used to live as an openly gay man he wasn’t a “flaming faggot.”
“I wasn’t your flaming faggot, you know,” Quinlan told the chuckling crowd. “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.”
“It speaks to Quinlan’s character that he lies so easily and simply makes things up,” said TWO’s Besen. “I’d be willing to take a lie detector test to prove my innocence and to show that I’ve never said such vile words. Will Quinlan also take these tests to prove the ‘veracity’ of his calumny? Truth Wins Out is also exploring legal options at this time.”
Truth Wins Out is a nonprofit organization that fights anti-LGBT extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Janice Shaw Crouse of the Concerned Women for America is very concerned! You see, the Obama administration is upping its contributions in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa, and they’ve appointed Ellen DeGeneres as a “special envoy” to raise awareness, etc. This is a problem because:
“She is openly lesbian and obviously is an activist on the issue of homosexual rights and has taken a very active role in pushing the homosexual agenda. So for her to be the person who’s out front and the face of the Obama administration in the whole fight against AIDS I think is inappropriate,” Crouse decides.
She is also concerned about how the appointee will be received in sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS has been rampant. “There are plenty of Christian nations in that region and some Muslim nations in that region, so she is not going to receive a very warm welcome there or be an appropriate person to be the face of the fight against AIDS,” the CWA spokesperson warns.
Janice Shaw Crouse is well aware that certain nations like Uganda would rather kill gays than cure AIDS, and she wants people to know that she stands on the side of the oppressors, unlike that Ellen lesbian, I guess is the message here?
CNN is doing a series to mark the thirtieth anniversary of the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in this country, and I recommend that all read the remembrances of the acclaimed author Edmund White, who was there from the very first meeting of what became the Gay Men’s Health Crisis. As a writer who is still relatively young, I find it fascinating, and crucial, to listen to and learn from these figures who lived through that time. Many of our readers, I know, did live through it. So whether this is a look back or a fresh education, it merits our attention. Here’s a bit of it, and then I’ll just send you over to CNN’s website:
In 1985, Edmund White had five or six published books behind him, a Swiss lover with him and the outcome of an HIV test ahead of him. When the results came in, White told his partner:
“I’m a good enough novelist to know how this is going to work out. I’m going to be positive, you’re going to be negative, you’re going to be very nice about it, but you’re going to break up with me within a year.”
By many accounts, White is a good novelist — a great one, actually, having written numerous acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction.
Unfortunately, his storytelling sensibility foretold how the HIV tests would turn out and how he would lose his lover because of the dire prognosis: only two or three years left to live.
Yesterday, in the piece I wrote where I smacked down the latest lunacy from Victoria Jackson, I made a remark regarding the very wealthy, namely that the rich are no better or worse than any of the rest of us, but that it depends on what kinds of stewards they are, of that wealth. Then this morning I read this about Elizabeth Taylor:
Elizabeth Taylor has reportedly left the bulk of her $600 million fortune to AIDS charities.
The Hollywood veteran passed away on Wednesday after losing her long battle with congestive heart disease, sending the show business world into mourning.
Frequently praised for her role as an AIDS/HIV activist, the star has continued her good work by leaving a large portion of her wealth to her beloved charities, reports The New York Post.
That is so awesome. Liz Taylor, in her death, decided to put her money where her mouth is. For that I can only give her respect.
Confession time: I have literally never seen a film that Elizabeth Taylor was in. Before you older readers go “Oh my god, that baby is ignorant!,” you have to understand that I never, ever see movies. I literally have not seen a movie all the way through in the past year, or more. It’s just something I don’t really do. I don’t even know how to work my television. Music? Yeah, I listen to Keely Smith and Blind Willie Johnson and Dolly Parton, so it has nothing to do with a generational thing. I just don’t watch movies. I may have never seen an Elizabeth Taylor film, but I also don’t know who any other current Hollywood stars are, besides maybe James Franco, because OMG. I have seen exactly one of his films, Milk, which was fine, but I only saw it because all the gays were watching it, and I ended up in a group of people one night who went to see it. It was okay.
The only reason I point this out is to explain that I do not give a damn about Hollywood, so when I accord Liz Taylor respect for what she did in her death, it is in no way colored by any preexisting adoration. [Maybe I would love her work! Get me to sit down in front of a movie without getting up twelve minutes in to go find something more interesting to do, like laundry, and we'll find out!] I mostly associate her with that creepy White Diamonds commercial that ran for many years after she plausibly looked like she did in said commercial. I simply respect the hell out of her for what she chose to do with her fortune when she died. That’s all.
Equality Matters is providing us with a little flashback today, to a 2007 interview Mike Huckabee did on Fox News Sunday:
They point out that such beliefs have been marinating in the little country brain of Mike Huckabee for almost twenty years:
Huckabee’s anti-gay history goes all the way back to at least 1992, when Huckabee advocated against additional funding for AIDS research and called for U.S. government to “isolate” AIDS patients. In an Associated Press questionnaire, Huckabee argued that if the government were truly serious about doing something about AIDS, they would take “steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague”:
As a candidate for a U.S. Senate seat in 1992, Huckabee answered 229 questions submitted to him by The Associated Press. Besides a quarantine, Huckabee suggested that Hollywood celebrities fund AIDS research from their own pockets, rather than federal health agencies.
“If the federal government is truly serious about doing something with the AIDS virus, we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague,” Huckabee wrote.
“It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS. It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents.”
Yeah, it’s so difficult to understand. I really hope he runs for president.
Greg Quinlan’s Defamatory Claims Are a Complete Fabrication and a Brazen Attempt to Smear LGBT Organization, Says TWO
