Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Contact: John Becker, Director of Communications
Phone: 920-265-6023
E-Mail: john@truthwinsout.org
TWO Debunks Fake ‘Religious Freedom’ Lie With Groundbreaking Full-Page Ad
Ad Is In Response To New York Marriage Clerk Who Refused To Marry Lesbian Couple Under the Guise of ‘Religious Freedom’
Burlington, Vt. – Truth Wins Out announced today that it would place a groundbreaking full-page ad (see below) in the Ithaca Journal on Saturday that debunks the Religious Right’s latest strategy of claiming they are victims of religious discrimination when asked to follow the same laws as other citizens. TWO’s hard-hitting ad is headlined “Special Rights Masquerading as Religious Freedom” and signals that this fraudulent argument, increasingly used by anti-gay activists, will be vigorously challenged and exposed as a lie.
TWO’s ad is in response to the unethical actions of Ledyard, NY town clerk Rose Marie Belforti, who refused to issue a marriage license to a lesbian couple. Belforti disobeyed the law and then justified refusing to do her job by claiming she was a victim of religious discrimination.
“The private religious beliefs of public workers should be respected,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. “However, agents of the state are not entitled to pick and choose which members of the public they serve or which laws they obey. Refusing to serve entire classes of people based on religious objections will lead to chaos. It creates a slippery slope where self-appointed moral scolds serve as the gatekeepers to our freedom.”
Until recently, anti-gay activists argued that LGBT people were not entitled to equality because it was contrary to the will of the people. As recent polls show a sea change in support for marriage equality, particularly among younger demographics, the extreme right has switched its strategy. They now try to pose as martyrs whose beliefs give them the special right to discriminate and ignore the law.
“Belforti’s twisted version of ‘religious freedom’ comes at the expense of liberty for everyone else,” said TWO Communications Director John Becker. “It creates a balkanized nation that divides people based on sectarian differences. We must reject the unfair notion that some people have a special right to discriminate based on religious beliefs.”
TWO’s ad points out that allowing fundamentalists to follow their own rules would create chaos and undermine societal cohesion. The ad gives several examples of where this false notion of “religious freedom” might lead:
Will town clerks use their fundamentalist beliefs to refuse issuing marriage licenses to divorced people who wish to remarry?
Will town clerks use religion to justify turning away interfaith or interracial couples who want a marriage license?
Will postal workers refuse to carry mail they find objectionable, or refuse to deliver to households whose religious beliefs they disagree with?
Will religious public school teachers choose to educate only students who share their faith?
This latest effort is part of TWO’s Center Against Radical Extremism (TWOCARE), which debunks right wing propaganda and misinformation campaigns. TWOCARE also monitors and reports on extremist organizations and launches campaigns to spotlight their dangerous views.
(This ad is costing $2,500. If you like it, please kindly consider a tax-deductible contribution to help us pay for it)
“Our troops’ religious liberties are in unprecedented jeopardy because the government has caved in to pressure from small groups of activists to impose homosexual and bisexual behavior on our military,” ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Daniel Blomberg said in a statement Friday.
The ADF statement came just after the Obama administration cleared the last hurdle in ending the so-called “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which barred openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service. The ban will end after the 60-day waiting period, on September 20.
Once that happens, the first casualty may well be the religious freedom of chaplains and service members, Blomberg said. “No formal protections have been adopted despite many having been proposed,” he complained. “No Americans, and especially not our troops, should be forced to abandon their religious beliefs.”
Gawd, they’re melodramatic when they’re playing victim. Let’s break this down.
First of all, this has nothing do to with “our troops’ religious liberties.” One of the ways the Christian Right lies is by delusionally acting as if they represent the mainstream of America, or in this case, the mainstream of our troops. They do not. The majority of troops don’t care what the sexual orientation of the people they serve with is. They care whether or not they can do their jobs. It is a declining minority of troops who are so uncomfortable in their skin/religiously brainwashed that they are obsessed with other peoples’ sexuality.
Moreover, this has nothing to do with “religious liberties” in the first place. Are gay soldiers going to prevent these few wingnut soldiers from worshipping as they see fit? No? Well then, their religious liberty is intact! I am quite aware that the Christian Right views itself collectively as the World’s Best Snowflake Baby, due all the care, concern and deference their little hearts desire, but nowhere in the concept of “religious freedom” is the idea that they should be protected from people who think differently from them. Moreover, the bitching about the chaplains is always cute, as chaplains in a diverse environment such as the military are expected, as part of their job description, to be able to minister to all different kinds of people, including the many, many straight troops who have no interest in their bewildering, Philistine beliefs about human sexuality. And the idea that a wingnut outfit such as the Alliance Defense Fund is blubbering about chaplains being denied their “right” to preach hatred against gay people tells us more about their whiny, weird obsessions than it does about anything involving DADT repeal in the US military.
Finally, the quote about troops being forced to “abandon their religious beliefs” is simply insane to anyone with a triple digit IQ so I’m not spending a paragraph correcting it.
Hey ADF: stop whining. The Military isn’t whining. Try to follow their example.
Every single survey done this year has shown that Americans support marriage equality. But the Religious Right doesn’t Do Reality, as their entire worldview is based on fiction of the fantasy genre, so one of their legal arms, the Alliance Defense Fund,* decided to rustle up a survey that made them feel better:
While the New York Senate continues to debate same-sex marriage — and could vote Friday to make the state the sixth to redefine marriage — the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) has released a survey that shows nearly two-thirds of Americans (62 percent) support marriage solely as the union of one man and one woman.
The scientific survey, sponsored by ADF and completed by Public Opinion Strategies last month, was part of a comprehensive examination of American attitudes toward marriage. In addition to the national survey, the research included 14 focus groups across the country.
Uh huh. This quote will show you exactly how far up their fannies the legal minds of the ADF really are:
“This survey,” he said, “along with the nearly 80 percent win rate in ADF marriage cases, shows the opposition has created an illusion of momentum, but not a real base of support or track record of victory in the courts.”
Real base of support: Every grown-up survey conducted this year on the subject.
Track record in the courts: Uh. Well aside from the fact that the bigots were completely laughed out of court in the Prop 8 trial, every other recent major legal decision on the subject of equality over the past year has gone our way.
I feel bad, in a way, for anti-gay fundamentalists. Their denial of reality and their utter inability to deal with facts are mindblowing. I predict that in ten years when full marriage equality is the law of the land and their views, as I have said before, have been relegated to the status of white supremacists, their arguments on the subject will similarly have been reduced to televised grunts, scratches and the occasional pained whimper. And no one will feel sorry for them.
Oh, by the way, ‘Public Opinion Strategies,’ as a polling outfit, has a really, really crappy record when it comes to both doing good surveys and telling the truth. Hell, just Google their name and click through link after link of reporting about how bad they are at what they do. [A natural fit for the Religious Right, of course.]
*Yes, the same ADF which embarrassed itself to death in the Prop 8 trial.
Michigan Assistant Attorney General, Andrew Shirvell, was finally fired on Monday and it’s about damn time. Prior to his dismissal, the sicko had spent the last year relentlessly stalking and harassing openly gay University of Michigan student body president Chris Armstrong. That’s right, a 30-year old man representing the state government was acting out a peculiar obsession (or fantasy) with a 21-year old college student. It is shameful that it took so long to can this creep and the state’s tardiness clearly placed the mental health and physical well-being of Armstrong in jeopardy.
On Friday, Armstrong’s attorney, Deborah Gordon, also filed a complaint with the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission against Shirvell. The five key allegations against Shirvell were:
• Putting a swastika across a photo of Armstrong’s face and publishing the picture online.
• Calling Armstrong “Satan’s representative”
• Repeatedly harassing and heckling Armstrong outside his home and at other locations in and around the University of Michigan campus.
• Falsely accusing Armstrong of binge drinking and improper conduct at churches and on school grounds.
• Trying to get Armstrong removed from a summer internship in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office in Washington.
Attorney General Mike Cox, Shirvell’s boss, said he took action after a state investigation found that Shirvell “repeatedly violated office policies, engaged in borderline stalking behavior and inappropriately used state resources.”
“To be clear, I refuse to fire anyone for exercising their First Amendment rights, regardless of how popular or unpopular their positions might be,” Cox said in a statement. Cox concluded, however, that Shirvell’s conduct exceeded his claim of free speech when he appeared three separate times outside Armstrong’s Ann Arbor residence, including one creepy cameo at 1:30 a.m.
“That incident is especially telling because it clearly was about harassing Mr. Armstrong, not engaging in free speech,” Cox said. “The cumulative effects of his use of state resources, harassing conduct that is not protected by the First Amendment and his lies during the disciplinary conference all demonstrate adequate evidence of conduct unbecoming a state employee.”
In a September CNN interview, Shirvell used religion and the constitution to defend his bullying. “I’m a Christian citizen exercising my First Amendment rights,” he told Anderson Cooper. “I have no problem with the fact that Chris is a homosexual. I have a problem with the fact that he’s advancing a radical homosexual agenda.”
Is there any doubt that some nutty fundamentalist organizations will use this incident to falsely claim that the goal of the LGBT movement is to persecute Christians and criminalize Christianity? I suppose such claims would be true if one defines Christianity as the right for grown men to pursue college students at their home and haunt them at ungodly hours.
But, let’s get real for a minute. If it were a gay activist stalking a Christian at 1:30 AM under the guise of the First Amendment, our loving opponents would likely be advocating, to quote failed Nevada Senate nominee Sharron Angle, Second Amendment solutions.
I have no idea if Shirvell is a self-loathing gay man. But, if I were on a reality show called “Pick the Closeted Homosexual” he’d get my vote. The man comes across as gayer than Liberace in a pink wig and leopard skin hot pants.
For a moment I am going to play amateur shrink. From an outside perspective it appears that Shirvell intensely hates Armstrong because he has a crush on him and deeply resents that he is living the open, successful life he feels he can never lead. Armstrong represents the man he so desperately wants to have, as well as the complete human being he will never be as long as he is captive to an intolerant strain of Christianity. Only such a combustible combination would explain Shirvell’s psychotic obsession and extreme behavior that would take him outside Armstrong’s window at a time when a “good Christian” would otherwise be in bed sleeping.
But, let’s be clear: Shirvell is not a martyr, but a menace to society.
Beyond losing his job, he should be disbarred and if he continues his bizarre behavior he should be locked in a padded cell until he comes to his senses. Shirvell seems like a walking time bomb and Michigan officials should temporarily keep surveillance on this lunatic and provide adequate security until Armstrong is safe and secure.
While Shirvell finally paid a price for his fanaticism, similar bullying, particularly of LGBT youth, often goes unnoticed. Christians who are serious about their religion should pledge to stop such harassment by refusing to allow zealots like Shirvell to use religion as cover to justify their crazy crusades.
What do I always say about wingnuts? They are never, EVER just insane on one front. Mat Staver and Matt Barber, both of the extremist,anti-gay Liberty Counsel, talked on the radio today about how they believe Barack Obama is positioning himself to become the “global dictator” out of some World of Warcraft scenario spoken about in the fictional Left Behind series. (I won’t even call it “Biblical,” because the weird obsession with Revelation is a fairly new phenomenon, and primarily an American thing.) Here’s what they said:
Staver: When President Barack Obama was running for president, when we became president, I’ve long since stated that his end game has and is not President of the United States of America; that he has a broader worldwide agenda. And that’s why he’s to go to places around the world and down the United States of America, because he thinks that’s going to gain him popularity in some of the other foreign areas. And that’s really where I think his eyes are focused, not on [being] President of the United States.
Barber: Now here’s the scary thing, I believe that that is true, but in order to have a post-American world, you have to have a post-America. And that’s why his policies are pushing us into a post-American world. He is destroying American exceptionalism and is trying to do away with our free market system here in the United States. He’s trying to create the climate where we have a post-American world.
Staver: Well, because America is always going to be, or at least it has been up until now, world player. And for him to be on the world scene, he’s going to have to bring America down to the level of some of the European and some other countries with regards to commonality. And America always had the exceptionalism and you can’t really have worldwide influence if you’ve got the America exceptional nation because you’re going to have to have them all basically on the same level.
So for him to go into this national, or global, leadership – which he wants to do – it’s no wonder why he wants to make America’s economy like the European economy; it’s no wonder why he wants to downplay Christianity so he can up-play Islam.
This man does not respect America. He never has.
Great. Mat and Matt think Obama is The Boogeyman, that Barack Obama wants to take over the world, that he wants to destroy the United States, blah blah blah. He’s The Brain, which I guess makes Rahm Emanuel Pinky.
What the hell?!
Now I understand why Kyle at Right Wing Watch was basically throwing his hands in the air after he posted on this. These people are straight-up DSM-IV material.
I really, really wish they had gotten to argue in the Prop 8 case. It would have been ten times as funny watching the judge tear the Liberty Counsel dinguses apart as it was with the Alliance Defense Fund.
Last month, the Burlington County, New Jersey, public library director Gail Sweet — acting in violation of library guidelines – censored the book Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology. She acted in collaboration with Christian Rightists who had succeeded in censoring the same book at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in May. Both actions were effected solely on the basis of antigay bigotry; in the view of the censors, all literature relating to youth and sexual orientation constitutes “child pornography.” Anti-censorship, free-speech, and pro-equality advocates mounted an ongoing resistance campaign.
Today, a few weeks later, the Cookeville Herald Citizen in Tennessee reported that the Alliance Defense Fund and local evangelical author Ilene Vick are suing the Putnam County Library for prohibiting the use of a public room by her evangelical book club.
The newspaper cites the library’s policies for room use:
* Library activities have priority over any outside pre-arranged or regularly scheduled groups or events.
* Bookings for meeting rooms are to be arranged through the reference librarian no less than 24 hours before the meeting.
* Meeting rooms are available for public gatherings of a civic, cultural or educational character. Rooms are not available for meetings of social, political, partisan or religious purposes; for the benefit of private individuals or commercial concerns; for the presentation of one side of controversial matters; or when in the judgment of the Library Board, disorder may be likely to occur.
* The rooms may be used by joint committees or associations from more than one church for business, educational, and cultural transactions when no religious services are involved.
Christian Right media outfit OneNewsNow joined the ADF in asserting that Christian Rightists enjoy a special right to bypass any usage restrictions and to evangelize wherever they please.
Should an atheist, Buddhist feminist, Jewish environmentalist, or gay conservative author seek to use the Putnam County library’s meeting room, I’m betting that ADF, OneNewsNow, and all of their friends will threaten the author — not the library. Censorship is great — until you’re not the one being denied access to the public.
A student at Augusta State University in Augusta, Georgia, is crying “victim!” because, in order to graduate with the counseling degree she seeks, she must exhibit an understanding of the psychology and science involved in human sexuality. She would rather skip that part and stick with her uninformed bigotry:
Jennifer Keeton, a Christian who believes that being gay is a choice (she thinks gays suffer from “identity confusion”), is represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal defense organization. WRDW reports:
At the end of the first year, she was presented with a remediation plan, or courses to improve in certain areas. That plan includes classes to improve writing and grammar skills, as well as workshops to make her more sensitive to the gay population — something her instructors say is necessary for her to be an effective counselor.
“The school counseling faculty has decided that my views are not acceptable for me or to share with other students,” she says in a video statement produced by the Alliance Defense Fund. “They have required a remediation plan in which the end result would be me altering my beliefs or being dismissed from the program.”
In a letter to Keeton, program directors say that is not the case.
In the letter, associate director Mary Jane Anderson-Wiley points to what she calls Keeton’s “belief that you possess a special knowledge about the way that other people should live their lives, and that others need to adopt a similar set of values.”
The letter goes on to say that “the content of [Keeton's] moral or religious beliefs is not in question.”
According to the remediation plan, program directors are concerned about Keeton’s ability to effectively council people who are gay or lesbian, citing class papers and comments where Keeton has disagreed with the gay “lifestyle.”
The letter also cites an email from Keeton in which she says: “my Christian moral views are not just about me. I think the Bible’s teaching is true for all people and it shows the right way to live.”
Let’s get this out of the way first: It’s utterly unsurprising that grammar skills were also included in her remediation plan.
As for her “views” and sharing them with potential clients, yes, Jennifer, your “views” are unacceptable if you want to be a counselor! You can hold stupid beliefs until the day you die, as that is your right under American law. However, jobs have qualifications! To be a heart surgeon, it’s useful to understand that hearts are actually not shaped like Valentine’s candy, for instance. A refusal to believe otherwise would likely disqualify a medical student from graduating, because it betrays an ignorance of biology. Likewise, it’s important for former vice-presidential candidates to understand how to log into Facebook, because it’s necessary for refudiation purposes. AND in counseling, psychology, psychiatry, and related fields, a student must, in order to be a VALID, TRAINED counselor, be able to grasp and implement the work done by countless experts before them in understanding how mental health works! It has nothing to do with your religion, Jennifer. It has to do with the fact that you’ve shown yourself to be a complete ignoramus on a subject that is crucial to the field you’d like to enter one day.
We are VERY SORRY, Jennifer, that Augusta State University isn’t giving you a pass, but as it is, you are unqualified. If stupid, incorrect beliefs are part of your “religion,” you probably should reconsider said religion, or barring that, look into a field that doesn’t require you to interact with the public in any way that involves innocent people’s mental health.
Here’s a news report on the situation. For a little context, Augusta State is largely a commuter school in a part of Georgia where many of the residents still haven’t gotten over emancipation, so it’s encouraging to see that the younger generations at ASU mostly understand what the hell is going on.
[h/t Towleroad. There's also video there of the girl herself whining that she's not getting special treatment because she's a fundamentalist. I would embed it here, but we just mopped the floors.]
These are the faces of people whom Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and other Christian Rightists believe are undeserving of equal protection under federal hate-crime law.
These organizations today protested President Obama’s signing of the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which revised existing federal hate-crime law to protect victims of felony violence committed on the basis of the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
Focus on the Family joined Erik Stanley of the Alliance Defense Fund in asserting that while “all victims deserve equal justice,” LGBT people should be excluded from that equal justice, as they were under the previous federal hate-crime law. The two organizations favor the earlier law, which only offered protection for victims in some demographics — race and religion — but not others.
Then and now, the federal law explicitly limits hate-crime punishment to felony violence, and both the law and the First Amendment of the Constitution explicitly protect and preserve free speech. Nevertheless, Focus and the ADF equated the punishment of felony violence with “the criminalization of speech that is not deemed ‘politically correct.’” In short, ADF and Focus both maintain that violence is a valid (albeit incorrect) form of religious and political expression.
The Family Research Council, a spinoff of Focus, declared that the equitable punishment of felony violence “is part of a radical social agenda that could ultimately silence Christians and use the force of government to marginalize anyone whose faith is at odds with homosexuality.”
The Traditional Values Coalition has long contended that gay and transgender Americans should not be protected from violence, as other targeted “minorities” are. Exodus International spokesman Randy Thomas has repeatedly insisted that the punishment of felony violence against LGBT people amounts to punishment of “thought crime.” And PFOX frequently claims that ex-gays are the most persecuted minority in America.
The Washington Post notes tonight:
According to the FBI, law enforcement agencies around the country reported 7,624 hate crime incidents in 2007, the most recent year for which data were available. More than half were categorized as racially motivated, and about 17 percent were based on sexual orientation.
No such violence against ex-gays was reported.
The United Church of Christ was one of several religious institutions that applauded the newly revised law.
Focus on the Family yesterday promoted “religious freedom” for itself, but silently mouthed a “no comment” regarding religious freedom for anyone who isn’t evangelical.
Focus on the Family and the religious-rightist legal attack-dogs at Alliance Defense Fund claimed to promote “Christian” clubs in public schools, promote the expression of supposedly “Christian” prejudices against gay and non-Christian public-school students, and promote amateur preachers’ self-aggrandizing public “prayer.”
But when it comes to the rights of atheists, Jews, gay Christians, or others to express themselves — or to protect their children from captive proselytization by fundamentalists in classrooms — Focus and ADF couldn’t care less about the freedom not to bow before idols of fundamentalism.
The New Jersey Civil Rights Division has ruled that a church group broke the law by refusing to rent out its beachfront property to a same-sex couple for a civil-union ceremony.
“Our position remains the same,” said Brian Raum, senior legal counsel for ADF. “Religious organizations have a right to use their property in a way that’ consistent with their religious beliefs.
“It’ clear, based on Supreme Court decisions, that religious organizations have a First Amendment right to associate with messages that they agree with.”
According to the Newark Star-Ledger, the civil rights division ruled that a lawsuit may proceed, not that any law had been broken.
The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association violated the terms of a special tax exemption which it received in exchange for granting public access to public boardwalk pavilion.
In short, the association sought, accepted for years, and ultimately misused public tax benefits to discriminate against members of the general public.
At no time was the association required to use its private property in a manner inconsistent with its beliefs.
The Star-Ledger elaborates:
Lawrence Lustberg, cooperating attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, called the decision “a spectacular victory.”
“The primary message of the decision is once you open your facility to the general public, then it’s got to remain open on a non-discriminatory basis,” Lustberg said.
In a second ruling Monday, the Civil Rights Division said that the Camp Meeting Association did not discriminate against another lesbian couple that applied to use the pavilion for their civil union ceremony in April 2007. That’s because by then, the group had stopped renting out the pavilion entirely.
The association and its religious-right allies — preoccupied with financial gain at taxpayer expense — continue to distract public attention from a very simple choice that they face:
Either treat all taxpayers equally, or refuse taxpayer subsidies.
Burlington, Vt. – Truth Wins Out announced today that it would place a groundbreaking full-page ad (see below) in the Ithaca Journal on Saturday that debunks the Religious Right’s latest strategy of claiming they are victims of religious discrimination when asked to follow the same laws as other citizens. TWO’s hard-hitting ad is headlined “Special Rights Masquerading as Religious Freedom” and signals that this fraudulent argument, increasingly used by anti-gay activists, will be vigorously challenged and exposed as a lie.
. She acted in collaboration with Christian Rightists who had succeeded in censoring the 
