Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
TWO Addresses Concerns with Montgomery School Superintendent Joshua Starr in Open Letter
WASHINGTON – Truth Wins Out sent an open letter to Montgomery School Superintendent Joshua Starrstrongly urging him to stop disseminating “ex-gay” fliers by the discredited organization Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX). The virulently anti-gay group distributed 8,000 sheets at five Montgomery County schools this week, even though Starr calls the fliers “reprehensible and deplorable.”
“While non-profit literature must not be blocked based on viewpoint, it can and should be prohibited if it contains blatant misinformation that jeopardizes the health and well being of students,” wrote TWO’s Executive Director Wayne Besen in the letter to Starr. “The PFOX flier easily fits this description and the group has a dubious history that includes bizarre and bigoted practices that have no place in your public school system.”
The letter points out that PFOX board member Peter Sprigg, who works for Southern Poverty Law Center hate group the Family Research Council, once said that he wanted to “export” LGBT people and that he supports criminalizing homosexuality.
In August 2010, PFOX president Greg Quinlan spoke at a conference organized by another 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.”
At the same-conference, PFOX public speaker and convicted felon, Arthur Abba Goldberg, 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. “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.”
“Let’s not beat around the bush: If an unsavory organization insulted other minorities with despicable epithets and demanded that they be ‘exported’ or jailed – no school in Montgomery County would be distributing their leaflets,” TWO’s letter said. “The fact that you would allow this politically motivated organization to spread its noxious message about LGBT people shows an unreasonable and unfathomable double standard.”
Furthermore, 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.
“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?” TWO’s letter asks. “To continue allowing this specific organization into your school system is to court disaster. It is grossly irresponsible, reckless, and a dereliction of the primary duty of administrators to protect students from harm.”
Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
Last night, Michele Bachmann [Wingnut-MN] gave the Tea Party response to the Republican response to the State of the Union address. But before that, Michele Bachmann told a group in Iowa that our Founding Fathers worked to eradicate slavery and that all immigrants were treated equally, which is not only not true, but is an astonishingly ignorant statement for an elected official to make. Watch as Chris Matthews and Joan Walsh tear apart Bachmann and one of the Teabagger mouthpieces, Sal Russo, who was tasked with defending the indefensible on the program.
A cable news talk show host actually took responsibility for correcting a lie told on his show. Hardball’s Chris Matthews deserves much credit for having the class and integrity to set the record straight.
To backtrack, earlier this week the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins appeared on Hardball and claimed that gay men are more likely to molest children. He backed his false and defamatory statement by referencing the “research” of the American College of Pediatricians.
Sounds like a credible group, right? It’s not.
It is really a small, obscure political organization comprised of discredited quacks that do not produce peer review research on homosexuality. The primary reasons this virulently anti-gay group exists are to distort legitimate science and to purposefully confuse people into thinking it is the respected American Academy of Pediatrics — which is supportive of LGBT people.
Unfortunately, Matthews’ original show ended without him clarifying that The American College of Pediatricians was a sham group that was more interested in prejudice than pediatrics. Truth Wins Out wrote the producers of the show and urged them to clear up this confusion. GLAAD shared our concerns and contacted them too. To their credit — they actually did the right thing and, in this case, truth won out.
Such “corrections” are not perfect, because, as TWO’s Michael Airhart points out, “Few of the FRC and Focus fans who watched Monday’s program were watching today.” However, Matthews’ correction is certainly better than allowing lies to go completely uncontested.
In many cases, cable news and talk shows are harming our country. News outlets, such as MSNBC, CNN and especially FOX are consistently giving soapboxes to snake oil salesmen who gleefully exploit these networks as propaganda delivery devices.
Truth Wins Out isn’t naive or Utopian. We completely understand the need for ratings and putting on interesting guests. We are also sympathetic to hosts and producers who can’t possibly know every crackpot and quack out there. However, for the common good of this nation, there are some reasonable safeguards that cable networks should put in place:
1) Consider NOT BOOKING a spokesperson that has repeatedly lied or belongs to an organization that is a certified Southern Poverty Law Center hate group. The cable networks should have higher standards and strive to put on respectable and credible guests who don’t have dubious histories of disseminating falsehoods.
2) If cable shows do elect to have known reprobates, like Perkins, on the air, it is their duty to prepare for the inevitable lies. On-spot fact checkers should be hired to correct calumnies in real time. If the cable shows fail to take this step, they are willfully serving as conduits for defamation and abetting propagandists.
3) Each cable show should end with a short “corrections” segment to set the record straight if lies have been told on a previous show. This would immediately create a culture of accountability and shame mendacious guests into at least being more careful.
4) When booking guests, the cable networks should aim to include real experts. Having clueless airheads filling airtime sullies the national debate and detracts from voters understating crucial issues that determine the future of America.
5) When science is in the spotlight, it is in the public interest to book legitimate, independent scientists with peer review work who are not discredited by obvious conflicts of interest. The cable networks should avoid guests who bill themselves as “experts”, but are actually paid industry shills. For example, having a climate “expert” on who works for the pollution lobby is not helpful in discussing global warming. Booking a discredited quack affiliated with anti-gay SPLC hate groups simply clouds the discussion on homosexuality, instead of advancing it.
Cable networks should consider adopting these five steps for the good of this country. Whether they admit it or not, they have a social and civic responsibility to inform the American public with the best information available. When guests are booked who disseminate lies that go unchallenged, it debases the culture, harms entire groups of people, and damages our national interest.
When confronted with Tony Perkins’ tainted source of misinformation, Chris Matthews acted honorably by letting viewers know that Perkins’ “facts” were actually “fiction”. Why can’t this noble exception become the rule in cable news?
It is time cable networks make some desperately needed changes and begin taking their social responsibility as seriously as their ratings. If they do it right, they can be much more informative, while still being entertaining.
If you would like to thank Chris Matthews, please e-mail the show:
MSNBC’s Hardball this afternoon clarified false claims made Monday on the program by Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.
Host Chris Matthews belatedly told viewers the truth: That FRC based its antigay defamations not on findings by the legitimate American Academy of Pediatrics, but rather on the quackings of a tiny, antigay, Christian Right front group called the “American College of Pediatricians.”
As Truth Wins Out has often noted, the ACP was formed in 2002 as an offshoot of the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family. The ACP’s purpose is to confuse the public about professional medical research regarding sexuality, reproduction, and child mental health.
Its board has included several discredited and scandalous individuals, including zealous antigay ideologue George Rekers — the man caught returning from Europe with a rentboy early this year.
Unfortunately, Hardball’s admission comes too late: Few of the FRC and Focus fans who watched Monday’s program were watching today.
I just watched Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC. There was a debate between The Family Research Council’s (FRC) Tony Perkins and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Mark Potok. Perkins was mad because the SPLC rightfully just categorized FRC as an official, certified hate group.
The conversation shifted to pedophilia. Without flinching, Perkins smeared gay men by falsely saying they were more likely to molest children (Had he confused us with Catholic priests?) To back his bogus claim, he cited the discredited American College of Pediatricians.
This a small, anti-gay sham group that purposely tries to confuse itself with the credible American Academy of Pediatrics, which is supportive of LGBT people. The American College of Pediatricians is full of politically-motivated charlatans that do not produce legitimate peer review research on LGBT people. Meanwhile, The American Academy of Pediatrics is a qroup of researchers that actually does produce respected peer review science on homosexuality.
Citing the American College of Pediatricians on homosexuality is like citing the cigarette lobby on the health benefits of smoking. Of course, Tony Perkins knows this, yet he was still sleazy and dishonest enough to cite the group, proving SPLC’s original point that FRC is a certifiable hate group with the sole aim of demonizing LGBT people.
The American College of Pediatricians is now infamous because one of its chief researchers, George Rekers, was caught vacationing last spring with an escort he met on Rent Boy.com. (see picture above)
On the next Hardball, I sure hope Chris Matthews brings up the fact that Tony Perkins gets his “research” on homosexuality from a closeted hypocrite who was exposed as a fraudulent sex fiend.
Adulterer Newt Gingrich, a possible 2012 GOP presidential candidate, said Sunday that he would not take part in a debate moderated by Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews.
“There’s no possibility that I would ever go to a debate and have Olbermann or Chris Matthews asking questions,” Gingrich said on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal.
The former House speaker claimed the two talking heads were biased against Republican candidates. He called the two “relentlessly hostile” and “so left-wing.”
So? Little Newty can’t take a little opposition? What a wuss.
This is not the first time the petulant Gingrich has thrown a tantrum. He made a big stir when he shut down the U.S. government because President Bill Clinton made him sit coach on an airplane.
Who can blame Clinton? Would you want to sit next to Gingrich on a flight?
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) released a landmark report today adding new official Hate Groups to its well-respected list. The report concludes that the overall climate is getting better for LGBT people, which is leading some anti-gay organizations to get even more extreme.
Such extremism has taken its toll.
SPLC analyzed hate crime statistics and compared the rate of victimization for homosexuals to that of the other groups:
The figures show that homosexuals are 2.4 times more likely to suffer a violent hate crime attack than Jews (8.3 divided by 3.5). In the same way, gays are 2.6 times more likely to be attacked than blacks; 4.4 times more likely than Muslims; 13.8 times more likely than Latinos; and 41.5 times more likely than whites, according to the FBI figures. The basic pattern holds by years as well as across the years.
The bottom line: Homosexuals are far more likely than any other minority group in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crime.
One new organization certified as an official hate group is the Family Research Council. A key reason for the listing is FRC’s Peter Sprigg, who is also on the board of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays. PFOX just weaseled its way in as a charity at the World Bank. Here is what SPLC had to say about PFOX’s go-to guy:
Headed today by former Louisiana State Rep. Tony Perkins, the FRC has been a font of anti-gay propaganda throughout its history. It relies on the work of Robert Knight, who also worked at Concerned Women for America but now is at Coral Ridge Ministries (see above for both), along with that of FRC senior research fellows Tim Dailey (hired in 1999) and Peter Sprigg (2001). Both Dailey and Sprigg have pushed false accusations linking gay men to pedophilia (see related story, p. 31): Sprigg has written that most men who engage in same-sex child molestation “identify themselves as homosexual or bisexual,” and Dailey and Sprigg devoted an entire chapter of their 2004 book Getting It Straight to similar material. The men claimed that “homosexuals are overrepresented in child sex offenses” and similarly asserted that “homosexuals are attracted in inordinate numbers to boys.”
More recently, in March 2008, Sprigg, responding to a question about uniting gay partners during the immigration process, said: “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them.” He later apologized, but then went on, last February, 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. At around the same time, Sprigg claimed that allowing gay people to serve openly in the military would lead to an increase in gay-on-straight sexual assaults.
When the World Bank learned about PFOX’s radical program, it made a step in the right direction by ensuring it would not receive tax-payer money through World Bank matching funds in 2011. However, to punish PFOX, the World Bank had to undermine 24 legitimate organizations that will also not be eligible for matching funds.
Given this new information on Sprigg and his ties to PFOX, the World Bank should move expeditiously to reinstate the legitimate organizations and drop PFOX as a charity. Unless, that is, the World Bank is comfortable associating itself with extremists who seek to discriminate against, blatantly lie about, deport and imprison LGBT people.
The World Bank should act now before it diminishes its reputation as a tolerant organization that respects diversity. This is particularly important because associating with radical hate-mongers will also damage the World Banks global efforts to combat HIV/AIDS.
This is not the first time that PFOX has been tied to hate groups.
In August, two key members of PFOX spoke at the “Truth Academy”. The conference was hosted by Americans For Truth About Homosexuality’s founder Peter LaBarbera, whose organization was also listed today as an official hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
At the Truth Academy, PFOX Board President Greg Quinlan raised eyebrows with an offensive speech. Quinlan explained how he allegedly went from gay-to-straight, and found support from an Assemblies of God Church that accepted him because he allegedly was not effeminate.
“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.”
At the same conference, Arthur Abba Goldberg, the convicted Wall Street thief who runs PFOX’s speakers bureau, demonstrated PFOX’s unscientific use of stereotypes.
“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 Abba Goldberg. “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.”
Again, we ask the World Bank: Do you really want to be linked to destructive people such as Abba Goldberg, Sprigg, LaBarbera and Quinlan?
Dan Choi appeared on the Chris Matthews show and was asked why Congress would not repeal Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell even though the majority of Americans are in favor the law being dumped.
Unfortunately, the usually eloquent soldier stumbled with this one, so I’ll help him out:
Too many members of the Republican Party work for the conservative movement rather than for America. They are kowtowing to an increasingly conservative base, in an effort not to draw Tea Party challengers in their next primaries. This is why they refuse to follow the will of the American people. They only serve a thin slice of the electorate – the conservative GOP primary voter.
Chris Matthews just got him to admit it on Hardball. It literally just happened, so I’ll update this post with video and a transcript as soon as I can find it.
Sprigg also said that gay people aren’t qualified to serve our country, and that DADT should be repealed so that gays can’t even serve in silence.
Chris Matthews drives me up the wall on a regular basis, but when he’s good, he’s GOOD.
More soon…
UPDATE: Here’s a link to the video at MSNBC. Will update with an embeddable video as soon as I find one.
Sprigg is also a board member and spokesperson for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, the antigay parents group which has sought to suppress comprehensive sex education in public schools — despite the wishes of local parents — and to replace fact-based curricula with antigay and ex-gay propaganda.
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He nails it!
Enjoy! :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4Z7tl7Vy8U...
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I just watched Hardball with Chris Matthews on MSNBC. There was a debate between The Family Research Council’s (FRC) Tony Perkins and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) Mark Potok. Perkins was mad because the SPLC rightfully just categorized FRC as an official, certified hate group.
