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?
That was the entire point. Dan was very excited this morning when he found out that Penny Nance, the CEO of Concerned Women for America, was going bat crazy over the fact that the Google Chrome “It Gets Better” commercial had aired during American Idol, which she and her son were watching at the time. Here’s Penny, whining like wingnuts whine:
Thank you for cleaning up the Viagra commercials Fox, but PLEASE what’s with the new tolerance for homosexuals campaign disguised as anti-bullying? Bullying is wrong. It is wrong for any reason. Apparently, American Idol, with the help of Woody from Disney’s Toy Story, thinks that my 4th grader needs to be fully aware of the plight of teens who view themselves as “gay.” I am sorry, but he doesn’t even know about heterosexual sex yet. Can you give me some room here?
I am ticked because I feel tricked. Fox blew it last night. I love my Idol and Steven Tyler is the best judge ever, but I digress. The point is parents felt secure in allowing our entire families watch this show. They lured us into a false sense of security and broke trust with us last night. We will probably give it another try, but trick parents again and you will find my poker face switching the channel.
I saw Dan Savage speak several months back, and he made the point very clear that he makes in his post responding to Penny’s rambling cries of idiocy — that the target audience for the “It Gets Better” campaign is, specifically, kids being raised in homes like Penny’s. Because if her son ends up being gay, or the child of any person like her, it’s virtually guaranteed that their middle and high school years will be a living hell. It’s even likely, depending on how deeply the fundamentalist bigot indoctrination damages the child, that their lives will continue to be hell for many years after that. Here, let Dan explain you it:
Mission accomplished.
The primary goal of the IGB campaign was to reach LGBT kids who are being bullied by their peers and their families. LGBT kids are four times likelier to attempt suicide—unless their parents are hostile. LGBT kids whose parents are hostile are eight times likelier to attempt suicide. The bullying and hostility and rejection too many LGBT kids are subjected to by their own families is by far the most destructive kind of bullying [note from Evan: Religious indoctrination that convinces gay kids that they're sick and evil ISbullying]. And those kids—kids with parents like Nance—are the ones who most need to find their way to www.itgetsbetter.org.
Now I don’t know if Nance’s son is gay, bi, or trans, but if he is, he needs to know more than most that it can get better for him too, that there’s hope for his future, and that the adult world isn’t entirely populated by hateful shits like his mother. He needs to know that there are a lot of people out there rooting for him: lesbian dairy farmers, trans porn stars, gay doctors, Woody—even the president of the United States.
And if Nance’s son finds his way to www.itgetsbetter.org—maybe not now, maybe in a year or two (I knew for sure that I was gay by the time I was in the seventh grade)—”It Gets Better” videos won’t just give him hope for his own future. They’ll also give him hope his family’s future too. There are a ton of videos at www.itgetsbetter.org created by LGBT adults whose families were hostile when they first came out but whose families now love and accept them. So if Nance’s son is gay—and here’s hoping—and finds his way to the “It Gets Better” website, he’ll hear from moms and dads who used to feel the same way his mother does now but who grew and changed. He’ll meet moms and dads who now reject anti-gay bigotry, not their gay children.
Nance’s son was always our target demo. Again, we don’t know if he’s gay. But he might be and, if he is, he needs to hear from us. And the Google Chrome/”It Gets Better” campaign has helped us reach him and millions more like him.
None of this would be necessary if fundamentalist parents and communities and churches weren’t dropping the ball on their own jobs as parents, communities and churches — if they weren’t such utter failures. As it is, the high gay teen suicide rate comes from people like Penny Nance, who have children at will and then fail their own gay children and the gay children of anyone around them by poisoning society with their backwoods, disproven, hateful ideology. In a perfect world, Dan’s campaign wouldn’t be necessary. Unfortunately, it is.
Dan also points out, as will I, that Penny’s complaint that her fourth grader doesn’t even know about straight sex [which is insane] is an absolute non sequitur, as the It Gets Better videos have nothing to do with sex. There is nothing inherently sexual in kids learning that, as the singer Tori Amos put it in an interview a while back, some princes grow up and find a princess, and some grow up and find another prince. [This is how she explained it to her young daughter.] Likewise, kids hearing the message — and many fourth graders already sense that they’re drawn to the same gender, even if it’s not an explicitly sexual thought — that if you grow up and want to be with somebody of the same sex, that it’s okay, is a good thing. Because, Penny and all you other bigots out there, here is the thing: no amount of your chomping, condemning, whining, bitching, hating or anything else is going to change whether one of your children ends up gay. You only can influence whether they grow up loving themselves or hating themselves. When you are derelict in that simple duty, at least we can now say that the “It Gets Better” project is out there to give a voice of support to your hurting kids.
In other words, stuff it, Nance. If you don’t want to see the teevee commercial on the teevee, turn it off, build a box around yourself and your family, live underground, whatever you have to do to shut reality out. But even with all that, you might end up with a gay kid.
The apples: How are you liking ‘dem?
And just because it deserves to be viewed and shared as often as possible, here again is Google Chrome’s “It Gets Better” ad:
My goodness, Wendy, kids these days call this “emo.” Wendy Wright, preznit of Concerned Women for America, has a piece at the American Thinker [sic] where she bemoans the Obama administration’s contention that discrimination is alive and well in the United States:
What comes through is that President Obama’s crew thinks America is congenitally discriminatory, and his administration is bravely soldiering into this morass against the unwashed masses to create an equal society.
As the report states, “[w]ork remains to meet our goal of ensuring equality before the law for all.” Which American laws or institutions enshrine discrimination? Not mentioned. No matter — when you’re convinced that Americans are bigots, there is no need to provide proof.
Um, actually, Wendykins, it’s more that it’s self-evident to sane people which laws enshrine discrimination. There’s no need for a long-winded explanation.
Later on, she claims that the only people who are really discriminated against are Fundamentalist Christians Like Wendy. Oh, her tale of woe and lamentation:
Homosexual activists conducted a campaign of harassment, threats, vandalism, and attacks on employment against people who support traditional marriage — with particular venom toward religious people. The vile assaults on Carrie Prejean for merely expressing her views pulled away the curtain that had been hiding how homosexual activists routinely treat decent people who dissent. It raised the question: Who is the aggressor, and who is victim?
Bodycount? Zero. Injuries? No. And that campaign of whatever it is she’s crying about resulted in how many rights being taken away from Fundamentalist Christians? You get the idea. Meanwhile, gay and lesbian Americans still don’t have the rights Wendy does by virtue of the fact that she is heterosexual. So yeah, fundamentalists who want to remake America into a nation ruled by their backward beliefs are still the aggressors.
The Obama administration would answer that question in a manner different from how most Americans would.
[Source: Wendy's butt.]
Their report states, “In each era of our history,” there is “a group whose experience of discrimination illustrates the continuing debate of how we can build a more fair society. In this era, one such group is LGBT Americans.”
Did you get that? “In each era of our history” — that is, America is historically and inherently bigoted. Makes you wonder why they’d want to live here.
It’s funny that Wendy doesn’t actually try to argue against the statement that America has a history that is rife with examples of discrimination and bigotry. She just goes straight to her crying corner because She Doesn’t Like It.
But most telling is the language to describe the assault on traditional marriage. That’s where this report proves revealing.
Remember, since he ran for president, Obama has claimed that he does not support same-sex “marriage.” Yet he opposes the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the clearest federal statute that protects marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
Obama’s Justice Department sabotaged its defense of DOMA in a legal challenge, making such weak arguments that it guaranteed a loss. And he opposed California’s Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Uh, no. Repealing DOMA and legalizing same-sex marriage will do nothing to change Fundamentalist Christian marriages. Women like Wendy are free to continue teaching the women who respect them that it’s best to be like chattel and give up career goals, etc.
In the distorted view of the Obama administration, Americans’ deep respect for the sanctity of marriage is categorized as “discrimination.” In their view, clinging to traditional marriage — the fundamental building block of society — is evidence of America’s breach of human rights. Deconstructing marriage to be “whatever feels good” is considered progress.
Stop saying “Americans,” Wendy, and stop pretending you speak for them. The polls on marriage equality have started to officially shift in our favor, and Kids These Days have already figured out that the Religious Right’s teachings on this subject are unmitigated crap, with large majorities of them favoring full equality for gays and lesbians. When Wendy uses the word “Americans,” she’s bitterly clinging to the bigoted beliefs of a daily shrinking segment of the population, and it’s kind of pathetic.
Of course, we all remember the story we first heard in school…just before he was inaugurated as the first president of the United States, George Washington went in the house and gave Martha a rogering she’d never forget.
The fixation social conservative wingnuts have on sex is so bizarre. That being said:
A California senator is proposing a bill that would radically promote the lesbian, “gay,” bisexual and transgender (LGBT) movement in schools and wouldn’t allow parents to take their children out of discussions concerning the alternate lifestyles.
State Senator Mark Leno (D) has introduced a measure that would require public school textbooks to be re-written to contain information about the LGBT movement. Under the FAIR (Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful) Education Act, textbooks must highlight key LGBT figures who contributed to the history of the United States and include details about the homosexual movement.
But Penny Harrington, Concerned Women of America’s (CWA) legislative director of California, says the bill mandates certain instruction in social sciences and removes safeguards from communities.
“This bill will prompt open discussion in classrooms of all ages about sexual practices, and these are conversations that most parents are going to consider inappropriate,” she notes.
Hey, CWA lady: you do realize you all look more and more insane every time you open your mouths, right? This is why we like to quote you, verbatim.
It’s cute, because they think they’re going to be missed. Hi, Religious Right, what have we been telling you? That you are, and always have been, useful idiots for the Republican Party? Yeah, you still are:
Two of the nation’s premier moral issues organizations, the Family Research Council and Concerned Women for America, are refusing to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference in February because a homosexual activist group, GOProud, has been invited.
“We’ve been very involved in CPAC for over a decade and have managed a couple of popular sessions. However, we will no longer be involved with CPAC because of the organization’s financial mismanagement and movement away from conservative principles,” said Tom McClusky, senior vice president for FRC Action.
“CWA has decided not to participate in part because of GOProud,” CWA President Penny Nance told WND.
FRC and CWA join the American Principles Project, American Values, Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, and the National Organization for Marriage in withdrawing from CPAC. In November, APP organized a boycott of CPAC over the participation of GOProud.
Wait, it gets funnier:
“Excellent. It is gratifying to see FRC and CWA respond appropriately to CPAC’s moral sellout of allowing GOProud as a sponsor,” said Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, the nation’s best-known organization dedicated exclusively to opposing the homosexual political agenda.
“By bringing in GOProud, CPAC was effectively saying moral opposition to homosexuality is no longer welcome in the conservative movement,” said LaBarbera. “Would CPAC bring in an organization specifically devoted to promoting abortion and pretend it’s conservative?” LaBarbera has formerly participated in CPAC, but said he may protest the conference this year.
I’m sure they’ll notice Peter’s absence in the CPAC leather dungeon, but otherwise, they’ll plod on through.
The rest of the article features Mat Staver of Liberty, whining, so be sure to miss that.
Alvin McEwen has a pretty epic smackdown over at AlterNet right now, over the Religious Right’s use of Paul Cameron’s “research” in order to vilify gay people. Paul Cameron, as anyone who pays attention knows, is probably the least credible “researcher” in the entire field of human sexuality. But that doesn’t matter to fundamentalist Christian wingnuts, because they one thing that group has in common is that they’re willing to lie to preserve their worldview. Here’s what Peter said to Concerned Women for America’s Martha Kleder on the subject:
Kleder: One of the things I’ve also noticed is that the SPLC seems to be riled by the fact . . . uh . . . if they don’t particularly like your source that you document then you must be a hate group.
LaBarbera: Paul Cameron.
Kleder: Yeah.
LaBarbera: They say if you cite Paul Cameron, then you are a hater. I mean that’s ridiculous. You know there is a researcher who just came out and found that Paul Cameron’s work on the greater likelihood of homosexual adoptive parents to have . . . for the child to emerge as a homosexual. He confirmed Cameron’s thesis. You don’t have to agree with everything Paul Cameron ever did but how proposterous to say that citing a researcher . . Paul Cameron’s work has been published in peer-reviewed journals. What they’ve done, Martha is set up these criteria and then you violate them, they call you a hate group, and then they have their little echo chamber on the left which reports their charge. And of course the media, which really doesn’t like us anyway. The media is very pro-gay, they cite us and so it begins to take a life of its own.
Of course, Alvin does point out that Peter is one of the only members of the Religious Right who doesn’t get embarrassed when he’s called on his use of Cameron’s “data.” The rest of them apparently have a slight bit of shame and integrity left, but Peter threw that aside when he started trolling leathersex conventions.
For anyone who is new, here’s a quick intro to Paul Cameron’s career, again, courtesy of Alvin:
Cameron is a researcher who has made a name for himself by creating studies designed to demonize the lgbt community. These studies for the most part have been published in “vanity” or “pay-for-publish” journals and they are not “peer-reviewed” in the normal sense. No “peer” who objects to Cameron’s work has the right to remove it from the journal.
He has also been discredited and censured by many group and individuals on the left, the right, and in the middle due to his bad research techniques. Several of his studies have been criticized for such errors as having small sample sizes, showing an anti-gay bias in interviews, and not having enough responses to establish a suitable analysis.
And, of course, Alvin provides a few key quotes from [actual, grown-up, non-religious] medical/mental health organizations about Paul Cameron:
“(Cameron) misrepresents my findings and distorts them to advance his homophobic views. I make a very clear distinction in my writing between pedophilia and homosexuality, noting that adult males who sexually victimize young boys are either pedophilic or heterosexual, and that in my research I have not found homosexual men turning away from adult partners to children . . . I consider this totally unprofessional behavior on the part of Dr. Cameron and I want to bring this to your attention. He disgraces his profession.” – Dr. A. Nicholas Groth in letter written to the Nebraska Board of Examiners of Psychologists on August 21, 1984
“Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists – American Psychological Association, 1983
The science and profession of psychology in Nebraska as represented by the Nebraska Psychological Association, formally dissociates itself from the representations and interpretations of scientific literature offered by Dr. Paul Cameron in his writings and public statements on sexuality. Further, the Nebraska Psychological Association would like it known that Dr. Cameron is not a member of the Association. Dr. Cameron was recently dropped from membership in the American Psychological Association for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists – Nebraska Psychological Association, 1984
Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism” – American Sociological Association, 1985
The Canadian Psychological Association takes the position that Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism and thus, it formally disassociates itself from the representation and interpretations of scientific literature in his writings and public statements on sexuality. – Canadian Psychological Association, 1996
There is oh, so much more where that came from, including refutations of the lies contained in Peter’s quote above, so please, read Alvin’s entire piece.
Cameron is a liar, a poor researcher, and a hatemongering bigot of the first degree. Perhaps one day an ACTUAL mental health professional will examine Cameron’s tiny life and figure out where it all went so terribly wrong.
But this, dears, is one of the many reasons these groups, including Peter’s, are on the hate groups list. They ALL know Paul Cameron is a fraud.
But they hate/fear/are threatened by gay people too much to let little things like facts get in the way.
There’s no good place to start, and I’m coming back after a long weekend which involved my laptop, a mug of coffee being spilled on it, and a magical screw that used to be in the laptop, but is now in my pocket, so let’s just jump in and look at the wingnut reactions to the Southern Poverty Law Center adding the Family Research Council and the American Family Association to their list of anti-gay hate groups.
Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage may indeed be illiterate. He is very upset about NOM being added to the list, which is hilarious, because NOM wasn’t added to the list. Here’s what he said:
“This is an absurd distraction emanating from a once-great organization’s real mission — with all the actual hate groups out there, how can Southern Poverty Law Center stoop so low?
This report is not an attack on NOM but on the majority of Americans who believe that to make a marriage you need a husband and wife. It is also further proof of what NOM has been saying: today’s gay marriage movement is no longer about tolerance, live or let live — it’s about driving out dissenting voices from the public square.
Gay marriage now serves as the tip of the spear to a new campaign to demonize and generate hatred against those who adhere to traditional views of sex and marriage.
Regular readers of NOM’s work know how we characterize gay people: those who support our vision of marriage, we welcome to join our work. For gay marriage advocates (the majority of whom are not gay) we say: we think you are wrong, and we will fight for our right to vote for marriage in the public square.”
Yeah, Brian, please learn to read good and do other stuff good too. You’re definitely a disturbed bigot, and so is Maggie Gallagher, but y’all aren’t on the list yet. You were profiled in the report as an anti-gay group, but the report specifically explained, in English, that those listed on the official hate groups list were those with asterisks [looks like this: *] next to them.
The next several quotes are viaAlvin McEwen, who did the hard work of writing about this during the holiday weekend, while the rest of us were being lazy. Here’s Robert Knight, whose Coral Ridge Ministries somehow managed to stay off the list. Robert is very upset and says that the SPLC are the REAL HATURS:
“No organization better defines what a hate group is all about than the Southern Poverty Law Center,” said Robert Knight, Washington correspondent for Coral Ridge Ministries. “Smearing legitimate groups merely for disagreeing about homosexuality is a very hateful act.”
“Lumping Christian groups in with violent, racist gangs is a form of ‘bracketing,’ a political tactic described in the gay strategy manual ‘After the Ball.’ It’s guilt by association and it’s meant to intimidate,” Knight told WND.
This is known as the “I know you are, but what am I” defense, and it is very popular with childish wingnuts. But no, Robert, the SPLC specifically stated that merely disagreeing with homosexuality was not enough to land a group on the list. One of the prerequisites is a tendency to lie about LGBT people, and all of the groups on the hate group list [as well as your own] lie about LGBT people with feverish abandon.
In that same piece from WingNutDaily, here is some whining from King Hater Tony Perkins:
“The Left’s smear campaigns of conservatives is being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state, currently more than thirty, that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.
That’s some wishful thinking, since every poll taken on gay rights over the past twenty years has shown us progressively winning over a few more percentage points every year, all the way to where we are now, with support for marriage equality being the majority position. But then again, people like Tony Perkins lie to support their agendas.
Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Coalition:
“We are going to form a coalition of organizations to lobby Congress to withhold funds from SPLC,” Christian Anti-Defamation Coalition head Gary L. Cass told WND. “We will also demand Congress restrict federal law enforcement from relying on the biased SPLC reports, like the discredited ‘Report on Right-Wing Extremism’ SPLC wrote for the Department of Homeland Security.”
The SPLC doesn’t receive federal funds, dingus.
Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, who is also inexplicably not on the list:
Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, contended that SPLC is more focused on advancing a radical political agenda than on combating hatred.
“This might be an opportunity to point out who are actually filled with hate and bigotry,” said Wright. “If they were to judge according to actions, they would have to have a special section for homosexual groups that vandalize and threaten people who oppose the homosexual agenda. We’ve had death threats against us posted openly on websites because of our work to uphold traditional marriage.”
“It’s the homosexual groups that have violated and invaded churches, vandalized homes and cars, that instigate death threats against people who are simply trying to uphold traditional values,” Wright observed.
The Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg has called for gays to be deported from this country. The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer is such a frothing hatemonger that his work almost singlehandedly landed him on the list. Note that Wendy is also using the second grade level “I know you are but what am I?” defense. She bitches about “death threats,” but cannot point to a single person killed or taking his own life due to anti-fundamentalist-wingnut bias, yet continues to ignore the bodycount of gay and lesbian schoolchildren, as it interferes with her slavish devotion to her incorrect worldview.
Isn’t it cute how present day haters and bigots never think their hatred and bigotry is like the hatred and bigotry of their direct ancestors? People: Tony Perkins bought David Duke’s mailing list for a reason. On some level, he understands that his group and other groups like his are connected to white supremacist groups of days past via a direct line of inheritance.
Anyway, Bryan Fischer has also weighed in, claiming that all the religious right lies about gay people that have been exposed are actually true, because Bryan Fischer is a liar. Whether he knows he’s lying or not is open to discussion. That’s all for now. There are more out there, but this post is long already, so I’ll post some more tomorrow!
Delaware’s Republican nominee for the Senate is turning out to be treasure trove of anti-gay nonsense and idiocy. TS at Instaputz has helpfully compiled a bunch of Christine O’Donnell’s anti-gay quotes over the years, so that we can see how little she’s evolved over time. For instance, here’s what she had to say about the gay pride parade in New York City in 2000:
O’DONNELL: But let me tell you something! They – homosexuals’ special rights groups can get away with so much more than nobody else can!
COLMES: Well, what are they getting away with here, Christine? Tell me what you’re seeing…
O’DONNELL: They’re getting away with nudity!
FAY: Oh, right.
O’DONNELL: They’re getting away with nudity! They’re getting away with lasciviousness! They’re getting away with perversion!
FAY: Oh, Christine…
O’DONNELL: They’re getting away with blasphemy!
OMG! They’re getting away with blasphemy! Which is completely legal in the United States, which has a secular government and Constitution! OMG!
On the Ryan White Care Act in 1995, in her work for Concerned Women for America:
The Ryan White Care Act provides money for community-based counseling centers. While that may sound noble and compassionate, we know from experience that “AIDS education” becomes a platform for the homosexual community to recruit adolescents and lure teens into a self-destructive sexual lifestyle.
Helping AIDS patients might “sound noble and compassionate,” but really, when you look at it from Jesus’s perspective, screw them!
I’m sort of glad the Republicans are nominating all these Christian tea-hadists, actually. Often the most extreme statements of the extremist Christian right go unnoticed by much of the population, but now? Haha, they’re national candidates! We get to show everybody what headcases they really are.
Did you notice how she brought up the only three “persecution” stories the Religious Right know about?
1. The time the kids in Massachusetts read a children’s book that acknowledged the reality that there are different kinds of families. Wendy Wright would prefer to lie to her children, apparently.
2. The time the photographer in New Mexico was forced to abide the same rules as everyone else in the operation of her business, and didn’t get an exception for being a bigot.
3. All of the millions of straight people who were maimed by robots and asteroids and three story homosexuals when Prop 8 passed. Oh, the tragedy.
Wait, they have one more story of pain and suffering: The time the public pavilion in New Jersey didn’t get to discriminate simply on the basis of the fact that it was owned by a church. How’d you forget that one, Wendy?
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:
