Atlanta ex-gay activist D.L. Foster has a history of racially insensitive commentary, as well as affiliation with some people of questionable integrity. Now he is accused of some racist comments on Facebook.

James Troia participated in the following exchange with Foster on David Tyree’s Facebook page. Troia says the exchange, which he considers racist, occurred at about 9:30 a.m. yesterday.

D.L. Foster initiated the conversation with this statement:

Its really interesting and ironic that white people (the ones whose foreparents enslaved black folk) are the first ones to try to correct black folk (the ones whose foreparents were enslaved by their white slavemasters) on ‘prejudice’ and ‘intolerance.’ Correct your own family before you bark at me.

Were the replies racially insensitive? You be the judge.

Here are additional excerpts written by Foster:

Why are you so upset if this doesn’t apply to you? Guilty dogs bark loudest.

and

White racists always trying to cover up their evil by accusing others.

and

Oh time to move on now huh? Thats what you want black folk to do, forget about hundreds of years of slavery and murder? Just… move… on huh? Typical of white slave owner descendants.

and

And that’s your problem that youre a latina jackass. Personally I think you should have kept that to yourself

If Foster’s statements were less sweeping and absolute, some of them might reflect valid concern about white hypocrisy. But he directs his accusations primarily at a commenter, Nadith Schuster Werth, who happens to be Latina and non-LGBT. Furthermore, the commenters show little sign of overt racism; Foster is blaming them for the sins of their alleged great-great-grandparents.

In an e-mail message to Truth Wins Out, Foster acknowledged the exchange. (Read More)

There are a lot of new readers right now, so welcome, stay a while, fix yourself a drink, etc.

Also, if you use the Twitter machine, follow me here, and Truth Wins Out here.  And of course, join us on Facebook.

That is all.

Here’s some other stuff you might be interested in:

1. The “Christian Medical Association,” which seems to exist to protect doctors and other medical professionals who are unwilling to do their jobs according to the standards and practices of their chosen fields, is yakking its mouth about how mean the Obama administration is for “weaken[ing] the only federal regulation protecting the exercise of conscience in health care.” Basically, they’re arguing that “faith-based” health care providers [faith healers?] are more likely to give poor medical care to the poor, and they will stop doing so if they’re required to do things like prescribe contraception for the poor. Lots of other whining at that link, so enjoy.

2. NOM came out with a completely BS poll on support for marriage equality. Surprise, this pollster also worked extra-hard to pass Prop 8!

3. It’s official: the new leader of the American Conservative Union (ACU) says that groups that support gay marriage or DADT repeal are not welcome to participate in CPAC anymore. Gays are still allowed to attend, as long as they don’t believe in their own dignity. GOProud, you’re safe! Nah, you’re probably not, but whatever.

4. Are you in a gay relationship that isn’t called “marriage”? Well, now you can say so on Facebook!

5. Aaaaand they’re trying to ban marriage for gays and lesbians in New Mexico.

Since there are a lot of new readers these days, I thought I’d give you all some instructions:

1.  Follow me on Twitter.

2.  Follow Wayne on Twitter.

3.  Follow Mike on Twitter.

4.  Fan us on Facebook.

5.  Your choice.  Find something nice to do for number five.

This is pretty funny [via Joe]:

And we mentioned Twitter, so as always, if you’re not already, you should follow me on Twitter here, Wayne here, Mike here, and Truth Wins Out here, and also fan us on Facebook if you’re there.

Last week, the Archdiocese of Boston published a piece in its newspaper by college professor Michael Pakaluk which suggested that, among other reasons, gays shouldn’t be able to send their kids to Catholic schools because the writer was worried that children of gay couples would bring pornography to school, because gays have such a “pornographic” lifestyle or something:

The third reason is that it seemed a real danger that the boy being raised by the same-sex couple would bring to school something obscene or pornographic, or refer to such things in conversation, as they go along with the same-sex lifestyle, which–as not being related to procreation– is inherently eroticized and pornographic. He might expose other children to such things, as he might easily have encountered them in his household.

It was stupid thing to say, but his entire column was ridiculous, fearful, and not befitting a grown-up column in a newspaper without pop-up pictures or things to color. He’s retracting that part, but he really needs to retract the whole thing, because he’s also really scared of some gay couple who give pizza parties for his son’s class. (Horrors!)

My point in posting this is more entertaining, though, because one of my favorite websites is Lamebook, where people send in things that happen on Facebook that are disastrous, hilarious, stupid, etc., to record for perpetuity the best and worst things that go on on that website. They anonymize all the names, of course. Anyway, somebody named “Colin” posted an article about this on his wall, and his friend “Resa” won the entire interhoopty with her comment on the subject:

Exactly!

That being said, I’ll also add my name of the chorus of “my straight friends in middle school were the ones bringing porn to school, you numbskulls.”

Weekly Column

A couple of weeks ago I wrote, “The war over gay rights in America and other modern nations has been largely won. Too many people have come out of the closet and will never go back in for the clock to be turned back.”

This trend towards acceptance has only accelerated since my column and may have reached a tipping point. New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote about a new Gallup Poll that found, for the first time, the percentage of Americans who perceive “gay and lesbian relations” as morally acceptable has crossed the 50 percent mark. Also, for the first time, the percentage of men who hold that view is greater than the percentage of women who do.

Blow attributes these advancements to LGBT people coming out and the realization that it is primarily weirdoes and socially stunted hypocrites who are obsessed or threatened by homosexuality.

“Virulent homophobes are increasingly being exposed for engaging in homosexuality,” wrote Blow. “Many heterosexual men see this, and they don’t want to be associated with it. It’ like being antigay is becoming the old gay. Not cool.”

Blow is correct. Normal, healthy, functional heterosexuals do not become paranoid or fixated on homosexuals. It is primarily people with sexual hang-ups, extreme religious indoctrination or deep, dark secrets that are preoccupied and consumed by the sexual orientation of others.

Of course, this does not mean that all supporters of civil rights for LGBT people are comfortable with the idea of gay sex. The good news is they don’t have to be. While speaking across the nation I have found an easy way of diffusing this issue. I ask the crowd to look at people they assume are heterosexual in the audience. Then, I ask if they would want to see all of the people they stared at having sexual intercourse.

The answer is inevitably and resoundingly, “No”. Then, I simply make the point that there are many people, heterosexual and homosexual, they would not want to witness in bed. And, they never have to unless they elect to do so — making any objections in terms of the “ick” factor moot. As simple as this sounds, it works and audiences “get it.”

Adding momentum to the LGBT struggle for equality is a cute McDonald’ television commercial in France that dealt with a teenager who had not yet told his father he was gay. The message of the campaign is, “come as you are, just leave a little fatter.” Okay, I added the last part.

While such an ad is not likely to air in the United States anytime soon, it does not have to in order to have a positive impact. Thanks to the Internet and talk shows, millions of people will see the ad and associate the message with their beloved Golden Arches.

Speaking of the impact of social media, in Newsweek, Joshua Alston made the case that websites such as Facebook are accelerating the demise of the closet. He wrote about the, “painstaking labor that goes into being secretly gay in the age of information sharing.” His advice to a friend who was outed by a seemingly innocuous tweet: “if you want to be in the closet, you can’t be on Facebook and Twitter.”

Crucial to the sudden surge of success is the falling of ugly stereotypes, such as the old canard that LGBT people are a threat to children. This week, the research journal, Pediatrics, published a study by Nanette Gartrell, a professor of psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco and Henry Bos, a behavioral scientist at University of Amsterdam. The article discussed a landmark study that measured the long-term affects on children who were raised by lesbian parents.

“We simply expected to find no difference in psychological adjustment between adolescents reared in lesbian families and the normative sample of age-matched controls,” says Gartrell. “I was surprised to find that on some measures we found higher levels of [psychological] competency and lower levels of behavioral problems. It wasn’t something I anticipated.”

Finally, The Human Rights Campaign reports that Kaiser Permanente updated its Patients’ Bill of Rights to fully protect LGBT patients and their families from discrimination. These changes make Kaiser Permanente the first large health network to have a fully inclusive non-discrimination policy for LGBT people.

Sure, full legal equality may take two decades and the battle against bigotry will last forever. But, there is no denying that the LGBT movement is on the move like never before. The homophobes are finally the minority and appearing more secluded and deluded by the day. It’ not time to crack open a bottle of champagne, but feel free to treat your self to a cold beer and appreciate the progress.

Facebook has shut down, at least temporarily, one of the largest and most diverse groups opposing genocide in Uganda — without explanation.

The group disappeared sometime Friday and, despite numerous inquiries by members, has not been restored to service.

In the description for a new group formed to demand restoration of service, conservative Christian professor Warren Throckmorton says:

On Friday, January 29 Facebook removed the group Speak Out Against Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009. There was no warning or explanation. Multiple inquiries have been made by many members of the group with no replies as yet.

Whatever the reason, please join this group if you would like to see the group returned. The group was the original effort to bring together a diverse group of people to speak out against the bill.

The URL of the Speak Out group is www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198541255168 and had over 15,000 members when it was removed. Please write Facebook and ask for an explanation and for the group to be reinstated.

The original group was created by Throckmorton and by Andrew Marin, author of Love Is An Orientation, with voluntary support from Exodus co-founder Michael Bussee, who is now an openly gay man.

The group faced opposition from multiple directions: Conservative U.S. “Christians” including Peter LaBarbera who favor the mass execution of LGBT people, and LGBT activists who felt that Throckmorton was using a legitimate human-rights issue to confer legitimacy upon his program of “sexual identity therapy.”

Facebook still features many anti-genocide groups, including several created by equality activist Lisa Talmadge. A quick search suggests that Facebook may have cracked down on a multitude of pro-genocide groups — I found only a couple of survivors this morning.

The Only One Mommy Facebook group was created by Liberty Counsel attorney Rena Lindevaldsen and ex-gay activist Debbie Thurman to affirm the illegal activities of ex-gay activist Lisa Miller against daughter Isabella Miller-Jenkins and former partner Janet Jenkins.

Since 2004, with the help of Liberty Counsel, Miller has violated repeated court orders in Vermont and Virginia to respect Isabella’s visitation rights with Jenkins. And since Jan. 1, Miller has violated another court order requiring her to transfer custody to Jenkins. Instead, Miller abducted Isabella and went into hiding — presumably somewhere among fundamentalist churches that are allied with the Liberty Counsel.

The Facebook group’s activities in support of this kidnapping are now a legal liability — as is the Facebook group’s efforts to silence dissenters who care for the welfare of Isabella and Jenkins, not just Lisa and the Liberty Counsel.

So now Thurman has announced the hurried closure of this public group and the creation of a new, secret, invitation-only group. In a message to group members today, Thurman said:

Dear Folks,

I am letting you know about a major change. Only One Mommy is going defunct ASAP and will be replaced by a new group (still to be named) that will be created by Linda Wall. We want all members to know about the change so you can have the option of sending Linda a message (her FB profile is under Linda Marie Wall) to join the new group ASAP, if you wish to.

Linda Wall is the leader of Lighthouse Policy, a Virginia antigay fundamentalist project which rejects morality, freedom, civility, and religious freedom in favor of a Christian Right war against infidels, abortion, and homosexuality. Her project affirms the abduction and justifies it with Miller’s court-disproven defamations against Jenkins. Please contact Ms. Wall and politely challenge her efforts to aid and abet child abduction — and please consider reporting this activity on behalf of kidnapping to Facebook.

Truth Wins Out upholds the U.S. First Amendment right of private individuals and organizations to express viewpoints that others may find offensive. This freedom does not extend to defamation, nor does it extend to the promotion and commission of illegal and violent activities against other people. Nor does this freedom require private institutions such as Facebook to violate their own principles and host content that violates their policies or that is contrary to their mission.

The following is an opinion written by Christina Engela and Cobus Fourie of South Africa Gay & Lesbian Alliance against Defamation, which has played a leading role in resisting the current evangelical campaign to exterminate sexually active LGBT and HIV-positive Ugandans.

There is an immensely troubling trend of tolerance towards violent hate speech and defamation creeping into the ethos of Facebook’s abuse department.

In many instances the Abuse Department does not take into account the company’ own terms of use and bill of rights and responsibilities in favour of emetic moral relativism.

I have sent emails to the abuse@facebook.com address about the vile hate speech and defamation and violation of Facebook’ own policies regarding the following two platforms which promote genocide in Uganda. I have received no feedback at all in more than two weeks.

The problematic platforms are:

We are Ugandans and we do not support Gay

and

Speak Loud for Family: Support anti-homosexuality bill ’09

and there might be many more. (Read More)