The mark of a good wingnut is to never take responsibility for the harm their cohort inflicts on society. It really doesn’t matter what the bodycount is, or how close to home it is. For them, the ideology is all that matters, even if [as it so often is] their ideology is not only rotten but also easily disproven by a semi-literate child.

Tennessee is a prime example. After the suicide of a gay teen named Jacob Rogers, some wingnuts are doing their best to blame the deceased child, and his sexuality, for his death. Why? Because they care more about their beliefs than they care about this child, or any child:

Anti-gay conservatives are working overtime to explain away the suicide of young Jacob Rogers. They dismiss all the name-calling and bullying at his high school. Instead, they claim it was Jacob’s own fault somehow. In its latest radio report, David Fowler’s F.A.C.T. concedes “it’s wrong to bully people because of their sexual practices”

You know, there’s a Southern expression that’s fairly appropriate here, Mr. Fowler…

but blames Jacob’s death on his own alcohol and drug abuse and eating disorder.

But of course! And not only that:

According to F.A.C.T., it’s all “the rotten fruit of the all-about-me individualist culture that comes when we deny the existence of God and his image in us.”

Don’t blame the people who feed anti-gay discourse into society [people like F.A.C.T.], blame liberals! Blame everybody else!

In correspondence with the Tennessee Equality Project, the state’s main gay rights group, state Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, claimed gay people commit suicide at a higher rate than others and suggested Jacob’s sexuality itself drove him to kill himself. Ragan asked whether the suicide could have had “more to do with his own proclivities and behavior than anything to do with schoolmate bullies …”

Rep. Ragan: product of the Tennessee public school system right here. Also gay. The fact that you have a position of power is part of the reason the rest of the developed world makes fun of places like Tennessee. The fact that you would suggest, based on absolutely no factual knowledge of your own, that Jacob’s “proclivities and behavior” led him to suicide, essentially that you would blame Jacob’s sexuality, something he had absolutely no control over, for his death, is the epitome of callousness and petulant Southern hick ignorance, sir. While this is behavior I fully expect from members of Tennessee’s legislative body — I mean, come on, we’re not exactly known as a first world state — it’s particularly saddening, in an age where we all have Google and iPhones, that you remain so blissfully unaware of the world around you, and that you value your own bigotry more than you value Tennessee’s children.

Yes, it is true that Jacob was bullied for being gay, which led to his suicide, but let me draw you a picture* of the chicken and the egg in this situation.

So, that is how it works, Rep. Ragan. Plan your future statements and actions on this issue accordingly.

Oh wait, you won’t, because, as the piece points out, kids like Jacob aren’t what you’re trying to protect.

Blaming the victim is necessary to prevent Jacob’s death from damaging chances for passage of F.A.C.T.’s 2012 state legislative priority—a bill to make it easier for young bigots to bully gay schoolkids. This legislation brought by conservative Christians who oppose special protections for gay people actually gives special protections to homophobic bullies.

*This is why we have a graphic designer. So that I don’t play with my Paint program very often…

Vanderbilt University, one of the finest schools in the South and indeed, in the nation, has a strong anti-discrimination policy in place, which applies to all organizations on campus. There has been controversy recently, stemming in part from a Christian fraternity’s decision to kick a member out for being gay. Vanderbilt has no problem with religious organizations — indeed, there are thirty-six of them on campus — but is standing firm against pressure to allow certain groups to discriminate against students based on their beliefs:

“Student groups that wish to practice their faith are welcome at Vanderbilt; however, it is incumbent upon them to decide whether they wish to become registered student organizations at the university,” the statement read. “One of the requirements to be a registered student organization at Vanderbilt is that student organizations’ constitutions be in compliance with the university’s nondiscrimination policy and that they sign a statement that they will comply with the policy.”

There are 380 recognized student organizations at Vanderbilt, 36 of which are religious student groups. A university review found that 32 of those religious groups are in compliance with the school’s diversity policy. The remaining four have been placed on provisional status while the university review continues.

Vanderbilt’s review of its student organizations comes a year after a gay student accused a campus Christian fraternity of dismissing him because of his sexual orientation.

The above link notes that even the Congressional Prayer Caucus, including Tennessee’s shame [one of them], Rep. Marsha Blackburn, is exerting pressure on Vanderbilt, a private university, to give these four groups a special pass to discriminate.

The president of the College Republicans at Vanderbilt, of course, has been whining:

Siao also said he believes Vanderbilt is using the nondiscrimination policy to specifically target religious and conservative groups.

“I think what they’re trying to do is be a national leader on a progressive issue to get Vanderbilt’s name out there and show it’s not the school it used to be,” said Siao, “But I think it’s going to harm our community and the Christian faith.”

Siao also stated, “There are many devoted Christians on campus. They should have the right to govern their own clubs and assemble.”

Of course, but when 376 out of 380 organizations are able to comply with the policy, and 32 out of 36 religious organizations, perhaps the problem is the wingnut organizations, rather than the school’s policy.

This story has been brewing for a while — both of the above links are from the past couple of months — but the reason I bring this up now is that the Tennessee Equality Project has started a petition on Change.org, to support and encourage Vanderbilt in their decision to stick by their principles. Here’s what TEP has to say about it:

Tennessee Equality Project wants Vanderbilt University to know that people from all over the country support them in their decision to apply their non-discrimination policy consistently to all campus organizations. We have been hearing that the Board of Trust is under intense pressure to scale back the application of the policy. The Congressional Prayer Caucus and Family Action Council of Tennessee have criticized the University. We ask Chancellor Nick Zeppos to pass along our views to the Board of Trust at their meeting this week.

Of course the Family Action Council of Tennessee is involved. You’ll remember, from yesterday, that FACTn is a wang of the national hate group Family Research Council, and that it was recently revealed that they used a state senator, essentially, as a puppet, in the passage of the recent bill which disallows Tennessee’s cities from setting strong nondiscrimination policies, a direct attack on the LGBT people of the state. While I doubt that the overlap between FACTn donors and Vanderbilt parents is significant, far be it from a Religious Right organization to mind its own damn business.

Head over and sign the petition, please.

Recently, Tennessee passed a bill which prohibited its cities from setting their own non-discrimination policies, or rather policies which are stronger than the state’s own pathetic non-discrimination law. It was pushed solely by the Family Action Council of Tennessee, a wing of the Family Research Council hate group, as an attack on LGBT people and our families. Regular readers might remember us posting a video of the extremely fey FACTn leader, David Fowler, wearing a pink shirt in a playground gloating about the passage of the law. A lawsuit has been filed to overturn the law, and the documents now being exposed, related to the passage of that law, are illuminating:

To satisfy attorneys in the gay rights lawsuit against the state last week, conservative Christian lawmakers coughed up 2,200 pieces of correspondence related to their wonderful new statute that overturned Nashville’s nondiscrimination ordinance in the last legislative session.

[...]

Just for fun, we pulled the filed marked “Sen. Mae Beavers” first and, right off the bat, we were delighted to discover an email to her from David Fowler—the Ralph Reed of Tennessee’s Christian Right and the driving force behind the state law. In this email, Fowler shockingly treats Beavers like a puppet on a string (do lobbyists really run things in Nashville?) and instructs her precisely what to say about the Tennessee Family Action Council’s bill. He obviously views Beavers as not exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, but useful just the same as his bill’s sponsor.

“The bill itself is not that complicated,” Fowler writes. “We don’t need more regulation of business and business sure doesn’t need the 348 different cities coming up with their own ideas of what a discriminatory practice is. That’s the line and you just repeat it like Glen Casada did last night when the bill passed the House 73 to 24.”

“Will the homosexuals be upset?” Fowler then asks. “Sure. But to be honest, they seem to be rather resigned on this bill.”

Ha, well, I know some of “the homosexuals” who filed the lawsuit, and they are anything but “resigned.” Or as the Nashville Scene writer put it:

Whoops! Fowler misread the temperature of gay activists there. Outraged by his law, they launched a campaign to embarrass just about every major corporation in Tennessee into renouncing it. When that was done, they filed their lawsuit painting the state legislature as a bunch of bigots.

Yep!

The truth of the matter is that Senator Mae Beavers probably isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but it’s interesting to see just how much our opponents on the Religious Right view their elected officials as puppets. “We bought you, now read this word for word,” seems to be the order of the day.

The linked piece points out that, in order to prevail, those who filed the lawsuit must show that the bill was passed strictly out of bias against gay people, rather than to make it “easier to do bidness in Tennessee,” so it’s helpful that many of Tennessee’s major corporations are now squarely against the law. Reading the documents in Ms. Beavers’ file, showing e-mails spanning the wingnut diaspora, from the garden variety house-wingnut all the way up to Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, thanking her for standing up against ‘dem homoseckshuls, should give those involved in the lawsuit a hint as to what was really going on when one of Tennessee’s resident hate groups decided to lobby for special access to discriminate against LGBT people in the state.

The man shown above is pastor Steve Gaines of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis. Though he is not a resident of the city of Memphis, Gaines really wants to make sure his church members know which candidates to support in the city’s upcoming city council elections. Of course, like most wingnut church-state separation deniers, he knows how to play cute with language in order to avoid those nasty laws against endorsing candidates outright. He walks right up to the line that shall not be crossed, drops his pants and whizzes all over the democratic process, essentially. Gaines sent this e-mail to church members the other day:

Gaines and his flying wingnuts have been heavily involved in the past several years in local Memphis politics, working tirelessly to make sure the city can’t pass a simple nondiscrimination ordinance to protect all citizens from losing their jobs over something as trivial as their sexuality. Indeed, it’s quite a sight to see when Gaines and his busloads o’ Baptists show up at City Hall, go in through the back door and spend the next several hours in City Council chambers spreading hate all over the place like trans fats at, well, a Baptist church picnic…

I digress.

The Family Action Council of Tennessee that Gaines references is a farm team for the Family Research Council, an SPLC-designated hate group. You might remember the head of FACTn, the fey David Fowler, as the man who recently soiled his proverbial wingnut adult diaper by floating a bizarre conspiracy theory involving insurance companies and hordes of homosexuals secretly teaming up for the purpose of making people like David unhappy. Before that, he wore a pink shirt and made a creepy video in a playground gloating about how successful his organization was in hurting gay families.

It’s also quite interesting that Steve Gaines has the balls to use the word “pro-family” in any sentence that doesn’t start with, “You’re quite a fool if you actually think I’m…,” as Gaines’ most notable act as Bellevue’s pastor, his greatest accomplishment, was when he decided to protect an admitted child molester for six months, keeping him on Bellevue’s staff and allowing him to counsel child sexual abuse victims. This is not a man who is motivated by concern for anyone’s children or families. Far from it, Gaines simply seems to have a weird fixation with homosexuality, even moreso than garden variety anti-gay wingnuts.

So let’s see. We have a state organization with a constant, unhinged need to hurt gay families, and a pedophile-protecting pastor who claims to want to protect children and families, and who really, really thinks he has the right to control the city council of a place that is embarrassed to have him as a suburban parasite. And on the other side, we have an organization which simply fights to protect the rights of the people the aforementioned men work tirelessly to hurt every day. Who’s “pro-family” again, please?

The Tennessee Equality Project is having a bit of fun with this. As an actual political organization which has the right to endorse candidates [i.e., not a church], TEP has endorsed candidates who will support equality for all citizens in Memphis, and who, yes, will replace the puppets pictured above. Here’s Jonathan Cole of TEP:

Truly pro-family voters will be voting for candidates who support the right of all people to earn a living, provide for their families and contribute to their communities without fear of unfair workplace discrimination. Voters can be proud to cast their vote in District 1, District 2, and Superdistrict 9-1 for pro-equality and pro-family candidates endorsed by TEP PAC: Kendrick Sneed, Sylvia Cox and Paul Schaffer. They aren’t likely to succumb to a false prophet like Steve Gaines.

Indeed! Early voting is already underway in Memphis, and Bellevue Baptist Church is an early voting location! Therefore, TEP is asking all equality-minded citizens of Memphis to go vote at Bellevue this Saturday at noon and wear purple to show the bigots of Bellevue what actual pro-family people look like. Who knows if Steve Gaines will be there or not — there might be a pedophile that needs protecting, you know — but TEP will be out in full force.

All three men pictured above are of the sort of caliber I would never trust to mow my lawn or walk my dog, but they unfortunately have seats of power, and are a primary reason Memphis has failed to achieve its goals of becoming a world class city. When the world looks at your city council and the first phrase that comes to mind is, “behind every good conservative Christian man is an extremely nervous sheep,” it’s hard to get ahead, you know? If you’re a Memphian, get out and replace them.

David Fowler is the busybody head of the adorably-named Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACTn), and he has it all figured out.  You see, the gays of Tennessee are in a secret society, and they’re secretly using their secret society to force insurance giant Blue Cross to bend to their big gay will:

BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee’s inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender business owners in a push for supplier diversity is generating fire and brimstone from a conservative Christian advocacy group headed by former state Sen. David Fowler.

In an email, the one-time Signal Mountain attorney who is now president of the Family Action Council of Tennessee accuses the Chattanooga-based insurer of having “officially joined the ‘culture wars’ with a quiet little move.”

“Appears that the insurer is trading in its traditional blue for a rainbow of colors,” jabbed Fowler, alluding to the color blue BlueCross uses in promotions and the multicolored gay-pride flag.

He cites an Aug. 24 letter BlueCross sent to company suppliers. In it, BlueCross states the company, through its Supplier Diversity Team, is “passionately adopting the spirit of diversity within its supplier business relationships,” including lesbian-, gay-, bisexual- and transgender-owned businesses.

And in a sad, pathetic wingnut’s world, even mentioning words like “diversity” is enough to make one run for the hills. Also:

In his email, Fowler says that “clearly the LGBT community is no longer disadvantaged nor unable to protect itself in the business world.”

The former lawmaker speculated that BlueCross’ move may stem from what he says was a backlash from national gay organizations this spring after the Republican-controlled General Assembly passed a Fowler-generated bill that banned cities from enacting ordinances banning anti-gay discrimination by local government-contractors.

Ah, so we’re NOT disadvantaged, but the wingnut speculates that the insurance company’s move might just maybe stem from this little thing that happened a few months ago in Tennessee, wherein the wingnut and his perpetually winded horde of all caps-loving minions pushed and passed a big government bill that denies municipalities in Tennessee the right to enact nondiscrimination policies intended to protect, among others, gays and lesbians.  Does this idiot even know what’s coming out of his mouth?

Betsy Phillips at Nashville Scene puts this in perspective, highlighting the hypocrisy of lil’ David:

Did gay groups pressure BlueCross? Who knows? Who cares? For the sake of argument, though, let’s say they did. Why would it be wrong for gay people to use the same tactics as David Fowler? He’s squawking, “They hit me back!” — and this is getting media play? Is there no one in this state who will say, “David, if you don’t like it when people do it to you, don’t do it to them?” (Sunday school was a long time ago, but I dimly recall something about a Golden Rule.) At the very least, is there no one willing to point and laugh?

This Tennessee writer does on a regular basis, and will continue to do so. All Truth Wins Out readers are free to take a moment wherever you may be sitting, for the purpose of pointing, laughing and making fun of David Fowler of the Family Action Council of Tennessee. One, two, three, GO!

This is the pink-shirted David Fowler, head of the cutely named Family Action Council of Tennessee [FACTn] [sic], standing on a playground and talking with his hands a hell of a lot, and gloating about the fact that his organization, a wang of the national hate group known as the Family Research Council, was able to pressure intellectually dead Tennessee legislators into passing a big government bill disallowing Tennessee cities from setting their own nondiscrimination policies, and instead lording their own goat-romancing “pro-family” ways over all of us.

I really have nothing to say about this, I’m just posting the video.

The failure of the American educational system right there, in that pink shirt, y’all.

This is an actual ad being run by the Family Action Countil of Tennessee (“FACT” [sic]), in support of a big government bill [because social conservatives have zero principles] which would prohibit municipalities from offering nondiscrimination protections not covered by state law. It’s a fairly desperate move, and this ad shows just how desperate.

The Family Action Council of Tennessee is a state level affiliate of a little SPLC-certified hate group known as the Family Research Council.

Oh no, emergency in Nashville, you guys!

A group of con­ser­v­a­tive busi­ness and polit­i­cal lead­ers gath­ered this morn­ing for an infor­ma­tional meet­ing about the “homo­sex­ual agenda.”

The impe­tus for the meet­ing is a pro­posed expan­sion of Metro’s nondis­crim­i­na­tion ordi­nance, which would require city con­trac­tors to pro­tect work­ers from dis­crim­i­na­tion on the basis of sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der identity.

[...]

[E]xpected to attend were Metro Coun­cil­man and state Rep. Jim Gotto and state Rep. Glen Casada, R-Franklin. Also in atten­dance was David Fowler, who leads a con­ser­v­a­tive activist group.

Accord­ing to an email sent out ask­ing other con­cerned busi­ness lead­ers to attend, the meeting’s orga­niz­ers expressed fear that the next step could be requir­ing all busi­nesses in David­son County to adopt the city’s nondis­crim­i­na­tion ordinance.

Metro updated its nondis­crim­i­na­tion ordi­nance in 2009 to pro­tect work­ers on the basis of sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion and gen­der identity.

David Fowler runs the adorably named Family Action Council of Tennessee [FACT] [sic].

Here’s the invitation to the event:

From: William Mor­gan
Sent: Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 04, 2011 5:34 PM
Sub­ject: Urgent Meet­ing re: Metro Ordi­nance on Sex­ual Orientation

Lee Bea­man, Stan Hard­away, Wal­ter Strick­land, Tom Smith and I are host­ing a meet­ingnext Wednes­day morn­ing, Jan­u­ary 12^th to inform you about an ordi­nance pend­ing before Metro Coun­cil (launched due to the Bel­mont con­tro­versy and set for final vote on Feb­ru­ary 1st!) that, accord­ing to the City Paper, would require all busi­nesses doing busi­ness with Metro“to have writ­ten poli­cies that ban dis­crim­i­na­tion against employ­ees based on sex­ual ori­en­ta­tion or gen­der iden­tity” (i.e gays, les­bians, bi-sexuals and trans­gen­ders). I can assure you that the spon­sors want it to apply to all sub­con­trac­tors and sub-vendors that are a party to any Metro con­tract as well.

The meet­ing will lay out the wide-reaching impact of this ordi­nance, what can be done to defeat it, and the next item on the homo­sex­ual agenda if this passes (which is to require all busi­nesses domi­ciled in David­son County to adopt these same policies).

Our speak­ers will include Metro Coun­cil­man and State Representative-elect Jim Gotto,who will dis­cuss the local gov­ern­ment process, State Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Glen Casada, who will address new leg­is­la­tion at the state level directed against this issue, and for­mer State Sen­a­tor David Fowler, Pres­i­dent of the Fam­ily Action Coun­cil of Ten­nessee , who will lay out the not-so-apparent legal ram­i­fi­ca­tions of such an ordi­nance and what we can do to oppose it.

The meet­ing will be from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. in the Nashville Room of the Life­Way Build­ing located at One Life­Way Plaza (enter the vis­i­tors park­ing lot from 9^th Avenue North, imme­di­ately on the left after cross­ing Com­merce Street when com­ing from Broad­way).  Fur­ther direc­tions are here. A con­ti­nen­tal break­fast will be served.

Because break­fast is being pro­vided and there is lim­ited room, please RSVP to me if you are com­ing so I can turn your name in.

If you know a busi­ness owner who you know would oppose this ordi­nance, please pass this invi­ta­tion on them, but do ask them to RSVP to me.

This is an impor­tant issue against which we must take a stand together, so I hope to see you there.

William
William D. Mor­gan
President

Awww, it’s a Breakfast ‘n’ Bigotry meeting! They should call it that from now on.  Or maybe “Biscuits ‘n’ Bigots.”  So many possibilities!  What kind of pastries go best with pig ignorance and petulant, childish hatred?

It was tabled just a few weeks ago due to lack of support, but now it’s back:

This morning, the [Memphis city] council’s personnel committee passed a resolution requesting the administration conduct a study of discrimination in city employment. The survey will include sexual orientation and gender identity or expression, but it won’t be limited to those issues. The city’s human resources department will conduct the survey.

The committee also passed the non-discrimination ordinance, and it will go to full council for a first reading on Tuesday, November 9th. A similar ordinance was withdrawn by its sponsor/council person Janis Fullilove in August at the request the Tennessee Equality Project (TEP). At the time, TEP cited a lack of support from Mayor A C Wharton and bias on the council.

People on both sides of the issue crowded the committee meeting room this morning, but there seemed to be more ordinance supporters wearing TEP stickers than opposition sporting “one man, one woman” stickers. TEP’s Jonathan Cole spoke on the need for workplace protections for LGBT city workers.

“Memphis is at a crossroads. Memphis cannot afford to send a mixed message to its residents or the rest of the world,” Cole said. “Will Memphis be the city of choice that we’ve heard so much about? A city that welcomes people of diverse backgrounds? Or will Memphis choose to send a message of exclusion, a message that diversity, fairness, and equality are not valued here?”

For their part, the opposition’s spokesman, Josh Davis, from the cutely named Family Action Council of Tennessee [FACT] [sic] had this to say:

“[A] workforce is more productive and manageable when a person’s sexuality and sexual practices are left out of the workplace and confined to their personal, private lives.”

True.  It’s a lot easier to do that when you can’t be fired for going home to a spouse of the same sex.  Or for mentioning your spouse at work.  Things straight people, those flaunters of sexuality, do every day.

This evening Tony Perkins and Bishop Harry Jackson will be descending upon Memphis’s largest church, Bellevue Baptist, for a “Stand for the Family” rally. In the interest of not wasting people’s time, I will now liveblog this event FROM THE FUTURE:

1. The family is under attack!

2. It is all the gays’ fault!

3. All of you people with families, you are under attack! Right now!

4. By the gays!

5. Also, abortion?

6. And what happens when a man in a dress decides to use the ladies’ room at your local Hobby Lobby? All hell breaks loose, that’s what!

7. Gays are so powerful that they will take the entire military down with one disco ball!

8. Did I mention that all of you people are under attack? Take cover due to partly cloudy with a 100% chance of gays!

9. Did you hear about the time

a. a New Mexico photographer was forced to abide by the laws of her state?

b. kids in Massachusetts had to learn to read books that reflected reality?

c. a wedding pavilion that was open to the public was forced to be open to PUBLIC GAYS?

d. the liberal media attacked Carrie Prejean worse than 9/11 when they time traveled and convinced her to make a sex tape?

10. We’re victims!

Here’s the flyer, which looks like a page from a coloring book. So Jeremy Hooper colored it.

The event is being sponsored by the adorably named FACT (Family Action Council of Tennessee).

Meanwhile, around the corner, the Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center will be hosting a rally called Stand for ALL Families:

Says MGLCC director Will Batts: “MGLCC stands for all types of families because we value the unconditional love that builds those relationships. Many of the kids we assist have been hurt by traditional families that see only rigid, limited ways of expressing love.”

Like the ones being supported and promoted at Bellevue Baptist this evening.