You see, back when the SPLC was primarily concerned with the most overt racists among us, it was fine, because Matt Barber was not weaned in a time when it was socially acceptable to wear one’s racism on one’s sleeve. Now that the SPLC has broadened its scope to include other vicious, hateful, dishonest groups like the Family Research Council and his friend Porno Pete’s Americahs for Truth on their list of hate groups, it’s not okay, because they’re espousing an “extremist left-wing agenda.” You know what else used to be an “extremist left-wing agenda?” That’s right, the Civil Rights Movement.
Same dishonest, bigoted arguments, from the same people, different minority.
“Oh wow. Today my Dad is really, really upset about fictional characters in the Star Wars video game. He’s getting paid for this.”
“Weird.”
After first going after Girl Scout cookies, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins is now attacking the game Star Wars: The Old Republic for allowing same-sex relationships.
Uh, okay, well all right then. Here’s the full quote from Tony:
In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists! Hello, I’m Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. In a galaxy not so far far away, Star Wars gamers have already gone to the dark side. The new video game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has added a special feature: gay relationships. Bioware, the company that developed the game, said it’s launching a same-sex romance component to satisfy some complaints. That surprised a lot of gamers, since Bioware had made it clear in 2009 that “gay” and “lesbian” don’t exist in the Star Wars universe. Since the announcement, homosexuals have been celebrating the news, but parents sure aren’t. On the game’s website, there are more than 300 pages of comments–a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking. You can join them by logging on and speaking up. It’s time to show companies who the Force is really with!
“It is startling that President Obama is prepared to throw the full weight and reputation of the United States behind the promotion overseas of the radical ideology of the sexual revolution. If he did the same on other issues, his own liberal allies would undoubtedly accuse him of cultural imperialism. Threats to withhold foreign aid from poor countries unless they conform their laws to the views of Western radicals are unconscionable.
“The United Nations, like the United States, remains sharply divided on the issue of whether special rights should be granted on the basis of sexual conduct, sexual orientation or gender identity.
Indeed, we have failed to come to an agreement on special rights such as the parking spaces and Groupons For Gays Only that I personally advocate, but here in the United States a clear majority support equal rights for LGBT people, and the other civilized nations in the world are far ahead of us in that respect.
“President Obama should increase efforts to defend human rights that are widely recognized, such as religious liberty, rather than appeasing his domestic allies by imposing an alien ideology on other countries.”
The only allies Peter Sprigg has left are uneducated hicks, both at home and abroad. He pleads with the Obama administration to leave just this one thing intact, their right to discriminate against LGBT people. Otherwise, fundamentalists far and wide will actually have to start coming to grips with the fact that, when judged by their merits, their contributions to our global society exist on a line between non-existent and destructive.
As Jeremy points out, this is at best, pathetic, and at worst, an illustration of just how much contempt people like Tony Perkins have for their own followers. Basically here is what had happened was: yesterday, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi added a non-controversial amendment to a defense authorization bill which clarified that military chaplains are free to refuse to marry same-sex couples. Though gay rights advocates have never fought to force any clergy to perform weddings they don’t want to, for whatever reason, the following video features Roger Wicker speaking to hate group leaders Tim Wildmon [AFA] and Tony Perkins [FRC], declaring this very non-controversial amendment a “victory.”
I am aware that the Religious Right is winning basically nothing when it comes to gay rights these days — and thank heavens for that — but that they are declaring this a victory is hilarious. Jeremy also points out that there was basically no opposition to this, because it’s already Pentagon policy, and no one cares.
Think about it: why on God’s green earth would any gay couple want to go to Reverend Bubba the Bigot to perform their ceremony?! Weddings are happy occasions, people. No need to have a gross old homophobe on the guest list, much less at the pulpit.
Here’s the video:
When I said above that people like Tony Perkins and Tim Wildmon have absolute contempt for their own followers, those are my words, not Jeremy’s. But let me expand on that a bit. The Religious Right [and indeed, the Republican Party] would not have the donors and followers they have if they weren’t exceptionally crafty when it comes to lying to and scaring the shit out of their sheep. There is no liberal or gay-friendly parallel to this. On this side of the fence, journalists, bloggers and non-profit organizations are well aware that our average readers/listeners/supporters are pretty smart people, and moreover people who are willing and able to research issues for themselves. Therefore, aside from the fact that we have absolutely no reason to mislead people, we wouldn’t make it very far with the people who support us if we played cute with the facts like the Religious Right does.
Sadly, and I know this is a broad over-generalization, but Tony Perkins knows it too, the Religious Right is simply not that kind of crowd. So beholden to fear and authority are they that the “daddy figures” they choose to trust are viewed as impenetrable and beyond reproach, even when the words coming out of their leaders’ mouths defy all logic, reason and civics knowledge. Tim Wildmon, being sort of a fringe, regional figure, might be so dumb/uninformed that he believes what he’s saying, but Tony Perkins is inside the Beltway. He knows full well when he’s lying to his people in order to keep their fear-based ca$h a-rollin’ into the FRC’s coffers. Aside from the fact that the man leads a well-known and detested hate group, it’s grotesque to realize that a large part of his influence comes from the fact that he lies to his own people.
That’s how you end up with a situation where these men are able to go on to AFA radio and boldly claim “victory” on an issue that literally, nobody cares about. If their followers acted like liberals and decided to check for themselves whether or not gay couples wanted to force awful wingnuts to perform gay marriage ceremonies, they’d discover that Tony and Tim and Roger are lying to them. But they won’t, and those men know it, so the lies will continue.
Several things to mock in this latest missive from Tony Perkins, from yesterday’s broadcast of Today’s Issues put out by the hate group called the Family Research Council. Let us do so because Tony Perkins is truly low-hanging fruit:
I think it’s time for us to occupy. Not going down and setting up tents out in front of city hall, but it’s time for us to be gainfully involved in boldly proclaiming truth and not backing down in the face of intimidation, whether it be from a school principal, kids if you’re listening obviously talk with your parents first, and parents, don’t be intimidated by school officials, don’t be intimidated by the ACLU.
Um, Tony, you all already “occupy” a lot of places. That’s why gay kids end up getting the message from bullies and the fundamentalist religious leaders who enable them that they’re not worthy of living. I’d hate to see the bodycount if Tony Perkins stepped up the FRC’s “occupying” activities.
Pastors, I’m gonna have a pastor hopefully on the program maybe this week or next week from Oklahoma who spoke out at city council and now he’s gotten death threats, well you know what, we’ve got to stand up to this. We cannot allow this to go on, allow them to intimidate us into silence.
Should we be angry? No. But we should understand that it is the truth that sets people free and those in the homosexual community that are looking for fulfillment, that are looking for the approval that they are trying to get by forcing society to embrace homosexuality, they will never get it that way. They’ll only get it when they come to grips with the truth, that they are created in the image of God and God has a plan for their lives, and it’s not the destructive path that they’re on.
Oh, so delusional. You see, people like Tony Perkins live in a weird, bizarre echo chamber outside of reality where the only thing they know and understand is their own lies. Just as creationists can look at fossils from millions of years ago and simply stick their fingers in their ears clinging to their cult belief that the earth is Brand New, Tony Perkins and his fellow anti-gay bigots [also creationists!] simply cannot compute the fact that there are millions of gay people who happy and fulfilled, and not on destructive paths at all. The truth of the matter is that it is those LGBT people who are most influenced by fundamentalist religion who end up destroyed. Their families end up destroyed, their lives are destroyed, sometimes they commit suicide…and for what? The approval of unworthy malcontents like Tony Perkins? My god.
The Family Research Council has a quiz up on its website for us to take! Because Truth Wins Out readers are grounded in reality, as opposed to Tony Perkins’ weird, disturbed lie- and hatred-based worldview, you will all fail it miserably, but then again, that’s okay, because you all actually know the definition of “family values,” whereas the FRC does not.
The part about how ENDA would force Christians to remove family pictures from their workplaces is so batsh*t stupid/hilarious I don’t even know how to react. Fundamentalists are such victims.
Yesterday, the bill to repeal DOMA passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 10-8. This is making the Religious Right whine a lot. Brian at Right Wing Watch compiled a bunch of their reactions, and you should hop over there and read all of them, but my favorite is the fact-free whining from hate group leader Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council:
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee passed S.598, Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) bill that would completely eradicate the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and the protections it affords taxpayers and the majority of state’s voters who have decided to define marriage as between one man and one woman.
The misnomer medal of the month might have to be awarded early! S.598, the misleadingly titled “Respect for Marriage Act” not only disrespects American’s across the country who want to protect traditional marriage–and have done as much in the 31 states which have passed statewide referendums in favor of marriage–it will also require your tax dollars go to pay for the federal benefits and subsidies of gay couples, irrespective of where they live, who have gotten “married” in 6 states that allow it.
Marriage is not some prize that liberals can award to a small, vocal and already well off special interest group. Marriage between one man and one woman was created prior to the formation of any governments and is given benefits by governments because it uniquely contributes to a productive society. Trying to change the definition to fit some misguided concept can only cause harm to society.
Oh, boo-hoo, it “disrespects” Americans who want to “protect traditional marriage” from a “special interest group.” Also, his concept of the history of marriage is pathetically stupid. Here, let Al Franken explain that for you, as he did yesterday during the hearings. As Kirsten at Wonkette points out, it was kind of sad that he had to spell this out so slowly and nicely for the idiots, but it’s still necessary, unfortunately:
As for Tony’s blathering about state referenda and ‘Murkans who want to defend tradishnul murrge, here is a picture I found yesterday, of Rachel Maddow explaining these sorts of things to people who are dumb:
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.
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.
Yesterday, speaking to the wingnuts at the so-called “Family Research Council,” a Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate group, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann had this to say about the unemployed (in addition to her usual gay bashing and crazy-eyed fear of “socialism”):
“Our nation needs to stop doing for people what they can, and should, do for themselves. That revives the principle of a national work ethic that we have sadly forgotten. That means an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Self-reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.”
I wonder if the god she worships — presumably the same god who is commanding her to run for President — gave her a divine dispensation to ignore the whole “feed the hungry” thing.
