I say “invasive” bigotry, because what the trolls from Focus on the Family in this video don’t understand is that their constitutional right to hold bigoted, backwoods beliefs will always be sacrosanct. Heroic soldiers have fought and died for their rights to be as ill-informed and pig ignorant as they possibly can. Former New York Giant David Tyree is walking evidence of the continued health of that constitutional right. Whether it’s wise to waste one’s life being bigoted is up for debate.
But no, that’s not what the fey Stuart Shepard and the other lady are complaining about in this video. It never is. No, they are worried that their [nonexistent] right to use their bigotry to damage other people’s lives, to take other people’s clearly constitutional rights away, and to victimize the rest of society with their ridiculous beliefs, will be taken away. David Tyree is actually featured in this video whining that his “religious freedom” will be damaged by people getting married, people whom he has never met and who have no desire to meet him.
Later in the video, they quote another stalwart defender of bigotry and expert on marriage, the ostensibly celibate Archbishop Timothy Dolan. Yes, we need to hear about marriage and loving relationships from a man who took a vow of celibacy, who really isn’t supposed to have any experience with that sort of thing.
Oh, and then there’s some boring stuff about how “God created the definition of marriage,” a statement that remains inadmissible in the court of logic until such day that the bigots prove the statement to be valid.
All in a day’s “work” for the intellectual wizards of Focus on the Family. I hope neither of the people featured in the video have any gay children, for I cannot imagine the damage they have done or will do to those kids.
Focus on the Family asserted this evening that federal courts and government agencies are not doing enough to harass gay and lesbian couples.
In particular, Focus complains that a gay couple has thus far won a court struggle to be treated fairly in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy proceeding, contrary to the discriminatory policy of Attorney General Eric Holder, who has authority over the U.S. Trustee’s Office.
Focus also complains that Medicaid officials will no longer go out of their way to drive gay and lesbian couples from their homes when one partner is in a nursing home.
Focus on the Family and ProtectMarriage.com yesterday reiterated that gay people are unfit to be judges, because gay people have a vested stake in every facet of law — you know, like everybody else.
Of course, that’s not how Focus worded its bigotry; the organization instead suggested that a non-celibate gay judge (for example, retired District Judge Vaughn R. Walker) should recuse himself from any case involving recognition of family relationships. But the broader ramifications of Focus’ contention were obvious to all, at a hearing held yesterday before U.S. District Chief Judge James Ware.
Ware will decide today whether Walker’s ruling, which struck down California’s unconstitutional ban on same-sex marriage, should be overturned because he failed to divulge his sexual orientation, sever ties with his partner, and forego any future relationship before issuing his ruling.
Yesterday, Ware bluntly questioned the Christian Right’s implicit contention that black judges should recuse themselves from civil rights cases, and that female judges (who are at higher risk of sexual assault) should recuse themselves from assault cases.
Ware also indicated that he was likely to deny the Christian Right’s demand that video coverage of the previous Prop 8 trial under Vaughn Walker be surrendered to the court for permanent suppression.
Focus on the Family admitted none of this news in its summary of the proceeding. Instead, Focus quoted Ed Whelan, president of the so-called “Ethics and Public Policy Center.” Whelan contended that it is appropriate for members of a majority to have a stake in the seizure of others’ rights — but inappropriate for a minority to have an equal stake in preserving the rights of all.
Focus said it fears that, if the public gains access to video of the original trial proceedings, the Christian Right might be “exposed to harassment” (embarrassment) at the hands of “gay activists.” The organizations that favor marriage equality, however, contend that public exposure of the trial testimony — and the poor in-court performance of the Christian Right witnesses — would be more damaging to the antigay alliance than any activist press release.
While Focus and its allies in the alliance maintain a united public front, their influence among other conservatives may be fading along with their courtroom credibility. The conservative Fox News rejected Focus’ ridiculous assertions. Guest host Gregg Jarrett and Fox legal analyst Andrew Napolitano both agreed that the Christian Right case against Walker is without merit.
DISCUSS: Should Jewish and atheist judges be required to convert to evangelical Christianity before ruling on matters of minority religious freedom?
It seems that America could use a genuine pro-family movement instead of hate groups using “family values” as a cover for their anti-gay activities. According to the Census Bureau as reported in the New York Times:
** Married couples have dropped below half of all American households for the first time. Married couples represented just 48 percent of American households in 2010
** Just a fifth of households were traditional families – married couples with children – down from about a quarter a decade ago, and from 43 percent in 1950
** 37 states, plus the District of Columbia, in which married couples make up fewer than 50 percent of all households, up from just 6 states in 2000
** Rising income inequality has divided American society, making college-educated people less likely to marry those without college degrees. Members of that educated group have struck a new path: they marry later and stay married. In contrast, women with only a high school diploma are increasingly opting not to marry the fathers of their children, whose fortunes have declined along with the country’s economic opportunities.
** 41 states showed declines in traditional households of married couples with children. In 2000, married couples with children were fewer than 20 percent of all households in just one state, plus the District of Columbia. Now they are fewer than a fifth in 31 states.
The statistics are quite telling and perverse. In the name of saving marriage socially conservative groups helped elevate anti-gay Republicans, which enacted policies that led to great income disparity — which depresses marriage rates. Nice going, fundies!
This is similar to the way social conservatives try to cut funding to Planned Parenthood, which leads to unplanned parenthood and higher abortion rates. Or, how they promote abstinence-only programs in schools, which also backfire. It seems that right wing social engineering consistently boomerangs.
I think these new statistics are a good opportunity for “pro-family” groups to look in the mirror and realize that their politics have failed. Focus on the Family, the National Organization for Marriage and the Family Research Council have obsessed about gay families at the expense of traditional marriage. If they had bothered to pull their noses out of our bedrooms and averted their eyes from our keyholes, they might have noticed the problem.
James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, and Maggie Gallagher have no one to blame but themselves for the disintegration of marriage in America. They wasted (and continue to throw away) gobs of time and money harming LGBT people — and ignored the challenges faced by the majority of working families.
Given the statistics and their professed aim to support families — one can only conclude that the leadership of these groups has been misguided, blinded by anti-gay bigotry, addicted to the money from anti-gay direct mail campaigns, or simply incompetent.
It is time for Focus on the Family and other such groups to refocus. Working to destroy our families has done little to promote family life for the majority of Americans. If they are looking for something to do, consider this:
The nation’s overall education spending grew at a slower pace in 2009 than at any other time in more than a decade, amid deepening state fiscal woes and flatter tax revenues, according to new census figures released Wednesday.
Less education = Less marriages. Now, “pro-family” groups — stop gay bashing and get to work solving real problems.
This is your weekly reminder, Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown, Tony Perkins, Peter Sprigg, Laurie Higgins, Peter LaBarbera, Matt Barber, Linda Harvey, and whatever other sad sack bigots I missed: UPDATE YOUR RESUMES.
We’re winning the younger generation on abortion, at least in theory. What about same-sex marriage? We’re losing on that one, especially among the 20- and 30-somethings: 65 to 70 percent of them favor same-sex marriage. I don’t know if that’s going to change with a little more age—demographers would say probably not. We’ve probably lost that. I don’t want to be extremist here, but I think we need to start calculating where we are in the culture.
You and the demographers are right, Jim. Those numbers ain’t goin’ back, baby. Civil Rights issues never, ever, follow that sort of trajectory. EVER. Especially on the issue of equality for gays and lesbians — it doesn’t matter what your family looks like, what you believe, what color you are, how much you make, or anything else: you have gays and lesbians in your family, in your circle of friends, in your church. And the second people get to know us, they start voting for us, because they learn that what they’ve been taught is not only a lie, but a damned lie.
[The stuff about reproductive rights is wishful thinking, but eh, not getting into that right now.]
The interview in World is subscription-only, which makes me laugh, so I’m kind of relying on Pareene at Salon for these quotes from the interview, but he pulls out another interesting one about the Obama family:
I may not agree with any of his policies. I do appreciate that he’s married to his first wife and raising his two children. We need more men like that. I once said that America would be better off if we had more families that reflected the Obamas, and a lot of conservatives went nuts with that, but it’s true! Some of the conservative candidates that we put up—between a couple of them recently, I think they had seven or eight marriages. That seems a bit hypocritical.
The overarching message here? Clean up your own damn house, fundies, or as the bumper sticker on my old car used to say, “Focus On Your Own Damn Family.” It’s a known fact anyway that liberals do better with things like marriage than fundamentalists anyway, so it’s not like they have anything to teach us. We’re doin’ just fine.
Still, it’s nice to see a prominent Evangelical leader begin to embrace reality.
I don’t know why Focus’s Stuart Smalley Shepard is so confused about what happened when Apple pulled Exodus’s iPhone app, but then again he’s never shown a propensity for deep thinking in the past. Also, he identifies Exodus as simply a group which teaches that through Jesus you can experience “radical change.” Doesn’t even mention the “ex-gay” propaganda. Is “ex-gay” therapy becoming a laughingstock even within the walls of Focus?
The Pentagon has been moving slowly in recent months to ensure that gay and lesbian servicemembers will be treated as equals by their peers — not bullied or denied their constitutional freedoms, including the freedom of religion.
Meanwhile, relatively liberal states such as California are struggling to protect gay and lesbian students from violence and defamation and to halt antigay censorship in history courses.
Those changes have alarmed Focus on the Family, which today equated minority religious freedom, non-censorship in education, and opposition to harassment with “indoctrination.”
Focus on the Family and its partner the Pacific Justice Institute imply that it may be OK to suppress historical persons on the basis of ideology and sexuality, or to misinform students about these persons’ families. In short, these organizations project their own desire for quotas onto a state educational system.
“It seems a bit like a quota system,” said Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council. “It’s based less on the level of contribution and more on one’s sexual orientation.”
Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said: “Our Legislature just doesn’t get it — with thousands of teachers getting pink slips, this is not the time to place more expensive, politically correct mandates on our schools. This bill also undermines parental rights and is insensitive to those whose cultures and belief systems are at odds with the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) agenda.”
In fact, Focus on the Family and its affiliates already enjoy an antigay quota system in many school systems across the United States:
Heterosexual Christians: 100 Everybody else: 0
On the armed-services front, it’s clear that Focus on the Family and antigay activist Elaine Donnelly wish to bury efforts toward servicemember equality in red tape by reopening issues of housing, chain of command, religious liberty, and dress code that were settled amicably among most military leaders long ago.
In the battle to push gays out of the armed services, Christian Right activists will argue that their own rights to housing, religion, and heterosexual-only bathrooms require that everyone else lose those same rights.
Didn’t I just write this same piece about a lesser wingnut? So, Jim Daly of Focus on the Family doesn’t like that Lady Gaga song the kids are listening to, especially when they are listening to it on his lawn, which they need to get off of:
I am not inclined toward celebrity psycho-analysis, and, candidly, find it strange to even write the word “Gaga.” But when millions of young people download her music and watch her videos, parents are wise to take note of what the hype and hoopla is all about.
In Born This Way, the claim is made that you’re born heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or transgendered. Don’t fight it – simply accept and embrace it.
The problem is, researchers are not sure about what causes homosexuality. Many are concluding it is a complex combination of things, but it is not as clear cut as simply genetic material.
Yes, science is complex, science is confusing, yet no scientist has made any inroads in the “you should deny your sexual orientation” crusade advocated by bigots like Jim.
The pulse and pace of modern culture can usually be determined from its music and movies, not faith and reason. That a song advocating for a genetic determinative for homosexuality sits atop the charts is disconcerting, but not entirely shocking. From the outside looking in, two things strike me.
Can’t wait to hear what they are.
First, by Stefani Germanotta’s own admission, she’s built her entire persona and celebrity on a platform that’s anything but typical. She is playing a part, a role, and not living as she would outside the bright lights. Put another way, Lady Gaga was clearly not born this way.
Right, but she’s not claiming she was born wearing egg costumes, or meat dresses, or whatever it is that she does.
Second, and more importantly, the message found within the lyrics of Born This Way is in stark contrast to the message of the Gospel. All of us are born into sin, the Bible tells us, with desires and resulting actions that separate us from God and put us at odds with His blueprint for our lives. But the Good News is we’re not hopelessly trapped in our sin and failure. Despite the fact that we were “born this way,” each of us can be set free – from homosexuality, or heterosexual sex outside of marriage, or pornography, or greed, or gossip, or any other human shortcoming – to be the men and women God intended us to be.
Yes, but the Good News about homosexuality is a lie, so it fails. Lady Gaga: 1; Focus bigot: 0.
The new “kinder, gentler” Focus on the Family is just as lame as the pitchfork-fest led by Dobson. We can at least give Daly credit for one thing, though: he doesn’t abuse wiener dogs.
Ashley Horne and Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family have the answer! Unfortunately the video isn’t embeddable, presumably because it’s embarrassing. The video is about Focus’s “Day of Dialogue,” in which they seek to deflect public attention from the blood all over fundamentalist Christian hands when it comes to the bullying and, all too often, suicides among gay teens.
Anyway, they don’t use the word “hate,” but rather use coded dogwhistles and catch phrases like “God’s plan for sexuality,” and other tripe meant to soothe the brainwashed.
Here’s what you should know about civil union legislation: It is being introduced in several states as part of a strategy to redefine marriage.
Although it is often denied, a news release by the Illinois ACLU about recently-passed civil union legislation admits this, and also equates “full equality” with same-sex marriage.
Although the passage of civil union legislation represents an important step forward on the road toward full equality for LGBT individuals in Illinois, the ACLU continues to work to achieve the freedom to marry for all couples.
“We look forward to the day when Illinois joins other states across the nation by making marriage available for all Illinois citizens,” said Colleen Connell, executive director of the ACLU of Illinois. “This new law suggests that the day of complete fairness for lesbian and gay couples is not far away in the Land of Lincoln.”
In addition to this verbal acknowledgement that civil unions are a step toward the goal of same-sex marriage, there is the real evidence. Vermont, Connecticut and New Hampshire started with civil unions but now have same-sex marriage after the LGBT lobby declared civil unions to be inadequate.
Civil unions will never be enough for the LGBT lobby…
Shorter Jenny Tyree: “Just like slaves were totally bitchy about the Three-Fifths Compromise, homosexuals are never going to be satisfied until they’re considered full, equal people under US law. Horrors!”
Yesterday, Ware 
