At the University of Toledo in Ohio, administrators apparently made the mistake of hiring a bigot to administer university hiring policies which forbid discrimination on the basis of race, religion and sexual orientation.
In an April 18 article in the Toledo Free Press, Crystal Davis, associate vice president for human resources for the university, declared her support for discrimination on all three counts:
she was willing to enforce her own antigay religious views upon university employees and students possessing less-homophobic, more-genuine religious beliefs,
despite university hiring policies to the contrary, she denied that gay people have civil rights or that discrimination victimizes them, and
Davis also denied the natural existence of intersexed and gender-variant people who might apply for jobs at the university — and threatened God’s wrath against such people:
She concluded: “My final and most important point. There is a divine order. God created human kind male and female (Genesis 1:27). God created humans with an inalienable right to choose. There are consequences for each of our choices, including those who violate God’s divine order.
Davis was fired for flouting the policies that she was hired to enforce, and religious-right media have been in an uproar ever since — accusing the university of discriminating racially and religiously against Davis because it would not permit her to deny religious freedom to others, nor to arbitrarily violate campus hiring and employment policies with impunity.
Two ex-gay activists have now leapt to Davis’ defense with a bizarre assertion that antigay African-Americans somehow enjoy a special racial and religious right to discriminate against others on the basis of victims’ religion and sexual orientation, whatever local laws and employer hiring policies may say to the contrary.
When speaking across America, people often marvel when I talk about the strange, unnatural things so-called “ex-gays” do to change their natural sexual orientation. On the list of forbidden objects for ex-gays is sexy underwear.
This week, an “ex-gay” man actually asked to be taken off an underwear mailing list because pictures of the garments were leading him to temptation. He also chastised the company’s workers for leading people to sin.
Check out this nutty ex-gay’s letter to the company by clicking HERE.
The April 25 national Day Of Silence unites students in a silent vigil against violence in schools, and in commemoration of the lives of Lawrence King and thousands of other youths who have been killed or assaulted because of their sexual orientation or gender expression.
The April 28 Day of Truth is something entirely different:
It is a pernicious effort by Exodus, the antigay Alliance Defense Fund, Focus on the Family, ex-gay activist Scott Lively, ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett, Mission: America, and other pro-bigotry organizations to divert public attention from school violence in order to discuss their fixation with homosexual sex on public-school property during school hours.
At least two antifamily, pro-harassment organizations — Mission: America and the American “Family” Association — continued to lobby antigay parents today to shield their teen-agers from anti-bullying messages by keeping them home from school on April 25, which has been designated an annual Day of Silence by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.
The Day of Silence commemorates GLBT youths who were victims of school violence and murder, by reminding classmates that violence and harassment silence GLBT youths and their families.
The boycott against freedom of speech and nonviolence in schools is co-sponsored by the ex-gay Abiding Truth Ministries, American Family Association, Americans for Truth, Concerned Women for America, Exodus Mandate, Illinois Family Institute, Indiana Voice for the Family, Liberty Counsel, Mass Resistance, Mission: America, Parents’ Rights Coalition, the ex-gay Stephen Bennett Ministries, and Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson’s pro-violence group Watchmen on the Walls.
In inland California, anti-tolerance organizations hope the boycott will prove financially costly to public schools and taxpayers, as school funding is said to be determined in part by attendance. A pro-discrimination group, Capitol Research Institute, has organized a counter-event euphemistically called a “Day of Learning” for antigay parents and students that participate in the pro-harassment boycott. What exactly will participants “learn”? According to The Press-Enterprise, they will learn how to gather signatures “to repeal a state law that prevents discrimination in schools based on sexual orientation.” Meanwhile, the antigay Alliance Defense Fund has declared April 28 to be an annual day when antigay students verbally harangue gay classmates with defamatory, egotistical, and hypocritical religious messages.
GLSEN has released the following ad featuring Lance Bass to counter pro-harassment, pro-silence propaganda that is being fed to students by antigay political organizations:
Meanwhile, pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton continues his campaign against the anti-bullying day. Throckmorton’s proposal creates an artificial division between the Golden Rule and explicit opposition to antigay violence and harassment. Throckmorton may view his own campaign to supply students with misinformation as a lesser evil than that of the boycotters. But, in pandering to the worst elements of the pseudo-Christian religious right, Throckmorton trivializes both Christian values and the growing problem of antigay violence and harassment in schools.
Focus on the Family admitted today that Canadian Bill C-250 has caused it to alter its Canadian antigay propaganda.
Bill C-250 added penalties to the Criminal Code of Canada for inciting hatred or encouraging genocide of people on the basis of sexual orientation, in addition to race, religion, ethnic origin, gender, color, and disability.
The law states that no one may be convicted if:
(a) if he establishes that the statements communicated were true;
(b) if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text;
(c) if the statements were relevant to any subject of public interest, the discussion of which was for the public benefit, and if on reasonable grounds he believed them to be true; or
(d) if, in good faith, he intended to point out, for the purpose of removal, matters producing or tending to produce feelings of hatred toward an identifiable group in Canada.
The key defense is (a): Speech may not be punished if it’s true.
And that has been a problem for Focus on the Family, which — its critics allege — has persistently relied in the United States upon sweeping, unfounded, and malicious falsehoods about the behavior and values of same-sex-attracted persons as a class.
Today, Focus communications operative Gary Booker told WorldNetDaily:
“In particular, our content producers are careful not to make generalized statements nor comments that may be perceived as ascribing malicious intent to a ‘group’ of people and are always careful to treat even those who might disagree with us with respect,” Gary Booker, director of global content creation for Focus, told WorldNetDaily.com.
“Occasionally, albeit very rarely, some content is identified that, while acceptable for airing in the U.S. would not be acceptable under Canadian law and is therefore edited or omitted in Canada.”
In the United States, the First Amendment to the Constitution has acted as a bar against similar legislation.
Update:‘Repent America’ Leader Guilty: Michael Marcavage, whose Philadelphia-area band of followers uses megaphones to shout down public events, was found guilty of disorderly conduct for shouting down a Halloween festival last year in Salem, Mass. Previously, Exodus officially defended Repent America’s megaphone raid against a Philadelphia gay event as a matter of religious expression. (American Family Association) (More: The Salem News)
Focus on the Family Undermines Couples to ‘Save’ Marriage: Focus on the Family says that states must keep traditional families intact. How? By discriminating against all other families. Focus is upset at a same-sex couple that is suing the University of Hawaii after being excluded from married student housing on campus. Focus accuses the couple of “attacking marriage” by seeking respect as a couple and by honoring marital commitment. (Focus) (Update.)
Protest Planned against Ex-Gay Charlene Cothran: Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network will protest on March 13 against “ex-gay” Venus magazine publisher Charlene Cothran, who is developing an inflammatory new project: a speech entitled “How Homosexuality Destroys Families, Not Just Values.” (Queerty)
Hutcherson and the Legacy of MLK: On the Wallbuilders Live radio program, Exodus speaker Ken Hutcherson expands his campaign against his daughter’s school to include attempts to shut down the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and end the school’s participation in The Day of Silence. Hutcherson warns that the school faculty should be glad he’s not still committing acts of violence against whites, but adds: “If they don’t fire these teachers, I’m going to sue ‘em and I’m going to ask them for their dreams. And then they’re going to mess around and laugh and I’m going to take their tongue out.” So much for Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of nonviolent social unity and equal opportunity. (Right Wing Watch)
Lighter Side: Who cares what overpaid, over-blowdried anchors think? Anderson Cooper doesn’t — and doesn’t think the public should, either. (Romenesko)
