In the not too distant past, most Americans couldn’t tell a Pashtun from a cartoon, a Sunni from a Moonie or a Kurd from bean curd. Then came 9-11 and we learned our very survival depended on securing freedom for people we barely knew existed. Exorcising the region’s demons through democracy was so important, we were told, that America would pay for the effort in blood and bankruptcy.

Despite the bumbling and fumbling of the war effort, the bitter divisions in our country and the wheelbarrows of dough dumped in the desert, there was always the faint hope that a better Middle East might just emerge from the mess. And, whatever one thinks of the two wars, Saddam Hussein and the Taliban were real villains who were vanquished.

The idea, of course, was that once these monsters were slain, they’d be replaced with the sane. But, the monsters have multiplied and Sasquatch has morphed into a bevy of Big Foots (or is it Big Feet?). It appears that for all of our sacrifice – and that of the secular Iraqi and Afghanistani people – the crazies are back in control. Or, at least fanatics have instilled enough fear that “mainstream” Iraqi and Afghanistani politicians are tripping over themselves to please and appease. (Read More)

Exodus International is the nation’s foremost organization claiming to use Christianity to turn LGBT people into “ex-gays.”

And while Exodus says it “loves” gay people, the Gay Liberation Network says Exodus’ fake attempts to change gays into straights is rooted in their “hatred of gay people.” GLN points out that Exodus opposes all civil rights for LGBT people; in just the past few months, Exodus has taken extreme actions to oppose the human rights, health, and safety of same-sex-attracted people.

In March, Exodus board member Don Schmierer traveled to Uganda to keynote a conference which declared that life imprisonment for homosexuals is too lenient and that tougher laws should be accompanied by involuntary detention in ex-gay re-education camps. More recently, Exodus joined the religious-right “Freedom Federation” which promotes the myth that conservative Christian freedom requires that liberal and non-Christian Americans be denied their own freedom and equality under the law. Exodus opposes laws that would require that violent crimes against gay and transgender persons be punished just as harshly as violent crimes committed on the basis of the victim’s race or religion; Exodus claims that the punishment of violent crime threatens the “freedom of speech” of antigay pastors, even though such laws contain safeguards for religious speech. Finally, Exodus refuses to publicly oppose ex-gay exorcisms performed against a 16-year-old youth by an amateur pentecostal church in Connecticut.

Every major professional mental-health association has denounced Exodus’s efforts to suppress and lie about individuals’ sexual orientation as potentially very damaging to the very people Exodus claims to “help.”

As the American Psychiatric Association notes: “The potential risks of ‘reparative therapy’ are great, including depression, anxiety and self destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self hatred already experienced by the patient. Many patients who have undergone ‘reparative therapy’ relate that they were inaccurately told that homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction. The possibility that the person might achieve happiness and satisfying interpersonal relationships as a gay man or lesbian is not presented, nor are alternative approaches to dealing with the effects of societal stigmatization discussed.”

GLN invites Midwesterners to help expose the “ex-gay” fraud, and help show young LGBT people that there is an alternative to the damaging quack “therapy” that Exodus International promotes.

The Gay Liberation Network is organizing a protest against the opening of Exodus International’s annual “Freedom [from Gay Equality] Conference” and it invites you to join them:

6:30 PM
Tuesday, July 14
Wheaton College
500 College Avenue
Wheaton, Illinois
Related Facebook group

GLN is organizing transportation from Chicago to the protest, and may be able to offer it from some suburban locations. If you need transportation or are willing to offer it, please email LGBTliberation@aol.com.

Reuters and numerous blogs today announced the public formation of the Freedom Federation, a coalition of long-time members of the religious-right Arlington Group including the ex-gay member ministries of Exodus International.

According to Vision America and Liberty Counsel (via Ex-Gay Watch), the federation offers a “Declaration of American Values” including:

• freedom from contraception, phrased as “right to life”
• freedom from same-sex marriage and single parenting
• freedom from parental responsibility laws that protect children, phrased as “parental rights”
• freedom from non-evangelical religious faiths, phrased as “religious liberty [for conservative Christians]“
• freedom from undefined “indecency”
• freedom to use one’s property in ways that harm neighbors and community, phrased as “the right to property”
• freedom from international obligations and agreements, phrased as “national sovereignty”

The federation declares war against the legality of single-parent families as well as same-sex parents and their children. The federation does this by declaring as a top goal: “To secure our national interest in the institution of marriage and family by embracing the union of one man and one woman as the sole form of legitimate marriage and the proper basis of family.”

Overwhelmingly Caucasian and evangelical, the Freedom Federation defines freedom, in short, as freedom from freedom: Freedom from the beliefs, values, cultures, circumstances, and activities of people who are not conservative evangelicals and who are therefore deemed untrue Americans and untrue Christians.

This “true” freedom is sometimes called “Freedom in Christ” — which has come to be redefined by evangelical partisans as a freedom from responsibility to co-exist with liberal Christians as well as Jews, Muslims, agnostics, and others. (Read More)

Be warned: Those new National Organization for Marriage anti-GLBT  actor auditions videos Wayne reported about this week are gone. NOM noticed that its evil ruse had been exposed and demanded that YouTube take them down. Even a clip of a recent MSNBC Rachel Maddow clip that included the audition tapes is gone. NOM’s reason:  copyright infringement.  

YouTube has to develop a bigger pair. The fact that a national organization is working to deny equality under law to millions of certain citizens makes the story newsworthy.  Showing at least excerpts is fair use — under law. 

Why are people so afraid of the anti-equality crowd? It’s so obvious that the organized fundies are the ones to fear. NOM was willing to lie, manipulate, and terrify the ignorant segment of the public, low-info types who can be compelled en masse to do what is right for their brand of Christianity, but wrong for anyone who really believes in basic American ideals. The tactic is cynical, selfish, immoral, and destructive. And it works: Remember Proposition 8?

At HuffPo, Lambda Legal’s Evan Wolfson provides a description opf the ads and refutes their vicious claims, so that at least some of those unable to view the outrage can see clearly the threat with which we are dealing. It’s a long excerpt, but it is an important one:

Consider what the actors in the NOM ad pretend to be:

A doctor who wants to discriminate against her patients, despite civil rights laws and medical ethics that the California Supreme Court upheld – in a case having nothing to do with marriage.

An officer of a New Jersey group that for years voluntarily operated a beachside pavilion with special tax-breaks that required it be open to the public – but then tried to turn down a lesbian couple. The case did not turn on marriage, since New Jersey doesn’t yet allow gay couples to marry, but, rather, basic civil rights laws about open access to public accommodations.

A Massachusetts parent who sought to dictate public school curriculum about the diverse families children will need to be aware of to thrive in a diverse world, and then wanted to remove her child from classes in a way that would have disrupted class and imposed unreasonable burdens on the school and other kids.

The law in California, as elsewhere, is that doctors can’t discriminatorily refuse to treat patients — Christian, Muslim, or Jewish, gay or non-gay; that has nothing to do with marriage, and yet NOM incites fear. The law in New Jersey, as elsewhere, says that organizations running public accommodations such as restaurants or rental halls cannot discriminatorily exclude people — African American, Latino, or Asian, gay or non-gay; that has nothing to do with marriage, and yet NOM says that the discriminators are somehow the victims. The law in Massachusetts, as elsewhere, of course allows parents to teach their kids whatever they want, and even to send them to private schools or do home-schooling. The law also rightly sets rules for determining public school curriculum without having every parent, or special interest with an agenda, coming in and imposing their views on everyone else’s kids — yours or mine, gay or non-gay.

I encourage you to read Wolfson’s entire piece — he has worked on the front lines of this fight and knows the terrain.  And he’s a lawyer.

National Organization for Marriage may believe that its copyright trumps our right to know the truth, but the group is wrong. Here is an opportunity to dtake action and do some good: Anyone with a thirst for a truly equal US will share descriptions of the ad — along with the truth about marriage equality and the fact that is is no threat to anyone, save those who need legal supremacy — with everyone they know. It is particularly urgent that we talk with those who question the need for civil-marriage equality. If we can’t trust YouTube to stand up to transmit the truth, we must do it.

Here is a debate between NOM’s Maggie Gallagher and Human Rights Campaign Joe Solmonese on CNN’s “Hardball,” where the HRC chief handily obliterates his opponent’s position using truth and fact.

HRC\’s Joe Solmonese on Hardball 04/08/09

Chris Delaney, ex-gay activist and poster boy for P-FOX billboards, admitted last month to the Chattanooga Times Free Press that, as a “gay” man, he sought male affirmation — not sex.

The apparent fact that he did not experience a lifelong, predominant, and unvarying sexual attraction to men — and that he wasted his “gay” years in bars instead of pursuing constructive relationships and hobbies — hasn’t stopped Delaney from boasting for 12 years that he achieved freedom from homosexuality.

His claim is ironic. If anything, he is more deeply addicted to the subject than when he claimed to be gay.

For most of this decade, his picture has appeared on billboards to aid P-FOX in its ongoing campaign to divide families and blame parents for their children’s predominant and unchanging same-sex attraction.

In November, Delaney joined other ex-gay activists and antigay church leaders to strategize against equality and freedom in Tennessee.

And last week, Delaney revealed to OneNewsNow that he is willing to distort science and smear researchers who have discovered signs of a naturally occurring, biological predisposition to same-gender attraction. (Read More)

Gay people in Los Angeles have long supported a local restaurant, El Coyote, thanks to the welcoming hospitality of its owner and a manager, Marjorie Christofferson.

But behind the friendly veneer, Christofferson was giving money earned at El Coyote — a small amount, $100 — to efforts to undermine gay couples’ well-being and take away their freedoms.

As a result of Proposition 8, thousands of California gay couples lost the guaranteed freedom to visit partners in the hospital and to inherit a shared home and property when one partner dies. And because of Proposition 8, marriages are nullified by a state government that grants favoritism to some religious beliefs over others.

When local gay customers found out that their hangout’s manager was voting away their marital and religious freedoms with a bit of money as well as her vote, the customers naturally lost their appetite and stopped eating at El Coyote. Christofferson belatedly resigned — and in a free country like the United States, she can find a rewarding job with an antigay employer that is willing to subsidize her future efforts to cripple her gay customers’ relationships. There are now plenty of antigay political organizations in California that appear eager to hire Christofferson as an outspoken victim of people who were relegated to second-class citizenship by Proposition 8.

Now Exodus executive vice president Randy Thomas chimes in — calling the betrayed gay customers a “mob” for defending their freedom. He also falsely and baselessly accuses the restaurant customers of accepting money from antigay Islamic countries:

Do you find it … odd … that the California anti Prop 8 mob will ruin a Mormon woman’s life over a $100 contribution to Prop 8 but will apparently take money from rich Islamic theocratically inclined countries who actually practice work-place discrimination against homosexuals? The Mormon lady simply wanted a legal definition of marriage … not to stone or throw homosexuals in jail.

Emirates airlines does impose work place discrimination against homosexuals … and it is illegal to do so in their new hub of San Francisco …

So … where’s the Prop 8 mob on this one? … I am wondering how many Christian ministries/businesses have been denied or run out of San Francisco?

In his gratuitious and ignorant slap at “San Francisco values,” Thomas apparently can’t distinguish between Los Angeles and San Francisco — 400 miles apart — nor between a restaurant’s gay customers and a politically-moderate major-city government that frequently puts a higher value on corporate welfare than on the environment and human rights.

While gay-affirming Americans rallied for the freedom to marry in 300 cities last week, ex-gay activist Michael Glatze vented some misplaced resentment and boasted that he was glad to be free of his past desire for sexual honesty and for individual freedom.

Glatze professes joy in his ex-gay freedom-from-freedom. Desensitized by the religious right to the traditional American patriotic appreciation of freedom, Glatze projects his desensitization onto others. And in the person of Sarah Palin — deficit-spending opponent of science, history, basic geography, and critical thinking — Glatze finds “a message of God and love.”

In an article for the far-right WorldNetDaily, Glatze writes:

As I watch 100,000 people pile together shouting, ‘Gay, Straight, Black, White: Marriage is a Civil Right,’ begging to be allowed by law to participate in a life of homosexual behavior, I am impressed by how desensitized we have come as a society.

When I get despondent and feel that the voice of life in our American culture is threatened by what seems to be an avalanche of desensitization and death, I remember Gov. Sarah Palin appearing out of nowhere with uncanny political and leadership skills and a message of God and love. And, I remember how violently I protested – like the 100,000 – for ‘my RIGHTS!’ to freely participate in homosexual activity without any reminder of a conscience only a few years ago.

“I had the intent, without doubt, to silence every last individual whose message might suggest my homosexual activity was anything less than entirely equal to heterosexuality. Anyone who so much as intimated that there could be a health-related, psychology-related or self-worth-related impact to homosexuality that did not exist with heterosexuality was, merely, a bigot who needed my ever-present vigilance to turn his or her backward mind to the “liberated” present.

Glatze redefines “God and love” in terms of one’s choice of mental vacancy and blindness to one’s own amorality. He lashes out at those who defend freedom, as if freedom were an undeserved privilege in a society that ought to be ruled by the iron hand of fundamentalists.

And sadly, he bears false witness against those who oppose real bigotry. Unable to defend his own baseless prejudices against sexual honesty and American freedom, Glatze redefines bigotry and then applies his strawman arguments about bigotry to those who oppose prejudice.

Glatze adds:

That is why these disgusting rallies make me inspired, more than ever, to speak the truth and offer my love and help to the many human beings trapped by flawed viewpoints and incomplete logics. Not because I want to win an argument – God knows, in today’s climate of groupthink, that’s hardly ever possible – but, because I do love every human being equally, and believe we all have the same potential. Some of us have more difficulty, for a myriad of reasons, rising to our fullest potential than others; but, we all have potential.

I believe every human being has the potential to rise out of their confusion, break out of the shackles of groupthink, stand up proud and free, and see things clearly. I believe this is the case, because it happened to me.

Glatze is a practitioner and advocate of the groupthink that he perceives in others. He does not quote a single gay-equality advocate among all his strawman arguments, and he says nothing that has not already been parroted a million times before by other anti-gay, anti-family, anti-faith, anti-freedom fanatics who never take the time to listen to their opponents.

Lost in his own political echo chamber, Glatze conveys a message of shallowness, insecurity, and disgust for others’ freedom.

Hat tip: Joe.My.God

CNN remembers:

In its May 15 ruling legalizing gay marriage in California, the [California Supreme Court] justices seemed to signal that a ballot initiative like Proposition 8 might not be enough to change the underlying constitutional issues of the case in the court’s eyes.

The ruling said the right to marry is among a set of basic human rights “so integral to an individual’s liberty and personal autonomy that they may not be eliminated or abrogated by the legislature or by the electorate through the statutory initiative process.”

Enemies of individual freedom and religious liberty — including Mormon, Catholic, and Protestant religious-rightists — chose to ignore the human rights of fellow Californians. Through a campaign of outright lies and unethical activities, religious-right groups conned California voters into approving — by a narrow margin — Proposition 8, which by a simple majority vote nullified human rights and family values of an entire demographic minority of Californians.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, defenders of the freedom to marry contend that Proposition 8 used a ballot-initiative process which is legally restricted to minor changes to the state constitution. According to California law, changes of Proposition 8’s magnitude are supposed to be made only through a careful and deliberative legislative process.

Prop 8 replaced the freedom to marry with a sectarian religious ban that discriminated against the civil marriage and relationship rights of persons who choose not to adhere to the religious biases of one powerful voter bloc.

Today, according to CNN, the high court agreed to hear challenges to the constitutionality of Proposition 8. The case will not be heard before May 2009; until then, antifamily religious-rightists continue their efforts to nullify the pre-existing marriages of gay and lesbian couples.

Hat tip: All Facts and Opinion

Millions of lives are destroyed, relationships are uprooted, and fortunes are wasted in the false hope of becoming ex-gay, all because of the blatant misuse of one biblical passage.

It is well-known that the ex-gay movement is based on very faulty psychological premises.  What is not so well-known is that the biblical basis for their assumptions is equally bankrupt.  It may be good to remind ourselves that every time oppressed groups began to make headway in America they were all opposed by those who claimed to have the Bible on their side.  Eventually, their arguments were perceived as the rantings of self-serving demagogues and carry no weight today among mainstream Christians and biblical scholars.

So today we should not be surprised that the Bible is trotted out once again to keep another oppressed group under wraps.   And just as before, a careful look at their arguments finds this current effort wanting.

(Read More)

Religious-rightists on Monday lost one phase of their campaign to give California doctors a blank check to practice bigotry against any class of patient for supposed religious reasons.

While anti-family activists explicitly sought to deny medical care to same-sex-attracted Californians and unmarried women, an unlimited religious “right” to discriminate against entire classes of patients could give bigoted doctors the right to discriminate against Jews, Asian-Americans — anyone whose existence was contrary to a medical group’s choice of supposed religious beliefs.

According to The Washington Post, the California Supreme Court ruled that physicians’ constitutional right to the free exercise of religion does not exempt businesses that serve the public from following state law that prohibit discrimination.

Jennifer C. Pizer, a lawyer with the gay rights group Lambda Legal who is representing [Guadalupe] Benítez, said that while the law protects doctors who refuse certain treatments on religious grounds, it does not allow them to do so on a discriminatory or selective basis.

In other words, a doctor may refuse to provide fertility services for religious reasons, but may not cherry-pick patients for whom to provide those services.

Despite the legal setback, right-wing political activists continue to maintain that the U.S. Constitution gives them a blank check to violate any law that they deem to be in conflict with their religious whims — and to use their own religion to infringe upon the freedom of others.

According to the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow propaganda service:

Attorney Mailee Smith of Americans United for Life (AUL), spokeswoman for the Christian Medical & Dental Associations and several other faith-based groups who presented amicus briefs in the case, said the ruling takes away a federally protected Constitutional right of physicians to freely exercise religion.

The case of Guadalupe Benitez will revert back to trial court where it will be determined whether Benitez was denied medical care due to her marital status or her sexual orientation.