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

In a new documentary set to air on HBO next month, a disgraced evangelical pastor comes clean.  “The Trials of Ted Haggard,” directed by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s daughter Alexandra, was filmed with Haggard’s cooperation — and how. 

You may recall that two years ago, Haggard stepped down from his post as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was sacked as senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs after a former male prostitute alleged that the cleric paid him for sex and used illicit substances.

I have yet to see the documentary, but published reports say that Haggard speaks onscreen, speaks about his new life. The father of five remains in his marriage for the same of his children and apparently has been living with shame. While he doesn’t speak of his sexual improprieties in detail, he does admit to “sexual immorality” and says, “I really did sin.” Haggard tells of his longtime struggle with his same-sex desires, insisting that he never claimed to be heterosexual.

“The reason I kept my personal struggle a secret is because I feared that my friends would reject me, abandon me and kick me out, and the church would exile and excommunicate me. And that happened and more,” he says in the film.

He also reveals that while he purchased methamphetamine, he never used it.

Haggard’s wife Gayle speaks in the documentary as well, and offers what perhaps is the reason behind the couple’s participation in the production: “I know to restore the honor to our children is to help restore honor to their father.”

That may be a long, hard road. Right-wing Christian leadership isn’t treating Haggard with honor, and most GLBT people probably will say that a man who worked so hard against honorable treatment for us is not worthy of anything resembling honor. Many believe he’s getting his just deserts.

After the scandal broke, the Haggard family fled Colorado for Arizona, where the former preacher confesses thta he is having a tough time making ends meet as an insurance salesperson. ”At this stage in my life, I am a loser,” Haggard says.

I suspect Haggard is a loser only if he does not come to grips with his reality and learn to embrace it. If he can emerge from this crisis a better human being, then he will deserve to be honored. He doesn’t have to abandon his family to do it: Many gay and bisexual people end up in marriages with heterosexual partners. (Exhibit A: Me.) Sometimes those marriages work; often they do not. But the real losers are the misguided ones who work to diminish others. The Religious Wrong is filled hypocrites who divide people and spead a message that does not include anything Jesus would champion — things like forgiveness, compassion, and acceptance without judgment.

Haggard could choose to re-up as a fundamentalist Christian soldier — or he could take another road, one that leads to justice for all of God’s children and could help him right the wrongs he committed. That second path leads to honor. At this point in his now-difficult life, the choice is his.

You know what? I hope he makes the honorable choice — and I wish him and his family well.

“The Trials of Ted Haggard” is scheduled to run Jan. 29 on HBO.

Another soldier in the anti-GLBT Christian army has left the battlefield. Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation, is dead.

From the foundation’s blog:

Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and first president of The Heritage Foundation, died this morning around 1 a.m. He was 66 years old. Weyrich was a good friend to many of us at Heritage, a true leader and a man of unbending principle.

Sadly, when he walked this earth, Weyrich was not such a good friend to his GLBT brothers and sisters. His “unbending principle” led him to work long and hard — using any means necessary, even deceit — for the continued stigmatization of the inclusive gay community.

As leader of the neoconservative Heritage Foundation, Weyrich became the point person for the fundamentalist/radical-Right takeover of the Republican Party. He personally served as a social-issues watchdog whose primary job was keeping anti-GLBT and anti-choice issues in the public eye. His reported ties to Nazi collaborators and neo-fascist organizations gave him dangerous access to federal agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency. Through the Free Congress Foundation, which he led until his death, Weyrich played a huge role in formulating the plan to play upon ignorant people’s unfounded fears about gays and in using the GLBT community as the hook in fundraising, spreading propaganda and terrible lies, motivating the Christian masses to become grassroots activists, and recruiting right-wing candidates for public office. His work and collaborations with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell led to the establishment of the Moral Majority in 1979 and to the political polarization of the US between red and blue states.

Paul Weyrich may be gone, but the culture war that still rages and keeps GLBT Americans under society’s boot has much to do with everything he did during his career. After all, he fired the opening shots. We’ll hear much about his status as a “great American” and “conservative icon” over the next few days, but GLBT Americans are painfully aware that in terms of real American values — honesty, equality, justice for all — there was little that was great or iconic about him.

By Wayne Besen

Left, James Dobson

It is remarkable that Focus on the Family’s James Dobson would accuse anyone of “distortions” considering his ignoble record. But, that is exactly what the right wing ideologue did this week when he said on his daily radio show that democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama distorted the Bible.

“I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,” Dobson said.” “… He is dragging biblical understanding through the gutter.”

Why do people still listen to what this serial liar has to say? In the past two years, at least seven researchers have accused Dobson of manipulating or cherry picking their results to back his anti-gay teachings. Letters and videos documenting the concerns of these respected professors can be viewed at RespectMyResearch.org.

The first researcher to step forward was New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD. On Sept. 14, 2006 Gilligan wrote a letter to Dobson that stated: “I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine…What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.” (Read More)