The wingnut reaction to Hillary Clinton’s historic speech on international LGBT issues has been predictably lame, so it’s no surprise that Porno Pete has decided to weigh in, expressing his heartfelt support for the most homophobic nations on earth and their right to discriminate against gay people however they see fit. Here, let us comment on his latest emanation, and then move on to making fun of the WorldNetDaily column Peter posted along with it:
With their new escalation of promoting homosexual behavior to other nations through U.S. foreign policy, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have raised America’s defiance toward her Creator to a new level — while needlessly alienating nations less morally compromised than our own. Not content to keep our decadence between our shores, the United States – through aggressively pro-“gay” Democratic administrations – now demands that other countries sink to our level by embracing homosexuality as a “human right.”
Nations “less morally compromised than our own” = places like Iran and Uganda. Those countries didn’t stop killing pr wanting to kill gay people just because it wasn’t “cool” anymore.
Who knew that when President Ronald Reagan spoke idealistically about America becoming a “shining city on the hill,” that city would turn out to be Sodom? Hillary earned plaudits from the Left with her U.N. speech on international “gay rights,” but her words were an affront to our Declaration of Independence, which appeals to “Nature and Nature’s God.”
Americans gang rape angels? [Pssst, Porno Pete: if you don't get that joke, it's because you're not smart enough to read the Sodom and Gomorrah story for what it actually says, rather than what your homophobic twit brain needs it to say.]
By redefining “human rights” to include the normalization of same-sex behaviors and gender confusion, Obama and Clinton have turned God’s natural moral order on its head. There are many countries – including Muslim-dominated nations and major powers like Russia – that reject homosexuality. By pushing sexual deviance on these nations, we only confirm their perception of America as a corrupt and declining – and very arrogant — superpower.
And wingnuts are so well known as crusaders against American imperialism and colonialism.
America, rooted in the Bible, historically embraced anti-sodomy laws, but now we are in the grip of an unprecedented moral and spiritual crisis that blackens our reputation worldwide. As one Muslim tweeted in reaction to Obama’s international “gay rights” plan: “There is a great divide between the Founding Fathers and the pro-gay regime ruling America [today].”
“One Muslim tweeted.” Well, that sounds like a consensus to me!
Aberrant sexuality is not a fundamental liberty, and defending morality is not hateful “bigotry.” Hillary claims, “Being gay is not a Western invention, it is a human reality.” But homosexuality is about changeable behavior – not intrinsic, innate identity – as evidenced by countless men and women who now live happy lives apart from homosexuality, despite once considering themselves “gay” or “lesbian.”
Actually, Hillary is right and Porno Pete needs to stick to fetish photography. Meanwhile we’ll keep on keepin’ on trying to keep track of all the “ex-gay” leaders who are coming out of the closet, again.
(There are no “Adultery Pride Parades” or “Porn-Users Pride Months.”)
Well, Pete, considering what you post on your “family blog,” maybe you should lobby for the second one. Might bring a few more hits to the old AFTAH site.
All Americans who love God and respect His wonderful design for mankind should be ashamed of Obama’s and Hillary’s campaign to force a deeply flawed sexual ideology on innocent nations that do NOT want to emulate American decadence.
That’s the end of his press release, and I feel like it’s missing an “Allahu akbar!”
Anyway.
So Pete links to another wingnut called Bob Unruh, who wrote about the same thing. Let’s make fun of him for a minute. First, the headlines:
Obama offers plan for U.S. to be global LGBT sex cop
Wait, have we moved onto the Bob Unruh guy? Because that sounds like something from Americans For Truth or some other similar kinky sexytime website. Sub-headline:
Wants to import homosexuals with special asylum privileges
Well that’s just crazy. Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council hate group told us several years ago that gays should be an “export,” NOT an “import.” [It's because our currency is weak.]
And, you know, honestly, having read Unruh’s article, there’s nothing in there that remotely tops those two headlines. Oh sure, there’s mewling from Matt Barber and Randy Thomasson — Unruh basically called the first three third-rate wingnuts in his rolodex, I guess — but nothing that interesting.
In summary, anti-gay wingnuts have looked at this issue and decided that it’s best to side with nations like Iran, where they still hang people for being gay.
I wouldn’t expect any better from them, and neither should you.
The Obama administration’s declaration that it plans to use foreign assistance, international diplomacy and political asylum to promote gay rights abroad is a momentous step that could dangerously backfire if not pursued with delicacy and an appreciation of how the challenges faced by gays and lesbians vary by nation, human rights activists said.
President Barack Obama, in a memorandum to executive departments, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, during a speech before the U.N. Human Rights Council, issued a coordinated denunciation Tuesday of anti-gay discrimination, stating that equal treatment of gay, lesbian and transgender people was an explicit U.S. foreign policy goal.
The White House said the twin moves represented the U.S. government’s first comprehensive strategy to combat sexual orientation-based human rights abuses around the world. Gay rights groups cheered the actions, noting that gays and lesbians can be arrested, tortured and even executed in some countries.
Wayne Besen, founder of Truth Wins Out, a group that monitors religious organizations with anti-gay views, listed Russia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Iran and Zimbabwe among the nations that had recently “declared war on sexual minorities” and said that he hoped they would be chastened by the administration’s blunt talk.
“This was one of those times where our nation demonstrated true international leadership and made me incredibly proud to be an American,” Besen said. “There were no carefully crafted and focus grouped code words that sugarcoated the abuses — just the honest truth spoken from the heart.”
Hillary Clinton’s soaring speech on international LGBT issues was game changing. An historic address of this magnitude was desperately needed to counter the rising tide of backwards and barbaric nations that had recently been persecuting LGBT people to distract from their glaring problems.
“I want to talk about the work we have left to do to protect one group of people whose human rights are still denied in too many parts of the world today,” said Clinton to a packed auditorium of human rights activists who gathered in Geneva for International Human Rights Day. “I am talking about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, human beings born free and given bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time.”
The list of countries that recently declared war on sexual minorities include: Russia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Iran, and Zimbabwe. For the contemptible despots who run these underachieving nations, fomenting homophobia makes political sense. By turning homosexuals into bogeymen these rulers can conceal their corruption and appear moral through the blessings of craven clergy.
If the worldwide attacks on LGBT people seem deliberate and coordinated, it is because they very well may be. In author Jeff Sharlet’s book, The Family, he reveals that ambitious American evangelicals are working to surround The United States, Canada, and Western Europe with fundamentalist regimes – using homosexuality as a key wedge issue to gain power. Researchers Rachel Tabachnick and Bruce Wilson have also documented that a radical and sprawling evangelical group, The New Apostolic Reformation, has infiltrated many countries and exported anti-LGBT hate.
It has been greatly disturbing to witness the war on LGBT people unfolding in recent weeks. I had privately fretted that these AHEM’s (American Hate Exporting Movements) were further along in their dubious and dangerous designs than people realized. I was also concerned that the American government would back off challenging international homophobia in an election year. After all, the Obama administration surely did not want to be browbeaten as anti-faith by phony martyrs and their false claims of religious discrimination.
However, something drastic needed to happen to turn back the tide of violence and discrimination that plagued these “loser nations.” The U.S. had to make it crystal clear that those exporting hate were not representing our government. Instead, these zealots were operating a shadow foreign policy that undermined America’s interests.
President Barack Obama boldly stepped into this bloody vacuum and provided desperately needed leadership and moral clarity. He issued an incredible memorandum directing all agencies to “promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons.” This was followed by Clinton’s moving speech that was as notable for its directness, as it was for its depth.
Usually in such addresses we get diplomatic drivel that satisfies no one and accomplishes little. But today’s actions by the administration and Clinton’s speech were different. The words were spoken with true vision and encrusted in values. There was clarity and passion, and no one was left wondering where our country stood on the rights of LGBT people.
This was one of those times where our nation demonstrated true international leadership and made me incredibly proud to be an American. It was stirring to witness our country act decisively as force for moral good. There was no patronizing that relegated the LGBT community to the role of liberalism’s unwanted stepchild. There were no carefully crafted and focus grouped code words that sugarcoated the abuses – just the honest truth spoken from the heart.
“It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave,” said Clinton in her speech. “It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished.”
The beauty of Clinton’s talk was that it was highly educational. It forcefully challenged the ignorant stereotypes and vicious lies disseminated by despots and their American evangelical patrons.
“Being gay is not a Western invention; it is a human reality,” Clinton said. “And protecting the human rights of all people, gay or straight, is not something that only Western governments do.”
Needless to say, the leaders of AHEM’s and anti-LGBT politicians went nuts. “This is just the most recent example of an administration at war with people of faith in this country,” said failing presidential candidate Rick Perry, who shocked people by putting a complete sentence together. Perry conveniently failed to mention that Clinton and Obama are both people of deep faith.
The stunning events in Geneva mark the moment Barack Obama secured a national LGBT vote for his 2012 re-election campaign. Today we felt hope – but more importantly, we witnessed monumental change.
Recognizing that America’s own record on LGBT equality is “far from perfect,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on nations around the world to recognize that “gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights,” during a speech in Geneva, Switzerland this afternoon. Clinton’s address builds on a memorandum President Obama issued earlier today directing all agencies to “promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons.”
Clinton also announced that the administration is launching a $3 million global equality fund to support the work of civil society organizations working on these issues around the world. The fund will help human rights groups “record facts so they can target their advocacy, learn how to use the law as a tool, manage their budgets, train their staffs and forge partnerships with women’s organizations and other Human Rights groups,” Clinton said.
(A transcript of Secretary Clinton’s remarks can be found here.)
Wayne, Evan and I constantly write about the importance of electing LGBT people and allies to political office, and today’s historic speech should put an end to any skepticism about that point. After all, Secretary Clinton is articulating the official policy of the United States of America under a pro-equality administration. There’s absolutely no way she would have delivered a groundbreaking address to the United Nations, exclusively devoted to LGBT rights worldwide, had she not been specifically authorized to do so at the highest level of the executive branch.
Today’s speech should also serve to both galvanize the American LGBT community and throttle us out of any apathy anyone might feel about throwing our enthusiastic support, checkbooks, blood, sweat, and tears into electing pro-equality candidates.
Members of our nation’s LGBT community should make no mistake: apathy at the ballot box, or anything less than a full commitment to providing the maximum amount of support possible — of all kinds, on all fronts, and at all levels — to political leaders who explicitly support LGBT rights inadvertently helps to hand the country over to people who have specifically and repeatedly promised to do everything in their power to make sure advances like this are stopped for as long as possible, by any means possible, regardless of the consequences to millions of LGBT people around the world.
In a long interview with Kerry Eleveld about the role Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has played in bringing LGBT equality to the forefront at home and around the world, we learn that, unfortunately, as much good as she’s been doing, she’s somehow still not willing to take the plunge and support full equality. This is less of a criticism than a friendly encouragement, because Hillary really is so good on so many issues. Eleveld describes a gay pride celebration held at the State Department last summer:
Displaying an uncanny depth of understanding for the challenges that many LGBT youth experience, Clinton spoke of tragedies that would only come to national attention months later after a spate of heart-wrenching teen suicides dominated headlines for weeks. She called on the staff members before her to help create a safe space for gays and lesbians everywhere, “Particularly young people, particularly teenagers who still, today, have such a difficult time and who, still, in numbers far beyond what should ever happen, take their own lives rather than live that life.”
Men and women around the world were being “harassed, beaten, subjected to sexual violence, even killed, because of who they are and whom they love,” she said.
“This is a human rights issue,” Clinton told the rapt audience. She ad-libbed, recalling an oft-quoted line from a landmark speech on women’s rights at a U.N. conference in China: “Just as I was very proud to say the obvious more than 15 years ago in Beijing—that human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights—well, let me say today that human rights are gay rights, and gay rights are human rights, once and for all.”
But yet…
Marriage seemed like the place to start, since Clinton had been caught off guard by a recent inquiry on the issue while visiting Australia. Her husband has said that he now supports full marriage equality: Many of his gay friends are in committed relationships, former president Bill Clinton said in 2009. As far as marriage goes, he said, he had just been “hung up about the word.”
Did she share his experience? I wondered. Was she at odds with President Barack Obama’s stated position in support of civil unions but against marriage equality?
But on the phone, Clinton is circumspect about her husband’s comments. “Well, I share his experience because we obviously share a lot of the same friends, but I have not changed my position,” she says without elaborating. The secretary wasn’t taking any political bait, nor was she going to tangle with anything that could figure negatively for her boss.
Unfortunate.
But I’m going to make a prediction here: both the President and the Secretary will be on record supporting marriage equality soon after the 2012 elections. Cowardly, yes. But such is politics…
Here are the other things open in my browser that I didn’t have time to write about today. Read them and write me two pages on each, single spaced:
1. There’s some new ludicrous group of gay activists who are against marriage equality. Oh, you’re sooooo 90′s, sooooo Berkeley, sooooo counter-culture. Whatever. Grow up.
2. Wingnuts are trying to take away marriage equality rights in New Hampshire, because we must always remember that it is ALWAYS about hurting gay families for them, 24/7.
3. The “Institute on Religion and Democracy” is very upset with Hillary Clinton’s State Department for not protecting the rights of anti-gay genocidal thugs in Third World nations.
4. A new poll says that, even before DADT repeal, the LGBT community’s feelings about President Obama were a lot sunnier than a lot of people would have you believe.
And two other interesting things I haven’t had a chance to write about: Alaska teabagger Senate candidate Joe Miller has an adviser who is so anti-gay it’ll make your head spin, and Peter LaBarbera is so very, very upset with me and Joe Jervis. I’ll deal with that next week, or something. Y’all can help me decide if it’s worth it.
For music this week, let’s see…I went to the record store last week and I scored. It was just one of those nights when you’re perusing the used bins and you just rack up, which is one of my favorite things in the world. One thing I picked up which, somehow, I didn’t have, was New Favorite from Alison Krauss & Union Station. Out of all the things I bought that night, that’s the record that keeps going back and back and back again into the stereo. So, let’s pick the opening track from that record, “Let Me Touch You For Awhile,” and then there’s this other absolutely beautiful song that came into my life pretty recently as well, from a singer/songwriter named David Mead. It’s called “Mojave Phone Booth,” and for some reason it Just Feels Right. The version I’m posting is from a live show at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur, Georgia, and can be downloaded here. Then we hit shuffle and find out where we end up on the other side! More videos and another picture from Memphis’s Gay Rights March after the jump.
1. Sigur Rós – “Viðrar Vel Til Loftárása”
2. BT ft. JC Chasez – “The Force of Gravity”
3. Jason Mraz – “Spirit in the Sky” [Norman Greenbaum cover]
4. Marissa Nadler – “Mary Come Alive”
5. Brandi Carlile – “Downpour”
6. James Taylor – “Line ‘Em Up”
7. Tina Turner – “What’s Love Got To Do With It”
8. Cut Copy – “Hearts On Fire”
9. Dar Williams – “I Won’t Be Your Yoko Ono”
10. Grizzly Bear – “Cheerleader”
This picture, of a meeting in the Situation Room yesterday, is pretty cool. In purple are Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Under Secretary of Defense Michèle A. Flournoy.
[h/t Bil Browning]
Rick Rosendall calls the Hillary talk a distraction at a time when unity is needed. I’m going to agree with him. I hope Hillary runs in 2016, but now is not the time. I am curious to hear what our readers think.
The wingnut reaction to Hillary Clinton’s historic speech on international LGBT issues has been predictably lame, so it’s no surprise that Porno Pete has decided to weigh in, expressing his heartfelt support for the most homophobic nations on earth and their right to discriminate against gay people however they see fit. Here, let us comment on his latest emanation, and then move on to making fun of the WorldNetDaily column Peter posted along with it:
If the worldwide attacks on LGBT people seem deliberate and coordinated, it is because they very well may be. In author Jeff Sharlet’s book, The Family, he reveals that ambitious American evangelicals are working to surround The United States, Canada, and Western Europe with fundamentalist regimes – using homosexuality as a key wedge issue to gain power. Researchers Rachel Tabachnick and Bruce Wilson have also documented that a radical and sprawling evangelical group, The New Apostolic Reformation, has infiltrated many countries and exported anti-LGBT hate.
