So this happened today, apparently. Porno Pete brought all his worldly friends together to go down to the SPLC and cry:
A coalition of African American pastors and pro-family Christian and Jewish leaders is holding a press conference at noon tomorrow (the day after Martin Luther King Day) outside the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center — to protest the SPLC’s smearing of pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups”:
Ooh, Porno Pete got to go on vacation! Of course, the SPLC doesn’t brand groups as “hate groups” simply for opposing gay people. They have to be known liars and slanderers. Porno Pete = one of those.
Scheduled speakers:
Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), Chicago, IL (the SPLC has smeared AFTAH as a “hate group”);
Dr. Patrick Wooden, pastor, Upper Room Church of God in Christ (COGIC), Raleigh, NC;
DL Foster, founder, Gay Christian Movement Watch, Atlanta, GA;
Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs, Liberty Counsel, Lynchburg, VA;
Tim Johnson, Fredrick Douglass Foundation, Washington, D.C.;
Rachel Conner, representing Abiding Truth Ministries (smeared by SPLC as a “hate group”)
Pastor Glen Sawyer, New Mt. Zion Church of God in Christ, Elizabeth City, NC
Pastor Wil Nichols, Victorious Praise Fellowship COGIC, Durham, NC
Pastor Jon Robinson, Kingdom C.O.M.E. Ministries, Clairton, PA
Pastor Kenneth Jefferson, Greater Harvest COGIC
The following pro-family leaders and groups will issue supporting statements:
Rabbi Yehuda Levin, Rabbinical Alliance of America;
Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute (smeared as “hate group”)
Arthur Goldberg, author, “Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change”;
Linda Harvey, Mission America, Columbus, OH
Brian Camenker, Mass Resistance, (smeared as “hate group”)
Awwwww, Porno Pete got to go on vacation and Matt Barber was there! Did the wives come along? Just curious. Let’s see…so Rachel Conner was there, representing the most vicious, dishonest male anti-gay hatemonger in the country, Scott Lively. D.L. Foster, the purported “ex-gay” who blames gay kids for their own depression and suicide, was there. I’m not familiar with the others, but my thinking is that the only thing the SPLC was confronted with today was the integrity of their own work.
Looking at the supporting cast, we have ol’ Yehuda Levin, probably the most unhinged rabbi in the United States, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Association, who would be the most vicious, dishonest female anti-gay hatemonger in the country if Linda Harvey would ever step aside and let her talk, convicted felon Arthur Goldberg, and Brian Camenker, who holds the title of Peter LaBarbera’s Jewish Friend.
These are the leaders of your anti-gay movement, ladies and gentlemen. Quite a stellar cast of characters. I will say, though, that we should appreciate their work, in a way, because we wouldn’t be gaining quite as much public support as we are if people like those above weren’t spreading their hate around on a daily basis. Sadly, their work does embolden some of the most violent, uneducated hicks in this country, which leads to a higher gay teen bullying/suicide rate, but normal people hear the words of the people at that press conference today and it nudges them a little bit closer to our side.
Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth, which is sponsoring the press event, recently interviewed Pastor Wooden, who said that the SPLC’s gambit of labeling mainstream pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups” is seriously damaging the SPLC’s credibility.
No it isn’t.
Wooden also debunked the “civil rights” analogy used by “gay” activists, saying it is wrong to compare “my beautiful blackness” with homosexual perversion.
I simply cannot make that quote better.
LaBarbera said the SPLC is engaged in a thinly-veiled, one-sided campaign to demonize adherents of traditional Judeo-Christian morality. He noted that despite the considerable hatred and anti-Christian bigotry emanating from homosexual activists (e.g., Dan Savage’s vile hate-site, Santorum[dot]com), the SPLC has never labeled a “gay” organization or website as “hateful.”
Because we don’t:
1. Lie about you people. We let your words speak for themselves.
2. Advocate for denying you wingnuts your constitutional rights, and instead defend your right to believe whatever bullroar you want, as embarrassing as it must be for your ancestors.
3. Embolden people who would want to hurt bigoted Christian wingnuts — indeed, it’s widely recognized that our side is STILL the only one with a bodycount in this “culture war.”
We do:
1. Report your words verbatim.
2. Make fun of you sometimes. Grow up.
3. Correct the constant, alternate-reality lies perpetuated by extremist religious fanatics who are unwilling to live as adults in a world where not everybody is the same as they are.
If I’m what Mission America priestess of hatred Linda Harvey considers evil, I don’t want to be good. Linda Harvey brought a woman who almost equals her in unbridled, unreasonable, unmitigated, dishonest hatred, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute hate group, onto the radio with her for the purpose of wah wah wah:
Higgins: Homosexual activists are deceptive in terms of concealing information. They know full well that Queer Theory, which emerges from the homosexual community, says homosexuality is not fixed, it’s not hereditary, and it’s mutable, and it’s flexible, particularly among women. So not only can they not marshal in the evidence to prove the ‘born that way’ theory there’s a lot of at least anecdotal evidence to suggest it’s not fixed and it’s not immutable and certainly there’s no genetic or biological research proving that they are ‘born that way.’ So they’re not even honest about that, they know what I’ve just said. The problem is, the mainstream public doesn’t know.
Harvey: Well and the mainstream, homosexual person on the internet who believes these evil bloggers, they are evil, these people are evil and they are purposefully deceptive. I get my comments edited all the time. These folks will believe a smidgen here and a smidgen there and think, ‘oh it’s been settled,’ it hasn’t been settled, check it out! That science is not at all settled and in fact there’s tons of evidence that people are not born that way.
A numbered list because these women don’t deserve prose:
1. Queer theory isn’t mainstream even among the mainstream gay community. Though it has interesting things to say, this writer finds a lot of it tedious and just plain wrong. Unlike fundamentalist Christians, though, gays are not a borg of groupthink, and rather feel free to argue with one another. However, it should be pointed out that Queer Theory is a very different thing from SCIENCE (!!!!), which does, yes, tend to state that homosexuality is not a choice, that it’s hereditary and that efforts to change it through outside means are ineffective and often harmful. The fact that women’s sexuality is often more fluid than men’s is in no way an argument for Linda & Laurence’s belief that homosexuality is eeeeeeeeeeevil and must be stopped. Only the truly stupid would make that connection in their heads.
2. Oh, we are so evil, making fun of you and trying to stop you from driving your own children to suicide, like you all do on a regular basis. As I’ve said before, pig ignorant bigotry is one of the only forms of “trickle-down” that actually works, and the blood on the hands crusts over thickest at the top.
3. Neither one of you has ever had your comments edited here. Indeed, one major difference between the religious right and the eeeeeeeeeeeevil (boo!) gay bloggers is that we have open comments sections, because we know that our ideological opponents are so phenomenally intellectually unequipped to handle reasoned argument that they will make fools of themselves all on their own. Moreover, we quote you people directly in our own posts, all the freaking time, and just let you damn yourselves with your own words. Why would we censor people who accidentally help our side of the culture wars with their vicious uninformed nonsense?
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.
Folks, you know I’m writing about Peter LaBarbera when I start a piece with the word “folks.” Anyway, the Day of Silence is this Friday. If you are not aware, it’s a day where students and teachers across the nation remain silent for a day to give voice to the problems gay kids face every day, such as name-calling, physical abuse, and the like. Indeed, it’s especially pertinent this year, as we’ve seen a spate of gay or gay perceived kids taking their own lives, stemming from anti-gay bullying perpetuated by classmates, teachers, pastors, and unfortunately, sometimes their own wingnut parents. It is a fact, not an opinion, that fundamentalist religious teaching on homosexuality, as well as their bizarre obsession with the subject, is related to the pain and depression some gay kids experience.
But hate group leaders Peter LaBarbera and Laurie Higgins really, really don’t want to examine their souls, at any point, because they love their dogma more than they love people. So let’s watch them encourage truancy this Friday in order that the wingnut parents who follow them might have something about which to pout. Here’s the Peter Part [you don't need links. You know where this hateful, dishonest crap is posted on the internet]:
The suffocating political correctness on a host of controversies — including homosexuality — overwhelms the Average Mom and Dad, who are already running ragged between work, family duties, church and youth sports.
Uh, normal parents aren’t running around crying about the “political correctness” [read: actual information and education] over homosexuality. Not good parents, anyway.
(In addition, as more and more Christian parents abandon the public schools, it removes a key wholesome influence restraining evil.)
At least once a week, the words of a fundamentalist remind me of a science fiction novel, or Magic: the Gathering, or something along those lines.
So we at AFTAH echo the call for parents to pull their kids out of any school that abides the annual homosexual-activist event April 15 called the “Day of Silence.”
[...]
If you have any inkling that they are encouraging this disruptive event, tell the school that you will be keeping your child home that day. In doing so, you will send a powerful message to teachers and administrators that their embrace of pro-homosexual advocacy comes at a price.
Uh, yeah. Five or six kids with annoying parents won’t be there that day.
Okay, time for Laurence:
It is unconscionable that conservative parents remain silent, acquiescent, fearful non-participants in our public schools while homosexuals and their ideological allies engage continuously in vociferous, vigorous, and bold action.
It’s always funny to me that hate group leaders like Laurie tell themselves that the REAL problem is that wingnuts aren’t bitching loud enough. Trust me. Everybody can hear y’all.
The Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is fewer than two weeks away. GLSEN’s Day of Silence, which began on college campuses and has now infiltrated middle schools, exploits anti-bullying sentiment to undermine the belief that homosexual acts are immoral.
And that’s all it is: a belief. A stupid, uninformed belief, based on nothing. But, ya know, gay kids unfortunately make up a disproportionate percentage of bullying victims, so how dare we include them?
GLSEN shamelessly exploits teen suicide in order to create a climate of hysteria which they can then exploit to falsely impute culpability for teen suicide to conservative moral beliefs.
Uh. Well, since anti-gay sentiment comes from conservative “moral” beliefs [sic], and this actually involves kids dying and/or being scarred for life, I really don’t see how anyone is “exploiting” anything. Laurence and Porno Pete are just upset because the day is coming when their “moral” beliefs will be relegated to the scrap heap of society where they belong, alongside White Supremacy. Laurence and Peter want special rights, really. Since it’s simply not debatable by actual adults whether or not fundamentalist anti-gay hatred contributes to the problem of gay teen suicide, they are desperately trying to get an exemption that would allow them to continue to spiritually, mentally and emotionally bully gay kids.
GLSEN’s end game is the eradication of conservative moral beliefs and the creation of a social and political climate in which it is impossible to express them.
Conservative “moral” beliefs are being eradicated on their own, mostly because in the year 2011, fewer and fewer people buy into their dishonest bile about gay people. And no, nobody wants to take away wingnuts’ rights to express their beliefs [as long as they don't directly hurt people]; I mean, the Klan still has rallies occasionally in the South. Nobody’s taking away their freedom of speech.
Their cultural vehicle of choice for this radical social experiment is public education. What a strategic coup for homosexualists: use our money to capture the hearts and minds of our children.
Oh yes, we are so crafty. We’re actually trying to protect YOUR kids, because YOUR gay kids are the ones who end up, all too often, depressed and suicidal, because of YOUR influence. Hello, “ex-gay” industry. How are you doing today? Still hurting people? Yup.
And we do virtually nothing. Our complacence makes us complicit in the damage done to our children and our culture. Moreover, we teach our children by example to be cowardly conformists.
To be fair, your kids, more and more, don’t really understand why you’re so barking upset about gay people.
Anyway, so then Laurence gives a bunch of instructions to parents, about keeping their kids home during the Day of Silence, so that their kids might escape the suffering that might befall them if they were confronted with actual education on the subject of LGBT people. The fundamentalist lifestyle really is, at heart, a loud, over-choreographed permutation of sticking one’s fingers in one’s own ears and caterwauling.
The piece ends with laundry list of grievances, about how it’s getting harder and harder for fundamentalist wingnuts to hurt gay kids and treat them like pariahs. My remarks come in italics after each whine:
•Ten states now have “enumerated” anti-bullying laws, which specifically include homosexuality and gender confusion as protected classes. Instead of allowing the anti-gay bullying to continue apace!
•Comprehensive sex ed curricula portray homosexuality as morally equivalent to heterosexuality. Prove that it is not. Oh. You can’t.
•California’s SB 48, if passed, will require schools to teach about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder positively while censoring dissenting resources. Well, discredited nonsense from wingnuts really has no place in public education anyway.
•Federal Safe Schools Improvement Act denies funding to schools to combat drugs and violence unless they agree to address homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder. Again, what Laurie wants is special rights to continue hurting gay kids while protecting the other kids.
•Federal Student Non-Discrimination Act includes homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder as protected classes. If passed, schools would be prohibited from treating the objective biological fact of a student’s sex as if it had objective status. It would render the act of making common sense distinctions between boys and girls illegal. Oh, lord. You know, Laurie, there’s biology involved in the phenomenon of “transgender,” and scientists actually understand it pretty well. Feel free to do some research and learn about it.
•“Dear Colleague” Letter, which unconstitutionally expands the control of government over student speech, was sent by the Department of Justice to all school boards. I’m getting bored writing this piece.
•The Department of Justice created a video submission to Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign in which federal employees affirm unproven moral propositions about homosexuality to students. It’s really adorable when a wingnut tries to use the word “unproven,” since NOTHING they believe is proven or provable. That being said, the fundamental complaint here is the suggestion [which is valid and provable!] that life can get better for hurting gay kids, and that it doesn’t involve spiritual abuse!
•President Obama held an anti-bullying conference at the White House to which he invited representatives from virtually every homosexuality-affirming organizations that seeks to use public education to normalize homosexuality. Instead of affirming Laurie Higgins’ special right to hurt gay kids.
•The White House created an anti-bullying website that has a special image link for only one group of students who experience bullying: LGBT students. Yep.
Seriously, I’d hate to be there on the day people like Laurie Higgins and Peter LaBarbera realize [if moral reflection is even possible for their kind] how much harm they have done to people throughout their careers.
Like any good comedienne, Laurie saves her punchline for the last paragraph:
It’s long past time that conservatives start acting and speaking as if we think our moral beliefs are objectively true.
You do. Watching it is atrocious. They’re not. And people’s lives are destroyed because of it.
Spread the word about the Day of Silence, everyone.
Newsflash: Laurie Higgins of the hate group known as the Illinois Family Institute and Peter LaBarbera of the hate group known as Americans for Truth About Homosexuality are whining about the supposed victimization of some fundamentalist couple who owns a bed and breakfast, but yet wants an exception to allow them to discriminate against gay people, due to their deeply cherished bigotry. Civil Unions are now legal in the state of Illinois, and as the B & B is a public accomodation, they’re really not supposed to be discriminating against classes of people.
I could go to the trouble of excerpting and criticizing, but I’m not in the mood to critique a fundamentalist Mad Lib right now.
Once a pathetic hatemonger, always a pathetic hatemonger. Laurie Higgins is celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr.’s memory by furiously trying to protect her right to hate a minority:
For years, homosexual activists and their allies have manufactured and exploited an absurd and offensive analogy between homosexuality and race in order to advance their moral and political agenda. Homosexualists use the heroic battle to end racial discrimination as a Trojan Horse to eradicate moral judgments about homosexual conduct. All civilized persons — particularly African-Americans — should be outraged. Regarding this analogy, homosexualists have no ethical commitments to either logic or evidence, and they have no regard for the black family in America that already experiences tremendous struggles.
Homosexualist organizations have one goal that reigns supreme over all others: the eradication of the true moral belief that homosexual acts are profoundly immoral. And they are willing to exploit the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement in order to achieve their morally dubious and intellectually vacuous goal.
Illinois State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago) cited Dr. Martin Luther King’s description of “the long arc of the moral universe that bends toward justice,” saying that jettisoning the most enduring criterion of marriage -sexual complementarity- is the moral equivalent of “ending Jim Crow segregation laws.”
State Senator Michael Noland (D-Elgin) continued by saying dishonestly that “We have come far on this issue of Civil Rights and today good men and woman on both sides of the aisle should be able to unite behind this very straightforward issue.” This is dishonest in that the legalization of civil unions for homosexuals is anything but a “straight forward issue.”
Both State Representative Careen Gordon (D-Morris) and openly homosexual State Representative Greg Harris (D-Chicago) further exploited the flawed analogy by comparing same sex marriage to interracial marriage. They are in essence saying that opposition to discrimination based on an immutable, non-behavioral, morally neutral condition like race is equivalent to homosexuals’ fight to normalize and institutionalize deviant sexual relations. Rep. Gordon expressed a radical and heretical notion in her plea for civil unions, which is merely a more publicly palatable term for same sex marriages. She described the passage of the civil union bill as doing “God’s work.”
If our elected leaders truly hold as ignorant an understanding of the nature of homosexuality as evidenced in these statements, then they don’t deserve their positions. These statements reveal the utterly foolish, erroneous, and offensive idea that homosexuality is equivalent in nature to race. There is no evidence or justification to warrant such an analogy.
Race or skin color is 100 percent heritable, absolutely immutable and carries no behavioral implications whatsoever. Homosexuality, on the other hand, is defined by desire and voluntary sexual acts that are open to moral assessment. There is no research proving that homosexuality is immutable or biologically determined. In addition, homosexuality carries inherent behavioral implications that all societies throughout history have deemed immoral.
Homosexual activists and their allies are advancing their subversive moral and political goals by hijacking the rhetoric of the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy. They seek to intimidate philosophical conservatives into silence by associating them with racism and bigotry. Volitional homosexual acts are not equivalent to race. And morals beliefs regarding volitional homosexual conduct are not equivalent to racism.
Philosophical conservatives and all people who are committed to rational argument need to openly, courageously, and persistently challenge the flawed analogy that suggests that homosexuality is equivalent to race, for this is the assumption upon which the entire homosexual-normalization house of cards is built.
We should not allow the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to be exploited for the destructive purposes of the movement to normalize homosexuality and demonize traditional moral beliefs.
Note how she uses her own delusional version of reality, rather than actual reality, to bolster her case.
And really…is there a sane person alive who believes that Laurie Higgins and her ilk wouldn’t have ferociously trying to protect the rights of the segregationists, had they been during the Civil Rights Movement. Come on, now.
Remember: All of Laurie’s statements on the ‘nature of homosexuality’ are filtered through her bigoted understanding of an ancient book. Religious arguments against things are not good reasons! They must square with reality in order to be respected. Laurie is not learned on the subject of sexuality. She is not educated. She is a simple bigot. We don’t really know what personal demons drive her career choice. We do not care, either.
As always, we will point out that Coretta Scott King, who probably understood her husband the best, was squarely on the side of “gay rights are civil rights.” And what do Laurie and her friends have? The disgraceful, disgruntled Alveda. Oh, and they’re also designated as hate groups, mostly due to the fact that they’re all pathological liars.
The Southern Poverty Law Center today updated its list of designated hate groups, and this year is significant in that some of the larger anti-gay outfits have made the cut. After a litany of ever more extreme statements from people such as Peter Sprigg and Tony Perkins of the FRC, Bryan Fischer of the AFA and Laurie Higgins of the IFI, the SPLC has determined, correctly in our view, that these groups all deserve to be designated as having gone beyond mere advocacy, and into full-blown hatred against the LGBT community. Especially after the recent spate of gay teen suicides elicited no remorse from any of these institutions, they have indeed earned their place in the halls of hate.
It is notable that Focus on the Family is not on the list. Though we at Truth Wins Out still stand in solid opposition to Focus’s mission, they have indeed made baby steps in the past year to moderate their message, which is in stark contrast with the growing extremism at FRC and AFA. Higgins and the IFI have always been awful, of course. These groups especially deserve recognition for their abject ignorance of facts and reality, choosing as they do to spread anti-gay propaganda at all costs, which indeed suggests that their “work” is inspired by little more than juvenile animus.
The list of anti-gay hate groups now includes the following:
1. Abiding Truth Ministries [Scott Lively]
2. American Family Association
3. Americans for Truth About Homosexuality [Peter LaBarbera]
4. American Vision
5. Chalcedon Foundation
6. Dove World Outreach Center [Terry Jones]
7. Faithful Word Baptist Church [Steven Anderson]
8. Family Research Council
9. Family Research Institute [Paul Cameron]
10. Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment
11. Illinois Family Institute
12. MassResistance
13. Traditional Values Coalition
PZ Myers points us to something truly hilarious. Apparently one of the Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins’ kids went to Gustavus Adolphus, a small Lutheran college in Minnesota, and Laurie has witnessed something horrible (terrible! outrageous!) that went on at their freshman orientation: a humorous, honest discussion of sex, in skit form! You see, in part of it, a couple has sex and uses a condom, which is evil; and then a gay student tells his friend that he’s gay, and the friend does not bully him, which is what Laurie supports; and then, a group of students with silly names talk about how abstinence is good, but if you don’t abstain, here are some things that you should do to make it safer, and there’s nothing worse than people making responsible choices when they have sex; worst of all, the ones who don’t have sex say they MASTURBATE, and they laugh about it on the stage, and the other kids laugh too!; et cetera.
What Laurie is really upset about in these videos is that the kids are being honest, funny, and aren’t flailing about with guilt at the mere mention of the word sex. Watch the first video, which MAY NOT be safe for work, and then we’ll listen to some of Laurie’s WAAAAHMbulance, together:
Okay, so fun, silly video, right? College freshmen are hormonal beasts, but they’re also not stupid, so it’s better to acknowledge it, laugh about it, encourage people to make smart choices, and a good time will be had by all.
Laurie is so upset:
Two videos of a freshmen orientation presentation at Gustavus Adolphus College, a small Lutheran College in St. Peter, Minnesota, have come to light that expose the repugnant ideas and images that college students at a purportedly Christian college think are funny.
NOTHING is funny when you’re a Fundamentalist! Did Jesus laugh? NO! He WEPT!
The first video begins with a couple having sex in their dorm room (complete with sound effects) and joking about putting a hat on the door to warn the boy’s roommate to stay out — for the fourth time in one week.
What?! A couple in college? Having sex FOUR TIMES in one week?! What are they, ANIMALS?
Laurie’s biggest complaints, though, are about this next video, where LGBT students are explicitly supported and affirmed. This is all, of course, awful and terrible, because again, Laurie basically supports hurting gay kids; to be clear, I doubt Laurie really wants bats taken to gay kids’ heads, but would rather suggest that for her and for her ideological cohorts, the gay kids that are bullied, beaten, or driven to suicide are simply collateral damage. What they really want can be ranked sort of like this:
1. Gay kids, in shame, deny who they are, and live fake, painful lives where they never experience fulfillment.
2. Some gay kids do #1, while those who are obstinate about it probably deserve what’s coming to them, for not seeing the “wisdom” of the disproven, scientifically bankrupt Fundamentalist Christian worldview. Bullying, beating, suicide…sad to them, but not as sad as #3.
3. Gay kids allowed to grow up happy, healthy and beautiful, just as they are, thus existing, as so many millions of us do, as the negation of the Fundamentalist Christian worldview.
The second half of the video is an egregious violation of Fundamentalist Christian Ethics and Morality, as it is a dramatic portrayal of the need for all people to accept and love one another, and Jesus woulda never said anything like that. None of the college freshmen in attendance had ever heard of gay people, and if they had only gone to the College Of Laurie Higgins’ Pursed Lips, they’d all be straight virgins today.
So now Laurie has some questions for Gustavus Adolphus, one of which can be filed under Walking Up To Tyler Clementi’s Funeral and Pissing On His Grave. Let’s hit that one first:
Does anyone see how the exhibitionism, voyeurism, and promiscuity which this freshman orientation presentation embodies and promotes relate to the Tyler Clementi tragedy at Rutgers University?
Oh wow, Higgins. You are truly a grotesque woman. You see, Tyler’s shame at being exposed most likely came from his Christian upbringing and the internalized homophobia that comes from that. Gay people don’t hate themselves in a vacuum, Higgins. People like you and your malcontent cohorts in life have to be there to inject homophobia into the discourse. You probably won’t be around to see it, but there will come a day when homophobia is exactly as socially unacceptable as Ku Klux Klan-style bigotry, and it will be amazing how the gay teen suicide rate plummets. Without “Christian” teaching, these kids won’t learn to hate themselves. Bullies won’t learn to hate gay kids. Bullies who are struggling with their sexuality won’t learn to hate themselves, leading them to perceive those who are not struggling as a threat. It will be a much more beautiful world.
What values does this freshmen re-orientation presentation foster? Does it demonstrate respect for the dignity of people, or does it degrade people?
It respects dignity, indeed, for people to make their own choices, responsibly, while fostering a climate of acceptance for people who are different. Apparently in Laurie’s world, dignity goes hand in hand with a chastity belt and a climate of shame.
Do the upperclassmen recognize that one of the most important forms of diversity in life-philosophical diversity-is missing from their puerile production? There is no representation of the view that modesty matters. There is no representation of the view that pornography is evil and the use of it destructive to the moral imaginations, lives, and marriages of men and women. There is no representation of the view that homosexuality and sadomasochism are perversions.
First of all, that would make for a sucky skit. It wouldn’t be funny, and it wouldn’t respect the diversity of the student body. As a sidenote, fundamentalists are always whining like babies about how their families, their worldview, are never portrayed by the eeeeeevil lib’rul Hollywood primetime teevee shows. They think it’s because people are attacking their way of life, but it’s not that — it’s that they’re not entertaining. They’re boring.
But all of that aside, the videos DO encourage abstinence, for those who choose it. They encourage safe sex for those who choose it. They encourage the gay kids, the straight kids, the bisexual kids, the transgender kids…all of them.
Also, there is no empirical evidence for the idea of homosexuality as a “perversion,” so it obviously has no place in an institution of higher learning. I know the videos would work out better for Laurie if they condemned homosexuality, because it probably would warm her black heart to imagine the gay kids in the audience feeling hurt and ashamed, but again, this a Christian university with a commitment to learning. No Bronze Age babble, please.
Anyway, kids, isn’t it nice to know that even some Christian colleges are working to foster an educational environment rife with tolerance, love and respect for others?
Seth Walsh, a California teen who spent the last 10 days on life support after attempting suicide over relentless bullying because he was gay, died today. He was 13 years old.
Seth’s family took him off life support this afternoon, reports KGET-TV.
[...]
Seth was found Sunday, September 19, unconscious and not breathing, and it appeared he had tried to hang himself from a tree branch, according to police reports. He was rushed by helicopter to Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield.
According to reports, Seth was openly gay and was taunted by bullies for years, at school and at a local park.
He attended Jacobsen Middle School last year and for only two weeks this year, before being transferred to independent study — reportedly because he had been bullied relentlessly. But school officials at Tehachapi Union School District claim there have been no reports of bullying.
Because they ALWAYS claim there have been no reports of bullying, because they’re too damned preoccupied with Whatever-The-Hell to notice when kids are being relentlessly teased, and hell, some of the teachers and administrators have Perfect Snowflake Babies too, and it never crosses their minds that maybe these kids are not “Just Being Kids,” and perhaps they should step in; meanwhile, well-meaning groups like GLSEN and others try to step in and educate the schools on how to combat this problem, but nothing ever seems to get done; and blocking their path, you have motherfuckers like Focus on the Family and Laurie Higgins, and many others on the Religious Right who fight tooth and nail against any anti-bullying program that deigns to consider gay kids fully human, lest you interfere with their “God-given Religious Freedom” to hate anyone that doesn’t conform to their ridiculous, uneducated worldview, even though half the faggots raised in this world come from their homes, and…
Oh, excuse me, did my foul language offend the purest white virgin ears of the Religious Right?
More than the dead body of a child offends you, a child who killed himself because people like you work every day to create a climate where kids like him learn to hate themselves?
Look up at the picture, Higgins. You too, Glenn Stanton. Then look at this one. Then read about this one. A thirteen year-old, a fourteen year-old and a fifteen year-old, all in the same month.
This is the result of your work, Focus, Laurie Higgins, Peter LaBarbera, Matt Barber, Bryan Fischer, Scott Lively, Tony Perkins, Peter Sprigg, and all the rest of you. These are dead kids. Happy yet?
But it doesn’t matter to you, does it? They’re just dead faggots. What else, in your worldview, would please your Jesus more?
Peter throws so many temper tantrums per week these days, it’s hard to keep up. Yesterday, instead of reacting to the Mehlman Fever like everybody else, Peter decided to have a hissy fit at Michael Steele:
The Republican Party has a big and growing ”gay” problem.
One might call it “tumescent.”
The latest GOP hypocrisy: Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele’s congratulatory words for former RNC chief Ken Mehlman, who has confirmed longstanding rumors that he (Mehlman) is a practicing homosexual.
Michael Steele should have staked Ken Mehlman to death, like Buffy! Instead he is falling in love with the vampire with the soul!
Here’s what Michael Steele said about Ken, for the record:
‘I am happy for Ken,’ Steele said. ‘His announcement, often a very difficult decision which is only compounded when done on the public stage, reaffirms for me why we are friends and why I respect him personally and professionally.’”
That’s the way a friend would react. The problem, of course, for Peter, is that he doesn’t understand friendship or love, having fallen for the redefinition of those words favored by his religious cult.
Why couldn’t Mr. Steele just have kept quiet about this tragic revelation by which another sexually confused man seeks to rationalize his misbehavior (sin) by declaring homosexuality part of his inherent being?
Notice the inherent defeat in Peter’s question. He knows it’s way beyond the pale to even wish that maybe Michael Steele might agree with him on things. He can only hope for silence.
Michael Steele, of course, is showing support because they are friends, and also, because one of these days, Steele is going to reveal to the world that he is black, and he wants Ken’s support.
Nope, instead, like a three-year-old boy approaching a puddle, Steele just had to step in it.
OMG, and he made such a mess, what with the being nice to his friend! If Michael Steele was a good Christian, he would’ve made sure to avoid his friend entirely, for fear of getting wet!
Next up in the piece, Peter gets out his phone and calls Laurie Higgins for a quote, so it appears that this episode of The Naperville Grunting carries more weight by being endorsed by two organizations. Here’s what Laurie wants to know:
So, Steele is “happy” that Mehlman is homosexual and/or happy that he is public about it? Why would he be happy for a friend embracing immoral and dangerous practices or for a friend being public about his embrace of immorality? And why does he respect him for his “difficult” decision to announce his immorality publicly? What fecklessness or cowardice Steele’s comment demonstrates. And this from the leader of the Republican Party…
Oh, maybe Michael Steele is a grown-up and is thus not susceptible to the fever dreams based on dishonest “science” that support Laurie Higgins’ worldview.
It’s always amazing how delusional these people are. They actually still think there are lots people inside the Beltway who think just like them on issues such as these. Did the Bush administration teach them nothing? With the exceptions of a couple of rabid wingnuts on C-Street, and whatever coffin Michele Bachmann lives in when Congress is in session, Republicans in Washington think of fundamentalists like Peter and Laurie as useful idiots! It has been this way forever. So no, Laurence, it’s not “cowardice” when Michael Steele speaks in support of his friend. It’s him being supportive of his friend! My god.
The rest of Peter’s piece is an asinine conspiracy theory about how Ken Mehlman was actually a plant, undermining “turd-ish-nul val-yews” from inside the GOP, or something. No, Peter. He was just a closet case, and closet cases, due to their internal shame (which is not caused by their sexuality), tend to be the most willing to bash gay people for their own personal gain.
