Through ABC Family and the Christian Broadcast Network, industrialist and Christian Right evangelist Pat Robertson (not his real name) has spent more than 30 years using Hollywood and the cable television industry to inject his social prejudices — and his failed threats of destruction against various cities — into North American households. Mind you, these are households that never asked their cable company to pollute their living rooms with his Christian cash-crazed telethons such as The 700 Club.
While Robertson used Hollywood domestically to preserve various social bigotries and to market himself as a kindly Christian gentleman, he also used his industrial empire to profit from forced labor in the diamond and gold trade in Liberia, and to support notorious African war criminal Charles Taylor.
Few Americans know about Robertson’s history of international human-rights abuses, because he has focused his television empire on other issues to distract public attention. Robertson doesn’t choose issues such as social violence, middle-class poverty, inaccurate news shows, or infidelity and divorce — issues that might enjoy broad public agreement, but which would hit too close to home among his viewers and donors.
Pat Robertson says the primary threat that America faces is from homosexuals who are using Hollywood to glamorize gay people’s rights and to pressure straight actors into accepting gay roles.
Homosexual Hollywood — it’s an alarming prospect, isn’t it? There’s just one problem: Straight actors are taking gay roles (for pay) because directors and casting agents refuse to hire openly gay actors!
Homophobia is alive and well in Hollywood — and few should know that better than Robertson, who is a product of Hollywood conservatives’ glamorization of Christian Right war criminals and human-rights violators.
It is now official: The word “bullying” no longer refers to violence or defamation. “Bullying” now means “resistance to supremacy of one religious viewpoint over all others.” That “resistance,” apparently, is a bad thing. This realization has been humbling. We have been chastened.
The AP makes a compelling case for the redefinition. The article offers examples of homosexuals, Jewish and Buddhist and atheist sympathizers, and other hooligans:
interfering with conservative Christian efforts to redefine civil marriage and impose that definition upon athletes
subverting a federal ban on marriages of nontraditional Christians and other faiths that do not discriminate on the basis of genitalia
making “death threats” consisting of letters in which said hooligans whine that the conservative Christian redefinition of civil marriage fuels youth suicide and antigay murder
holding ex-gay Christians unfairly accountable for godly deceptions in an iPhone app.
So…. “Bullying” has a new meaning. And since Truth Wins Out opposes “bullying,” our mission must change with the times. The criticism victimization of intolerant Christians by minorities must stop.
So I now inaugurate the Victimwatch feature, which gives voice to the Christians who have been criticized silenced for defaming the innocent and denying freedom to minorities for staring down the agents of Satan.
Victimwatch shall act as a watchdog on behalf of Christian Rightists who are “silenced” and “bullied.” In just the past week, our human-rights monitors uncovered the following threats to Christian Rightists: (Read More)
Chambers: We’re being portrayed as group of people making judgments on peoples’ lives whereas I and thousands of others like me, who experienced same-sex attraction, are trying to live out our lives through the filter of our faith, not through the filter of our sexuality…
…he said, making a judgment not just on gay people (they live their lives through the filter of their sexuality), but also on gay Christians (they place a higher value on sex then they do their faith). Yes, yes…it’s all about sex with homosexuals, isn’t it, Alan.
You manipulated Cooper so deftly there. I’m impressed. That what years of talking parents into throwing their gay kids into your soul grinder has done for you?
Tonight’s presentation of “Pray Away the Gay?” on the Oprah Winfrey Network was not horrible — it was respectful and sensitive to all sides — but nor was it balanced.
The first 40 minutes of the program were devoted largely to journalist Lisa Ling’s encounters with a series of ex-gays who admitted facing long struggles against their sexual orientation. Her interactions were frequently supervised and steered by Exodus personnel.
The final 20 minutes, and portions of a live call-in program that followed, portrayed sexual-minority people of faith. Among them were Exodus co-founder Michael Bussee, his same-sex partner, and participants in a gay-affirming Christian camp affiliated with The Naming Project — living ordinary lives with integrity.
As far as they went, the documentary and call-in show portrayed both gay Christians and ex-gays with sensitivity. And we’re grateful to Bussee and The Naming Project for presenting viewers with a positive alternative to the Exodus lifestyle of shame, denial, and deceit.
But throughout the program and call-in show, no references were made to Exodus’ ongoing political and social warfare against sexual minorities. The result for viewers was a false impression that Exodus minds its own business and engages in no dishonesty, harassment, or violence toward gay people.
The program’s first segment prominently featured Exodus’ Minnesota leader Janet Boynes, who is simultaneously the liaison of an Exodus-affiliated church and the head of a self-named shell organization, Janet Boynes Ministries, which houses Boynes’ associations with antigay political extremists. When antigay people seek an Exodus-affiliated church in Minnesota, Exodus refers them to Boynes and just a few other member activists.
On Ling’s program, Boynes rationalized the work of local ex-gay ministries. Boynes served as Ling’s liaison to a young and unhappy ex-gay man named Christian.
In a live call-in program that followed the documentary, callers were given no opportunity to identify and question Boynes’ political activism. Nor was any mention made of Exodus’ misrepresentation of scientists and their studies of sexual orientation. And no references were made to Exodus’ role in co-launching the Uganda campaign for a kill-the-gays law.
Lisa Ling is a sincere and professional woman who is sympathetic to gay people of faith and the cause of equality. However, she appears to have sold out journalistic objectivity in order to obtain the cooperation of Exodus, which has become reluctant in recent years to talk with media representatives that question its political warfare.
Even after passage of repeal by the U.S. Senate, gullibility, melodrama, and false balance seem to be the rule rather than the exception in media coverage of the U.S. armed services’ ban against LGBT servicemembers.
On John King, USA last night, CNN ignored overwhelming expert analysis and public opinion. Instead, producers promised on their blog that they would present the constitutional rights of LGBT servicemembers as a potential threat to immigrant rights (which the producers confused with “Hispanic” rights). When it came time for televised “debate,” gay vet Alex Nicholson of Servicemembers United was brought in — and thrown to the wolves instead of real experts. Nicholson’s rival in the debate was Peter Sprigg, an operative for the Family Research Council hate group who believes that all homosexuals should be imprisoned.
Host John King helped Sprigg conceal his notorious position on imprisonment, which was relevant not only to the DADT debate, but also to Sprigg’s credibility as a debate participant. King also made no effort to fact-check FRC’s long list of DADT-related defamations despite the ready availability of refutations to FRC’s lies.
In what alternate universe does CNN exist, where it is deemed appropriate for a defender of constitutional rights and military readiness to be thrown into debate with a notoriously dishonest and defamatory opponent who wants said defenders thrown in prison? CNN’s “debate” was a deliberate and reckless mismatch between a well-funded and uncivil hate group, and just one of several expert authorities that have proven the harm done by Don’t Ask Don’t Tell to the U.S. armed services.
Also last night, The ED Show on MSNBC did a somewhat better job: The producers presented a solid line of GOP leaders who oppose repeal, before handing to GOProud, a tiny but well-funded group that advocates a transparently false equivalence between Democratic and Republican levels of support for repeal of DADT.
All this melodrama and manufactured hype for GOProud is counterproductive; what TV viewers need are facts:
On December 15, the House of Representatives approved repeal bill H.R. 2965 in a vote of 250 to 175. Of the No votes, 160 were Republican and just 15 were Democrat. Of the Yes votes, 235 were Democrat and just 15 were Republican.
On December 18, the Senate voted 65-31 for repeal; all of the No votes were Republican; just eight Republicans voted for repeal.
Despite the clear numbers and despite FRC’s relentless history of disproven lies, both news channels are wasting viewers’ time with he-said-he-said dogfights instead of hard facts.
Two days after CNN uncritically aired the disbarred ex-gay therapist Richard Cohen as an expert on sexual orientation, the network finally aired a response from a real expert: Dr. Clinton Anderson of the American Psychological Association.
Cobus Fourie of South Africa’s Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has helpfully translated an article that appeared yesterday in South Africa’s Sunday As It Is tabloid.
Since the entire article is one big ex-gay profanity, I am taking the liberty of publishing the entire translation here for the purpose of educating readers as to how ex-gay proponents and their media helpmates communicate messages when they let their guard down — or assume that the Afrikaans/English language barrier will protect them. Bracketed remarks below are contextual observations by Fourie.
–Mike Airhart
PRAY HIM “STRAIGHT’
FAGGOTS CAN BE CURED BY PRAYER
That was the message last week from an actor to who placed his own gay life behind him. Now he is chasing the pleasures of the female body.
Dries Botha – an actor who was already on “Inherited Sin” on SABC2 [B-grade TV] — was for many years a screaming queen who chose sex with men over the bodies of voluptuous Eves.
But now he is walking a path with God and now looks with new, lustful eyes at women. And he realised he was not born gay.
“I have a penis and the penis is made for a vagina,” the 29-year-old said on Sunday.
And to shut the closet’ mouldy door still more he said: “I do not preach to other gays, but I want them to begin to listen to my arguments. I still have gay friends, and I do not judge, but God did not make a groom and a groom…”
He said being gay is like smoking – you will have an urge every now and then. “I still find myself sometimes looking for a man, but I try to control lust. I steer my thoughts in another direction,” he said. Almost sad.
“The more you hang out with faggots, the greater the chance that you will be gay. I was definitely not born gay.”
“I was exposed to gay men in high school for the first time. The gay community is much freer and have other moral codes. I enjoyed the freedom of being gay. I have always regarded women as useless objects.” (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 ‚Äî 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 ‚Äî 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 ‚Äî 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.
Sacramento’s newsreview.com published a Nov. 27 puff piece about local ex-gay activities.
The article interviewed no former ex-gays, asked no speakers whether they or their peers remain predominantly same-sex-attracted, cited none of the ex-gay movement’s activities to deny equality to gay Californians, and informed readers of none of the mainstream mental-health community’s concerns about emotional, relational, and spiritual harm done by ex-gay “ministries.”
The article also falselyinaccurately described sexually flexible actress Anne Heche’s relationship with comedian Ellen DeGeneres as a “lesbian affair.”
The NewsReview article has a comments section. Please feel free to make constructive use of it.
It is indeed possible to support Prop 8 civilly. But [Rick] Warren did not do that. Instead, he not only lied about what it would do, but he further insulted his “many gay friends” — and the rest of us — when he described their relationships as being on par with the lowest form of criminals. Even the most vile criminals — convicted rapists of old ladies, serial killers of defenseless orphans, and baby torturers — they all look down on child molesters, and they don’t think twice about killing them in the most sadistic way. But Warren thinks that the deeply held relationships among his “many gay friends” are no better than child rape. Or incest. Or polygamy.
That is the outrage. Maybe some day Rick Warren will see the need to apologize deeply for that offense. But it won’t happen until everyone ‚Äî including the mainstream media ‚Äî calls him on it. It’ not just about Prop 8. It goes much, much deeper, to that “model of civility” that Warren lacks.
The first 40 minutes of the program were devoted largely to journalist Lisa Ling’s encounters with a series of ex-gays who admitted facing long struggles against their sexual orientation. Her interactions were frequently supervised and steered by Exodus personnel.
PRAY HIM “STRAIGHT’
