This is hilarious, in terms of the extreme desperation the Religious Right is starting to show toward all things gay.  It’s a robo-call from Gary Glenn, president of Michigan’s American Family Association, for a statehouse candidate named Kevin Cotter.  Cotter’s opponent, Toni Sessoms, is openly gay, but in case voters didn’t know that, Gary Glenn would like to say the word “homosexual” over and over and over again, hysterically, like the WATB he is.

[h/t Andy]

Homoseckshul.

Ho-mooooo-seckshul.

Ho-mo-sex-you-ul.

Hom-uh-sex-shul activisssssss.

Seeekrit agenda!

[Dadgum lesbo-fags!]

Now I’m just entertaining myself.

Chris Armstrong talks with Anderson Cooper about being stalked and bullied online by Michigan’s deranged assistant attorney general Andrew Shirvell and his lawless boss, attorney general Mike Cox.

Yesterday I wrote about the creepy, creepy story of Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell, who has embarked on what amounts to a disturbing stalking campaign against Ryan Armstrong, student body president at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.  He claims it’s about Armstrong’s “radical homosexual agenda,” but really, it looks more like a creepy psychosexual obsession to everybody else.  If you haven’t watched Shirvell’s interview on Anderson Cooper 360, click the above clicky.

Well, now Mike Cox, Shirvell’s boss, has also gone to talk to Anderson Cooper, and basically defends his employee the entire way through:

SO WEIRD.

Gabe at Videogum has the best reaction I’ve seen to this whole scenario, where a state prosecutor, in his off hours, is very publicly stalking a young college student:

[H]ow come the rest of us are nervous about our bosses CATCHING US PLAYING MINESWEEPER, and you’re willing to go on national television and make up a bunch of bullshit about why you’re not going to take any kind of action whatsoever (at least not publicly, and certainly if there was ever a reason for public action, it is probably a well-publicized and unapologetic hate crime committed by a state employee who needs medicine) against someone working in your office whose ostensible function is the day to day protection of laws and people’s rights. Perfect. “Oh, he’s a bully. But what can I say? HE IS MY HUSBAND.” Unacceptable!

That is EXACTLY what this is like. “I’m so sorry my husband is stalking this young boy, but he is my husband and I will stand by him!”

I’ve seen this story percolating here and there, and all I can say is that these are the actions of a very disturbed, bizarre, and very possibly closeted man:

(CNN) — For nearly six months, Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan, has waged an internet campaign against college student Chris Armstrong, the openly gay student assembly president at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Using the online moniker “Concerned Michigan Alumnus,” Shirvell launched his blog in late April.

“Welcome to ‘Chris Armstrong Watch,’” Shirvell wrote in his inaugural blog post. “This is a site for concerned University of Michigan alumni, students, and others who oppose the recent election of Chris Armstrong — a RADICAL HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVIST, RACIST, ELITIST, & LIAR — as the new head of student government.”

Among other things, Shirvell has published blog posts that accuse Armstrong of going back on a campaign promise he made to minority students; engaging in “flagrant sexual promiscuity” with another male member of the student government; sexually seducing and influencing “a previously conservative [male] student” so much so that the student, according to Shirvell, “morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda;” hosting a gay orgy in his dorm room in October 2009; and trying to recruit incoming first year students “to join the homosexual ‘lifestyle.’ “

What a creep. That’s the kind of man our parents warned us about, I think. Stranger danger! It gets even weirder:

Shirvell acknowledged protesting outside of Armstrong’s house and calling him “Satan’s representative on the student assembly.”

“I’m a Christian citizen exercising my First Amendment rights,” Shirvell told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “I have no problem with the fact that Chris is a homosexual. I have a problem with the fact that he’s advancing a radical homosexual agenda.”

It gets even creepier when you watch this interview Shirvell did with Anderson Cooper [Interview starts around 2:55, but the background beforehand is helpful in grasping what's going on]:

Dude gives me the heebie-jeebies. Anyone else feel like they suddenly need a second shower? And I ask you sincerely: What happened to YOUR gaydar when you watched that video? Because I know what happened to mine.

This is not healthy behavior.  PZ Myers suggests what could be motivating Andrew Shirvell, at heart:

Of course Shirvell is a Christian fanatic. He’s also dishonest: browse his blog and you can tell he is just freaking out over the fact that Armstrong is gay…it’s all he talks about. He’s a militant radical gay activist who hates God, Christians, the unborn, and wants to have gay sex with everyone but Andrew Shirvell.

His commenters are even more blunt.

As for Chris Armstrong, here’s where he stands on the matter:

Michigan Student Assembly President Chris Armstrong publicly responded to verbal and cyber attacks levied against him for the first time at last night’s MSA meeting.

“I will not back down. I will not flinch. I will not falter. I will not succumb to any unwarranted attacks. What I will do is I will carry on with the utmost pride and vindication,” Armstrong read aloud to the assembly from a written statement. “I, along with the rest of this assembly, were elected to this body to represent the University. And nothing said about us, or regarding our personal merits, will waive our commitment to serve the student body.”

[...]

Armstrong said in an interview after last night’s meeting that he wanted to speak to the assembly to confirm his resolution to disregard these types of criticisms levied against him.

“I think it was important for me to say what I said to the assembly this evening, because I think it’s important for them to figure what my mental state is and what I’m going forward with,” Armstrong said.

Obviously Chris Armstrong is the only adult in this equation.

Unfortunately, I’m guessing this is the not the last we’ll be hearing on Andrew Shirvell, so we’ll stay on the story.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports today:

The U.S. Supreme Court today upheld an appellate court ruling that the Vatican can be sued for sexual cleared the way for St. Paul lawyer Jeff Anderson to sue Pope Benedict on behalf of sex-abuse victims when it refused Monday to hear the Vatican’s appeal of an Oregon lawsuit. …

In declining to hear the case, the court upheld an appeals court ruling that the Vatican can be sued for sexual abuse if church officials knowingly reassign priests who have been accused of such acts in their previous parishes. The Vatican appeal had argued that the U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction over the Rome-based church.

This is great news — but it comes too late for countless youths who have been sexually abused by the likes of ex-gay activist Mike Jones — whose Michigan-based Corduroy Stone ministry was a veteran member of Exodus International. Truth Wins Out exposed Jones’ wrongdoing last year — but Exodus did not sever ties with Jones until nine months later. Not only has Jones not faced justice; Jones’ abusive activities have been hosted for free on Michigan State University’s web site. Like other member abusers, Jones was sheltered by Exodus long after his abuses were publicly exposed.

And the Supreme Court decision also comes too late for countless youths who were detained by Exodus’ flagship Love In Action-Refuge boot camp in Tennessee. For years, LIA reportedly exposed youths to potential predators during counseling sessions and hired untrained amateurs to control youths’ access to vital medications. By 2005, Tennessee regulators became alarmed by these reports and sought to take action. But in 2007, state officials — who again are funded and kept in office by Christian Right lobbies — overruled the regulators, effectively determining that the “religious freedom” of Christian Rightists serves as an absolute defense against Christian Rightists’ felony abuse of youths and against the freedom of religious minorities. To this day, LIA’s “Families and Friends Weekends” train relatives and peers to stubbornly trust in defamations about their loved ones despite all factual evidence to the contrary.

In both situations, government officials — intimidated or funded by Christian Right lobbyists — failed to prosecute and convict sexual, physical, and religious abuse.

The latest Supreme Court ruling gives hope to hundreds of thousands of clergy sex abuse victims. But until state and federal officials shed their financial and political ties to the Christian Right, victims of “ex-gay” abusers will continue to watch Exodus shield its abusive counselors. These victims also will continue to be shunned by the public officials who were elected and employed to ensure freedom, safety, and justice for all — not just for the Christian Right.

Let’s please not call it “faith” sharing when a Christian group is so insecure in its religion that it must stalk Muslims who are minding their own business at a Muslim community event. That’s not a sharing of confident faith, Christians; it’s infliction of a deep inferiority complex.

The Thomas More Law Center sued a Muslim event organizer in Dearborn, Michigan, last year after the event confined Christian leafletters to a table at the entrance to its sizable gathering. A table wasn’t enough for the Christian ministry, who hoped to disrupt the event with leafletters stationed throughout the gathering. (Can you imagine the reaction of a Christian Right event if Muslim leafletters stationed themselves throughout?)

The Thomas More Law Center is an avowed enemy of individual liberty and religious freedom for non-Christians. Like the Alliance Defense Fund and Liberty Counsel, TMLC is a Christian Right legal attack squad that sues religious and sexual minorities. It labels Muslim civilians “jihadists.”

Ed Brayton at Dispatches from the Culture Wars notes that TMLC has lost its case. Its client, a Christian ministry, was afforded the same rights as any other leafletters and given ample opportunity to be present without interfering with Muslims’ own freedom of religion and expression. Indeed, the Christians were allowed inside the event — just not with literature attacking their gracious hosts.

Radio host, ‘Christian’ activist met by crowd of 200-plus LGBT people in Michigan appearance

She Applauds Holocaust Revisionist Scott Lively and Claims To Have Worked On Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill

By Todd A. Heywood

GROSSE POINTE, Mich. — Linda Harvey, leader of Mission America, claims legislation pending in Uganda , the anti-homosexuality bill, does not include a death penalty provision for homosexuality. Instead, Harvey says, the bill was designed to stop “Western homosexuals” from exploiting Uganda children.

“This has been mis-portrayed– and please clear this up. Uganda is criminalizing rape of children, and I think that a lot of people would say hmmm maybe death penalty for rape of children — heterosexually or homosexually,” Harvey said in an interview following the speech in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

(Audio recording of the interview, 13 minutes)

“The fact they are re-criminalizing homosexuality is (a) their business, (b) it is patronizing for white Westerners to be telling these folks — they are seeing George Soros funded gay groups going into Uganda. They are all through the schools, lots of promotion to kids. Poor kids, poor kids are being offered money and favors and gifts to have sex. That’s exploitation. That’s sex trafficking. And it’s being done mostly homosexually. By Western homosexuals coming in and trying to get involved in Uganda.”

The actual bill includes a death penalty provision for “aggravated homosexuality,” which is described in part as “serial homosexuality” or multiple convictions. There is nothing in the legislation which specifically addresses the alleged “exploitation” and “sex trafficking” Harvey claimed.

Harvey said the Southern Poverty Law Center was wrong when it recently classified several anti-gay groups, including Scott Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries, as “hate groups.”

“I can’t stand the Southern Poverty Law Center. They are such a hypocritical organization. They don’t cover any of the violence that happens to any of the conservatives.I love what they do with the Klu Klux Klan and racial issues, . They need to go back stay out of this other stuff. They need to get out of classifying hate groups, family groups. I mean I am a normal ordinary person I just happen to have conservative values. I don’t hate anybody. I don’t go on anybody’s websites. I don’t picket funerals. I can’t stand Fred Phelps. I think he is funded by the gays,” Harvey said. “I think he is.”

She said she and Lively have both worked on the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda, and that she “loves” Lively.

Harvey also launched into a spirited defense of abstinence-only education. She said such programs did work — even though nearly every study has shown otherwise — and that they did not discriminate against gay youth. When confronted with the fact the message is abstain from sex until marriage was in itself discriminatory to LGBT youth, as most are not allowed to be married in the United States. She said that was untrue.

“They can still marry some one of the opposite gender,” Harvey said.

In addition, Harvey painted a picture of gays as being disease riddled. Specifically, she focused on CDC numbers. She used the following quote from a recent CDC report on HIV cases in the U.S.

“The data, presented at CDC’s 2010 National STD Prevention Conference, finds that the rate of new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men (MSM) is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women.”

What Harvey did not mention, or discuss, was that same study’s conclusion about why the HIV numbers in men who have sex with men are so high.

“Research shows that a range of complex factors contribute to the high rates of HIV and syphilis among gay and bisexual men. These factors include high prevalence of HIV and other STDs among MSM, which increases the risk of disease exposure, and limited access to prevention services. Other factors are complacency about HIV risk, particularly among young gay and bisexual men; difficulty of consistently maintaining safe behaviors with every sexual encounter over the course of a lifetime; and lack of awareness of syphilis symptoms and how it can be transmitted (e.g., oral sex). Additionally, factors such as homophobia and stigma can prevent MSM from seeking prevention, testing, and treatment services.”

Harvey also touted the number of men dead in California from HIV, a number she put at 69,000. Asked what role the Reagan administrations failure to act on the HIV epidemic in the first six years and its impact on those numbers, Harvey brushed that off and focused on new infections– which do not necessarily translate to deaths with improved medications and understanding of HIV infections.

Harvey came to Grosse Pointe from her Ohio home on Thursday to speak to a Christian group called Point of Relevance. Her speech was billed as a discussion on the gay agenda. But when local activists and groups got wind of her appearance, they launched a Facebook campaign to fill the War Memorial room where she was speaking. Nearly 200 pro-LGBT activists showed up. But Harvey and Point of Relevance decided that with so many LGBT people in the audience, they were better off witnessing to the group, then proceeding with the program as advertised.

For her part, Harvey stood up and told how she went from being a liberal to a conservative, how she had worked for Planned Parenthood, and her work in the health care field as an advertising and marketing executive as the AIDS epidemic ratcheted up. She was questioned several times by audience members about presenting her powerpoint presentation, “Homosexuality: Is the Debate Over,” and she said she didn’t think it was right for “this audience.”

Harvey and Point of Relevance explained to the audience that they change in program was because they were “moved by the Holy spirit.”

After nearly two hours of delay — including 30 minutes of music worship — Harvey finally launched into her powerpoint, speeding through it and only presenting a portion of the entire hour long program. She ended on a slide introducing the Day of Silence, saying “I am sure you all know what that is.”

The dialog Point of Relevance had advertised for the evening consisted of three questions from the audience.

“Southern Poverty Law Center does amazing work and they should keep their eye on people like her,” said Alicia Skillman, executive director of Triangle Foundation, an LGBT rights group in Michigan. “I think it’s horrible that she is working in Uganda on the bill for the killing of LGBT people.”

Skillman said, “Her argument was basically change then we’ll love you.”

CDC link: http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/Newsroom/msmpressrelease.html

Via Right Wing Watch comes news of Michigan Republican Paul Scott from Grand Blanc, who is running on a four-pronged platform. One of those prongs is this:

I will make it a priority to ensure transgender individuals will not be allowed to change the sex on their driver’ license in any circumstance.

Uh huh! And why?

When asked to explain how such a mandate from the Secretary of State would benefit Michigan, he said it was about “preventing people who are males genetically from dressing as a woman and going into female bathrooms.”

Gotcha!

In other news, apparently you have to show your drivers’ license before you use public restrooms in Michigan. What if you really have to go and you left your license in your other pants? Michigan sounds awful!

The Michigan state senate voted Wednesday to reject a measure that would protect students from violence committed on the basis of sexual orientation. Opponents of the bill do not object to legislation protecting students on the basis of race or religion; their sole objection is to the protection of gay students from violence.

Democratic Sen. Glenn Anderson said:

It is imperative that we compel public schools to protect students from bullying in the academic environment by adopting a policy to deal with this destructive behavior.

Anderson’s measure lost on a vote of 21 to 16, according to the Michigan Messenger.

This move by the senate is the second recent example of Michigan officials protecting antigay violence.

In recent months. former ex-gay Patrick McAlvey has come forward to accuse Exodus member activist Mike Jones of sexually accosting him during “ex-gay” therapy sessions. Jones’ ex-gay activist website is hosted by Michigan State University. The university has refused to withdraw its taxpayer-subsidized hosting of Jones’ “Corduroy Stone” website, and both Jones and Exodus president Alan Chambers refuse to respond to the allegations.

Worse, perhaps, than the senators who support antigay bullying are those Republicans who say that protecting any student from bullying is too expensive. According to the Messenger:

[Some] Senate Republicans took a different tact in the floor debate Wednesday. They argued the bill could result in numerous lawsuits against public schools across Michigan.

“[The bill] is written in such a way as to guaruntee lawsuits against employees or the school,” said Sen. Alan Cropsey, a Republican from DeWitt. “This will turn every incident of bullying into a lawsuit, and cost the schools hundreds of millions.”

Schools across the nation are already being sued by parents of battered gay students; the parents accuse school faculty of failing to protect their children. So long as Michigan singles out gay youths and young adults for abuse, the lawsuits in that state are likely to escalate.

Despite accusations that he sexually accosted a young male client and uses public property to promote sectarian religious bigotries, Mike Jones and his Corduroy Stone ex-gay ministry will continue to receive its web hosting from Michigan State University.

The Michigan Messenger reported Friday that David Gift, vice provost for libraries, computing and technology at MSU, said that the university’ hands are tied because Mike Jones is a retired university employee.

We have made systematic progress over the past year at removing public purchased web publishing and e-mail accounts that had been established at MSU. However, retirees have the benefit of continued use of their MSU web space and our existing policies for controlling their use of that space are quite limited and do not permit us to address this particular case. The owner of this site is a retiree, and after we closed his purchased account under our general change of business practices he set up shop in his retiree space. He apparently has arranged for a .com URL, but has that URL redirected to his MSU personal webspace.

Terry Denbow, vice president for university relations, further explained MSU’s policy:

The point is that we do allow retirees to have Web spaces that link to other organizations. The fact that this organization has material that is offensive does not, in and of itself, violate any University policies. We cannot, under the First Amendment, make content based distinctions on what sites we allow and which ones we do not. We are continuing to review and update our acceptable use policies and will take this under advisement as we do so. In the meantime, so long as Mr. Jones is in compliance with U policy, his web space will remain available to him.

Denbow said that while the university was blocked from further action under
current policies, it might be time to revisit those policies.

Truth Wins Out executive director Wayne Besen and Jones’s victimized client, who is no longer ex-gay, reacted here.

It is frankly alarming that MSU policy allows alleged predators to host websites on public property simply because they are retirees. MSU’s see-no-evil policy may serve as an open invitation for other retirees to launch sites inciting prejudice and sexual violence against ethnic and religious constituencies.

A true “conservative,” small-government, or libertarian policy would demand that no personal or private sectarian sites of any kind be hosted on taxpayer-supported government property. Instead, taxpayers are being forced to host the work of a predatory ex-gay who inflicts his failures upon students.

Truth Wins Out has sought comment from Corduroy Stone and from Exodus International regarding the accusation of sexual abuse; both have refused to comment.