This is hilarious. Tennessee’s Stacey Campfield, author of the state’s now infamous “Don’t Say Gay” legislation, who last week explained, among other things, that AIDS is the result of a gay pilot having sex with a gay monkey, and who has an entire state’s progressives laughing and cheering after he was thrown out of a Knoxville restaurant this weekend, was interviewed by David Pakman today, and the interview is so full of goodness that I have decided to live-blog it. Let’s watch together!
0:30 Why is homosexuality harmful, Stacey? Well, he says that as long as you are having heterosexual sex with people who are not addicted to drugs or gay or “from Africa,” you should be fine. New campaign slogan for Stacey: don’t have sex with Africans!
1:40 David points out that anti-gay wingnuts are really fixated on what happens when two men have sex. [Note to Stacey: your chances of catching HIV through lesbian sex are basically nil.]
2:25 Stacey says homosexuality is harmful because the average homosexual lives nowhere near as long as the heterosexuals. David points out that Stacey got his info on that one from a widely discredited fraud named Paul Cameron.
2:45 Stacey prattles on awhile about how insurance is more expensive for gays, due to gay, before getting to his main point, which is that
3:40 Animals who are gay are not actually gay, because they don’t have buttsex. Stacey has never seen two animals having anal sex, therefore it does not exist. One wonders how much time Stacey Campfield has spent, with binoculars, trying to catch members of the animal kingdom having anal sex, and then one shudders.
4:40 David: “So when animals have gay sex, it’s more of an S&M thing?” Stacey: “Oh, I don’t know why they’re having gay sex, because I’m not an animal mind reader. Stacey: “If you get online you can learn all about animal S&M.” [Paraphrased quotes.]
5:20 Stacey says anti-gay bullying is no big deal because we already have bullying laws. I guess the kids who kill themselves are just collateral damage. Stacey brags that Tennessee’s schools are 46th in the nation. Take that, four other Southern states!
6:45 We don’t need to talk about heterosexuality in school either! It’s not just gayness that we need to remain mum about. All sex bad!
8:00 Do people choose to be gay? Stacey: “well, the activity is a choice.” We all use Activity Period differently, I guess…
8:25 Hahaha, Stacey, you got kicked out of a restaurant in your hometown for being such an unrepentant, misinformed, hateful bigot. Do you feel like you were unfairly discriminated against? Does this make you sort of possibly understand what discrimination is like? Stacey claims he wouldn’t go to a restaurant that refused to serve gays.
But I guess one where gays are welcome but bullied relentlessly is all good, right, Stacey?
I’d like to remind everyone, quickly, that Stacey also got kicked out of a University of Tennessee football game a while back, due to the fact that he was wearing a Mexican wrestler mask, despite the fact that it had been well-publicized that for the safety of all in the stadium, masks were not allowed for this Halloween game. But Stacey wanted to wear it, dangit! So he made the cops chase him around the stadium for a while and whined before they finally got tired of it and booted him. His maturity level doesn’t seem like it’s improved in the years hence.
Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin writes that anti-gay extremist and pretend sociologist Paul Cameron is about to travel to Moldova to help haters there prevent an antidiscrimination law from going on the books. He’s spoken out on this topic in Moldova in 2009, claiming that to allow people with a “nontraditional sexual orientation” their rights would contribute to a “demographic catastrophe” in Moldova owing to the low birthrate there. Christian lawyer Alex Spak of Britain seems to be making a name for himself in the country with a similarly hateful message.
Burroway speculates that, in light of Scott Lively’s recent visit to the country for the same purpose, Moldova is becoming a special project for Christian exporters of hatred similar to Uganda.
Oh, Paul Cameron. Don’t ever change. You and all your extremist cohorts help our side so much. [All you guys at Peter's Troof Skool this week, I'm including you in that list of "extremist cohorts."]
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
Today the courts are talking about the ‘right’ to engage in homosexuality, the ‘right’ of homosexuals to get married to each other, the ‘right’ to openly join the military, etc. Political candidates are afraid of appearing ‘homophobic.’ But 60 years ago, even 35 years ago, the U.S. had it right. Then, engaging in same-sex sex was NOT considered a ‘right.’ Indeed, those who engaged in homosexuality were seen as highly socially disruptive, due to a lengthy, and empirically-tested, set of reasons. In 1950, Congress discussed the Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government:1
Most of the authorities agree and our investigation has shown that the presence of a sex pervert in a Government agency tends to have a corrosive influence on his fellow employees. These perverts will frequently attempt to entice normal individuals to engage in perverted practices. This is particularly true in the case of young and impressionable people who might come under the influence of a pervert. Government officials have the responsibility of keeping this type of corrosive influence out of the agencies under their control. It is particularly important that the thousands of young men and women who are brought into Federal jobs not be subjected to that type of influence while in the service of the Government. One homosexual can pollute a Government office.
Notice what the investigation found concerning employees who engaged in homosexuality. Homosexuals were not disqualified from government service because they were ‘mentally ill.’ At the time, of course, those who engaged in homosexuality were often referred to psychiatrists for ‘treatment.’ Yet for society in general and the federal government in particular, the overriding exclusionary factor was the social disruption that homosexuals caused. This official investigation found that homosexuals:
“frequently” “attempted to entice normal individuals to engage” in homosexuality. The ‘try it, you might like it’ slogan has been around a long time. Instances of male homosexuals enticing and seducing boys abounded then, as they do today.
particularly targeted the “young and impressionable.” The homosexually-obsessed have both drive and commitment — especially when it comes to the young or younger.
Based on these facts, the report recommended the following policy:
Government officials have the responsibility of keeping this type of corrosive influence out of the agencies under their control. It is particularly important that the thousands of young men and women who are brought into Federal jobs not be subjected to that type of influence while in the service of the Government.
The report also observed that “one homosexual can pollute a Government office.” Not that ‘every homosexual’ polluted his Government office, but rather “one can.” Most anyone who has worked in a business is familiar with at least once such circumstance. What is striking here is that there is no ‘animus,’ no ‘hatred,’ and no appeal to Christianity or any religious notions — just a statement of the facts and a reasonable social policy conclusion given those facts.
Why can’t people be dumb again? Why does science have to advance? Why will Paul Cameron’s personal demons never leave him?
Dunno.
The reason there was “no appeal” to Christianity or anything is that public ignorance was so widespread that it wasn’t necessary. Now, due to education and science and real-life experience, support for gay people is mainstream, so bigots like Cameron have to run crying to their illiterate interpretations of their Bibles to find support for their backwards, cornpone positions. That’s all.
I was relaxing on vacation in Nova Scotia with my parents when my father called me over to the computer. He pointed to a shocking article about a new “study” written by Walter Schumm (pictured), a Kansas State University family studies professor, claiming that children of gay parents were 1.7 to 12.1 times more likely to become gay as the children of heterosexual parents.
AOL’s Paul Kix breathlessly trumpeted the supposedly groundbreaking “research” as a “detailed analysis”, while positioning Schumm as a martyr to political correctness.
“Walter Schumm knows what he’s about to do is unpopular: publish a study arguing that gay parents are more likely to raise gay children than straight parents,” wrote Kix. “But the Kansas State University family studies professor has a detailed analysis that past almost aggressively ideological researchers never had.”
In truth, Schumm is no brave hero who is pushing the envelope against the establishment. His biased new paper is a disgrace and so shoddy that the terms “Schumm Study” and “Sham Study” could be considered interchangeable.
The goal of Schuum’s work is political. He is desperately trying to show that homosexuality is a choice that can be overcome. If he and others of his ilk can prove this, they believe that they can make a powerful case to fearful Americans that LGBT people should be kept away from children and that LGBT students should not receive support, because it might influence their sexual orientation.
It is appalling that AOL’s Kix was so gullible that he failed to see the hidden agenda of Schumm or do his homework to find out who Schumm was. Or, maybe his own sympathies are with the anti-gay researcher and opportunistically exploited this paper as a way to further anti-gay lies on a major website?
Once upon a time when there were journalistic standards, Kix would have been fired for media malpractice. However, instead of the unemployment line, hacks like Kix now get headlines on major online services. It is an indictment of the modern media that this story ever saw the light of day, given the tragic and fatal flaws of this so-called “study”.
When analyzing Schumm’s bogus conclusions, it is critical that people understand that he did not actually produce one shred of genuine research. He simply commented on the academic work of others, inserting his personal prejudices. So, calling this charlatan’s slanted critique a “study” is like confusing a film critic’s movie review with the actual production of a movie.
The study itself is betrayed by common sense and reality. If being around gay parents makes a child gay, then how does Schumm explain the inconvenient fact that the vast majority of LGBT adults had heterosexual parents?
Of course, once one starts looking at the actual paper, all of this quickly becomes academic, because the research techniques are so unprofessional that they immediately invalidate the conclusions. The fatal weakness is that Schumm does not draw his samples from other scientific studies. But instead finds them by perusing a random collection of unscientific literary books on gay parenting. This is the kind of “science” that one can do on an off day at Barnes & Noble.
Indeed, the author of one book cited by Schumm, Abigail Garner, purposely selected half of the children featured in her book to be the gay children of gay parents. Yet, Schumm idiotically used this deliberately skewed sample to show that gay parents are more likely to produce gay children.
“To run statistics on this non-statistical (or anti-statistical) sample would be like judging the ratio of giraffes to chimpanzees in Africa by comparing the populations selected by the zookeepers at your local zoo,” wrote Box Turtle Bulletin Editor Jim Burroway, who carefully debunked the study.
Not surprisingly, Schumm is tied to Paul Cameron whose anti-gay junk science had him expelled from the Nebraska Psychological Association and the American Psychological Association. Cameron’s disdain for LGBT people ran so deep that he wanted to brand HIV+ people and exterminate homosexuals.
Yet, knowing his disreputable background, Schumm still elected to be on Cameron’s editorial board when he launched his ill-fated online publication, Empirical Journal of Same Sexual Behavior (EJSSB). Schumm also testified in a Florida gay adoption court case alongside Dr. George Rekers, who was recently caught with a male escort he met on Rent Boy.com.
The larger question is what disciplinary action does Kansas State University plan to take against Schumm, considering the unethical and dishonorable nature of his shoddy work? His unscientific screed is an academic embarrassment and blight on the reputation of this university.
Unfortunately, no matter what happens, it is too late. An AOL hack teamed up with an anti-gay quack and the damage is done. In light of the recent gay teen suicides, one would hope that more care would be taken before irresponsible and inaccurate studies are reported and celebrated in the mainstream media.
If you ever want to take a look at the underbelly of the “ex-gay” myth, look no further than a fraudulent website hosted by the Peoples’ Church of Montreal. It seems that this “church” is catering to ignorant people they hope to fool with fake statistics and outdated research. Is it Godly to peddle lies? This is a question the Peoples’ Church of Montreal must ask itself.
For example, the group’s website has a section called, “A Biblical Response to Homosexuality Today.” Inexcusably, It lists the infamous Paul Cameron’s Family Research Institute as a key source. Are these so-called Christians comfortable with using the “research” of a man who was expelled from the American Psychological Association for lying about homosexuality? And, yes, it is lying, because information on Cameron is readily available:
In 1985, the American Sociological Association (ASA) adopted a resolution which asserted that “Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism” and noted that “Dr. Paul Cameron has repeatedly campaigned for the abrogation of the civil rights of lesbians and gay men, substantiating his call on the basis of his distorted interpretation of this research.”
In August, 1996, the Canadian Psychological Association adopted the position that “Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism and thus, it formally disassociates itself from the representation and interpretations of scientific literature in his writings and public statements on sexuality”.
Cameron’s credibility was also questioned outside of academia. In his written opinion in Baker v. Wade (1985), Judge Buchmeyer of the U.S. District Court of Dallas referred to “Cameron’s sworn statement that ‘homosexuals abuse children at a proportionately greater incident than do heterosexuals,’” and concluded that “Dr. Paul Cameron…has himself made misrepresentations to this Court” and that “There has been no fraud or misrepresentations except by Dr. Cameron”.
It gets worse. The group cites Masters & Johnson:
William H. Masters and Virginia E. Johnson, write in their work Homosexuality in Perspective: “Providing therapeutic support for the homosexually oriented man or woman who wishes to convert or revert to heterosexuality has been an integral part of the practice of psychotherapy for decades.”
Interestingly, this “church” failed to inform readers that the Masters & Johnson research has been debunked — by Virginia Masters herself. Check out the video.
The mendacious ministry from Montreal then embarrasses itself by quoting the discredited National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). This is an outfit that began 2010 with the infamous George “Lift My Luggage” Rekers — the doctor who got caught with a Rent Boy — on its board. The group’s board also had criminal mastermind Arthur Abba Goldberg, who served time in prison after he was convicted as a Wall Street con artist. Both men resigned under pressure.
Well, I guess this is what passes for fundamentalist morality these days. It’s kind of sad.
He seems to be genuinely burned by the fact that he’s being held accountable for his words and deeds over the past years, his Americans For Truth [sic] website having been newly classified as a hate site by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The designation, of course, was a long time coming, and as Jeremy Hooper has been reminding us, this is not the first time Peter LaBarbera’s dishonesty and vitriol has been recognized by the SPLC:
Back when Peter was the executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, Pete gave what the SPLC called a “full-throated endorsement of [Paul] Cameron” when he, in a piece on the discredited researcher’s work, said: “Paul Cameron’ work has been targeted for ridicule by homosexual activists, and he’ been demonized by the left”…”but this should not discount his findings.“). This endorsement of Cameron earned the IFI a place on the SPLC’s dubious “hate groups” list in the anti-gay category: Solely because of Peter’s actions. After current IFIer Laurie Higgins (a major LaBarbera pal) took down the offending piece and pressed the SPLC for removal, the civil rights group did eventually remove IFI from their list. Because as we said: The SPLC’s threshold is not willy-nilly, designed add anyone who does anything anti-gay. A group or person has to do something particular, and in the case of IFI it was Pete’s action that did it.
Right. And Peter STILL defends Paul Cameron. Not only that, but he also has defended the perpetrators of the anti-gay genocide legislation in Uganda, pleading that those of us who have shone a light on the goings-on in that country are afflicted with “activist arrogance.”
But you see, this is Peter’s game: He says godawful things, he maligns an entire community of people based on trumped up accusations against a few, he lies and tells his readers (whoever they are) that being gay, itself, is a danger to society, etc., and then when he’s called it on it, he cries “But I’m just a nice boy who loves Jesus!”
Give us all, collectively, a break, Peter.
Now let’s go through his post and see what he had to say. As I mentioned in the headline, Peter thinks we at TWO should be on the list too, based on well, one time Wayne yelled on a megaphone, you see, and this is just as bad as the Holocaust, because…
Energetic ideological debate is one thing ‚Äî and pointed and colorful rhetoric flows in both directions (it’ not called a “Culture War” for nothing) ‚Äî but I can’t even imagine screaming through a bullhorn into the window of a “gay” church. Yet this is precisely what homosexual activist Wayne Besen did in Boston last year ‚Äî to protest an ex-gay seminar designed for pastors. Are you investigating his group, Truth Wins Out, as a potential “hate” group? If not, why not?
Oh, he’s playing so innocent, and so cute with the facts. It’s been covered here before, but since Peter posts his favorite picture of Wayne Besen In Shorts With a Megaphone once a week or so, and since he never tells the story of what was actually happening there, let’s just cover it again. This is from our press release on the event, last year:
Truth Wins Out joined local Boston GLBT advocates to demonstrate against Exodus International, which hosted a training seminar on Tuesday to teach people to “pray away the gay.” The protest was held at the site of the “ex-gay” symposium — the Park St. Church.
“We thank Join the Impact MA for coordinating an effective response to the damaging misinformation Exodus International peddles to vulnerable people,” said TWO Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Speaking up and educating the public is the first step in exposing the ex-gay myth. I was honored to be part of this bold action.”
The protest, at one point, moved to the burial grounds of some of America’ Founding Fathers, which was next to the church where the seminar was held. The radical, anti-gay organization, Massachusetts Family Institute (FMI) filmed a poorly shot video of the protest. Interestingly, their own video shows that protesters had not “desecrated” the graveyard, as they had stated in a press release.
“It is amazing that people who claim to represent ethics and morality would not only lie — but capture their dishonesty on videotape,” said Besen. “What the Massachusetts Family did was reprehensible and they should be ashamed of their blatant lies.”
Indeed, MassResistance (ANOTHER SPLC hate group — nice company, Pete keeps, isn’t it?) reported the protest in utter hysterics:
Tuesday afternoon, April 28, several major homosexual activist figures, including a prominent state employee, led a screaming demonstration to terrorize a downtown Boston church while it was holding a peaceful religious training event inside. Using a bullhorn, they illegally trampled through an adjoining Revolutionary War-era cemetery in order to be directly outside the church’s windows. Despite numerous apparent violations of the law, the Boston Police talked with them but refused to make any arrests.
(…)
And the Boston Police Department went right along with it. There were obvious violations of the law, including at the very least (1) a clear violation of the Massachusetts Civil Rights statute (2) holding a demonstration (in the graveyard!) without a permit; and (3) creating a public disturbance. But the one uniformed Boston Police officer and two plainclothes officers who were there made no effort to arrest anyone. The uniformed officer asked them a few questions and went on his way (see our video). The Boston Police Department told us yesterday that there were no arrests in the incident.
Uh…huh. No arrests were made. But MassResistance (again, a certified hate group) gnashed their teeth, beat their breasts, and wailed that it was all a conspiracy, because the Boston Police went along with it! Right. Everyone is out to get them, surely.
Or could it just be that protests are not illegal on public property, and that it was non-violent, so the police had no reason to arrest anyone?
Note that these hysterical hate groups accused the gay protesters of “desecrating” a cemetery, and let what they’re really saying sink in: that the mere presence of gay people on public property is, itself, desecration. Does that sound like a hate group to you? Because it sounds like a hate group to me.
So, to sum up, the protest had the following characteristics:
1. Was legal.
2. There was no church service going on, but instead a meeting of leaders from Exodus, who had just come back, incidentally, from the anti-gay conference in Uganda where Scott Lively (ALSO on the hate group list) stated that gays caused the Rwandan genocide.
3. Those protesting were on public property.
4. No arrests were made.
Oh, by the way, would you like to know what Wayne was saying into that megaphone that day? “Uganda!”
Considering what’s happened over the past year with “Uganda,” would you say Truth Wins Out is looking more hateful or less hateful than the man who is currently bitching about being recognized as a grade-A hatemonger?
Anyway, that’s that. Let’s look at the outline of Pete’s letter to Mark Potok of the SPLC.
Playing nice nice:
Am I and Americans For Truth opposed to homosexual behavior and any activism seeking to advance homosexuality/bisexuality/transsexuality as normative and acceptable? Absolutely. Do I “hate” people? Not at all. In fact, I am constantly responding to (often vicious) emails from pro-gay activists who write in to AFTAH via our website with my message that we can disagree with hating each other. That is the essence of civility and true tolerance, IMO [in my opinion] ‚Äî i.e., tolerating opinions with which we disagree while continuing to aggressively debate our viewpoints.
Neglects to mention that he posts the meanest letters he gets as a way to broadbrush LGBT people as “the reel haturs,” yet never posts these nice conversations he supposedly has.
Concern trolling:
I don’t expect you to sympathize with AFTAH’ views, but from a practical standpoint, you must know that your credibility is waning among people whom the SPLC needs to reach to stay viable. America is a center-right country (perhaps many liberals would say centrist) ‚Äî and while you may have success in fund-raising by reaching out predominantly to the Left, you cannot build credibility with unfair, politicized attacks on religious conservatives that appeal to base, uninformed stereotypes.
Oh yes, that’s right. Peter is so concerned for the credibility of the SPLC. Additionally, his suggestion that he’s just like the other evangelical groups who oppose LGBT people is asinine. There’s a reason Focus on the Family is not on the list, while AFTAH and MassResistance are. Focus is obnoxious, and they play cute with the truth, but they don’t tend to cross the line into the sort of bilious hatred Peter spews out on a daily basis. (Do I need to provide a corroborating link for that, or do you just want to set up a Google alert with his name and see what the hell he says every time he gets on the computer?)
As Pam Spaulding would say, protect your keyboards for this next part, folks:
What about the hateful rhetorical attacks against me and AFTAH and nasty shibboleths that come routinely from the Left? “Porno Pete”? Honestly, this is the type of malicious, hateful slander I experience on a daily basis (it is analogous in its ugliness to Phelps’ use of the term “Fag”).
OMG. He’s comparing “Porno Pete,” a silly name that we sometimes use, because “Pete” has an insane predilection for posting albums full of photographs of leathersex events (as a way to smear, again, all LGBT people) which are decidedly Not Safe For Work, all the time, to the term “fag,” which, as Jeremy Hooper points out, is used in virtually every gay bashing attack:
The word “f*g” is among the most heinous on the landscape, used in most every gay bashing to ever occur. To relate it to a silly web nickname that applies to a supposed affection for pornography (something that many would gladly own up to)? And to compare those who use the silly name to the Phelps family from Westboro Baptist, who protest people’s funerals and tell the parents that their child is burning in hell?!?! That is completely out-of-line!
Peter and his pal Matt are trying with all of their might to spin the script so that gay activists are the “haters.” It is a completely futile exercise. Not a single one of us who fight for equality want to be doing this. We do this because folks like Pete have demanded it of us, and we’re scared of where we’d be if we didn’t resist the onslaught! The on the socially conservative side declared this so-called “culture war” against our inclusion in the spectrum of normalcy, which puts them in the aggressor seat from day one. Some folks like Peter, who so things like personally attack people’s weddings, have just taken it to a whole other level!
Uh yeah. And if you don’t know what Jeremy is talking about when he says “personally attack people’s weddings,” it was Jeremy’s wedding, and Peter sent him a personal attack e-mail the week of. Click the clicky to read about it.
Peter needs to get over it. He earned the nickname “Porno Pete,” and a silly nickname is not “hatred.” It’s a silly nickname. Let us know when it’s used as a slur against an entire group of, um, Porno Petes.
Anyway, Peter also wants the SPLC to investigate Joe.My.God as a hate group, because Joe makes fun of Peter sometimes. Oh, and also ACT-UP, which really wouldn’t have had to exist if the Reagan administration and social conservatives hadn’t been absolutely evil in their misinformation and neglect of the HIV/AIDS issue as it arose suddenly in the ’80s.
More faux-victimization:
In fact, over the years there have been numerous assaults by pro-homosexual militants against people of faith and churches ‚Äî do you recall the attack against Hamilton Square Baptist Church in San Francisco in 1993 in which pro-gay activists were literally pounding on the doors of the church? What about ACT UP’ invasion of St. Patrick’ Cathedral in New York City in 1989, or more recent attempts by homosexual activists to intimidate supporters of Prop 8 and traditional marriage?
Goddammit, does Peter even know what the word “assault” means? Because banging on the doors of a church doesn’t leave a trail of blood. We on the pro-LGBT/pro-equality/pro-human side can, unfortunately, provide a list a mile long of LGBT people who have been beaten and murdered simply for who they are. And Porno Pete is going to bitch about the fact that a couple of church services were disrupted?
There’s a bit of wishful thinking as Peter brings his letter to a close:
Rest assured that SPLC’ reckless mischaracterization of AFTAH has touched off deep resentment within the pro-family, conservative community.
Actually, no. Peter is upset that there is very little resentment among the part of the greater “pro-family” community that retains a semblance of respect in this country. Peter has seen over the past year, up close, that he’s unwanted in his own movement, that he embarrasses his movement. Peter and his friends were shoved to the sidelines during the anti-gay fight in Maine, because they were deemed too embarrassing to be associated with. In fact, that was probably Yes on 1′s smartest play. That they misrepresented their own views in an effort to appear un-hateful to Mainers, that they shoved their most embarrassing players (Peter, Mike Heath, etc.) into Siberia, may be why they were able to inch over the top. It’s no longer socially acceptable in this country to espouse the kinds of views Peter LaBarbera emits onto his keyboard every day. Peter is upset because he knows that being on the SPLC list pushes him even further into Siberia from his own movement.
But he deserves the honor. Aside from Matt Barber (who’s probably not too far away from being on the list himself, but I won’t conjecture), the only people in the “pro-family” movement who will even have Peter are the others on the hate group list. He’s in the company he deserves, and in the bed he’s made for himself.
That’s why he’s literally begging to be taken off the list. Not only is his zealous hatred of gay people passionate, but it’s also his livelihood.
But the fact that Peter can’t control himself enough, can’t restrain his own hatred, his lies, his fake victimization — none of that is our fault. It’s not the SPLC’s fault. It’s not Joe Jervis’s fault. It’s not Jeremy Hooper’s fault. It’s not Wayne Besen’s fault. It sure as hell isn’t my fault.
It’s Peter’s fault.
UPDATE: Joe Jervis has also responded to Peter’s desire for Joe.My.God to also be on the hate group list:
LaBarbera clearly doesn’t like my near-daily habit of “smearing” Christian conservatives by quoting their idiocy verbatim. They hang themselves by their own words, Petey, and I rarely need to do more than provide a photo and a headline. If that’s hate, you need to speak to my team of writers: Matt Barber, Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, Harry Jackson, Pat Robertson, James Dobson….and YOU.
I posted a video last week from our new friend David Pakman at Midweek Politics, where he interviewed crazy hatemonger Paul Cameron on the subject of DADT repeal. Well guess what? There’s a second part! In this segment, David really lays him out for his bigotry, his misleading use of math, and his general stupidity. Fun for the whole family!
And yes, according to Paul Cameron, gays are “compelled” to have anal sex because it is so “entertaining.”
As Alvin points out, it’s easy to laugh at Paul Cameron (and seriously, how can you not?), but it’s important to remember that his research still “form[s] the basic building blocks of religious right junk science used against the gay community.” Yes, it does.
Forever banished to obscurity by all credible mental health organizations, Paul Cameron still manages to pop up now and then. He did a phone interview with David Pakman* on Midweek Politics on the subject of DADT repeal and, well, he’s still Paul Cameron! He’s making up statistics, using research methods that don’t even actually qualify as, um, research methods, talking about secret gay bathrooms in the Pentagon, and a bunch of other stuff! So I guess we’ll file this under “comedy videos”?
I was relaxing on vacation in Nova Scotia with my parents when my father called me over to the computer. He pointed to a shocking article about a new “study” written by Walter Schumm (pictured), a Kansas State University family studies professor, claiming that children of gay parents were 1.7 to 12.1 times more likely to become gay as the children of heterosexual parents.
