Peter LaBarbera, Bryan Fischer, Matt Barber, and the rest of the usual suspects, are triumphantly asking for apologies from the mainstream media and gay activists for bringing up the rhetoric of Scott Lively in connection with the murder of Ugandan gay activist David Kato. Why are they so happy? Media reports are coming out that seem to possibly tell a slightly different story, at first glance, if you’re not paying attention, and if you read this story in a vacuum without any foreknowledge of what’s been going on in Uganda. Here’s Bryan Fischer:
According to Reuters, a man has now confessed to the killing, and police are saying a “personal disagreement” let to Kato’s untimely death. Meaning, of course, the whole thing had nothing to do with Lively or any other pro-family leader in America.
In fact, the police spokesman said quite pointedly that the murder “wasn’t a robbery and it wasn’t because Kato was an activist.” So the whole hate crime meme is out the window, gone, history, in the archives.
The confessed murderer, one Nsubuga Enock, is a “well-known thief,” according to police, and had been in prison until January 24. He had been staying with Kato since getting out.
Okay, “police are saying” that it was a personal disagreement. I can’t imagine why we’d have any reason not to believe the police in a nation that is seriously considering a bill that would criminalize homosexuality, and where political and religious leaders routinely tell citizens the sorts of malicious lies about gay people that they’d never get away with in a first world nation. Indeed, Scott Lively was sort of the one who kicked all of this off in Uganda, as he ran across the pond to find perhaps the only people brainwashed enough to believe his disturbed, malicious bullshit about gays causing the Holocaust and gays causing the Rwandan genocide.
Let’s look real quick at the Reuters article Fischer references, to see if he’s leaving anything out:
Kato had been featured in an anti-gay newspaper in October that “outed” people it said were gay and called on the government to kill them. His photograph was published on the cover under the headline: “Hang Them.”
The activist said he had received death threats since the publication.
[...]
Gay rights activists told Reuters they feared police may try to cover up a motive of homophobia to protect the Western aid upon which the country relies. They said they wanted proof from police that Kato was not killed over his sexuality.
And has that proof been forthcoming? Nein.
The rest of the story that’s being floated by Ugandan police smells a lot like the “gay panic” crap we’ve been hearing for years in cases like that of Matthew Shepard [which Religious Right wingnuts still try to absolve themselves of responsibility for]:
A man whom police arrested yesterday on allegations of killing David Kato, a human rights activist, has reportedly told police that the deceased coerced him into sodomy. David Kato, 46, an advocacy officer for the gay rights group, Sexual Minorities Uganda, was found with head wounds at his home in Bukusa, Mukono District but died on his way to hospital last Wednesday.
Police spokesperson Judith Nabakooba said the suspect had been hiding in Nakabago village, Mukono District. “It is true the suspect has been arrested but we need to record his statement first before giving a formal statement,” Ms Nabakooba said yesterday. But a police source, who preferred anonymity because he is not authorised to talk to the press, said the suspect confessed to killing Kato because he was reportedly tired of engaging in homosexual practices.
“We have taken him to Mukono Magistrate’s Court to record an extrajudicial statement,” the source said. “He told us that he killed Kato after he failed to give him a car, a house and money he promised as rewards for having sex with him,” the source said.
Anonymous sources to the extremely bigoted Ugandan police are good enough for Matt, Pete and Scott if they allow them another day of blissful ignorance of the people they hurt every day.
Surely you can understand the predicament the Ugandan government finds themselves in. They couldn’t ignore or even sanction the murder of a gay man, as they normally would, due to the international publicly surrounding the case. But they also couldn’t allow the murder to be construed as politically motivated, lest the resultant outrage dry up those annual millions in foreign aid.
And don’t overlook that this so-called “motive” precisely fits the long-running Christianist claim that evil local gays are using using Western-supplied money to recruit Uganda’s helpless youth into homosexuality, a charge repeated in the very issue of the newspaper that called for Kato’s murder.
We will never get the truth, you can bet on that.
No, we won’t. But here’s what we DO know. An anti-gay crusade is being waged in Uganda, aided by American Evangelicals who, in that climate of hatred and ignorance, are allowed to express their true fear and bigotry more clearly and dishonestly than they get away with in the United States. A people suffering from poverty, malnourishment, disease, the Lord’s Resistance Army, and a corrupt government are, of course, being led to scapegoat their problems on people who haven’t done a damn thing to hurt them and who never will, and idiot American Evangelicals are okay with that. Why? Because no one in the First World gives a damn what they say anymore! This is why they spend so much money on “missions” in the first place! Give impoverished people economic empowerment and education and medical care and tools to pull themselves out of poverty and they’ll have a better life, but they’ll become less and less likely to drink the religious Kool-Aid, and they might just get smart enough to realize that their goverment has been screwing them over for decades.
But if you go over there with a Bible and a scapegoat for all their problems, you protect the power of the people screwing them and you win converts without having to help a single person.
Anyway, since we’re supposed to be “apologizing to Scott Lively,” let’s see what the poor dear has been doing the past couple of days. Oh, look, as Alvin McEwen points out, Scott wrote another anti-gay screed about Uganda! Let’s see what it says:
Uganda is being murdered. The nation once called “The Pearl of Africa” by Winston Churchill, a lush and beautiful country as fertile as the Nile Delta.
By whom?
The murderers are the lavender Marxists, the now-global network of sexual revolutionaries bent on remaking the entire world in their own perverted image, whose juggernaut has toppled even once mighty Britain, crushing under their lavender boots after eight centuries the symbol of its Christian power: the Magna Carta, whose first principle had proclaimed “The English church must be free!”
These revolutionists of Sodom, who march triumphantly through all the major cities of the western world to flaunt their defeat of moral law, and who hold both Hollywood and the heart of America’s president in their iron grip: These very same zealots have fixed their malevolent gaze on Christian Uganda.
Uganda is the only country in the world with a national holiday commemorating its rejection of sexual perversion. Every June 3 it honors the 22 young men and boys who were tortured and roasted alive in 1886 by homosexual King Mwanga, because they refused to submit to sodomy. Is it any wonder, then, that Uganda has reacted violently against the army of agitators, led by George Soros, who now seek to re-homosexualize Ugandan culture?
It is as if the militant ranks of “Code Pink” were transported back to 1890s America to agitate for “sexual freedom.” Our great grandparents would not have countenanced this. There would have been violence, as there has now been in Uganda.
[...]
There is indeed evil in Uganda today, but it is not the reaction of Christian and Moslem citizens to the rape of their culture. It is the pink-gloved hand of western powers that are cutting the throat of Africa’s most God-fearing country, and one of the world‘s most promising Christian democracies.
He actually believes his own crap. He’s not even a good imperialist white man preying on the downtrodden. He actually believes that a gay army, led by George Soros [wingnut dogwhistle!], is traveling to Uganda to “re-homosexualize” the culture. Even though we know, from SCIENCE, that there are gay people in every country, tribe, religion, or any other population group you can think of. That’s sad, pathetic and sick. Get help, Scott Lively, for your own good.
So again, there will be no apologies forthcoming, from me or any other writer with a soul and an ability to use Google, analyze information and sleep at night with a good conscience.
But keep running away from it, guys. Keep running away from the consequences of your worldview. Every time you open your mouths, a few more people fall onto the side of fairness and equality and away from your fearful bigotry.
The defilement of slain gay activist David Kato’s funeral by a “preacher” and local villagers who refused to bury his body shows the capacity of Ugandan society to commit extreme violence against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Thanks to the hateful messages spewed by American evangelical missionaries and the sermons preached by local religious zealots, the public has been whipped into a fanatical anti-gay frenzy. Sexual minorities have been so demonized that their lives are now seen as worthless.
When people are dehumanized to this extent, it is not difficult to imagine the possibility of large-scale atrocities. If anyone doubts this, they should read Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s book, “Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault Against Humanity. The author makes a persuasive case that when a group is singled out, labeled inferior and deemed a threat to society, the public is primed to carry out violent acts that are otherwise unthinkable.
Given the level of vitriol in Uganda, no one was surprised when Kato was bludgeoned to death with a hammer in his home last week – least of all this brave gay activist himself who warned that “people were following him” and that “he feared for his life.” As the saying goes, one is not paranoid if the threat is real.
The treatment of this hero at his own funeral shows the moral depravity of what many people try to pass off as religion. According to various news reports, a graveside preacher exploited the somber affair to use it as an opportunity for condemnation.
“The world has gone crazy,” the pastor railed through a microphone. “People are turning away from the scriptures. They should turn back, they should abandon what they are doing. You cannot start admiring a fellow man.”
Gay activists (about 100 had arrived on a bus) seized the microphone and an unidentified woman defiantly shouted, “Who are you to judge others? We have not come to fight. You are not the judge of us.”
News reports say that villagers defended the preacher and a “scuffle” ensued. The local mob then refused to bury the body and it was left to gay activists to dispose of their friend’s remains.
The lack of empathy, human compassion, and respect for Kato’s body is astonishing. Only a spiritual cesspool with “religious” teachings ranging from vacuous-to-vaudeville-to-violent could produce such monsters. Is this really what religion has been reduced to in Uganda?
Ironically, the one figure that emerges as Christ-like is Kato.
“David lived his life for his friends, even defending those he hardly knew,” writes a Ugandan lesbian activist Val Kalende. “David was always concerned for the safety of others. Many times, he put himself out of the way for the sake of others. He fed, dressed, comforted, and housed many members of the community who were homeless.”
Kalende rightfully places the blame squarely at the feet of militants – both American and Ugandan — who are currently promoting The Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Indeed, most of the trouble in Uganda began when American evangelicals like Rick Warren, Lou Engle, and the secretive organization The Family began coming to Uganda to export their culture war.
The situation intensified in 2009 when two “ex-gay” activists joined holocaust revisionist Scott Lively at a conference in Kampala to discuss the evils of homosexuality. Two weeks after the conference, Lively bragged that he had delivered a “nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” This was followed by the introduction of the harsh Anti-Homosexuality Bill and Uganda’s Rolling Stone tabloid (no relation to the American magazine) publishing Kato’s picture alongside other gay activists with the call to hang them.
Interestingly, we have no compunction about expressing our outrage when Muslims mask nefarious intentions behind the front of Islamic charities. Yet, we rarely reserve the same righteous indignation when Americans hide murderous designs behind the veil of evangelical charities.
When Christian extremists plan trips to developing countries, the State Department ought to begin asking what their “mission” is and what they are trying to “revive” during their revivals. If the answer is religious agitation and stigmatizing minorities, their passports ought to be revoked for the sake of national security.
President Barack Obama made a powerful gesture by recognizing Kato’s contributions to humanity.
“In Uganda, David showed tremendous courage in speaking out against hate,” Obama said. He was a powerful advocate for fairness and freedom.”
The next step should be that key members of Congress threaten to cut off funds to Uganda if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill passes. The perfect name for this action would be, “The David Kato Human Rights Bill”.
There certainly is a direct line to be drawn between the work of American Evangelicals like Scott Lively and the brutal murder of Ugandan LGBT activist David Kato.
The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.
[...]
Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh. Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.
Then Joe ties it all up with a bow:
Yesterday Scott Lively’s “nuclear bomb” against Ugandan gays went off in the form of the iron bar which crushed the skull of David Kato. In some countries, it’s possible that Lively would be under arrest today. Also complicit in this murder is Peter LaBarbera, who for years has worked to publicize and praise Scott Lively’s evil agenda. Then there’s Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, who last year paid lobbyists $25,000 to convince members of Congress to block a planned resolution denouncing Uganda’s gay death penalty bill. And let’s not forget Pastor Rick Warren, who supported, funded, appeared with, and publicized the work of Uganda’s leading anti-gay activist, Pastor Martin Ssempa.
Rhetoric matters. And as much as hate group leaders like Lively and LaBarbera bitch, moan and try to create false equivalencies wherein the Left are the “Real Haters,” the fact of the matter remains that there is a bodycount on just one side. Meanwhile, Christian Right stories of victimization are usually somewhere between tall tales and melodramatic crying about having to play by the same rules as everyone else.
Media Matters has a question for wannabe Republican presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty:
In light of Fischer’s history of outrageous rhetoric and penchant for pushing known falsehoods, I wonder what former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty was thinking when decided to appear on [Bryan] Fischer’s AFA radio show to promote his new book and announce his desire to reinstate “Don’t Ask , Don’t Tell” — a policy that 77 percent of Americans and 70 percent of white evangelicals supported repealing.
Media Matters points out, of course, that Bryan Fischer is the primary reason that the American Family Association is now listed as an SPLC-certified hate group, due to his history of bigoted statements about basically anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual Christian male, including his propagation of Scott Lively’s lies about the Nazis being a primarily homosexual movement.
If Tim Pawlenty wants to reach that ever shrinking segment of the American population which thrives on bigotry and ignorance, that’s his choice, but he should remember that an ever increasing percentage of the American population is repelled by that which is spewed forth on a daily basis by the likes of Bryan Fischer.
Scott Lively, the controversial, anti-gay pastor and operator of the Holy Grounds Coffee House on State Street, said Thursday that he did not know that his volunteer manager is a convicted sex offender.
The manager, Michael J. Frediani, 38, of 453 State St., located above the coffee house, was arrested Thursday morning by Springfield police at his apartment for failing to register as a Level 2 sex offender in this city.
Frediani, who went by the alias of Michael Free, was imprisoned in New York from 1996 to 1999, for sexual abuse in the first degree involving an 11-year-old girl, according to New York state criminal records.
“I was not aware that he is a sex offender or that he was arrested,” Lively said. “This is the first I heard of it.”
“I’ve only known him a few months,” Lively said. “He strikes me as a vey kind and gentle and honorable man.”
Yes, well, Scott Lively isn’t a very good judge of character, or much of anything else.
Joe points out that this isn’t the first time in the past few weeks Lively’s coffeehouse has gotten itself in trouble:
Last week Lively’s coffeehouse was raided by public school truant officers, who accused Lively of allowing students to ditch school there. According to my tipster, students were offered free coffee and hot chocolate in return for wearing one of Lively’s Jesus pins.
Nice. Free coffee and hot chocolate for kids served up by a child molester in an establishment owned by an anti-gay hate group leader.
Parents in Springfield: Teach your children to run, not walk, past the Holy Grounds Coffee House. Stranger danger!
He gained international attention after he was accused of stoking violence against gays in Uganda. One of his books, “Pink Swastika,’’ argues that Hitler and other Nazi leaders were gay. Another provides seven steps to “recruit-proof’’ your child from gay activists.
But Scott Lively says he is toning down his antigay rhetoric and shifting his focus to helping the downtrodden. And he’s found a home and a receptive audience in this struggling city where many, but not all, have embraced his mission to “re-Christianize Springfield.’’
Every day, patrons stream to the Christian folk shows and Bible classes at Holy Grounds Coffee House, the café he opened about two months ago on a block not far from downtown. A thousand people turned out for the March for Jesus he led from the café to the steps of City Hall on the day before Easter. And dozens of children and parents flocked to a city park for his annual Family Day celebration, featuring a water slide, face painting, and grilled food. Even the mayor stopped by that event.
“You can’t walk down the street without being greeted by somebody saying, ‘Hey, Rev. Scott!’ ’’ said Lively, an evangelical pastor who moved to Springfield from California in January 2008. “It’s very satisfying.’’
But some in the city are wary. Gay rights and civil rights groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center, have labeled Lively’s longtime organization, Abiding Truth Ministries, a hate group.
I’m sure it’s satisfying, since he’s such a pariah to anyone who knows the first thing about him. Don’t worry, though, he still hates him some gay people. This is the crux of the issue, according to Zambian priest Kapya Kaoma, who witnessed Lively’s activity in Uganda firsthand:
“When they are in Africa, they preach hatred; when they come to America, because they know Americans are going to hold them accountable, they become moderates,’’ he said. “Honestly, I wouldn’t believe a thing from Scott Lively. I don’t even think he’s capable of toning down his antigay rhetoric.’’
This is exactly what I’ve been saying about extremist Christians: they will get away with whatever they can get away with, depending on their audience. A man like Scott Lively garners very little respect in the United States, especially in New England. So of course, in order to maintain some sense of relevancy, he’s Doing Something Nice In His Hometown.
Dear Springfield’s poor and downtrodden: take whatever food he gives you, but be wary of every word that comes out of the man’s mouth. Until he stands up and says “Ya know? That book I wrote blaming gays for the Holocaust? That was complete BS, and I was lying the whole time, as everyone with Google can easily tell, and I feel very guilty for that,” he’s still the same old Scott Lively.
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
Let’s start out our week with something light and fun, i.e. checking in with Peter LaBarbera’s last few posts to see who/what has him all mad ‘n’ sad.
1. Personal attack on Jeremy Hooper: Peter is really, really excited that there are still a couple newspapers left that defend bigotry and hatred, so when he heard that the Manchester Union-Leader in New Hampshire was sticking to discrimination by refusing to print same-sex marriage announcements, he got a tingle in his no-nos and wrote a piece about it! Of course, to illustrate that piece, he used Jeremy Hooper’s wedding photo and slapped the word “perversion” on it.
Peter (presumably) has his own conscience and shame system to answer to. Nothing I could say here would exacerbate the questions that surely (or at least should) weigh on his and his loved ones’ minds.
2. Personal attack on and straight-up lies about Autumn Sandeen: Pete really, really doesn’t like Autumn. He dislikes her so much that he willfully and repeatedly twists the facts of her story to serve his agenda, claiming that Autumn “left [her] wife and children,” despite the fact that Autumn has repeatedly corrected the story. This is the set-up for a piece where Pete uses juvenile slurs against transgender people and sticks his fingers in his ears, referring to a genuine, widely recognized medical condition and its treatment as “sickening.”
Autumn responds thoroughly here, and ends like this:
I hope no one ever manages to shut LaBarbera up. He has the right to free speech, for sure, and he should be free to exercise it. Beyond that though, I find his over-the-top style of writing quite entertaining. And, he makes a good case, by the negative example of his bigotry of trans people, as well as lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, of the real world need for LGBT people to be treated with dignity and respect by both government and corporate America.
3. Evan Hurst and Joe Jervis are sooooooo mean. In case you missed it, Joe Jervis pointed out that Peter is on the same side as the Ku Klux Klan on a very specific issue: that of Jennifer Keeton of Augusta State University, who, like a child, wants the counseling department at the school to adjust their degree requirements for her “special needs,” i.e., her religion-based bigotry against gay people. The school told her, “No, dear,” so now, of course, she’s a Religious Right cause celebre. Peter turned Joe’s post into something it really wasn’t, as all Joe did was point out the similar goals of the two entities on the issue. I agreed with Joe.
Here comes the fun part: Peter is trying to “get back at us” by saying that Joe and I are on the same side as NAMBLA when it comes to openly gay scoutmasters. Of course, this is not true, as Joe explained on our Truth Wins Out Facebook page, and which I will explain now: Though it is distasteful and wrong that the Boy Scouts don’t allow kids’ fathers who happen to be gay to be scoutmasters, thus depriving those dads and their kids of the same opportunities that kids with straight dads have, they are a private organization and are thus completely within their rights to discriminate. The Country Club near my house is a nice little Slice of the Confederacy, as the only faces of color you’ll see on that golf course belong to employees in white suits, or possibly the Mayor on a special occasion, and they’re not too keen on Jewish members either. Is it gross? Yes. Is it a stain on our otherwise lovely neighborhood, its only benefits being its scenic nature and what its proximity does to the property values in our historic district? Yes. Are they within their rights as an exclusive private organization? Surely.
And that, children, is what you call a “nuanced position.” Wingnuts do not have nuanced positions. Everything them to them is childlike: good vs. evil, black vs. white, made-up words like “Judeo-Christian” vs. Big Mean Outside World, etc.
The rest of Peter’s piece involves taking an interesting piece written by Johann Hari, about gays in fascist movements [interesting because there have never been any heterosexuals involved in fascist movements -- it's a purely gay thing, y'all], spices it up with a little revisionist [completely made up] history from notorious bigot Scott Lively, who has his paws on more hate groups [the real, certified kind, not the "Peter things these people are mean" kind] than you’d expect imaginable from one human, and who basically handed Ugandan homophobes the rhetorical gun they needed in their campaign against gays in that country, and then he attempts to sum it up:
Homosexual radicals’ deranged attempts to link pro-family conservatives to racist fringe groups are part of their larger goal of demonizing and marginalizing “homophobic” Christians and social conservatives.
Uh, it’s really not a big leap: ”Pro-family conservatives” tend to be more defined by who/what they hate than what they actually support, and it tends to come in the form of condemnation of large groups of people. Irrational fear and hatred of other races is very, very similar to irrational fear and hatred of sexual minorities. It’s no coincidence that social conservatives cynically exploit race in their fights against reproductive health, while simultaneously believing/being worried that every Muslim is a possible terrorist, while simultaneously imagining that gay people they’ve never met having equal rights will affect their lives in any way. The only thing our equality will ever change is white fundamentalists’ self esteem, because their self-created pedestal over society, which they have enjoyed for decades, is being eroded by the advancement of minorities. The only thing that is happening is that slowly but surely, their unearned status is being brought down to size with the rest of us. And I’m sure that messes with ‘em somethin’ fierce, as we Southerners say. But their status was never merit-based in any way! There is nothing special or worthy about Fundamentalists that suggests they should have the keys to society. Indeed, when one looks at the statistics, one finds that on most “moral questions,” fundamentalists do no better than anyone else, and often do much, much worse.
Anyway, he rambles for approximately 1400 paragraphs, and even figures out a way to talk about fisting, which is like, his favorite subject besides that photographer in New Mexico who [tragedy!] had to abide by the same laws as everyone else as a business owner, who he also mentions. Oh, and he takes some time to cry and lie some more about Catholic Charities being “forced” out of business in Massachusetts. Of course, they freely chose to close up shop, unwilling as they were to follow the same laws as everyone else. [Sensing a pattern here? It's sort of like dealing with preschoolers who don't like to share, and moreover, have not had good naps that day.] It’s kind of a Wingnut Fever Dream Greatest Hits.
Finally, he asks, “Could the American state become a national, homo-fascist agent?”
Uh, I don’t know Peter. Could unicorns come to life and force us all to eat sparkly cupcakes? Could pie be any more delicious? Could puppy fur BE any softer? These are all questions, to be sure. I don’t know what kind of questions they are, but they’re certainly questions.
Read his entire million word piece if you have nothing better to do with your life.
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?
I love how evil always dresses itself up with high-minded, euphemistic names. For example, the repressive government of Myanmar is known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council(SLORC). In Zimbabwe, the brutal and corrupt Robert Mugabe’s political party is known as the Patriotic Front. And, of course, during the Joseph McCarthy era, we had the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. There are countless other examples of reprobates disguised as responsible leaders or political parties.
We can now add the The Society for Truth and Light to this repugnant list of phonies who hide their sinister behavior, sinful lies and outrageous cynicism behind a facade of “good”. The Society is an anti-gay “Christian” outfit based in Hong Kong that has published an irresponsible report hawking unscientific “ex-gay” snake oil cures.
Although the 52-page booklet is raw hatred of gay people, it is deceptively named, “Acceptance–Caring for Homosexuality”.
How much does this group care?
They are using materials from the discredited anti-gay organization, The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). This is an organization that:
1) Had to kick George Rekers off its board this year after the “esteemed” doctor was caught taking a prostitute on a European vacation that he had met on Rent Boy.com
2) Had to kick off another board member this year, Arthur Abba Goldberg, who had been exposed by South Florida Gay News and Truth Wins Out as a convicted felon. Goldberg refers clients to a “life coach” who asks clients to strip naked and fondle themselves.
3) Had for years regularly published essays by Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, who also is a catalyst behind Uganda’s infamous “Kill the Gays” bill. Lively is recognized by the Southern Poverty Law Center for running a certified hate group.
4) Has virtually no peer review studies on homosexuality, yet mysteriously claims expertise on the topic. NARTH’s information runs counter to every respected medical and mental health organization in the nation — including the American Psychiatric Association, American Medical Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
5) Had a board member, Gerald Schoenwolf, who wrote a noxious essay on NARTH’s website that seemed to justify slavery
6) Had used widely condemned and discredited “life coach” Richard Cohen as a therapy trainer. Cohen was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association for misdeeds.
Given NARTH’s sordid history, why is this Hong Kong organization — that claims to stand for morality — peddling its lies?
Clearly, this organization is obscuring truth and shedding little light on the topic of LGBT people.
Hong Kong residents should beware of this ministry.
It is selling outdated and bankrupt ideas hatched in America that no one here takes seriously.
Please, do your research. Do not be misled by ideologues and money-hungry charlatans who are out to commit consumer fraud.
The situation intensified in 2009 when two “ex-gay” activists joined holocaust revisionist 
Let’s start out our week with something light and fun, i.e. checking in with Peter LaBarbera’s last few posts to see who/what has him all mad ‘n’ sad.
I love how evil always dresses itself up with high-minded, euphemistic names. For example, the repressive government of Myanmar is known as the State Law and Order Restoration Council(SLORC). In Zimbabwe, the brutal and corrupt Robert Mugabe’s political party is known as the Patriotic Front. And, of course, during the Joseph McCarthy era, we had the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. There are countless other examples of reprobates disguised as responsible leaders or political parties.
