You see, back when the SPLC was primarily concerned with the most overt racists among us, it was fine, because Matt Barber was not weaned in a time when it was socially acceptable to wear one’s racism on one’s sleeve. Now that the SPLC has broadened its scope to include other vicious, hateful, dishonest groups like the Family Research Council and his friend Porno Pete’s Americahs for Truth on their list of hate groups, it’s not okay, because they’re espousing an “extremist left-wing agenda.” You know what else used to be an “extremist left-wing agenda?” That’s right, the Civil Rights Movement.

Same dishonest, bigoted arguments, from the same people, different minority.

So this happened today, apparently. Porno Pete brought all his worldly friends together to go down to the SPLC and cry:

A coalition of African American pastors and pro-family Christian and Jewish leaders is holding a press conference at noon tomorrow (the day after Martin Luther King Day) outside the headquarters of the Southern Poverty Law Center — to protest the SPLC’s smearing of pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups”:

Ooh, Porno Pete got to go on vacation! Of course, the SPLC doesn’t brand groups as “hate groups” simply for opposing gay people. They have to be known liars and slanderers. Porno Pete = one of those.

Scheduled speakers:

Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), Chicago, IL (the SPLC has smeared AFTAH as a “hate group”);
Dr. Patrick Wooden, pastor, Upper Room Church of God in Christ (COGIC), Raleigh, NC;
DL Foster, founder, Gay Christian Movement Watch, Atlanta, GA;
Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs, Liberty Counsel, Lynchburg, VA;
Tim Johnson, Fredrick Douglass Foundation, Washington, D.C.;
Rachel Conner, representing Abiding Truth Ministries (smeared by SPLC as a “hate group”)
Pastor Glen Sawyer, New Mt. Zion Church of God in Christ, Elizabeth City, NC
Pastor Wil Nichols, Victorious Praise Fellowship COGIC, Durham, NC
Pastor Jon Robinson, Kingdom C.O.M.E. Ministries, Clairton, PA
Pastor Kenneth Jefferson, Greater Harvest COGIC

The following pro-family leaders and groups will issue supporting statements:

Rabbi Yehuda Levin, Rabbinical Alliance of America;
Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute (smeared as “hate group”)
Arthur Goldberg, author, “Light in the Closet: Torah, Homosexuality, and the Power to Change”;
Linda Harvey, Mission America, Columbus, OH
Brian Camenker, Mass Resistance, (smeared as “hate group”)

Awwwww, Porno Pete got to go on vacation and Matt Barber was there! Did the wives come along? Just curious. Let’s see…so Rachel Conner was there, representing the most vicious, dishonest male anti-gay hatemonger in the country, Scott Lively. D.L. Foster, the purported “ex-gay”  who blames gay kids for their own depression and suicide, was there. I’m not familiar with the others, but my thinking is that the only thing the SPLC was confronted with today was the integrity of their own work.

Looking at the supporting cast, we have ol’ Yehuda Levin, probably the most unhinged rabbi in the United States, Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Association, who would be the most vicious, dishonest female anti-gay hatemonger in the country if Linda Harvey would ever step aside and let her talk, convicted felon Arthur Goldberg, and Brian Camenker, who holds the title of Peter LaBarbera’s Jewish Friend.

These are the leaders of your anti-gay movement, ladies and gentlemen. Quite a stellar cast of characters. I will say, though, that we should appreciate their work, in a way, because we wouldn’t be gaining quite as much public support as we are if people like those above weren’t spreading their hate around on a daily basis. Sadly, their work does embolden some of the most violent, uneducated hicks in this country, which leads to a higher gay teen bullying/suicide rate, but normal people hear the words of the people at that press conference today and it nudges them a little bit closer to our side.

Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans For Truth, which is sponsoring the press event, recently interviewed Pastor Wooden, who said that the SPLC’s gambit of labeling mainstream pro-family groups that oppose homosexual activism as “hate groups” is seriously damaging the SPLC’s credibility.

No it isn’t.

Wooden also debunked the “civil rights” analogy used by “gay” activists, saying it is wrong to compare “my beautiful blackness” with homosexual perversion.

I simply cannot make that quote better.

LaBarbera said the SPLC is engaged in a thinly-veiled, one-sided campaign to demonize adherents of traditional Judeo-Christian morality. He noted that despite the considerable hatred and anti-Christian bigotry emanating from homosexual activists (e.g., Dan Savage’s vile hate-site, Santorum[dot]com), the SPLC has never labeled a “gay” organization or website as “hateful.”

Because we don’t:

1. Lie about you people. We let your words speak for themselves.
2. Advocate for denying you wingnuts your constitutional rights, and instead defend your right to believe whatever bullroar you want, as embarrassing as it must be for your ancestors.
3. Embolden people who would want to hurt bigoted Christian wingnuts — indeed, it’s widely recognized that our side is STILL the only one with a bodycount in this “culture war.”

We do:

1. Report your words verbatim.
2. Make fun of you sometimes. Grow up.
3. Correct the constant, alternate-reality lies perpetuated by extremist religious fanatics who are unwilling to live as adults in a world where not everybody is the same as they are.

The idea that one’s sexual orientation can be changed through therapy is a dangerous lie, and has been discredited by medical and counseling organizations. Please join the Southern Poverty Law Center, GetEqual, and Truth Wins Out to learn from experts about this fraudulent practice, share stories about “conversion therapy,” and understand how we can protect LGBT rights. This is an event that you will not want to miss!

BALTIMORE, MD

Thursday, Dec. 15
6-8 pm · 2640 Co-op
2640 Saint Paul Street

TWO’s Wayne Besen will be joined by “ex-gay” survivor Chris Camp. Free Refreshments Provided

splcenter.org/conversion-therapy

RSVP appreciated but not required. Call 855.841.8356 or email ashley@splcenter.org

Help expose the lies behind “conversion” therapy and help other LGBT people who have undergone or are considering “therapy” to “cure” themselves.

Yesterday, speaking to the wingnuts at the so-called “Family Research Council,” a Southern Poverty Law Center-certified hate group, GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann had this to say about the unemployed (in addition to her usual gay bashing and crazy-eyed fear of “socialism”):

“Our nation needs to stop doing for people what they can, and should, do for themselves. That revives the principle of a national work ethic that we have sadly forgotten. That means an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Self-reliance means, if anyone will not work, neither should he eat.”

I wonder if the god she worships — presumably the same god who is commanding her to run for President — gave her a divine dispensation to ignore the whole “feed the hungry” thing.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 11, 2011

Contact:
Apreill Hartsfield
334.356.8458 / apreill.hartsfield@splcenter.org

MONTGOMERY, Ala. – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and Truth Wins Out (TWO) launched a national campaign today targeting conversion therapy, a thriving practice that claims to “convert” people from homosexuality to heterosexuality. The groups made the announcement in coordination with today’s National Coming Out Day.

The campaign will begin with a series of community meetings in Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., for survivors of the practice, which has been discredited or highly criticized by virtually all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations. Survivors are also invited to share their own stories at www.splcenter.org/conversion-therapy. The campaign also will encourage community advocates and elected leaders to scrutinize local conversion therapy programs.

“Conversion therapy programs have devastated all too many lives and families by attempting to change a person’s sexual orientation,” said Christine Sun, deputy legal director, who leads the SPLC’s LGBT rights project. “This practice is based on nothing more than junk science and must stop.”

“There’s a serious concern that the damage inflicted by conversion therapy can reach far beyond the individual receiving the ‘therapy’ and into communities across the country,” said Wayne Besen, founder and executive director of Truth Wins Out.

Central to conversion therapy – sometimes known as reparative or “sexual reorientation” therapy – is the belief that being gay is a mental disorder – a position rejected by the American Psychiatric Association nearly four decades ago. People who have undergone conversion therapy have reported increased anxiety, depression, and in some cases, suicidal ideation.

Despite these findings, the conversion therapy movement continues to push its message and is increasingly targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth, often recommending that parents commit their children to treatment against the child’s wishes.

The American Medical Association officially “opposes the use of ‘reparative’ or ‘conversion’ therapy that is based on the assumption that homosexuality per se is a mental disorder or based upon the a priori assumption that the patient should change his/her homosexual orientation.”

In 2006, the American Psychological Association declared: “There is simply no sufficiently scientifically sound evidence that sexual orientation can be changed.”

Yet the message that LGBTQ people can and should change their sexual orientation is echoed throughout the literature promoting conversion therapy:

Absurd theories and treatments also are promoted within the conversion therapy movement:

There are other troubling aspects of this practice. The American Psychological Association expressed concern in 2006 that the positions espoused by some of the leading advocates of conversion therapy, such as the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), “create an environment in which prejudice and discrimination can flourish.”

The potential for conversion therapy to foster an anti-LGBT atmosphere is another concern for the SPLC, which analyzed 14 years of federal hate crime data and found that homosexuals are far more likely to be victims of a violent hate crime than any other minority group in the United States. The SPLC also has worked to combat anti-gay bullying in schools.

###

The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. For more information, see www.splcenter.org.

Truth Wins Out (TWO) is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to create a world where LGBT individuals can live openly, honestly and true to themselves. TWO monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

###

1. Richard Cohen, Straight Talk About Homosexuality: The Other Side of Tolerance, 2010, p. 112.
2. Joseph Nicolosi and Linda Ames Nicolosi, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, 2002, p. 22.
3. Ibid., p. 24.
4. Joseph J. Nicolosi, Shame and Attachment Loss: The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy, 2009, p. 39.

MEDIA ADVISORY

Oct. 7, 2011

Contact:
Apreill Hartsfield
334.956.8458
apreill.hartsfield@splcenter.org

Southern Poverty Law Center to Hold Press Conference Outside Values Voter Summit

The Southern Poverty Law Center will hold a press conference this Friday, Oct. 7, to release a report on the Family Research Council (FRC) and American Family Association (AFA), two groups that spread false propaganda that demonizes the LGBT community. The FRC is hosting the annual Values Voter Summit this weekend Washington, where many prominent public officials will be speaking. The AFA is a major co-sponsor.

WHO: Mark Potok, Director, Intelligence Project, Southern Poverty Law Center
Wayne Besen, Truth Wins Out

WHEN: Friday, October 7
8 a.m. (EDT)

WHERE: Omni Shoreham
2500 Calvert Street NW (at Connecticut Ave.)
Washington, DC

###

The Southern Poverty Law Center, based in Alabama with offices in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, is a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society. For more information, see www.splcenter.org.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

(Weekly Column)

I tried not to laugh when I read Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins’ column headlined, “Intolerant gays target Bachmann.” Perkins was referring to the undercover investigation by my organization, Truth Wins Out, that proved presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann’s husband, Marcus, lied when he claimed that his clinic did not practice “pray away the gay” therapy.

It is fascinating to see Perkins promoting “tolerance” considering FRC is listed as a certified Southern Poverty Law Center hate group. They earned the designation after a spokesperson for his organization told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that homosexuality should be criminalized.

In 1996, while managing a U.S. Senate race in Louisiana, Perkins purchased former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke’s mailing list for $82,500. I guess he was promoting tolerance and diversity by courting the demographic of white supremacists. The “tolerant” Perkins had also given a lovely speech to the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a white supremacist group that has described African Americans as a “retrograde species of humanity.”

In his hit piece, Perkins insults my organization by calling it “the grossly misnamed group Truth Wins Out.” That is an interesting observation, considering his misleadingly named Family Research Council neither helps families nor conducts original research. Perkins then chided reporters in his column for using the term “pray away the gay” when referring to Bachmann & Associates’ religious counseling. Apparently, Perkins never saw the actual video, nor read the transcripts, where the therapist actually did counsel the person we sent undercover to read scripture when he thought of having a homosexual experience. But, of course, facts have never been FRC’s strong suit.

Perkins then makes the absurd point that Bachmann’s clinic did nothing wrong because the person posing as a client asked for help going from gay-to-straight. “Why would this be controversial?” asks Perkins.

Funny, I don’t remember Perkins bowing to the wishes of Dr. Jack Kevorkian’s clients who simply asked for help with assisted suicide. It also remains unclear if Perkins would support strict client determination for other controversial medical practices like skin bleaching, steroid injection, or bulimia management. In some cases, these practices are no less dangerous than “ex-gay” therapy and show significantly better results.

The effortless dishonesty of Perkins was most evident when he cherry picked a few quotes from a landmark 2009 American Psychological Association report to obscure the APA’s position on “ex-gay” therapy. He conveniently left out the headline from the APA’s press release on the report: “No evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work, says APA.” He also forgot to include the sub-headline: “Practitioners should avoid telling clients that they can change from gay to straight.” Of course, this breach of professionalism is exactly what Bachmann & Associates did during TWO’s investigation.

Perkins then breezily writes, “Homosexual advocates do not merely claim change is difficult, they claim it is impossible and the evidence contradicts them.” That’s a remarkable claim coming from the man who runs FRC – an organization co-founded by Dr. George Rekers, who was caught vacationing last year with an escort he met on RentBoy.com. Perkins also can’t seem to remember that his organization backed a 1998 campaign featuring “ex-gay” poster boys John Paulk and Michael Johnston. In 2000, I photographed Paulk in a Washington, DC gay bar. In 2003, Virginia attorney Michael Hamar and I revealed that Johnston was having intercourse with men he met men online. Given these sordid facts, FRC discussing the effectiveness of “ex-gay” therapy is a little like Casey Anthony extolling the virtues of motherhood. Perkins and FRC simply have no credibility or believability on this issue.

As noted earlier, the Family Research Council does virtually no original research. So, it is not surprising that Perkins has little understanding of Robert Spitzer’s heavily criticized 2001 study. Perkins cunningly mentions that several of Spitzer’s 200 subjects reported changes in sexual orientation. What he fails to point out is that it took Spitzer two years to find a mere 200 so-called “ex-gays” and that a significant portion of the sample were provided by activist groups directly affiliated with FRC. Furthermore, Spitzer’s methodology was assailed because he simply called these handpicked shills on the telephone and asked them if they had increased heterosexual functioning.

If this is all the evidence that Perkins has, maybe he should reconsider his erroneous assumptions on the efficacy of “ex-gay” therapy. But, that would require at least of modicum of decency and honor, so don’t hold your breath.

Perkins ends his screed by playing the tired victim card, claiming that gay advocates,” seek to force them [Christian counselors] to change their faith-based beliefs or forfeit their livelihoods.”  Actually, we do expect Christian therapists to uphold basic scientific standards, just like any other professional counselor. There should be no special rights granted to faith-based counselors where they can harm clients in the name of religion. After all, therapy is about the client’s legitimate needs – not the illegitimate needs of unethical therapists who use clients to reinforce their sectarian worldview.

Ultimately, Perkins offered a weak and ignoble defense. He further undermined FRC’s legitimacy with lies and elevated his culture war above the sound mental health of clients at Bachmann and Associates.

Scott Lively’s name is almost synonymous with “unbridled, unhinged hate” at this point.  We all know that he’s got his paws on quite a few of the SPLC-designated anti-gay hate groups;  that he’s a professional liar to a pathological degree, going so far as to write a completely discredited revisionist book called The Pink Swastika, which seeks to cast gays as the creators of the Nazi movement; and that he traveled to Uganda early last year to, among other things, inform his rapt audience that killer homosexuals were “probably” involved with the Rwandan genocide next door.  That last lie is almost perversely funny here, in a society with access to education and knowledge, but in Uganda, it’s a deadly lie.  In short, we know that Scott Lively is a sick man.

Jim Burroway has written an exhaustive profile of Lively that all should read and then bookmark for future reference.  It describes things like I mentioned above, but it also goes into details I didn’t know, pieces of the mosaic that really give insight into how and why he ended up being the detestable character he is today.  For instance, his family background:

He is the oldest of six children, and his father developed a mental illness when Lively was young. Lively himself became an alcoholic at the age of twelve. For the next sixteen years, he said, he couldn’t hold a job. He slept under bridges and begged for money on the streets. A brother and a sister, he said, “went into homosexuality,” and another sister “wasn’t able to enter into marriage until she was in her forties because of the pain of the family life that we had.” Finally, said Lively, “[I] got down on my knees and surrendered my life to Jesus Christ. I was healed in an instant. I never had another desire to drink or use drugs ever again. When I got up off my knees, I was clean and healed.”

Lively became involved in antigay activism because of two people who were, he said, “very close to me”—a four-year-old boy and a nineteen-year-old man, who, Lively said, molested the boy: “And I saw what happened to that little child. He was transformed [from] a sweet and innocent person into a tortured and tormented child, filled with anger and rage. And he never recovered from it.” The nineteen year old, Lively said, “is still living in a gay lifestyle in Los Angeles, California. He’s an active homosexual and he’s active in a church that endorses what’s called ‘gay theology.’”

So basically, Scott took all his past pain and rage and decided to use the LGBT community as a scapegoat, instead of actually trying to work through said pain and rage. Of course, the second paragraph, if it’s even true [again, Lively is a pathological liar], has absolutely nothing to do with LGBT people. If it’s a true story, it’s a tragedy, and the guy should have been punished to the fullest extent of the law, just as if it was a straight-identified man who molested a child. Child abuse is child abuse, period. This is what we’ve been trying to explain to the Vatican!

Another piece of the puzzle that caught my eye was an incident when Lively was still just a wee, new hater in Oregon, cutting his teeth with the “Oregon Citizens Alliance”:

Lively quickly gained a reputation for being a loose canon. In October 1991, the photographer Catherine Stauffer attended a church meeting where the OCA was previewing a videotape it had cobbled together in preparation for a campaign in support of a series of local antigay ballot measures across the state. Lively ejected Stauffer from the meeting forcefully, by throwing her against the wall and dragging her across the floor.[x] She sued Lively and OCA. The jury determined that Lively was guilty of using unreasonable force and awarded Stauffer $20,000.[xi]

Awful story, but I can’t say that I’m surprised. It’s just something in his eyes, I think.

It was apparently not long after that that Lively started losing battles at the ballot box, and perhaps sensing that the culture was beginning a long shift toward acceptance for LGBT peple, he created his greatest lie of all — that gays had created the Nazi party. Here was, perhaps, the first time he said it publicly, on television in Oregon:

Homosexuals created the Nazi Party, and everything that we think about when we think about Nazis actually comes from the minds and perverted ideas of homosexuals. When you think of the Nazi Party… you cannot help but understand that this organization was a machine constructed by militant, sadomasochistic, pedophilic homosexuals. … They built the Nazi machine. They were the people that ran it, and that put it together. Most people understand that there were some homosexuals involved in the Nazi Party—no, it wasn’t that. They were the foundation of the Nazi Party.

And thus his career was born, I suppose. There is so much more in the piece, and Jim is to be commended for taking the time to put it all together. It’s quite a disturbing mosaic, so read it all when you have time.

The wingnut reactions are a-startin’ to trickle in!  Oh look, it is the Family Research Council, a known and certified hate group, so designated because they have a policy of spreading fear, hatred and lies about LGBT people, chiming in:

Apple’s old logo was colored by the rainbow–and it looks like their business philosophy still is! In a stunning decision, Apple withered under pressure from the gay community and censored an application that offers help to people struggling with homosexuality.

No, they removed an app that demonizes an entire community and lies to people who have already been demonized and damaged into thinking that the way they are is either not good enough, evil or both. Nice try with the joke-making and the rainbow comment, though.

Even though Apple’s own store gave Exodus a thumbs-up for content, the app vanished overnight–another victim of the growing campaign to silence Christianity in America.

Yes, we are trying to silence you. I mean, right now, on the blog of Truth Wins Out, we are “silencing Christians” by repeating your words verbatim!

“There is no place for ‘ex-gay’ therapy on the Apple platform,” said Mike Jones, whose fringe group started the uproar.

You hear that, Mike? Change.org is a “fringe group.”

Ironically, there seems to be plenty of room for applications like the Gay/Lesbian News Reader, HRC Buying for Workplace Equality Guide, Jack’d gay “social network,” Grindr “gay, bi & curious guy finder,” or Gay Dance Radio. What about the millions of Americans who are offended by those apps?

They don’t demonize or lie about people. You do, though. And so did the Exodus app.

Would 146,000 signatures be enough to rid iTunes of them?

Nope. See above. Plus, closeted fundamentalists would die without Grindr.

In this instance, all Exodus does is offer compassion and help for people who choose to seek it.

No, they offer lies and false hope to people who are pressured by their society, their families, their churches and their communities into believing that they are sick and in need of a cure, even though every grown-up medical and mental health association agrees that homosexuality is normal, while reparative therapy is harmful. Try again!

Jeff Buchanan of Exodus is tired of the app being misrepresented in the press. “It’s being touted as a ‘gay cure’ app,” he says, “and nothing could be further from the truth. We present a redemptive, Biblical worldview on sexuality… it’s a message of love and acceptance of those [who] are struggling with same-sex attraction.”

Oh, Jeffers. We know you don’t change gay people into straight people. God, everybody knows that by now. You’ve been consistently moving the goalposts for years on that one! But no, your “worldview” for gay people is loneliness, shame, isolation, self-hatred, etc. You don’t even know the meaning of the words “love” or “acceptance,” because you’ve been brainwashed with such a disgusting, transmogrified version of them for so long. Cha-ching, though, right?

In other words, Apple’s censorship has nothing to do with “tolerance.” This is about silencing anything and anyone who challenges homosexuality.

No, it is about a private corporation following its own policies and responding to its customers.

Americans need to wake up and realize that religious liberty is heading in the same direction as Exodus’s app–toward extinction! In this environment, it doesn’t matter what the facts are.

Well, that should be a comfy environment for the Family Research Council!

Meanwhile, liberals are on a crusade to end bullying–when the biggest bullies are the ones in their own movement!

Yeah, all those gay teenagers killed themselves because of us. Right. I often wonder whether the talking mouths at groups like FRC will ever have a moment in their lives when the pain they’ve caused to innumerable people and families, all in the service of their disproven, patriarchal, anti-scientific worldview, will suddenly dawn on them. I’d hate to be there for that moment.

What do you call 146,000 people ganging up on a company because they don’t like someone else’s point of view?

Petition-signers.

Bullies!

Oh, oops, we’re bullies. Let me know when anti-gay extremists start jumping off bridges because the gays have bullied them so much. Maybe then we’ll talk about how badly you have been “bullied.”

I guess they still don’t understand why we started the petition, even though we’ve said it clearly, in English, for days. But let’s not be cute about people’s “points of view.” It would be the same if the Ku Klux Klan [another SPLC-certified hate group] wanted an iPhone app. I mean, certainly the KKK has a “point of view,” and their app would be rejected because their “point of view” is eliminationist against an entire minority group. Just like the Family Research Council’s point of view. Just like Exodus’s point of view. That is sort of the point that wingnuts are missing, I think.

They also know that if they had to debate conservatives out in the open on issues like marriage and morality, they’d lose!

Uh, we do it all the time, and we win. There was this thing called “The Prop 8 trial,” and the Religious Right brought its best and brightest [I know, I'm using that phrase very loosely], and they ended up being used for floor-mopping purposes by the plaintiffs.  It would’ve been must see teevee if the very same Religious Right hadn’t been so afraid of the general public seeing what they look like when they have to defend themselves by the standards of a court of law.

Anyway, that’s about it. It must be comforting for Exodus to see hate groups rising up to defend their honor. Until the next wingnut crying spell, I’m signing off!

Libyan protests?  The fall of the Egyptian government?  People around the United States taking to the streets in support of teachers in Wisconsin?  A massive earthquake in New Zealand?  GOP politicians trying to criminalize miscarriage? The release of Ke$ha’s new music video with James Van Der Beek?  NO.  None of these things are anywhere near as significant as the inroads the Gay Agenda [BOO!] has made since Christmas, says an area wingnut!  Let him explain it to you:

The events of the last several weeks have been seismic in nature, yet occurring so fast that even the most seasoned of pundits have struggled to stay abreast of their full meaning.

Uh, no, the “most seasoned of pundits” are actually busy caring about things that matter. Well, sort of. Let’s not give the Village too much credit here.

Consider:

*In August, ABC’s hit comedy Modern Family – prominently featuring a same-sex couple – won the Emmy for outstanding comedy series.

*In late December, the Senate passed a repeal of the 17-year-old ban known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, allowing gays to serve openly in the military.

*The Southern Poverty Law Center classified several Christian organizations that have taken stances against the acceptance of gay marriage, or who have simply gone public with the stance against homosexuality as a morally acceptable lifestyle, as “hate groups.”

*On Thursday, February 11 – after talks with gay rights organizations, including GLAAD (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) – Facebook added civil unions and domestic partnerships to the list of relationships that its users can pick from to best describe their romantic status. And as one media adviser put it, “As Facebook goes, so goes the world.”

*While only Iowa, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Washington, D.C. allow same-sex marriages, Hawaii will soon become the seventh state to permit civil unions of similar legal recognition for gay couples.

*In a historic shift on gay rights, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday, February 23, that it believed the Constitution forbids unequal treatment of gays and lesbians in almost all cases, and specifically when it comes to federal benefits for legally married same-sex couples. As a result, the Justice Department will no longer oppose legal challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act, passed by Congress in1996, which bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages or extending them the same benefits as heterosexual couples.

*In his new book, Jay Bakker, son of Jim Bakker and the late Tammy Faye Messner, declared that homosexuality is not a sin. Agreeing with Bakker are Tony Jones, “theologian in residence” at Minnesota’s Solomon’s Porch, and Peggy Campolo, wife of evangelist Tony Campolo. Author Brian McLaren condemns the Christian preoccupation with homosexuality as “fundasexuality.”

Whew.

WHEW! So, first of all, the SPLC didn’t list those organizations as hate groups for “simply going public with their stance against homosexuality.” They were listed because all the organizations listed are full of liars who demonize gay people for our very existence. There is a difference. I know fundamentalist Christian “love” can blind people to the harm they and their ideological cohorts inflict, but those of us who live in the real world know better.

But I’ve got to point out here: all of these changes are good for the greater population! The sky is not falling, and will not fall, for anyone except Fundamentalist Christians who erroneously believe that their jacked up worldview should be inflicted on the rest of society, who have either grown out of such philistine notions, or are lucky enough to have never been held down by them in the first place.

Also, Modern Family is one of the funniest shows on television, and most well-written, so I’m going to hazard a guess that that’s why they won the Emmy.

Anyway, so this wingnut [his name is James Emery White, and he is a perfesser at a clown college of some sort] has decided that, rather than give in to the “great gay awakening” that is happening, they should come up with a new approach for hating gay people. Let us see if there is anything new here:

*Homosexuals, repentant or otherwise, must be loved.

This is the same as their old school BS “love the sinner, hate the sin” thing, which is meaningless to all people who understand the nature of sexuality. This is like saying “love the black person, but hate her skin.”

*Those desiring to be faithful to biblical teachings in this area must be met with support and, when they fail, with the same level of grace we would extend to anyone else.

The church has lost the younger generations due to the “same level of grace [they] extend” to other people, so this doesn’t seem new either.

*There should be no impediment to full service and position for those with a homosexual orientation who remain faithful to personal celibacy and biblical orthodoxy.

Well that’s a nice consolation. You can be a church leader, as long as you deny yourself all the joys that intimate, bonding love has to offer!

*Though much that goes under the banner of “anti-discrimination” does, in effect, promote homosexuality and create a specially-protected class (which I do not affirm), Christians should work toward a society that does not persecute practicing homosexuals, and Christians should denounce anyone who uses hate-filled speech.

That sounds nice, but unfortunately the fundamentalist Christian worldview inherently persecutes gay people, and preaching that gay people need to repent or otherwise go to hell is hate speech, especially since it’s an assertion without any corroborating evidence. Try again, wingnut.

*Christians should not work for homosexuality to be criminalized, and should vigorously support the full prosecution of crimes against homosexuals.

Well that’s a nice sentiment. Tell all your Evangelical friends, the ones who have been working behind the scenes with the cynical bigots in Uganda.

*We need a new tone and emphasis that focuses on the homosexual lifestyle as we would any other lifestyle that needs to have its deepest needs intersected by Christ. If one believes that the homosexual lifestyle is broken sexually, it must be affirmed that it is no more broken than the adulterer or the person addicted to pornography.

Uh, that’s exactly what the Church has been doing, and it’s offensive to real people, gay and otherwise, who actually understand what it means to be gay, to have gay family members, and who actually understand the science behind sexuality. The idea that being gay is to be “broken sexually” is completely repudiated by ALL major medical and psychological associations, and to assert otherwise is unmitigated garbage.

*We must put forward a winsome and compelling vision for life in Christ that includes our sexuality; a vision that invites all who are sexually confused and seeking God to come and drink of the living water that Jesus promises to us all (John 4).

Whatever.

So while I pray for an awakening among those who embrace the homosexual lifestyle, I also pray for an awakening among those of us who condemn it.

Namely, that in condemning it, we do not condemn them.

Nope, you still don’t get it, Dr. White. Try again!