Last week, Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner appointed Dr. Robert George — co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage — to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). George’s two-year appointment that comes with a taxpayer-funded federal salary.
GLAAD’s newly-launched Commentator Accountability Project – which aims to unmask the extremist views of anti-LGBT activists frequently consulted and quoted by the media – names George as one of the 36 homophobes most often cited in news reports. George appears on the list alongside other famously outspoken bigots like Scott Lively, Tony Perkins, Alan Chambers, Matt Barber, Peter LaBarbera, and NOM’s own Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher.
For those of you who may not be familiar with him, Dr. George is an anti-LGBT extremist who once described being gay as “beneath the dignity of human beings as free and rational creatures” and said that committed same-sex relationships have “no intelligible basis in them for the norms of monogamy, exclusivity, and the pledge of permanence.” The organization that he co-founded, the National Organization for Marriage, is the nation’s foremost opponent of marriage equality, fighting to preserve the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) on the federal level and pushing constitutional marriage discrimination amendments in the states.
NOM was disgraced earlier this week when internal documents revealed that the group engages in disrespectful and unsavory race-baiting tactics in its fight against marriage equality. The confidential memos asserted that NOM’s strategic goal is to “drive a wedge between gays and blacks” and “make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker” among young Latinos, “a badge of youth rebellion to conformist association to the bad side of ‘Anglo’ culture” and “a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation.”
Last year, Speaker Boehner and House Republicans decided to defend DOMA themselves after President Obama’s Justice Department halted its defense, citing the law’s unconstitutionality. Boehner hired a team of private attorneys and committed to spend as much as $1.5 million in taxpayer dollars to defend the discriminatory measure in court.
By appointing an extremist like Robert George, Speaker Boehner is again using taxpayer funds to further an aggressively anti-gay social agenda. This stunt makes it clear that the USCIRF is the equivalent of a kangaroo court intent upon casting victimizers as victims. It is utterly farcical that Robert George — a man who has dedicated his life to curtailing liberties and limiting the freedoms of those who hold different beliefs — would be named to a commission that oversees liberty. But given George’s demonization of LGBT people and his group’s appalling use of racial politics, Boehner’s appointment may ultimately backfire with Latino and African American voters.
CNN’s Soledad O’Brien just loves hate group leader Tony Perkins.
Or at least that’s how it would seem, judging by her Twitter banter with him after an appearance on her show last week. Blogger Matt Algren has the details and the screen captures:
Awfully friendly, aren’t we, Soledad? Rather disturbing, if you ask me. Also, I’d really like to know why she pooh-poohed Algren for calling her out on her dangerously irresponsible reporting.
As Matt points out, I can’t think of a more timely illustration of the problem with the media’s stubborn insistence on portraying issues of LGBT rights as having two equally legitimate “sides,” and their willingness to seek the opinion of anti-gay hate groups in the pursuit of that false equivalency. The networks wouldn’t dare consult David Duke in order to appear “balanced” on African-American civil rights or include Matt Hale in a panel discussion on anti-Semitism, but apparently, even the vilest of anti-LGBT bigots are still entitled to a television platform for the spreading of their dangerous views.
Many thanks to Faithful America for its campaign calling on MSNBC to drop Perkins as a contributor. Thanks also to GLAAD for launching its Commentator Accountability Project in order to educate the media about the extremist rhetoric and history of hate behind TV’s anti-LGBT talking heads. As GLAAD’s Herndon Graddick said, “Hate is not an expert opinion.”
We couldn’t agree more. The media must stop legitimizing extremists and hate groups in the name of a false “balance” on basic LGBT rights.
A new report released yesterday by the Southern Poverty Law Center finds that the number of hate groups in the United States is continuing to rise, according to an article in today’s New York Times. 602 such groups were identified in 2000; by the end of 2011, 1,018 of them were actively operating, “meaning that the groups are registering members, passing out fliers, protesting or showing other signs of activity beyond maintaining a Web site.”
The article makes note of another very alarming development, one that even the experts at the SPLC describe as “stunning”: So-called “patriot groups” and “militia movements” — you know, self-styled “sovereign citizens” who refuse to put license plates on their cars or pay income taxes, John Birch Society types, and gun-hoarding anti-government types — have spiked by a whopping fifty percent from 2010 (824) to 2011 (1,274). It is particularly unsettling to note the degree to which that surge coincides with the GOP’s mad dash to the lunatic right-wing Tea Party fringe, exemplified by attacks on women’s rights, unions, and LGBT rights (including attempts to repeal marriage equality in states like New Hampshire and Iowa where it’s already legal). In the past two years we’ve witnessed Donald Trump snidely parroting racist “birther” propaganda on network television, politicians like Sharron Angle implicitly endorsing armed insurrection with discussion of “Second Amendment remedies,” a Florida campaign manager calling for bullets to be used if ballots can’t achieve conservative right-wing goals, and the presidential candidacy of a notoriously anti-government member of Congress, Michele Bachmann, just to name a few examples. Considered in this context, the upswing in anti-government hate groups doesn’t seem any less frightening, but definitely a little less surprising.
The SPLC, which has been keeping tabs on hate groups for several decades, also reports 27 active anti-gay hate groups in 2011, up from 17 the previous year. Unfortunately, though, many of these anti-gay hate groups still enjoy a degree of visibility and veneer of respectability that their racist, anti-government, and anti-Semitic counterparts no longer do. Take Tony Perkins, for example. He heads the Family Research Council, a well-funded, high-profile organization that’s been certified by the SPLC as an anti-gay hate group. But unlike other hate group leaders such as David Duke or Matt Hale, Perkins is frequently featured as a guest commentator on network and cable television news shows. Surprisingly, one of the worst offenders is the cable network MSNBC, which has hosted Perkins 23 times since his group officially earned the “hate group” moniker. And as Wayne noted yesterday, the network recently rejected an ad calling on MSNBC to stop allowing this notorious bigot to spread his hateful message on their platform. It’s an egregious double standard, especially coming from a network that purports to “lean forward,” and this double standard demands both a forthright response and an immediate correction.
Today’s revelations about the presence of so many active hate groups in our midst should serve as a wake-up call, reminding all of us that the struggle against the forces of hate and bigotry is ongoing. Even as society continues to make huge leaps forward in the advancement of civil and human rights for all people, these groups are working hard to undermine those victories by stealthily encouraging a climate of misunderstanding, misinformation, and fear. We can never let down our guard, because if we do, we run the risk of inadvertently assisting them in that mission.
Truth Wins Out placed an admittedly provocative full-page ad in today’s edition of Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, headlined “Newt Gingrich: Talks Like a Preacher, Lives Like a Porn Star.” In it, we admonish Gingrich for his stunning hypocrisy on the issue of marriage equality, taking him to task for the way that he, a serial adulterer with multiple marriages, works tirelessly to prevent same-sex couples from marrying because of a professed belief that marriage is “sacred.”
This ad was strategically timed to coincide with the start of the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, DC. The annual conference, which began today and culminates on Saturday with a closely-watched straw poll, is the nation’s largest gathering of conservatives and has become a place of pilgrimage for right-wing celebrities, bloggers, pundits, elected officials, and presidential candidates. The speaker’s list for this year’s conference reads like the roster of a conservative Dream Team: Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin, Tony Perkins, Ann Coulter, Herman Cain, John Boehner, and GOP presidential wannabes Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich.
It also comes in the midst of a white-hot week for the freedom to marry movement — a week in which the House and Senate in Washington state passed a marriage equality bill, a similar bill was introduced in the Illinois Assembly, and California’s Proposition 8 was ruled unconstitutional in a federal appellate court. And it’s only Thursday!
While TWO’s ad is already receiving a lot of attention from LGBT media, our organization is also hearing from critics who wonder why we decided to focus on Gingrich at all, since his presidential campaign has deflated so rapidly in recent weeks. “He’s yesterday’s news,” one activist wrote. “Slamming Newt is pointless — he doesn’t have a chance of becoming the nominee.”
Those who make these arguments miss the point entirely. Truth Wins Out is not trying to influence the outcome of the presidential election. We’re leaving that to organizations like the Stonewall Democrats, the Log Cabin Republicans, and the Human Rights Campaign. (Besides, one newspaper ad can’t even compete in the brave new political world of Super PACs.) TWO launched the ad because we believe that when the LGBT community is attacked, we should fight back. It doesn’t matter what political party, if any, a person belongs to – we sharplycriticized then-Senator Barack Obama when his campaign invited the outspokenly homophobic and self-proclamed “ex-gay” singer Donnie McClurkin to join him on the trail in South Carolina, to name just one example. Regardless of a person’s politics, if they attack or degrade LGBT people, we must respond.
Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-Mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Truth Wins Out to Slam Newt Gingrich for Hypocrisy on Marriage Equality in Thursday Roll Call Ad
WASHINGTON – Truth Wins Out is placing a provocative full-page ad in the Capitol Hill publication Roll Call on Thursday admonishing Newt Gingrich for his stunning hypocrisy on the issue of marriage equality. The ad’s headline reads, “Newt Gingrich: Talks Like a Preacher, Lives Like a Porn Star.” It takes the anti-gay presidential candidate to task for his adulterous affairs and serial marriages and includes an original cartoon dubbed “The Marriage-Go-Round.”
TWO’s hard-hitting ad comes one day before Newt Gingrich speaks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington. The ad ends by saying, “On behalf of loving, life-long same sex couples: Newt, you are a spectacular hypocrite. Shame on you!”
“It takes breathtaking chutzpah for Newt Gingrich to deny loving, committed same-sex couples the benefits of marriage that he has enjoyed three times,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. “The bizarre embrace of Gingrich by CPAC proves that modern conservatism is not ‘pro-family,’ it is simply anti-gay.”
The ad comes in the same week that Proposition 8, California’s voter-approved repeal of marriage equality, was again ruled unconstitutional in a federal appeals court. While polls show that a majority of Americans support marriage equality, GOP presidential candidates, including Gingrich, appeal to their base by promoting intolerance and discrimination:
“With today’s decision on marriage by the Ninth Circuit, and the likely appeal to the Supreme Court, more and more Americans are being exposed to the radical overreach of federal judges and their continued assault on the Judeo-Christian foundations of the United States,” Gingrich said in a statement about the ruling.
“The idea for this ad came on the day of my own marriage,” said TWO’s Besen. “As we were getting dressed to go to city hall, I heard Gingrich on television preening and prattling about the sanctity of marriage. At that moment, I decided that we had to stand up and speak out against such blatant demagoguery and brazen hypocrisy.”
“Newt Gingrich must be blind not to see the glaring dissonance between his belief that he should have whatever kinds of marriages – open or otherwise — that he wants, and his stated conviction that LGBT Americans shouldn’t be allowed to marry at all,” said John Becker, TWO’s Director of Communications. “Loving, committed same-sex couples like my husband and me simply seek to exercise once the same freedom to marry that Mr. Gingrich has so liberally availed himself of.”
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.
** TWO thanks our own Bruce Garrett for the amazing cartoon he drew for our ad.
“Oh wow. Today my Dad is really, really upset about fictional characters in the Star Wars video game. He’s getting paid for this.”
“Weird.”
After first going after Girl Scout cookies, Family Research Council president Tony Perkins is now attacking the game Star Wars: The Old Republic for allowing same-sex relationships.
Uh, okay, well all right then. Here’s the full quote from Tony:
In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists! Hello, I’m Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. In a galaxy not so far far away, Star Wars gamers have already gone to the dark side. The new video game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has added a special feature: gay relationships. Bioware, the company that developed the game, said it’s launching a same-sex romance component to satisfy some complaints. That surprised a lot of gamers, since Bioware had made it clear in 2009 that “gay” and “lesbian” don’t exist in the Star Wars universe. Since the announcement, homosexuals have been celebrating the news, but parents sure aren’t. On the game’s website, there are more than 300 pages of comments–a lot of them expressing anger that their kids will be exposed to this Star Warped way of thinking. You can join them by logging on and speaking up. It’s time to show companies who the Force is really with!
It’s true that Dan Savage has made offensive remarks in the past. I’m not denying, explaining, justifying, or defending that, because a.) it’s not my place to speak for him, and b.) Dan has already addressed them himself. I’m also not in any way trying to minimize or downplay what I have no doubt is the very real, acute pain that anti-trans bigotry causes, or the way anti-trans language, regardless of intent, reinforces that bigotry. Look: as a gay man, not to mention a married one, I am keenly aware of the sting of bigotry. I feel it every day, both through my own life experiences and those that many of you share with me and the rest of us here at Truth Wins Out. As much as anti-gay bigotry hurts, though — as heavily as it weighs on my heart, and as much as I abhor the construction of a hierarchy of oppression — I recognize the privilege that I possess as a white, cisgender gay man. I simply cannot fathom the magnitude of the journey my trans kinfolk are on, nor do I possess a vocabulary sufficient to convey my admiration for the courage it takes each and every one of my trans friends to be true to hirself and to own, embrace, and love that truth.
But Savage’s glitterbombing still disturbs me profoundly. The reason? Dan Savage is not the enemy. As Bil Browning, another veteran LGBT activist, points out, trans people are not alone in their journey. All of us cisgendered individuals — even those of us in the LGBT movement — are on a journey too, into an ever-greater understanding of the perspectives and experiences that our trans siblings bring to the table and the unique issues, circumstances, and difficulties they face. Our movement is most effective when we fight forcefully for our human rights and dignities against those who oppress us while at the same time dispelling misconceptions by telling the stories of our lives, educating people about our orientations/identities/expressions and the injustices we face because of them, and awakening in all of us the realization of our common humanity and the fundamental rights and protections to which that humanity entitles us.
Even the most outspoken and well-intentioned of us have warts. But Dan Savage is not a trans enemy. Warts and all, his heart is in the right place and he is an ally in the struggle for equality on behalf of our entire community — lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. What’s more, Savage is one of the most visible members of our community. He has a high profile that almost none of the rest of us have, and that enables him to be an especially forceful advocate for the LGBT movement. Absolutely nothing is gained by attacking him; if anything, those who engage in these repeated attacks run the serious risk of silencing one of our most powerful assets.
All of us, including the so-called “trans mafia,” should take care to remember who our real enemies are. It shouldn’t be too hard; there are plentyofthem. Instead of directing our frustration and anger inwards at obviously supportive and well-meaning community members who have a less-than-immaculate record on every single LGBT issue, we need to direct it outwards and upwards towards the Tony Perkinses, Rick Santorums, Keith Ablows, and Laura Ingrahams of the world. Instead of vilifying people for what they don’t fully understand, we need to meet them where they are and bring them further.
Circular firing squads cut all of us down, and guess what? After the last shot is fired, our enemies are still standing.
Let’s be better than that. Our rights and our lives depend on it.
Postscript: I’d like to encourage readers of this article to head over to Bilerico and read this brilliant piece written by Austen Crowder, titled “The ‘Trans Mafia’ Stifles Allies.”
The other day a video from a young kid named Jonah Mowry, where he told the story of the relentless bullying he experiences on a daily basis, went viral. Here’s that video again if you haven’t seen it:
When I posted it, I described Jonah as a specific example of a kid that Linda Harvey and the rest of the Religious Right refuses to protect, and asked what was more valuable: that child, or their dogma?
Christian writer John Shore took that idea a lot further than I did, and he took the gloves off. Quoting it almost in its entirety, because John likes me and won’t get mad:
Tell me that your belief system didn’t help put the hot tears on this kid’s cheeks. Tell me that the bullies who torment this kid aren’t in any way encouraged or empowered by your tacit approval of their actions. Tell me that the shame this kid feels about himself has nothing to do with the shame that you believe all gay people should feel for themselves.
Tell me that you can’t comprehend the connection between your conviction that God finds homosexuals repulsive, and the fact that this kid finds himself so repulsive that he habitually cuts his own flesh.
Tell me, please, how you love this kid. Tell me how you understand his pain. Tell me how when he cries, you cry.
Tell me how you want to do everything in your power to make sure that no one, ever again, feels free to in any way victimize a young gay person.
A Christian myself, I am pleading with you to be honest with me about this.
Tell me, please, how none of this kid’s anguish has anything to do with you.
I’m listening. I really am.
We all are.
All ears. You first, Linda Harvey. Then Tony Perkins. And then we can go alphabetically through America’s bigot leaders after that. Explain how your bigotry is worth more than this or any other child’s suffering.
As Jeremy points out, this is at best, pathetic, and at worst, an illustration of just how much contempt people like Tony Perkins have for their own followers. Basically here is what had happened was: yesterday, Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi added a non-controversial amendment to a defense authorization bill which clarified that military chaplains are free to refuse to marry same-sex couples. Though gay rights advocates have never fought to force any clergy to perform weddings they don’t want to, for whatever reason, the following video features Roger Wicker speaking to hate group leaders Tim Wildmon [AFA] and Tony Perkins [FRC], declaring this very non-controversial amendment a “victory.”
I am aware that the Religious Right is winning basically nothing when it comes to gay rights these days — and thank heavens for that — but that they are declaring this a victory is hilarious. Jeremy also points out that there was basically no opposition to this, because it’s already Pentagon policy, and no one cares.
Think about it: why on God’s green earth would any gay couple want to go to Reverend Bubba the Bigot to perform their ceremony?! Weddings are happy occasions, people. No need to have a gross old homophobe on the guest list, much less at the pulpit.
Here’s the video:
When I said above that people like Tony Perkins and Tim Wildmon have absolute contempt for their own followers, those are my words, not Jeremy’s. But let me expand on that a bit. The Religious Right [and indeed, the Republican Party] would not have the donors and followers they have if they weren’t exceptionally crafty when it comes to lying to and scaring the shit out of their sheep. There is no liberal or gay-friendly parallel to this. On this side of the fence, journalists, bloggers and non-profit organizations are well aware that our average readers/listeners/supporters are pretty smart people, and moreover people who are willing and able to research issues for themselves. Therefore, aside from the fact that we have absolutely no reason to mislead people, we wouldn’t make it very far with the people who support us if we played cute with the facts like the Religious Right does.
Sadly, and I know this is a broad over-generalization, but Tony Perkins knows it too, the Religious Right is simply not that kind of crowd. So beholden to fear and authority are they that the “daddy figures” they choose to trust are viewed as impenetrable and beyond reproach, even when the words coming out of their leaders’ mouths defy all logic, reason and civics knowledge. Tim Wildmon, being sort of a fringe, regional figure, might be so dumb/uninformed that he believes what he’s saying, but Tony Perkins is inside the Beltway. He knows full well when he’s lying to his people in order to keep their fear-based ca$h a-rollin’ into the FRC’s coffers. Aside from the fact that the man leads a well-known and detested hate group, it’s grotesque to realize that a large part of his influence comes from the fact that he lies to his own people.
That’s how you end up with a situation where these men are able to go on to AFA radio and boldly claim “victory” on an issue that literally, nobody cares about. If their followers acted like liberals and decided to check for themselves whether or not gay couples wanted to force awful wingnuts to perform gay marriage ceremonies, they’d discover that Tony and Tim and Roger are lying to them. But they won’t, and those men know it, so the lies will continue.
Several things to mock in this latest missive from Tony Perkins, from yesterday’s broadcast of Today’s Issues put out by the hate group called the Family Research Council. Let us do so because Tony Perkins is truly low-hanging fruit:
I think it’s time for us to occupy. Not going down and setting up tents out in front of city hall, but it’s time for us to be gainfully involved in boldly proclaiming truth and not backing down in the face of intimidation, whether it be from a school principal, kids if you’re listening obviously talk with your parents first, and parents, don’t be intimidated by school officials, don’t be intimidated by the ACLU.
Um, Tony, you all already “occupy” a lot of places. That’s why gay kids end up getting the message from bullies and the fundamentalist religious leaders who enable them that they’re not worthy of living. I’d hate to see the bodycount if Tony Perkins stepped up the FRC’s “occupying” activities.
Pastors, I’m gonna have a pastor hopefully on the program maybe this week or next week from Oklahoma who spoke out at city council and now he’s gotten death threats, well you know what, we’ve got to stand up to this. We cannot allow this to go on, allow them to intimidate us into silence.
Should we be angry? No. But we should understand that it is the truth that sets people free and those in the homosexual community that are looking for fulfillment, that are looking for the approval that they are trying to get by forcing society to embrace homosexuality, they will never get it that way. They’ll only get it when they come to grips with the truth, that they are created in the image of God and God has a plan for their lives, and it’s not the destructive path that they’re on.
Oh, so delusional. You see, people like Tony Perkins live in a weird, bizarre echo chamber outside of reality where the only thing they know and understand is their own lies. Just as creationists can look at fossils from millions of years ago and simply stick their fingers in their ears clinging to their cult belief that the earth is Brand New, Tony Perkins and his fellow anti-gay bigots [also creationists!] simply cannot compute the fact that there are millions of gay people who happy and fulfilled, and not on destructive paths at all. The truth of the matter is that it is those LGBT people who are most influenced by fundamentalist religion who end up destroyed. Their families end up destroyed, their lives are destroyed, sometimes they commit suicide…and for what? The approval of unworthy malcontents like Tony Perkins? My god.
Last week, Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner appointed Dr. Robert George — co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage — to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). George’s two-year appointment that comes with a taxpayer-funded federal salary.
