Know Your LGBT History - The Wedding Banquet

Long before he won a Best Director Oscar for Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee had already made a movie about the gay community.

The Wedding Banquet is a 1993 Chinese comedy about a happily coupled gay Taiwanese immigrant man (Winston Chao) in New York who marries a mainland Chinese woman to placate his parents and get her a green card. His plan backfires when his parents arrive in the United States to plan his wedding banquet. It's a wild story with many twists and turns (including Chao getting drunk and impregnating his female bride) but it has a happy ending through family love and devotion.

It was also a very popular movie, even garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.

These two scenes - which probably give away some of the plot - are very interesting. Check out the traumatic scene of Chao coming out to his mother and how she insists that his father not know:

Wai-Tung Comes Out
The Wedding Banquet at MOVIECLIPS.com

But based on this scene with Chao's partner, his father not only knows but respects the relationship:

Mr. Gao Knows About Simon and Wai-Tung
The Wedding Banquet at MOVIECLIPS.com

Past Know Your LGBT Posts: 

Hate group bashes 'It Gets Better' program and other Friday midday news briefs

Tony Perkins to LGBT teens: You're immoral, it won't get better, 'disgusting' to say it will - So according to Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, keeping lgbtq teens from hating themselves and contemplating suicide is a bad thing, but distorting credible science and using junk science against the gay community in the name of God is a good thing.

Perkins: Advocates of Church-State Separation Are "Cultural Terrorists" - Speaking of Tony, he seems to love that word "terrorist" a lot.

Say What?!: 5 Bad Questions for Gay Parents - Or if the questions were directed to me and I was a gay parent, the title would be "5 Questions Sure to Cause Alvin McEwen to break his foot off in your ass."
  
Feingold’s Decision Not To Run Could Pave Way For First Openly-Gay Senator - Nice!

NOM: Bachmann Was Right For Calling Homosexuality “Enslavement,” Should Speak Out Against Gay Sex - You know I gotta pick on NOM again.

NOM inaccurately connects marriage equality with pedophilia

Brian Brown, president of NOM

We should have seen it coming because it's an old tactic by anti-gay groups since the days of Anita Bryant.

Remember when she said that gays can't reproduce so we must "recruit" so we can "freshen our ranks."

Those words, in so many different variations, continue to haunt the lgbtq community via several hate groups.

And now you can add NOM as one of those groups.

From Equality Matters:

On August 18, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) posted a “NOM Marriage News” update, written by NOM president Brian Brown, to its blog.

  . . . The update continues with a section entitled “Normalizing Pedophilia”:

When you knock over a core pillar of society like marriage, and then try to redefine Biblical views of marriage as bigotry, there will be consequences. Will one of the consequences be a serious push to normalize pedophilia?

The Daily Caller raised the question by pointing us all to a high-level academic conference in Baltimore this week, "Pedophilia: Minor-Attracted Persons and the DSM: Issues and Controversies."

The DSM is the diagnostic manual that defines mental illness. You probably recall that a key moment in the gay rights campaign was the 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association, the organization that produces the DSM, to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses.

[…]

Enquiring people want to know: Will pedophiles become "minor-attracted persons" in our culture? Will courts which endorse orientation as a protected class decide down the road that therefore laws which discriminate against "minor-attracted persons" must be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest?

Here's the fundamental truth: Ideas have consequences and so do words—because they contain ideas, because they are the vehicle through which and by which human beings describe reality.

The reality that men and women need each other, and that children need a mom and dad, is the truth most at risk in the same-sex marriage debate. [emphasis added]

Equality Matters makes sure to note that the the brochure for the conference NOM is talking about does not mention "marriage" and the event in question has nothing to do with marriage equality or the gay community.

Not that it matters to NOM, though. In the past, the organization had implied that marriage equality will "confuse" children or "force them " to be taught about "gay sex."

So now the organization has gone full tilt in the hysteria mode. Of course some folks will probably have the courtesy to point out the irony of NOM's concern about pedophilia  seeing how the organization teams up with the Catholic Church (or being funded by the Catholic Church) for its activities, seeing how the Catholic Church seems to be constantly settling  cases of child sexual abuse - cases which at times were hidden by the higher-ups in the church.

And others could point out about how this ridiculous attempt to compare normal same-sex couples to pedophilia proves how desperate NOM is becoming.

As for me? I think it stinks and not in the normal way in which your nose is assaulted by something foul like garbage. What I am smelling is the stink of hypocrisy and corruption.

And it's all over NOM right now.

Catholic Charities lose right to discriminate with taxpayer monies

Don't be fooled by this story. I am sure that Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown are salivating with glee at the thought of exploiting this story to harm marriage equality. But still, it is a victory against unfair "religious exemptions:"

From The Advocate:

The state of Illinois is within its rights to decline to renew contracts with Catholic Charities for adoption and foster-care services, a judge ruled today.

The state had ended its contracts this summer with four Catholic Charities agencies that refused to consider couples in civil unions, including gay couples, as adoptive or foster parents, but instead wanted to refer them to other agencies. Civil unions became available in Illinois June 1.

Sangamon County circuit judge John Schmidt, who heard arguments from both the state and Catholic Charities Wednesday, ruled today that the state did not violate the rights of the Catholic Charities agencies by ending the contracts, Windy City Times reports.

And from Windy City Times comes more details:

The issue arose with the passage of the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act, which conferred the same legal rights to same-sex couples in civil unions as married couples and went into effect June 1.

Brejcha said that language in the civil union act allowed the charities to send civil union couples and unmarried people to other foster care agencies. He further argued that the state had ended its 40-year relationship with the charities without warning or reason.

However, attorneys for the state argued that the charities had no right to contracts in the first place, and that it would be illegal for the state to offer contracts that violated civil union law.

"The state has the freedom to set the limits of its contracts," said Deborah Barnes, an attorney with the Office of the Attorney General. "It wasn't arbitrary and capricious, the ending of this 40-year relationship… the legal landscape has changed."

Also arguing against the charities was the American Civil Liberties Union ( ACLU ) , which was granted the right to intervene in the suit on behalf of a lesbian and children who are wards of the state.

Karen Sheley, a lawyer with the ACLU said that a refusal to place children with same-sex civil union partners would harm LGBT children in foster care and discourage LGBT couples from becoming foster parents.

"When they send [ a case ] to another agency, it doesn't solve the problem," she said. "It's still discrimination."

However, Schmidt said that arguments about discrimination from both sides would not impact his decision.

He repeatedly discouraged arguments related to LGBT and religious rights and urged for focus on property rights.

"Do you or do you not have a legally protected property interest?" Schmidt asked.


Brejcha said that licenses from the state which allowed the charities to carry out foster care work were a property interest. Attorneys for the state said that such licenses do not guarantee contracts and that the charities were not being forced to participate now that the law has changed.

NOM's Minnesota game plan involves money, churches, and martyrs

The National Organization for Marriage is setting up its battle plan to defeat marriage equality in Minnesota and it seems that the plan pushes three points - money, churches, and marytrs.

According to Think Progress:

The fight over a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Minnesota could cost up to $10 million before voters go to the ballot in November 2012. And while the measure only seeks to define civil marriage as “a union of one man and one woman,” proponents of the amendment have begun waging a campaign that blurs the line between civil and religious unions. 

And of course you know that a good amount of that will probably be provided by NOM. After all, the organization has already spent over $700,000 in the gubernatorial race which the candidate it supported, Tom Emmer, lost.

So win or lose, NOM can expect even more questions at to where exactly is it getting its funding and why does it fight losing court cases to hide its donors. The organization has fought in several states to hide its funders, most recently losing two cases this month.

Think Progress also notes how NOM is attempting to get Minnesota churches behind its efforts:

Even though marriage equality bills have never tried to dictate what any religion can believe or practice when it comes to sanctifying religious marriage, the Minnesota coalition, Minnesota for Marriage, and other so-called “traditional groups” are defining their campaign in religious terms. For instance, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is encouraging Facebook fans to “support marriage as God intended it to be,” while Minnesota Family Council (MFC) President John Helmberger has injected God into his rhetoric, predicting success if “people of faith [rise] up, speak, and participate in the campaign.”

The article also says that MFC is actually "recruiting church captains."  My question is wouldn't that present a problem in court should NOM win and someone challenges the victory? But more the point, MFC  is the same group which claimed that gays engage in pedophilia, bestiality, and the consuming of feces and urine - points that it did not apologize for nor did NOM address.  Whether or not they believe these things about the gay community is definitely a question which should be asked to NOM's allies in Minnesota, particularly the prospective "church captains."

And let's not forget about the martyr.

Earlier this month, a freelance writer, Carrie Daklin, with Minnesota Public Radio, wrote a piece which criticized Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) for calling out Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery during a hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act. Daklin contended that Franken had rudely set Minnery up for ridicule by obscuring the fact that Franken had actually called out Minnery for wrongly citing a government study on families.

Daklin was justifiably criticized for her faux pas. Today she claimed in another column that she was unfairly attacked and naturally, NOM has a portion of that column on its blog, using it to claim that those support marriage equality are "meanies." This is what Daklin claims:

There must be a group of advocates who watch that website for anything that might conflict with their point of view. Within days, my words, taken completely out of context, and my message — better manners — had been used as the basis for a rallying cry: Carrie Daklin of Minnesota is a homophobe.

I am not sure how my message got so skewed. I have become the object of hate mail and really vicious comments, all in the name of etiquette. Go figure.

I found this all rather unsettling.

... What has happened in our culture, that so many of us are completely unable to accept someone who doesn't share our views? I don't agree with all that my conservative Christian friends espouse, but I support their right to their beliefs. I don't agree with a very liberal friend who said certain members of the religious right should be shot. Actually, he used the word murdered. Sadly, I think he meant it.

In retrospect, the original infraction I wrote about is positively innocuous compared to the resulting uproar. To be blunt: My article was not about gay rights, it was not about the Defense of Marriage Act, and it most certainly was not a promotion for the National Organization for Marriage.

If some of the comments directed to Daklin were as vicious as she claims, I certainly don't agree with them. However her attempts to claim martyrdom is as sad as the original column itself.

Daklin's words were not misconstrued, but her intent was justifiably questioned. It was obvious that Ms. Daklin was commenting about a situation in which she had absolutely no clue, much like a baseball referee attempting to officiate a hockey game.

While her original column was seemingly innocent, the adage of "looks can be deceiving" were definitely into play. Through her words, Daklin allowed some folks to obscure the fact that they were deceptively manipulating studies to push a vicious and vindictive lie regarding children and same-sex households. While at the same time Daklin pleaded for civility, she was giving ammunition to people who know nothing about the term because there is no such thing as civility in the absence of truth.

Let's be clear about what exactly happened between Franken and Minnery yet again.

Franken did not set up Minnery for ridicule. He rightfully called him out for pushing fraudulent material.


The pushback Daklin received (the respectful pushback that is) for her column was not a matter of people showing intolerance to someone registering a different opinion. It was a simple reaction of a people harmed yet again through lies and distortions, by research manipulated to make them look like monsters.

The sad thing about Daklin's new column is her contention that she does not appreciate being an object of hate to those on the left or a hero to those on the right.

I wonder how she feels about NOM exploiting her new column?

NOM's fundraising claims sound fishy and other Thursday midday news briefs

Bachmann Staffer’s Ties To Uganda’s ‘Kill-Gays’ Bill - Why oh why am I not surprised over this one?

NOM's 'Let the People Vote' effort has hauled in 4.5 million. At least that's what Brian Brown's spinoff site says - You can't get me drunk or high enough to think that this is legitimate.

First Circuit Rejects Anti-Gay Group’s Assault On Campaign Finance Disclosure Laws - Especially in light of this.

Dan Savage on Obama - Don't quote me but I'm starting to like Dan Savage more and more. Now don't say anything to screw it up, Dan. LOL

Young black gays and lesbians are encouraged to 'Be Great'

My online buddy Rod 2.0Beta just made me aware of an awesome campaign aimed at young African-American lgbtqs. So I know he doesn't mind if I "bite" off his post a little:

A Chicago organization that works with Black LGBT youth has launched a new social marketing campaign that encourages youth to "Be Great." The youth-led campaign is designed to end violence among Black LGBT youth, such as the vicious July stabbing captured on video.

The July 3 incident was the latest in a series of violent fights involving young Black LGBT in Boystown. The stabbings and the presence of Black/Latino street youth in the mostly white area has sparked a racially-fueled debate. More than 600 people attended a community policing meeting to discuss the problems.

Frank Walker, founder and executive director of Youth Pride Center, says "Be Great" was created as a response to community outrage over the attacks. "[The community meeting] was getting away from the actual topic, which was: How do you deal with violence?" Walker told Windy City Times. "We believe every person should live in a safe neighborhood. We don't believe that it's racist to say that. ... Nobody wanted to hear what the youth had to say, and there's a big difference between what youth are saying and what adults are saying."

The campaign features youth-created posters and video submitted to its Facebook page. Submissions will be judged. The winning print entry will run in the Windy City Times and be distributed among youth as a palm card.

It never hurts to point out how phony and homophobic Michele Bachmann is

Anderson Cooper lays the smack down on Michele Bachmann:

Bachmann receives some dumb advice from South Carolina and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Oh please follow this man's advice, Mrs. Bachmann. Pretty, pretty please:



Pens at ready, Mainers: Push to regain removed rights begins today - Go for it, Mainers!

WaPo: Obama Admin Should Halt Binational Spousal Deportations - Amen to that!

Fox News Hosts Tony Perkins Three Times In Eight Days - Now THAT is the perfect definition of shoving something down someone's throats.

Silly phony 'activist' claims that gays are 'sexualizing' children

In a column in One News Now, an "activist" named Michael Brown reveals the ignorance of the religious right when it comes to the gay community.

The title of the piece "Please stop sexualizing our children" should give you an indication of where he is headed. It's one of those Anita Bryant-like pieces which implies rather slyly that gays are trying to "convert" childen. And as with all religious right hit pieces regarding the gay community, he pulls out "examples" of just how the gay community is "sexualizing" children:

But there's more. There is the sexualizing of our children in the public schools, and I'm not talking about sex-ed classes. I'm talking about teaching gay history to elementary school children, as now mandated by law in California with the recent passing of SB 48, thereby introducing sexual categories to little ones who haven't the slightest clue what sexual orientation is, let alone have the ability to wrap their minds around "bisexual" or "transgender."

Please notice what how Brown tries to imply that this bill is about "sexualizing" children. Of course this is a lie. According to the author of the bill, CA State Sen Mark Leno:

Children need to feel self-confident and safe, both emotionally and physically, in order to learn and thrive in school. They are denied a safe school environment when they are exposed to negative stereotypes in classroom materials and school-sponsored activities. California law currently addresses this problem for many children by prohibiting instruction which reflects adversely on people of certain personal characteristics such as race, sex, color, creed, disability, national origin or ancestry. California law also requires that public instruction include the historical contributions of underrepresented cultural and ethnic groups such as African American, Native Americans, Asian American, Mexican Americans and other groups.

Despite these protections, some children’s needs are still not met by the law. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students are an example of one group that is still vulnerable to discrimination in instructional materials and school activities. SB 48 would remedy this problem by adding coverage for sexual orientation and gender, consistent with other laws prohibiting discrimination such as the Fair Employment and Housing Act and the Unruh Civil Rights Act.

The FAIR Education Act also require that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans are included and recognized for their important historical contributions to the economic, political and social development of California and the United States. Specifically, this legislation would add LGBT people to the existing list of underrepresented cultural and ethnic groups. Studies have shown that including the contributions of LGBT people in instructional materials is linked to greater student safety and lower rates of bullying.

Now you may agree or disagree with Mr. Leno (and I happen to agree), the point is shouldn't this bill be debated without lies about how gays are trying to introduce sexual acts to children?

Brown commits another distortion:

Already in Massachusetts, a couple was so upset with this state-sponsored sexualizing of their first-grader that they took their battle to court, where Judge Mark Wolff of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the schools have a greater responsibility to teach "diversity" than to honor the requests of the parents. In other words, "Sorry, moms and dads. We know what is best for your children, and when we decide it's time to introduce them to 'diversity' -- our code word for gay activist curricula -- we will do so. You, on your part, have no right to interfere, so don't even think about it." 

You will notice again how Brown does not tell the entire story. The situation he is referring to actually sprang from two cases - in one case, parents claimed to be upset that their child was read a story in which one prince ended up marrying another prince.  I wonder if Brown feels that children being read the story of Hansel and Gretel teaches them cannibalism or that the story of Cinderella teaches them child abuse?

Now the other situation is one which I covered on several occasions - the David Parker situation.  Parker was arrested for trespassing at his son's school because he would not leave the premises after a meeting with school officials. Parker claimed that he was trying to make sure that his son would not be "taught" about homosexuality. Of course the reality of the situation, which was exposed many times, was that Parker and a MA hate group, Mass Resistance, orchestrated the entire situation to harm the local gay community.

Both of those controversies combined into one court case which was dismissed by U.S. District Court of Appeals. Brown omitted the fact that the Supreme Court also refused to listen to the case.

But how Brown dismissed the ruling gives a clue to not only his mindset but those of the religious right:

Judge Mark Wolff of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the schools have a greater responsibility to teach "diversity" than to honor the requests of the parents. In other words, "Sorry, moms and dads. We know what is best for your children,

The thing that Brown hates to acknowledge and that other members of the religious right hates to acknowledge is that heterosexual two-parent families aren't the only ones who are raising children. Same-sex couples and single gay parents are also raising children.

In short, Mr. Brown makes the clarion cry of  "stop sexualizing our children," but it's not his right to make such a cry. Those are our children too. And we are not "sexualizing" them.

We are merely telling them that the gay community exists, there is nothing wrong with us, and if these children should discover that they too are lgbtq , there is nothing wrong with that. There is no need to be depressed or be consumed with self-hatred. We are merely telling them that they are wonderful creatures as God has made them.

And it is a message that we will continue to repeat in spite of Mr. Brown and others like him.

Since when is connecting the gay community to human wastes 'truthful research?'

Earlier this month, phony historian David Barton and WallBuilders Live co-host Rick Green went on a tangent about (what else) the supposed gay agenda in schools during a radio program. According to Right-Wing Watch:

Barton cited the American College of Pediatricians, a right-wing group that split off from the much larger and mainstream American Academy of Pediatricians because of the ACP’s stringent opposition to LGBT rights, particularly the right of gay and lesbian couples to adopt children. According to the AAP, the ACP’s “campaign does not acknowledge the scientific and medical evidence regarding sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual health, or effective health education.” The ACP also endorsers 'ex-gay' reparative therapy, saying, “therapy to restore heterosexual attraction can be effective for many people.”

Barton wrongly cites the ACP as “the leading pediatric association in America” and then repeats its anti-gay rhetoric, arguing that courses against bullying and that affirm non-heterosexual orientations are simply “indoctrination.”

Right-Wing Watch also said that  Barton alluded to how the ACP sent a letter to over 14,000 school superintendents regarding so-called "gay indoctrination."

Barton: The American College of Pediatricians is cautioning educators about what they do with same-sex attraction or symptoms of gender identity or gender confusion in schools.

Green: You’re kidding, this is the Pediatric Association?

Barton: Got it, get this. The letter reminds school superintends that it is ‘not uncommon for adolescents to experience transient,’ that’s a big word, ‘transient confusion about their sexual orientation,’ and is telling 14,800 superintendents that ‘most students will ultimately adopt a heterosexual orientation if not otherwise encouraged.’ And they’re saying, guys, back off. This indoctrination you’re doing—

An online buddy of mine, Bernie Keefe, got angry at what Barton said, so he emailed both Barton and Green asking specific questions about the American College of Pediatricians. He received the following very flippant response from Green:

I am not aware of anything from our broadcast that was inaccurate. Nothing in the transcript you sent is wrong or false. We may disagree on what constitutes "leading," but neither David or I said the ACP was the largest. As often happens, the larger associations become either stagnant or politically correct and lose the leadership qualities that make an organization "leading" in their profession. Meanwhile, a perhaps smaller, but more professional and cutting edge organization begins to lead by stating facts and putting forth truthful research the older organization is afraid to release due to political correctness.

Perhaps this explains your "harsh foray" mischaracterizing our opinion as a "prevarication" simply because you disagree with our opinion of which association is "leading" or maybe because you disagree with the political impact of the paper released by ACP?

Let's talk about the "paper" in question which ACP sent to schools. As luck would have it, I wrote an article about it. Allow me to rehash just what exactly is Green's idea of "facts" and "truthful research."

In February of last year, over 14,000 school district superintendents in the country were sent a letter by ACP inviting them to peruse and use information from a new site, Facts About Youth. The site claimed to present "facts" supposedly not tainted by "political correctness."  Alleged facts such as:

Some gay men sexualize human waste, including the medically dangerous practice of coprophilia, which means sexual contact with highly infectious fecal wastes

And the site gets more interesting in terms of the errors and distortions it contains, including:

1.  Facts About Youth repeats the claim that Dr. Francis Collins stated that homosexuality is not hardwired by DNA. The truth is that Francis Collins never said that. In fact, Dr. Collins said his words were being distorted:

The words . . .  all come from the Appendix to my book “The Language of God” (pp. 260-263), but have been juxtaposed in a way that suggests a somewhat different conclusion that I intended. I would urge anyone who is concerned about the meaning to refer back to the original text.

2. Facts About Youth repeats the lie that  the Robert Spitzer study proves that homosexuality is changeable, excluding the fact that Spitzer has said on more than one occasion that his research was being distorted.

3. Facts About Youth mentions the term "gay bowel syndrome," even though it does not exist.

4. Facts About Youth repeats the lie that a Canadian study proves that gay men have a short life span, even though the researchers of the study said that their work was being distorted.

5.  Many of the studies cited by Facts About Youth are over 10 years old and some even go back to the seventies.

6. Many studies cited by Facts About Youth are convenience samples not meant to be indicative of the entire gay community in general. One example of this is the citation of the 1979 book The Gay Report, which was the result of 2500 responses which came from a gay magazine questionnaire. The magazine, Blue Boy, was a softcore porn magazine which is now defunct. However, Facts About Youth cites this book on several occasions when claiming to give accurate details on gay sexual behavior.

The plain fact of the matter is this - my friend Bernie, myself, and everyone else who are bothered by Barton's and Green's citation of ACP's phony webpage aren't doing so because we simply disagree with the information it contains.

We are bothered by the information because it's wrong.

Not that it matters to Barton and Green, though. It's always amusing to me how some religious right characters who talk about "moral absolutes" seem to change their minds when the facts get in their way.

Pulling the gay = pedophilia card again and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Anger over rally to ridicule gay marriage - Apparently some folks just can't help but to compare gays to pedophilia. It's like a sickness to them.


And courtesy of Jeremy Hooper, take a look at the sickness in action at said event via religious right talking head, Rebecca Hagelin:



Fox News Fabricates Controversy About Campus LGBT Center, Provides Platform For Anti-Gay Columnist - Fox News plus Mike Adams. Why is it when two liars team up, they don't spontaneously combust?

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Texas Gov. Rick Perry To Address "Ex-Gay" Advocates - One wonders what planet is Perry on?

Liberty Counsel Lawyer Releases Book About The Lisa Miller Saga - But of course the Liberty Counsel has no idea where Lisa Miller is hiding (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

NOM's marriage pledge includes a 'witch-hunt' against the gay community

While there is a lot of noise being made over the National Organization for Marriage's pledge to supposedly "protect marriage," a passage in that pledge is escaping some much deserved scrutiny. Amongst other things, those presidential candidates who signed the pledge, should they get elected to the presidency, has promised to:

Appoint a presidential commission to investigate harassment of traditional marriage supporters.

In the world of the jaded gay community who has reputedly seen it all from the religious right, even this sentence should raise alarms.

First of all, who would be on this committee? Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown? Or how about Peter Sprigg or Tony Perkins? Or even worse, Matt Barber? I would say Peter LaBarbera but even I'm not that crazy.

And just what would they investigate or rather how would they investigate certain matters? Remember during the Clinton Administration, how investigations of Whitewater "magically" pivoted to other matters having absolutely nothing to do with legal matters but more about Clinton's personal life?

Whose to say that this "commission" wouldn't turn into a fishing expedition determined to undermine and destroy pro-gay organizations?  And I haven't even mention bloggers. Imagine being called before a committee and forced to give personal testimony about some false claim (which will no doubt be played up heavily by Fox News, conservative bloggers, and religious right groups) simply because you published a fact as to how religious right groups lie. And knowing the folks who suggested the committee in the first place, it certainly isn't a farfetched notion.

No doubt, a list of pro-gay organizations and bloggers to be "investigated" is already forming in the minds of NOM and its allies.

The gay community would do well for itself to lose its jaded pose and get itself into the game of the 2012 election. We already seem to have a huge target on our back this election cycle - as unfortunately we always do every election cycle - so it seems to me that the best thing to do is to stop griping about being targets and start establishing a few targets ourselves.

Uh oh. Now maybe I will be investigated for saying that.

GLSEN issues cease-and-desist letter to Family Research Council

This morning, GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) issued a cease-and-desist letter via its attorneys to the Family Research Council "demanding that FRC cease distribution and publication of a video clip containing false and defamatory statements about GLSEN, as well as any other similar false and defamatory statements that may be contained in a longer video associated with that video clip."

 The cease-and-desist letter has to do with the video below in which Tony Perkins, head of FRC, and Brian Camenker, head of the Massachusetts anti-gay group Mass Resistance claimed that GLSEN and the Massachusetts Public Schools distributed an explicit safe-sex guide called The Little Black Book to fifth to ninth graders at a conference in 2005:



But this claim has been debunked several times. Most specifically, the group Media Matters conducted a detailed debunking of this claim in December 2009.

In a May 19, 2005, article, The Boston Globe reported:

Fenway Community Health officials yesterday said they left about 10 copies of the ''Little Black Book" on an informational table they rented at a conference sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network of Boston. The annual event, held on April 30 at Brookline High School, was aimed at high school students, educators, counselors, administrators, and parents. The ''Little Black Book," produced by the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, is targeted at 18-and-older gay men, according to the committee. The book uses vivid descriptions and colloquial terms to describe the ways HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases can be prevented and spread.

A Fenway Community Health employee brought the pamphlets along with other materials and put them on the table by mistake, said Chris Viveiros, a spokesman for Fenway Community Health.

''Fenway Community Health regrets accidentally making available a small number of copies of the Little Black Book, an HIV-prevention publication for gay and bisexual men over the age of 18, at an event where young people were present," said Dr. Stephen Boswell, Fenway Community Health's president and CEO.

Furthermore:

 From the Globe article:

Sean Haley, executive director of the education network (GLSEN), which sponsored the conference, added: ''We have very clear policies that sexually explicit material of any kind will not be made available at the conference. Had I seen the book, I would have asked them to put it away."

At the start of the event, Haley said, network officials scanned each of the 10 tables it had rented, for $35 apiece, to outside groups. He said nobody saw the pamphlet at the time. ''We're just going to have to be more rigorous in our review of materials," he said.

Haley said that about 500 people attended the conference, roughly half of them students. He said only ''a handful" were younger than high-school aged.

On May 18, 2005, WHDH 7News Boston's Sean Hennessey reported that Brookline Superintendent of Schools William H. Lupini says that "none of his students, he believes, took the [Fenway] book home."

In its cease-and-desist letter, GLSEN said the following:

The false statements in the FRC video can do real and lasting harm to our work. FRC has made those false and defamatory statements in an obvious effort to raise money, undermine GLSEN’s work and maintain the status quo: school systems where LGBT students face unacceptable levels of harassment and violence and where anti-LGBT bias is a weapon of choice for bullies. We must respond forcefully and aggressively to defend our ability to fulfill our mission, and to protect ourselves and our partners in this critical work – the countless people in school communities across the country who work with GLSEN and our chapters to ensure safe and affirming schools for all students, utilizing our resources, attending our trainings, advocating with us for urgently needed change to make a positive difference in schools.

Both the FRC and Mass Resistance have been designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as anti-gay hate groups due to what SPLC calls an intentional spreading of demonizing propaganda against the gay community and pro-gay organizations.

Deadbeat dad Congressman puts down same-sex households

Sorry but this one is too good to ignore.

According to ThinkProgress, Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) had some negative things to say about same-sex households. Apparently during a recent town hall meeting in Crystal Lake, IL, Walsh retreaded the same religious right junk about children "having a right to a home with a mother and a father:

Walsh is a supporter of traditional marriage between a man and a woman for economic reasons. He also stated that studies have shown it is more beneficial for a child to be raised in a home where a mother and father are present rather than in same-sex households. The congressman, however, said he was open to further information and research that might disprove that. 

How nice it is for Walsh to give us the caveat of  "he might change his mind if further research disproved his opinion." I would suggest that he get to reading because there is a plethora of information out there which contradicts his beliefs on same-sex households.

But it would be nicer if Walsh wasn't late with his child support payments. You all will remember that Walsh is the same Congressman who, in a video (starting at 2:30), said that he owed it to his children not to vote to raise the debt ceiling. At the same time, however, he was being sued by his ex-wife for $117,437 in child support payments for his three children.

Just in case you are wondering about Walsh's monetary situation, he loaned his own campaign $35,000 and paying himself back $14,200 for the loans.

Mr. Walsh, in this case, silence is definitely golden. Maybe it would have been better if you had pretended not to hear the question. Anything would have been much better than making a hypocritical ass of yourself.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to PAY YOUR DAMN CHILD SUPPORT before you start creating caste systems against loving families simply because they may contain parents of the same-sex.

One more thing:  National Organization for Marriage, I absolutely DARE you to write a blog post on Walsh's comments.  Please, please, please do it.

Marcus Bachmann continues to lie about 'ex-gay therapy' and other Monday midday news briefs

The militant homosexual savage attack on the religious freedom of little old lady affidavit signers - Box Turtle Bulletin gives a definitive breakdown on phony religious right cause celebres.

Marcus Bachmann Backtracks: Denies Using ‘Ex-Gay’ Therapy, Claims He Never Called Gays ‘Barbarians’ - Sorry Marcus but we all know that you are lying.

CDC Official Discusses Impact Of Stigma On New HIV Infections - Let's not forget that we are still fighting this disease.

GHANA: Christians March Against Gays - Pray for our brothers and sisters in Ghana.

Staver: Under Obama, The US Is "One Of The World's Immoral Leaders" - Mat Staver and Matt Barber would know about immorality - particularly the immorality of lying and bearing false witness.

Over 900 demand that Congress reject fraudulent anti-gay testimony

Over 900 members of the gay community and their allies sent a message to Congress demanding that it take a hard look at the people and groups called to testify against gay rights during its hearings.

These individuals all signed a petition through Change.org asking that Congressional leaders scrutinize the testimony given by religious right spokespeople and groups because the testimony could contain inaccurate and fraudulent information.

The petition is the brainchild of Alvin McEwen, blogmaster of Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters and a contributing writer on such sites as The Huffington Post, Alternet.org, Pam's House Blend, and LGBTQ Nation.

According to McEwen, the idea for the petition sprang from the July hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) when Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) called out Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery for distorting a government study to claim that heterosexual households are better at raising children than same-sex households.

While the blogsphere was abuzz about this incident, McEwen said he was concerned mostly about the times when religious right witnesses testifying in front of Congress were not called out on their distortions.

The petition points to two incidents. One was when Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage committed the same error as Minnery in an earlier Congressional hearing on DOMA this year.

The other incident took place in 2009 when Family Research Council head Tony Perkins cited information in front of Congress from pro-gay health sites to contend that homosexuality is a "deadly lifestyle." In doing this, Perkins omitted the fact that none of the sites implied that homosexuality was a "deadly lifestyle,"but rather that homophobia leads some gays into unhealthy behaviors.

"And unfortunately," McEwen said, "both Gallagher and Perkins got away with these distortions."

McEwen says that more attention should be paid to how religious right groups either rely on junk science or the distortion of legitimate science to back up their claims that homosexuality is somehow dangerous.

As further proof of this, McEwen points to at least 11 instances where legitimate researchers and physicians have complained about how religious right groups have distorted their work to make this case.

"The methods these organizations use against the gay community is highly skilled," McEwen said. "Usually they anoint 'policy experts' with no expertise other than the ability to repeat their false talking points. And these points are geared to exploit people's religious beliefs against homosexuality. It's common sense that if you believe homosexuality to be a sin, then it doesn't take much persuasion to make you believe that promiscuity, disease, drug abuse, pedophilia, and all sorts of negative behaviors are indicative of the homosexual orientation."

McEwen also points to several questionable techniques used by religious right groups, such as continuously changing the alleged number of sexual partners of gay men, referring to convenience sample studies which cannot be used to generalize about the entire gay community (such as the number of clients in STD clinics), citing books and studies about the gay community which were published over 10 to 30 years ago, and referring to negative health statistics about the gay community while omitting what is said about how homophobia plays a role in creating these negative health statistics.

For the longest time blogs, such as McEwen's, have been complaining about what the religious right does to the gay community through its distortion of science. Finally last year, there began to be some mainstream attention when the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization geared to fighting racism, homophobia, and other inequalities, called out several of these groups for spreading propaganda about the gay community.

However, for McEwen, it's not nearly enough. He said that groups like the Family Research Council, the National Organization for Marriage, and Focus on the Family still have influence in the minds of some Congressional leaders. And he hopes that the petition will attract attention to how religious right groups lie about the gay community.

"Congressional leaders need to be aware of the actions of these groups they count on for credible negative information about the gay community," he said. "These groups and their affiliate organizations have been getting away with this sort of thing for years. I think it is probably one of the most missed stories in the history of journalism."

"It's extremely hypocritical for religious right groups to make a so-called Christian stance against homosexuality and then stoop to un-Christian methods to further that stance. Lies in the name of God are still lies."

Sign the petition here.

The dangers of not challenging false anti-gay testimony are numerous

This is the last of  a series of posts highlighting the need for Congress to scrutinize misleading religious right testimony during its hearings. The first post today showed of Maggie Gallagher gave misleading testimony  during an earlier DOMA hearing this year. The second post showed how Tony Perkins gave misleading testimony during a Congressional hearing on ENDA in 2009. Now this post demonstrates just how dangerous it is to allow testimony like this to go unchallenged.

To put it simply, via ThinkProgress, when lies about the lgbtq community go unchallenged during Congressional hearings, you will find Congressional leaders repeating these lies as reasons to vote against gay equality.

The following words are during a 1996 debate on DOMA. While you view this footage, ask yourself just how much of it have you heard coming from the mouths of Tony Perkins, Peter Sprigg, and the rest of that bunch:




Sign the petition to keep injustices like this from happening.

Family Research Council head gave misleading testimony on ENDA in 2009

This post is Part 2 in a series highlighting the need for Congress to scrutinize misleading religious right testimony during its hearings. This repost has to do with 2009 testimony which Family Research Council leader Tony Perkins gave in front of Congress to oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Just like Maggie Gallagher's testimony earlier this year (which was highlighted in today's earlier post), Perkins's testimony was misleading. And the two unfortunate things about it were that he was not called out for his errors and in 2010, he was allowed to give testimony opposing the confirmation of now Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan.

October 1, 2009 

Recently, Family Research Council head Tony Perkins submitted testimony to Congress in opposition of Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

The bulk of his testimony were anecdotes of supposedly how ENDA would hurt free speech.

As Goodasyou.org pointed out, at least one of his anecdotes was a distortion of the facts. Perkins claimed that the person in the case was able to sue because he was merely perceived as gay.

Perkins was making the point that the lawsuit in that case was frivilous.

But Jeremy Hooper from Goodasyou.org showed that the person in the case was not only perceived as gay, but also harassed and fired because of that perception.

And I think I found another sly distortion from Perkins regarding ENDA. The part I want to address is in bold:

The principle at stake is whether personal disapproval of these chosen and harmful behaviors (homosexual conduct and sex changes) should be officially stigmatized under law as a form of bigotry that is equivalent to racism. Since such disapproval is the dominant viewpoint in the American public,explicitly taught by leading religions,and empirically supported by the negative health consequences of those behaviors

Perkins is pushing the "homosexuality has negative consequences" factoid that has served the religious right well for so many years.

The endnotes of his testimony say:

Evidence for the negative health consequences of homosexual conduct is available even from pro-homosexual sources such as the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. See their "Top Ten Issues to Discuss with Your Healthcare Provider" online at: http://www.glma.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.viewPage&pageId=586&parentID=533&nodeID=1

To echo Jeremy Hooper in his denunciation of Perkins, it's a matter of perception.

Perkins is pushing the notion that "if people engage in same-sex intercourse, they face negative consequences."

Maggie Gallagher gave misleading testimony during April 15 DOMA hearing

Editor's note - As you all know, I have begun a petition asking Congress to scrutinize and call out misleading testimony given by religious right figures during its hearings. Part of the reason for this petition is the blowback Sen. Al Franken received when he called out Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery for his misleading testimony during a recent hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Another reason is to highlight the times in which religious right figures were able to get away with misleading testimony. Today, I will be reposting various pieces highlighting those incidents. This is the first and it took place at an earlier DOMA hearing in April of this year. Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage gave the same type of misleading testimony which Tom Minnery was called out for. The only difference is that no Congressional leader called her out. The site Equality Matters did call her out, but that was after the hearing was over.

April 25, 2011

According to Equality Matters, the witnesses speaking for DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) during the April 15 Congressional hearing gave incorrect testimony on several occasions. I invite everyone to take a look at the section, but the one which stands out for me is a statement made by the National Organization for Marriage's Maggie Gallagher.

She claimed that social science proves that the best place to raise children are in homes with biological, married parents as opposed to same-sex households:

Transcript:

GALLAGHER: From what we know from the social science evidence, marriage protects children to the extent that it increases the likelihood they are born to and raised by their own mother and father in a low-conflict, enduring relationship. We know this because, frankly, children do not do better under remarried parents than they do with solo mothers on average, which means that it is not simply a set of legal benefits that we can transform. It is the extent and way to which marriage as a legal and public institution helps to protect a particular kind of family that it helps to protect children or fails to protect children.

However, according to Equality Matters, in her written testimony, Gallagher cited a study on heterosexual single parents:

We know this from the social science evidence showing that children do no better, on average, in remarried families than they do living with single mothers. 1 Marriage protects children to the extent that it helps increase the likelihood that children will be raised by their mother and father.

[…]

1 See Sara McLanahan & Gary Sandefur, Growing Up With a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps (Harvard U. Press 1994) (“In general, compared with children living with both their parents, young people from disrupted families are more likely to drop out of high school, and young women from one-parent families are more likely to become teen mothers, irrespective of the conditions under which they began to live with single mothers and irrespective of whether their mothers remarry or experience subsequent disruptions.”). [Statement of Maggie Gallagher, Hearing on “Defending Marriage,” 4/15/11]

Equality Matters went on to use the words of Judith Stacey, Professor of Sociology and Professor of Gender and Sexuality at New York University to call out Gallagher and others on the right who inaccurately use studies on the heterosexual family dynamic to demonize same-sex parenting, and by proxy, marriage equality:

According to the child protection discourse that Professor Wardle, Maggie Gallagher, and others deploy, social science research demonstrates that legalizing same-sex marriage poses dangers to children and families… In particular, claims that research establishes the superiority of the married heterosexual-couple family and that children need a mother and a father conflate and confuse research findings on four distinct variables - the sexual orientation, gender, number, and the marital status of parents… Unfortunately, opponents of same-sex marriage, like Maggie Gallagher and Professor Wardle, and even some advocates, draw selectively, indiscriminately, and inappropriately from research findings about all four variables to address questions the studies were not designed to, and are not able, to illuminate.

[…]

Opponents of same-sex marriage draw on a third body of literature in which researchers have achieved an unusual degree of consensus. Most family researchers agree that, all other things being equal (which, of course, is almost never the case), two parents are better than one. Research indicates that children raised in single-parent families are at greater risk of various negative outcomes (e.g., dropping out of school, delinquency, unwed teen pregnancy, substance abuse, etc.) than children raised in comparable two-parent families. All of this research, however, as Maggie Gallagher acknowledged, has been conducted on heterosexual-parent families. Moreover, this research generally compares children in married-couple and single-parent families, thereby confounding the effects of the number and the legal status of parents. None of the research cited to demonstrate the importance of fathers (or mothers) examines the adjustment of children raised by same-sex couples. Moreover, this research does not indicate that it is the gender or the sexual orientation of the absent parent that is responsible for the different outcomes of children raised in single versus two-parent families. Rather, most researchers conclude that the number and economic resources of parents as well as the disruptive effects that parental desertion or divorce can inflict on children's lives account for these differential risks. N12 [University School of Quinnipiac Law Review, via Lexis, emphasis added, 2004]

Gallagher has done this sort of thing before. In in January of last year, she distorted a study on child abuse to make the case that children in married biological homes do better to protect children from abuse than children in same-sex households.

The distortion comes because the study in question - the one she cited - didn't even look at children in same-sex households. We know this because Gallagher even admitted at the time that same-sex households wasn't a category in the study:

All the other family structures studied (which does not include same-sex parent families probably because these are such a small part of the population), but does include solo parents, other married parents (remarried primarily), single parents living with a partner, cohabiting parents, and no parents.

Please bear in mind that at that same April 15 Congressional hearing,  Gallagher said it was unfortunate that people misinterpret things she says as a condemnation of "gay people" and "their parenting skills."

If Gallagher wants people to not think that she is condemning "gay people" and "their parenting skills," then maybe she should stop being so deceptive in her testimony.

Sign the petition to keep Gallagher and company from getting away with deceptions like this.