NOM's latest 'victims of alleged gay agenda' following familiar script of lies

I knew it.

Sooner or later, the National Organization for Marriage's phony Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance would feature Eunice and Owen Johns, the British couple who were allegedly told that they could not be foster parents because of their Christian beliefs:




NOM's blog even exacerbates the lie by saying the following:

NOM's Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance just released this incredibly moving—and yet chilling—video interviewing Eunice and Owen Johns, a black Pentecostal married couple in Great Britain whose own government told them they were not fit to foster a child unless they were willing to advocate for gay sex.

Of course this is a lie. The Johns were denied the ability to be foster parents because their beliefs could intefere with the welfare of a child, especially if that child was gay or lesbian.

And according to Robert Pigott, BBC News religious affairs correspondent:

The case is likely to be seen as a landmark decision, as senior judges ruled so decisively against any idea that attitudes might be justified purely because they were Christian in origin.

The court discriminated between kinds of Christianity, saying that Christians in general might well make good foster parents, while people with traditionalist Christian views like Mr and Mrs Johns might well not.

Such views, said the judges, might conflict with the welfare of children.

Know Your LGBT History - Michael Jeter

Today, I am announcing a different direction in my Know Your LGBT History segments. I've focused on movie and television portrayals, but now I want to focus on famous lgbtqs throughout history.

In the coming weeks, I will be featuring people who you may know to be lgbtq and a few that you probably didn't. My first person will be one of my favorite actors, the late Michael Jeter. From wikipedia:

Michael Jeter was born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. His mother, Virginia (née Raines), was a housewife. His father, William Claud Jeter (March 10, 1922 – March 1, 2010),was an optometrist. Jeter had one brother, William, and four sisters, Virginia, Amanda, Emily, and Larie.[2] Jeter was a student at Memphis State University (now the University of Memphis) when his interests changed from medicine to acting. He performed in several plays and musicals at the Circuit Theatre and its sister theatre, the Playhouse on the Square, in mid-town Memphis. He left Memphis to further pursue his stage career in Baltimore, Maryland.

His woebegone look, extreme flexibility, and high energy led Tommy Tune to cast him in the off-Broadway play, Cloud 9, and again on Broadway in a memorable role in the musical Grand Hotel, for which he won a Tony Award in 1990. Much of his work specialized in playing eccentric, pretentious, or wimpy characters, as in The Fisher King, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Drop Zone. Occasionally, Jeter was able to stay away from these types of roles for more diverse characters like those he portrayed in Jurassic Park III (where he was killed by a dinosaur), Air Bud, The Green Mile, and Open Range. He won an Emmy award in 1992 for his role in the television sitcom Evening Shade as math teacher and assistant football coach Herman Stiles. In the Evening Shade episode "Chip Off the Old Brick" Brian Keith plays his macho truck driver father, Brick Stiles. He was also a favorite with younger audiences in his role as Mr. Noodle's brother, Mr. Noodle on Sesame Street from 2000 to 2003. The movies The Polar Express and Open Range are dedicated to his memory. He appeared in an episode of Touched By An Angel in 1999 as Gus an Insurance Salesman who arrives in Las Vegas in the episode, 'The Man Upstairs'.

Jeter died of AIDS on March 30, 2003, Jeter was found dead in his Hollywood home at the age of 50. Jeter was HIV positive but had been in good health. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered.

Jeter was my dreamboat and for this post, I am going to feature the memorable speech he made after winning a Tony in which he admitted his past problems with alcohol and drugs, as well as the show stopping performance he did in Grand Hotel:



Past Know Your LGBT History posts:

'Legislator threatens the transgender community with violence' and other Friday midday news briefs

Tennessee Bathroom Bill Sponsor: ‘I Would Stomp A Mudhole’ In A Transgender Person - No he didn't! I don't believe in violence but if I ran across a scene like this, a certain person would get handed his ass. This man's comments is the epitome of all religious right rhetoric about the transgender community.

Today in heavy-handed Fox Nation headlines (*and by heavy-handed, I mean blatant lie) - Fox News deliberately lies in a headline. So what else is new?

READ: NOM 'Marriage Anti-Defamation' project served with removal demand - This was so good that I had to post it again, this time with some background information.


Background info - NOM accused of distorting controversy in Canada


Obama opposes laws ‘designed to take rights away’ - Well good for him!

School Board Moves to Fire Viki Knox, NJ Teacher Who Called Homosexuality a 'Perverted Sin' on Facebook - The comment she made was about her place of employment and it dealt with students. She deserves what she gets.

Phony expert Glenn T. Stanton can't stand up to scrutiny

From time to time, I have the opportunity to go one-on-one with religious right talking heads. When this happens, I am able to ask them certain questions that I feel the media misses.

Today, I bring you Glenn T. Stanton of Focus on the Family.

Last week, I featured a blog post from Think Progress which accused Stanton of  dog whistling a study to denigrate same-sex families. Now the study said nothing about same-sex families and neither did Stanton per se. But the religious right semantics of "children do better with a mother and a father" was clear. Generally when religious right groups feature studies such as these, there are implied negative digs to same-sex family situations. In my post, I also brought up another incident in which he was rebuked by the American Anthropological Association. Needless to say, Stanton wasn't happy about that and wrote about it on his blog:

Getting falsely accused and innuendo’d by gay bloggers is nothing new, but this has been an interesting week. See here, here, and here.  I wasn’t going to respond – the reaction such things deserve. But a friend at National Review Online asked me to respond, so I did.

Here’s my piece on the silly games played regarding this very serious topic.

His piece was a long-winded big piece of nonsense which avoided Think Progress's accusation. I felt the need to write the following back to him:

Oh stop it, Glenn. You weren’t falsely accused. You were called out for being inaccurate. And by the way, I noticed that you didn’t say a word about the rebuke you received from the American Anthropological Association a while back. And while I have your attention, I would like you to address something you wrote a while back called “Why Homosexuality Falls Short of the Ideal.” In that piece, you cited, via third hand, the discredited work of Paul Cameron (I’m sure you have heard of him) and claimed that gays suffer from something called “gay bowel syndrome.” Now you know that term doesn’t exist. It’s things like that which lead us to call you out. Not falsely accuse you, my friend. But call you out for the charlatan that you are.

He did not like that at all and took the time to write me back:

Not sure who I am responding to exactly since there wasn’t a clear name, but I thought you deserved a reply out of personal respect.

I was accused of being dishonest by a number of sites, starting with ThinkProgress. They got it wrong. They made the connection to ss parenting. I didn’t. I was not dishonest. I represented the study honestly and correctly….as well as the larger body of research on how family impacts the educational attainment of children.

And I fully debated the anthropological thing in multi-part exchange with an anthropologist from your fold at Box Turtle a few years ago. I don’t believe he ever proved me wrong, (he would say otherwise, I am sure) nor did he convince me that same-sex or homosexual marriage or parenting has ever been a notable part of the anthropological record of a culture.  There is not good record of it. I believe the AAA ‘s statement about gay families is weak and unfounded. I address that in the exchange.

And I don’t have an article entitled “Why Homosexuality Falls Short of the Ideal” to my knowledge. If you can tell me where it published, then I can dig it up and we can talk. But I don’t find anything like that in my archive or memory.  And I have never quoted Cameron and will not. How do you know I quoted him “third hand”? I would very much like to see that bread-crumb trail.

If gay bowel syndrome or GRID doesn’t exist, what are these article about:

http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644%2880%2980310-6/abstract

http://gut.bmj.com/content/26/9/869

http://ukpmc.ac.uk/abstract/MED/578386/reload=0;jsessionid=lt4ZVT2IIVRIDZiVF7eO.86

And I don’t know what I would have written about this, but many of these studies that I found via quick search just now on google scholar indicate the things I know of the malady.

And the term is not used today, and this article from the Wash Blade explains some of the reason why:

http://www.aegis.org/news/wb/2005/WB050411.html

And it is not nice to call people names….like charlatan. If you have problem with my research and/or line of reasoning, lets discuss it. But calling names is just cheap.

And of course I had to answer him back:

Oh Glenn, Glenn, Glenn,

you seem to have this need to justify yourself but when you attempt to do such, you only make it worse.

All of those citations about "gay bowel syndrome" were from the late 70s or early to mid 80s. That was before doctors realized that gay bowel syndrome had nothing to do with the bowels, nor did it only affect gay men, or did it fit the definition of a "syndrome."

And that last link you sent merely confirms what I said, particularly this sentence:

An official with the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention said LGV is not "gay bowel syndrome." The rare chlamydia strain has been around since the 1970s, and may have once been considered among the various diseases doctors loosely referred to as "gay bowel syndrome," according to Jessica Frickey, a spokesperson for the federal health agency.

But it's difficult for the CDC to know -let alone track - which diseases used to be included in "gay bowel syndrome" because the term was so informal and has since gone out of use at the CDC, Frickey said.

Now in terms of Cameron, you did cite him - third hand - in your piece "Why Homosexuality Falls Short of the Ideal." In that piece is the following passage:

HIV is the most notable infection associated with homosexual sex and other promiscuous behaviors, but it is important to realize that this is only part of the problem. Professor Thomas Schmidt, in his excellent study of homosexuality, Straight & Narrow?, explains, "Doctors who work with homosexual men are now trained to look regularly for at least 15 common afflictions apart from HIV/AIDS and we could double or triple the number by taking into account less common problems."

In that book, Straight and Narrow, Schmidt cited Paul Cameron in various places. And one more thing. Schmidt is a theologian, not a credible medical researcher.

Didn't you read his book. If you had, you would have known. Or did you read it anyway and cited the information without caring?

Basically Mr. Stanton, I called you a charlatan because I feel that you are one. You and others like yourself have built a nasty house of cards based on junk science, cherry-picked studies, and outright lies against the lgbtq community. If I were you, I would be prepared to be ready for that house to fall because it will sooner or later.

And for the record, I have a copy of his piece "Why Homosexuality Falls Short of the Ideal" in my files. I didn't indicate that to him in my letter but I found it interesting while he denies writing the piece, he defended the existence of "gay bowel syndrome," a term which figured heavily in the piece.

Needless to say that Stanton didn't write me back. And I really don't blame him. He debates me with archaic medical terms and pretends not to remember writing pieces that he clearly did which used junk science. It was a pitiful performance.

Stanton is the perfect face of phony religious right research.

Conservatives demand that 'ex-gay' therapy, inaccurate health information be taught in schools

The Anoka-Hennepin School District in Minnesota is in the middle of a huge issue regarding its sexual orientation curriculum policy which says that LGBT issues should not be discussed in the district's schools.

And based on the actions of some parents at a recent school district meeting, it's going to be a long slog:

A slew of conservative Christian parents — and even an orthodox rabbi — implored the Anoka-Hennepin School District to purge schools of any mention of homosexuality and demanded that teachers teach about the “ex-homosexual” movement and “gay-related immune deficiency.” One district member even assailed Dan Savage’s It Gets Better campaign as vulgar and accused the popular columnist of teaching children about “three-ways.” Several people testified using little more than versus from the Bible that are often used to demean and degrade the LGBT community.

The controversy in the district is over the sexual orientation curriculum policy also called the “neutrality policy” which says that LGBT issues are not to be discussed in the district’s schools. Six students are suing to eliminate the policy on the grounds that it makes for a hostile school environment and the district announced last month that they are considering scrapping the policy and replacing it with one that deals with “controversial topics” but doesn’t single out LGBT students and issues.

But the Parents Action League, a group of conservative Christians, want the policy to remain.

Brian Lindquist and Mike Skaalerud presented a resolution and list of demands that the Parents Action League wants to the school board to fulfill including incorporating “ex-gay” therapy into the school resources.

And it got uglier:

PAL also uses the term Gay Related Immune Deficiency or GRID. That was the initial name given to AIDS when it was still only a cluster of gay men. It hasn’t been used since 1984 — aside from those in the religious right who have a limited knowledge of epidemiology and biology who use it as a derogatory remark about gay men and HIV.

The Parents Action League has been behind much of the anti-LGBT activity in the district and have been advocating “ex-gay” therapy since it’s founding in 2009.

Barb Anderson has been the spokesperson for the group. She’s also a researcher for the Minnesota Family Council and has accused LGBT advocacy groups of being responsible for bullying and suicides in the district.

At Monday night’s board meeting, she accused the LGBT community of indoctrinating the students of the district.

“On Dec. 25th, on the front page of the Star Tribune, the pro-homosexual media once again held up the St. Paul school district as an example of how the districts should deal with GLBT issues. In St. Paul, the fear of the gay agenda coming into the schools is now a thing of the past. Well, that’s exactly right. There’s no reason to fear it coming in because its so entrenched in their schools that parents have given up all hope of getting it out.”

She said that the “gay agenda” was trying to force Christians into the closet.

She quoted Steve Warren who she called a leader in ACT-UP claiming that his “gay manifesto” from 1987 was the rallying cry for the community. What she didn’t note was the Warren’s article, written under the pseudonym Michael Swift, was satire.

Where do you think these folks got this stuff from? Organizations like the Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, etc.

You see that's why it's important for the lgbtq community to start focusing on these groups. They are feeding gullible folks bad info which in part is being used to stymie the progress of our children.

'Religious right can't get rid of discredited researcher' and other Thursday midday news briefs

Family Research Institute: 'Where Gays Cluster, Boys Suffer' - Once upon a time, boys and girls, Paul Cameron was the toast of the religious right. They used his discredited work to prove the case against lgbtq equality until we got savvy enough to point out his myriad of errors. Now the religious right avoid him like the plague. Only he refuses to go away, which is good for us.

Related post: Paul Cameron - why the religious right can't keep him 'in the closet'

Anti-Gay Legal Guns For Hire: How The Right Uses ‘Religious Liberty’ To Fight Discrimination Suits - An excellent piece by Talking Points Memo.

AP: Gay marriage within reach in Wash. Legislature - Sweet!

Native American lesbian elected to Minnesota House - Awesome news coming out of Minnesota.
  
Unmasked! Anti-LGBT Group Behind Girl Scout Cookie Boycott - And THIS, brothers and sisters, is how the religious right astroturfs a protest.

MSNBC's possible dismissal of Pat Buchanan is hypocritical

You must forgive me for not being impressed with the news that MSNBC has allegedly finally been driven to the extremes by columnist Pat Buchanan's racist rhetoric and is seeking to get rid of him.

Don't get me wrong. It's way overdue. Buchanan has gotten away with racist dog whistling for too long and his book, Suicide of a Superpower, with its venomous attack on all of those who don't fit Buchanan's idea of proper American culture - i.e. those who aren't white - is a fitting final straw.

But as I said before, I'm not impressed.

You see, Buchanan is not the only problematic individual to be given somewhat of a home at MSNBC.

According to the site Equality Matters, Family Research Council head Tony Perkins has made 11 appearances on MSNBC news programs. Perkins is the same guy who has said vindictive things about the lgbtq community including:

• Gay Activists Are Intolerant, Hateful, Spiteful Pawns Of The Devil. [Right Wing Watch, 5/3/11]
• Senators Who Vote For DADT Repeal Will Have “The Blood Of Innocent Soldiers On Their Hands.” [Right Wing Watch, 12/16/10]
• "Kids Do Worse In These Same-Sex Households. They’re More Susceptible To Violence.” [Fox News, Fox & Friends Sunday, 4/24/11]
• Gays Are Trying To “Spread Fear And Intimidation So That They Can Disrupt And Destabilize” The Legal System, Like Terrorists. [Good As You, 4/29/11]
• “Research Is Overwhelming” That Gay Men Are More Likely To Molest Children.  [MSNBC, Hardball, 11/29/11]

The stuff Perkins says is no different than the drivel Buchanan spews.

And in addition, his organization, FRC, has been known to either cherry-pick science or refer to junk science in order to smear the lgbtq community. It is for reasons like this that the organization was named as an official anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Of course  Perkins and FRC will claim that they are being victimized for their stance against marriage equality, but this is yet another lie.

SPLC puts it this way:

The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.To make the case that the LGBT community is a threat to American society, FRC employs a number of “policy experts” whose “research” has allowed FRC to be extremely active politically in shaping public debate. Its research fellows and leaders often testify before Congress and appear in the mainstream media. It also works at the grassroots level, conducting outreach to pastors in an effort to “transform the culture.”

In Its Own Words
“Gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”
— Robert Knight, FRC director of cultural studies, and Frank York, 1999

“[Homosexuality] … embodies a deep-seated hatred against true religion.”
— Steven Schwalm, FRC senior writer and analyst, in “Desecrating Corpus Christi,” 1999

“One of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the ‘prophets of a new sexual order.’”
--1999 FRC pamphlet, Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex with Boys.

But in spite of all of this, Perkins continues to be called upon by the network as a credible analysis of the GOP presidential primary even as recently as yesterday on MSNBC’s Martin Bashir.

Seems to me that if MSNBC wants to be consistent, the standards that the organization is using to dismiss Pat Buchanan should be used against Perkins and FRC.

Or is MSNBC saying that racism is a no-no but homophobia is allowable?

There is a nasty double standard here.

Related post - 16 reasons why the Family Research Council is a hate group

Marriage equality will destroy humanity

Batten down the hatches and alert NOM! Jimmy Kimmel explains how marriage equality will destroy humanity:

'NOM's candidate turns his back on the organization' and other Wednesday midday news briefs

D.C. Council candidate no longer opposes gay marriage law - How sweet. A candidate the National Organization for Marriage supported turns his back on them.

Republicans, Local Governments Endorse Marriage Equality Effort In Washington State - Meanwhile momentum is building for marriage equality in Washington State.

FRC slams NH politician for pragmatically reading NH polls - But I thought the Family Research Council liked Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH)

DADT Would Return To Oklahoma National Guard Under Mike Reynolds' Proposed Bill - Try as he might, he won't make it happen.

Porno Pete declaring war on Archie Comics?

Archie Comics is a long-running comic book that has added two new twists. It has included a gay character, Kevin , who has just been married to his physical therapist:

Naturally it has been seen as groundbreaking by some. And of course infuriating by others, including our resident homophobe, Porno Pete LaBarbera. He sees the entire thing as an insidious plot to indoctrinate children:

It’s really manipulative. Of course they are going to have a solider having a homosexual so-called marriage with a black, so it’s interracial, they want to work that in there, which is fine, interracial marriage is good but not between two men, and he was the physical therapist for this soldier so they’re really manipulating these kids. Here you are taking something that parents take for granted is wholesome, Archie Comics, and now even that is being turned into a promoter of the radical homosexual agenda.

. . . Obviously the left and the homosexual activist movement is dead-set on promoting homosexuality to impressionable children. This is a comic book that is supposed to represent mid-American values and they are corrupting those values. Homosexuality is for one, often linked to very severe health problems, especially male homosexuality, it’s considered immoral, since time immoral, all of Judeo-Christian history. Yet now, in the name of diversity—and it’s interesting Jim that the left’s diversity framework never seems to include former homosexuals, will we ever see a healthy, happy former homosexual in the movies or in the media in the name of diversity? It is only what the left wants diversity to be is what we see promoted.

I personally take umbrage with that comment he made earlier - "Of course they are going to have a solider having a homosexual so-called marriage with a black."

Was it so hard for Peter to say "a black man?" Through his terminology, he makes the black man sound something negative and foreign.

But then would that be as petty as Peter himself whining about a comic book?

Basically though, this ridiculous display by Peter just demonstrates how obsessed he is with the lgbtq community.

Lighten up, Peter! It's just a comic book. I guess if we followed your train of thought, Batman is indoctrinating children into dressing like creatures of the night and swinging on rooftops.

Maggie Gallagher now contradicting NOM on same-sex parenting

A while back when former National Organization for Marriage head Maggie Gallagher made a comment actually praising gay parents, I knew it would come back to haunt NOM.

Gallagher made the comment to save NOM from embarrassment because the constant negative comments it and its affiliate - the Ruth Institute - has continued to make about same-sex parenting and most specifically citing the discredited work of junk scientist Paul Cameron.

But if that was her intention, it failed miserably because the Ruth Institute keeps attacking same-sex parenting and now the lgbtq community has Gallagher on record giving a contradictory message.

The latest attack came today. From Equality Matters:

As Equality Matters has noted, the National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) anti-gay politics go far beyond the issue of same-sex marriage. The group has been a strong proponent of restricting the rights of gays and lesbians to raise their own children -- arguing against adoption and non-discrimination efforts while promoting damaging myths about same-sex parents.

Last Friday, Jennifer Morse -- president of NOM’s Ruth Institute -- continued this trend in a blog post titled “Two Moms: the triumph of the Will over Nature.” 

In her post, Morse lamented the stories of two lesbian couples who gave birth to their children with the help of sperm donors, writing:

According to data from around the world, lesbian couples are the least stable type of couple. What happens when the partnership breaks down? [...]

One of the women donated the egg. The other had it implanted in her womb, and carried it to term. So, they are both mothers and both have custody rights. The child’s father was an anonymous sperm donor. He is completely out of the picture. No one cares about him. No one cares that this poor little girl will never know her father. [...]

The courts are trying to do the impossible: create justice out of an intrinsically unjust situation. [emphasis added]

Morse’s assertion that lesbian relationships are unstable- which she supports by citing 2006 studies from Sweden and California -- has been debunked by several recent reports. 

However, most specifically, this idea was debunked by Maggie Gallagher herself. Remember her statement:

I would like to say personally that nothing in any argument I've ever made on gay marriage, rests on the idea that same-sex couples harm their own children at any higher rates than any other family form. (If there is data that shows this, I've never seen it.)

Maybe Jennifer and Maggie need to have a discussion.

'Did Mitt Romney nearly march in gay pride parade?' and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Mitt Romney Almost Marched In The 2002 Boston Gay Pride Parade - For someone who seems to be anti-gay, Romney was definitely in our corner once upon a time.

Gingrich Argues Adoption Services Should Be Allowed To Take Taxpayer Money While Discriminating Against Gays - Oh sure. Take our tax dollars while spitting in our faces.

Troy Mayor Said 'Disturbing Things' in Meeting, Gay-Straight Alliance Leader Says - Her again? I'm beginning to think that she doesn't like us lgbtqs.

UPDATE: NC elections official resigns rather than facilitate the marriage discrimination amendment - Good for her!

NOM EXPOSED: Earmarks for historical pockmarks: Brown commits $500k to NJ - Where oh where is NOM getting their money?

Minnesota anti-gay group pushing contradictory messages

In a way to put a sort of a nice face on its efforts to disenfranchise same-sex families, Minnesota for Marriage - the group in that state trying to pass a law outlawing marriage equality - has launched phony newscasts called Minnesota for Marriage Minute:



It looks real nice and very artificial from its stock photos - of people not from Minnesota at the beginning - to the woman giving the news, former Minneapolis news anchor Kalley King Yanta.

But looks can be deceiving. Don't be fooled by this nice and light image. Particularly when one remembers that Minnesota for Marriage includes the group the Minnesota Family Council, the group which at one time accused gays of bestiality, pedophilia, and the consuming of body wastes.

And even Yanta is perpetrating, i.e. hiding her true feelings. In the above video, she is all sweetness and light. But according to the Advocate magazine, she reveals her true paranoia when it comes to marriage equality:

In an interview last week on the conservative Christian radio show Word of Truth,Yanta said she was moved to participate in the campaign because she believes heterosexual couples are best suited to raise children and because she fears that if same-sex marriage becomes widely accepted, those who oppose it could face serious consequences, including arrest.

“There are studies that are being conducted right now about how children are being raised and how that affects somebody in their psyche and in their self-esteem and in the various ways that that can affect a person being raised by either a man and a man or a woman and a woman,” she told host Brad Brandon. “It’s not natural.”

But that statement is in direct contradiction to a statement former National Organization for Marriage Maggie Gallagher said a while back:

I would like to say personally that nothing in any argument I've ever made on gay marriage, rests on the idea that same-sex couples harm their own children at any higher rates than any other family form. (If there is data that shows this, I've never seen it.)

The National Organization for Marriage is yet another organization which makes up Minnesota for Marriage. And I guess the organization doesn't mind contradictory messages as long as same-sex families are disenfranchised.

Liberty Counsel accusing Macy's of covering up sexual assaults

In its continuing war against Macy's Department store for firing an employee who harassed a transgender customer - which was in violation of company policy - the right-wing Liberty Counsel has chosen to stoop low.

I mean really low. The organization is now accusing Macy's of covering up rapes. Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver said the following today on the Faith & Freedom radio show:

We also have another individual that contacted us, Matt, who said that he was sort of a trouble shooter, I forgot the exact title that he was working in in Macy’s, and he brought to Macy’s the issue of these men going into the women’s fitting rooms. . . . Loss prevention or something of that nature. He brought to their attention articles from around the country where people had gone into Macy’s, and some other stores but specifically Macy’s, women had gone in and they had been sexually assaulted in these fitting rooms by men that have been coming into those fitting rooms, and even rapes. He brought this to the attention of Macy’s to address this policy and he said rather than address it he was terminated.

How convenient that this tipster is anonymous, just like the last tipster Staver referred to last year who claimed to be an employee of Macy's allegedly fighting to keep "men out of the women's dressing rooms.

I said it back then and I will say it again. I smell a rat. Or more specifically, until Staver produces this anonymous tipster, I think he is lying.

And this time, it's serious.

Staver is accusing Macy's of covering up the heinous crime of rape. This isn't something that needs to be merely talked about on a radio show. It needs to be investigated. And if Staver is lying, he and the Liberty Council need to face the full consequences.

Related posts:

LGBTQ youth caught in the crossfire of phony 'religious liberty'

Woman files lawsuit because she can't harass transgender customers

Macy's stands up for the lgbtq community

'Mitt Romney running away from pro-gay past' and other Monday midday news briefs

Romney Campaign Disavows 2002 Gay Pride Flyers - Somebody is REALLLLY desperate to be president. The flyer in question:

Same-Sex Marriage Follows Rick Santorum Around New Hampshire - He gets what he deserves.

Advocates of N.J. legalization of gay marriage hope for better outcome with new bill - Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Gathering of Eagles Prays for Ex-Gays to 'Blitz' the Media and Defeat the 'Homosexual Agenda' - Okay I haven't included a wildly homophobic brief in a while.

Republican candidates don't care for same-sex couples, families

Just a reminder from Think Progress detailing - via the recent New Hampshire debate - what the Republican candidates think of our families. Please remember this on election day:

Focus on the Family distorts ANOTHER study to denigrate same-sex families

Glenn T. Stanton can't stop lying about same-sex families

I wish more attention was focused on how religious right groups and talking heads distort science to denigrate the lgbtq community.

There is a Pulitzer just waiting for the intrepid reporter who can break down this decades old story. At any rate, until that happens, it's up to us bloggers to make these facts known.

And Think Progress just did:

Focus on the Family’s duplicity is not always obvious, but execution of their anti-gay rhetoric is becoming more transparent. In a post yesterday, FOTF’s director of Global Family Formation Studies Glenn T. Stanton boasted that a new study from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business proves that boys benefit behaviorally from having “a home with a mom and a dad”:

STANTON: This supports over three decades of consistent research showing that kids who grow up in a home with their married parents tend to do better in all measures of educational attainment than their peers being raised in single, divorced and cohabiting-parent homes. This is true from everything from grade-point average, behavioral issues, high school graduation and going on to graduate from college. Moms and dads both matter here, as well as the type of relationship between them.

But though FOTF is clearly trying to use this as evidence against same-sex marriage, the study did not prove anything “against” same-sex parents.  The study in question (PDF here) did not, in fact, address same-sex parenting whatsoever, but instead compared children raised by married heterosexual parents to children raised by a single mother. It is one of many “fatherless” studies that conservative groups use to conflate not having a father/having one mother with having two mothers. Recall when Sen. Al Franken eviscerated FOTF’s Tom Minnery at a July Senate hearing for attempting to do the very same thing.

If anything, the Booth study supports arguments in favor of marriage equality, because it found that it was neither family structure nor biology that were the direct cause of differences in boys’ behavior, but environmental factors determined by levels of parental input. Stanton’s conclusions reflect nothing found in the actual research data — merely his discriminating ideology.

It should be known that scientific distortions is old hat for Stanton. In March 2008,  he claimed that there’s a “clear consensus” among anthropologists that “A family is a unit that draws from the two types of humanity, male and female.”

However, those with expertise in such matters vehemently disagreed with this claim.

Know Your LGBT History - All in the Family and Beverly LaSalle

Folks have been asking for this episode, so now I am going to bring it.

As stated many times before, All in the Family was a groundbreaking situation comedy which dealt with modern issues, including gender roles, sexual harassment, rape, and racism.

But where it really broke ground was how it deal with the lgbtq community. I've already posted two episodes of All in the Family which dealt with the lgbtq community. But today's is probably the most popular - Archie The Hero.

In it, Archie Bunker, the main protagonist of the show - saves who he thinks is a woman. However, the woman turns out to be a female impersonator, Beverly LaSalle (portrayed excellently by the late Lori Shannon). The hijinks are hilarious:







Beverly LaSalle was a popular character who returned for two more episodes. In Beverly Rides Again, Archie elicits her help in pulling a prank. However, her last episode, Edith's Crisis of Faith, is the one many fans of All in the Family remember the most.

You see, Beverly is brutally murdered due to gay bashing and her death devastates Edith (Archie's wife who has become rather fond of her) so much that the woman loses her faith in God.

It was a truly sad episode and even though Edith regains her faith at the end, one still felt a serious loss at Beverly's death.

Past Know Your LGBT History posts:

'Santorum's homophobia gets him booed' and other Friday midday news briefs

Santorum Booed Again For Saying Gays Aren’t Entitled To Marriage Or Military Service - I swear what happened to the "good old days" when such blatant homophobia garnered one a standing ovation.

'HIV doesn't cause AIDS', says dangerous mythmaker who recently spoke alongside GOP presidential candidates - At this point, are we really surprised at the filth coming out of Bryan Fischer's mouth?

Chris Matthews And Robert Traynham, Gay Former Santorum Aide, Have Heated Clash - That an openly gay man would work for Santorum in the first place just boggles the mind.

NOM: Marriage Equality Will Create A “Moral Wasteland,” Normalize Pedophilia - NOM loves to stoke the pedophilia card.

Minnesota anti-gay group caught 'faking it'

An anti-marriage equality group in Minnesota has been using stock images instead of real Minnesotans to push the case against marriage equality.

From Think Progress:

Minnesotans United for All Families — a coalition opposing the state’s proposed anti-gay constitutional amendment to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman — has discovered that proponents of inequality are having a hard time finding Minnesotans who oppose same-sex marriage. Yesterday, the anti-gay group released its first video of 2012, but rather than interviewing actual residents of the state, the commercial is “full of stock images“:

We tracked down the phony stock images of families that they used in their video, and we think you deserve to see the proof. Check them out:
1. Children Having Fun in Playground Together
2. Loving and Playful Family
3. Happy Bride and Groom Smiling Together
4. Happy, Smiling Family
5. A house, also found on a securities website
6. And last but not least, this couple, who are also prominently featured on a website for a hospital in India!

Check out the video:



Minnesotans for Marriage is no doubt following the lead of the organization it's teaming with to stop marriage equality in the state - the National Organization for Marriage.

In October of last year, Jeremy Hooper from the site Goodasyou.org caught the organization stealing photos from past Obama rallies and using them to boost the number of its followers.