Shooting at the Family Research Council - ALL violence (physical and spiritual) must be condemned

By now, you have probably heard what happened today at the headquarters of the Family Research Council.

Earlier today, a 28-year-old man came in pretending to be an intern. On his person, he had two guns. The security guard fought him and kept him from fully using these guns, at the expense of getting wounded.

According to reports, the young man committed this act because he disagreed with the Family Research Council's anti-gay stance.

First of all, let me say that I totally condemn what this young man did. Violence is never the answer. The security guard, who is in stable condition, is also in my prayers. He is a hero for what he did. Finally, I am glad that the situation did not get worse.

However, let me also say that while I condemn physical violence, I also condemn spiritual violence.

And in that respect, something must be said about the Family Research Council.

For years, many have said that stances and the language used by organizations like the Family Research Council against the gay community to defend these stances had the danger of empowering violent anti-gay behavior from those on the fringes of the right.

Now comes this new dynamic. It can also empower violent behavior from the fringes of the other side too.

The Family Research Council will have people to believe that it is an organization which simply stands up for family and morality. But we all know not to be true.

Somehow, consistently comparing gays to pedophiles or terrorists, claiming that gays in the military will molest their fellow officers, expressing a desire to deport gays or put them in jail, distorting studies to demonize gays, and all around falsely branding members of the gay community as the "dreaded other" which must be kept away from doesn't strike me as standing up for morality and truth.

Yet, these are the things which the Family Research Council has done. And it is also why the Southern Poverty Law Center called them an anti-gay hate group.

Of course now in the conservative circles, there seems to be a call for SPLC to rescind this designation.

I have to ask why.

Will the Family Research Council do some soul searching after what happened today? Will it publicly apologize for all the lies it has told on the gay community? Will leaders of the organization realize that their tone does more to inflame hatred from all sides rather than spread respect and understanding? Will they realize that maybe they should stop using junk science or distorting legitimate science against the gay community?

I doubt it. And it is for that reason that while I will freely pray for the organization after this awful incident, I will not give the Family Research Council  the satisfaction of me forgetting all of the things it has said and done to unfairly demonize me and my brothers and sisters in the name of its God.

As far as I am concerned, the Family Research Council is still a hate group. And that won't change in my mind unless the organization changes.

'Lesbian Mother sues religious right, Cheerios arsonists dies' and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Minister Found Guilty of Aiding Miller-Jenkins Kidnapping - A tiny bit of closure for Janet Jenkins because of the kidnapping of her daughter, Isabel. Of course a larger degree of closure would be for Jenkins to be reunited with her child. Let's pray that this happens.  

Lesbian Mom Of Kidnapped Daughter Files Organized Crime Suit Against Multiple Christian Organizations - And in the meantime, stick it to those SOBs who caused you so many problems, Ms. Jenkins. They had no right. The Liberty Counsel is one of these groups and check out what Matt Barber tweets. Matt, my dear, you are NOT being persecuted in the name of God.

 Fiery protester outside General Mills dies days later on family errand - THIS is a shock. The Cheerios arsonist has died. My prayers are with his family as he meets the Lord face to face.

 David Barton: Warren Throckmorton's moral compass like that of an adulterous congressman - David Barton - "I lied like a rug but since Warren Throckmorton likes them homosexuals, HE is the one without a moral compass." Okay. 

 Paul Ryan Refuses To Address Questions On Employment Nondiscrimination - It's YOUR move, Log Cabin Republicans. 

NOM turns to chicken instead of facing the truth about its lies

Maggie Gallagher of NOM

Far be it from me to brand the National Organization for Marriage as an organization willing to exploit every perceived advantage to make a new dig against marriage equality (oh who am I kidding), but there is something bizarre about certain items on its blog:

Announcing Chick-fil-A Wednesdays!

Austin Ruse on Why Chick-fil-A is Important for the Pro-Marriage Revolution

Video: Gay Liberation Network Taunts Priest Praying Rosary Outside Chick-fil-A Inbox

Baptist Press: Chick-fil-A May Influence Gay Marriage Votes This Fall

Video: Chicago Chick-fil-A Kiss-In Protesters "Chalk" & Harass Homeless Person

Jerry Newcombe on Chick-fil-A and Orwellian Times

It's been over a week since the "Chick-Fil-A Chronicles," yet NOM seems to continue harping on the situation as if somehow it is seminal moment in American - nay - world history.

Meanwhile, that group of African-American pastors (the Coalition of African-American Pastors) it secretly underwrites (in a plan to sabotage Obama's African-American support) is catching HELL over the lie that it is non-partisan and how its president (William Owens) may have lied about his civil rights leader pedigree.

Also, the anti-gay parenting study it helped to promote continues to catch hell because of bias and new revelations that continues to call its author's credibility into question.

If I was involved with NOM, I would stick to the chicken, too.

It definitely beats facing the truth.

Will Victoria Jackson continue to play the victim after her attack on gay families?

Victoria Jackson

It is very rare that I pay former SNL comedian Victoria Jackson any attention when she goes off on her rants.

Her claims about President Obama being a communist is more than enough for me to figure out that girlfriend is a couple of fries short of a Happy Meal.

But her newest rant deserves some attention, not because of who she is, but partly because of what she said and the role she likes to play.

Those who read this blog probably know that the one thing which sets me off is when someone attacks gay families.

Well Victoria just set me off:

Suddenly, the gym CNN is blasting a story of how a homosexual man is helping other homosexuals adopt children. He speaks about the personal, passionate sacrifice of his time for this cause as if he were Mother Theresa. I’m appalled. Homosexuals-adopting-children is child abuse. No, it’s pedophilia and sexual molestation. Teaching a young mind, a clean slate, an innocent soul that homosexuality is a natural, normal and moral lifestyle is evil. How is gay adoption different from the recently jailed Penn State Jerry Sandusky, child molester case?

“Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Isaiah 5:20

Since sistah girl likes to repeat Bible verses, I've got one for her:

Thou shalt no bear false witness.

I know some folks will say "who cares," but follow my thinking.

Jackson has in the past whined that people like her, who supposedly stand up for "values" and "morality" are supposedly unfairly labeled as bigots.

In my world - which is the real world - when you falsely attack gays and accuse them of being pedophiles, that is bigotry. When you attack innocent same-sex families, that is bigotry.

She is so indicative of what bothers me about religious right groups, spokespeople, and those who profess to be evangelical right-wing Christian. It's as if they actually expect the gay community to be quiet when they dehumanize us and insult our families.

However, if we respond,  we are the bad guys. We are the intolerant ones.

It's as if they think that the gay community should sit there and allow ourselves to be disrespected and allow our families to be attacked.

People like Victoria Jackson seem to think that their religious beliefs is a gateway for them to say anything about gay community without the courtesy of a reprisal.

Girlfriend had better get a grip because this gay guy has always believed in the maxim of "if you don't want trouble, don't start trouble."

I've already given her my opinion of her words. Feel free if you want to.

Editor's note - there is a link to her column in this post. Feel free to respond. But remember any profanity or insults will be used by Jackson to make herself seem like the victim.

'NOM: Gays want to get rid of biological parenthood' and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Scott Lively: Moral Relativist - This is funny. Glenn Beck's favorite phony historian David Barton has been caught in a huge controversy over his book about Thomas Jefferson. Trust me when I say it doesn't look good for him. And who is the blame? Why the gay community. I don't what bothers me the most - that we are again falsely accused or the fact that we actually DIDN'T have anything to do with this nice turn of events.  

NOM's Ruth Institute: Marriage equality supporters 'oppose your right as a biological parent' - You know there are scare tactics and then there are scare tactics that just don't make any sense at all.
 
 Tammy Baldwin Gets Lesbian Super PAC's First Endorsement - Not bad! Go Tammy! 

 Ask Ryan if he still supports ENDA gay rights law he voted for in 07 - That's a good question to ask Paul Ryan, which of course means that it won't be asked. 

Racist using 'religious liberty' argument in lawsuit

Religious right groups are always whining about how gay equality will violate their "religious liberties" to the point that they have actually built a groundswell of support for laws protecting this idea. However, the following demonstrates what their deliberate vagueness about "religious liberties" can lead to - a racist using the religious liberty argument in a lawsuit:

A Hawkins man is claiming his civil rights and religious freedom were violated earlier this year when a black man sacked his groceries and a Big Sandy grocery store owner banned the customer from the business.

DeWitt R. Thomas filed a federal lawsuit in July against Keith Langston, owner of Two Rivers Grocery & Market.

According to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Tyler, Thomas entered the market on March 5 to buy food.

He stated in a nine-page, hand-written lawsuit that he told the grocery sacker, a black man, “Wait a minute, don’t touch my groceries. I can’t have someone negroidal touch my food. It’s against my creed.”

Thomas claimed the cashier was “perplexed” by his request and yelled at him to take his items and leave.

In a telephone interview Wednesday, Thomas said, “It’s pretty simple. They treated me really bad because I told them it was against my creed.”

According to the lawsuit, Thomas went on to explain he meant a black person when he used the term “negroidal.”

. . . When Thomas returned two days later, he noticed the same black man would be sacking his groceries, so he again requested the “Negro” not handle his groceries, according to the lawsuit.

This time, Langston was there. He called police to serve Thomas a criminal trespass warning. While waiting for the police, an employee locked the doors, and the lawsuit claims Thomas was “unlawfully restrained.”

Thomas said Langston broke the law the night he locked him in the store.

“We were closing, and I don’t know of a business that doesn’t lock their doors when they close. It keeps more people from coming in,” Langston said.

Thomas said he doesn’t understand why he had to deal with the same situation twice.

“My question is, why after I told them how I felt and that it was against my creed did this negroid try to impress himself upon me and try to handle my groceries again.” Thomas said.

Thomas said his religious beliefs are based on Vedism, which he said encompasses Hinduism.

“Vedism translates into knowledge. I am not this way because I am ignorant. Ignorance is the enemy,” he said.

Thomas said he has not broken any laws and was exercising his religious freedom and the rights he has been

More here at the News Journal in Longview, TX.

'Porno Pete' LaBarbera getting hot and bothered over upcoming street fair

Oh mercy, it's that time again.

Time for your friend and mine, Porno Pete LaBarbera to fake shock and outrage over Folsom Street Fair.

And of course he doesn't disappoint:

Deviance and Folly of Liberal ‘Tolerance’

Nothing screams “Perversion!” like the annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, America’s first homosexual Mecca — where mostly homosexual men (and some “straights,” using that term loosely) party in the city’s streets — many in near- or total nudity. AFTAH has documented the unprecedented public perversions and nudity of this bizarre outdoor “fair,” as police stand idly by.  [See our photo-reports: Folsom 008 (part one); Folsom 2008 (part two); "Slavery Makes a Comeback" (Folsom 2008); "Up Your Ally" fair 2008; Folsom 2010 and  Folsom 2007.] Here is the link to the Folsom Street Fair website (warning: offensive material). Below is the 2012 poster for this well-attended sadomasochism and “sexual freedom” celebration, which demonstrates that for the liberal minded, there are few if any limits to “tolerance.” THIS is the depraved end game of the Sexual Revolution. (Click on image to enlarge.) – Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

I find it interesting how he attacks gays for this street fair while at the same time acknowledging that heterosexuals also attend and participate.

Oh well, I look at it as progress. In writings about past Folsom Street Fairs, LaBarbera was very reluctant to acknowledge heterosexual appearances there.

At any rate, I will say what I always say when Porno Pete starts on his fake outrage (which is extremely Freudian, seeing that he provides links to past "street reports" which he and his supporters "forced themselves" to view and talking about in lovingly long details):

I have never attended one of these nor do I have any desire to. So to generalize about the gay community because of those who attend this thing is like generalizing about heterosexuals because of  the straight men and women who attend the fair.

Although between you and me, if it was discovered that the committee behind Folsom was paying LaBarbera under the table to publicize this event, I wouldn't be shocked.

Video superbly refutes lies about marriage equality

Want a simple way to refute the lies about marriage equality? Check out this video from the Australian Marriage Equality Campaign. Send it to your friends and especially your favorite homophobes


Hat tip to ThinkProgress and Goodasyou.

'AFA:' Big gay' activists are going to hell' and other Monday midday news briefs

Buster Wilson Warns 'Big Gay' Activists That They Are Destined for Hell - First of all, what in the world is a "big gay" activist? Secondly, who designated a guy named "Buster" to send people to hell? I don't remember that verse in the Bible.

In other news: 

Woman Becomes First Openly Gay General - THIS is a pretty darned big deal! 

Paul Ryan Has Acted On Every Anti-Gay Belief Mitt Romney Has - Translation: the religious right will love Paul Ryan.

Anti-Gay Groups Officially Launch Campaign To Remove Pro-Equality Iowa Justice - Nothing says fairness like voting out a judge simply because you don't agree with his or her opinion.

Regnerus was approached to do anti-gay parenting study by Witherspoon Institute

Regnerus

A new article about the anti-gay parenting study created by University of Texas Mark Regnerus gave some new details about how the study came to being.

And these details should lead to more questions.

First, a little background

Earlier this year, Regnerus published a study which claimed that children in same-sex households face several problems. Conservatives and the religious right quickly lauded this study. But many others pointed out errors in the study's conclusion and methodology. In fact, over 200 professors and researchers signed a letter condemning it.

A chief complaint has been where Regnerus received his funding.  According to Wayne Besen of the group Truth Wins Out, the head of the study, Mark Regnerus, received a $695,000 grant from the Witherspoon Institute for the study

The Witherspoon Foundation is affiliated with Princeton professor Robert George. At the Witherspoon Foundation, he is a Herbert W. Vaughan Senior Fellow  George is also a founder and chairman emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage, an organization whose goal is to stop marriage equality.

Since Regnerus's study was published, NOM and the Witherspoon Institute has been pushing it steadily.  According to the Huffington Post, Maggie Gallagher, the former president of NOM and other groups associated with the organization have widely publicizing Regnerus' work:

Gallagher has been especially active in promoting the study, writing three posts about it on the website of the conservative National Review.  She penned a column for the conservative Town Hall under the headline, "The Gay Murphy Brown Effect."

Gallagher's Culture War Victory Fund, which was incubated at the American Principles Project, a group founded by Robert George in 2009, promoted the same articles that NOM did on its blog.

Another NOM-connected group, the Love and Fidelity Network, also promoted the study.

The Love and Fidelity Network shares an office with the Witherspoon Institute. Gallagher and George, the founders of NOM, are on the Network's advisory board. Luis Tellez, who founded the Witherspoon Institute with George, is also on the advisory board of the Love and Fidelity Network.

For its part, the Witherspoon Institute wrote a lengthy analysis of Regnerus' study under the headline, "The Kids Aren't All Right: New Family Structures and the 'No Differences' Claim."

The Witherspoon Institute also launched a website featuring Regnerus' data.

Regnerus has insisted that the study's funders had nothing to do with its outcome.  But this is where the new information comes in from The Statesman newspaper in Texas.

According to an article which appeared on Thursday, Regnerus was approached to do the study by a member of the Witherspoon Institute. This is noted at least two times in the article:

1. The Witherspoon Institute approached Regnerus, a sociologist, about doing a study on gay parenting and contributed about $700,000 to his project, according to Regnerus and Luis Tellez, president of the Princeton, N.J.-based institute. The Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee, supplied $90,000 for the work, according to Regnerus. The Bradley Foundation did not respond to requests for comment.

The grant — the largest the Witherspoon Institute has ever given for faculty research — came with no strings attached and no pressure for a particular outcome, Tellez says.

2. In the case of the Regnerus study, Witherspoon solicited Regnerus for the work, according to Tellez, the institute's president. Tellez said he sought money to help pay for the study from liberal philanthropists as well as Witherspoon's mostly socially conservative contributors. But no liberal individuals or groups gave money for the project, he said.

Regnerus, in an email to the Statesman, said, "the plan for the particular study that was carried out was generated by me, with the help of a variety of consultants."

Tellez said he approached Regnerus for the study because he had met the scholar at events sponsored by Witherspoon and found him to be "a darn good scholar, a careful scholar, (and) easy to work with."

"We knew that (the study) would probably, one way or the other, be a disappointment to some people. It would disappoint us, or donors, or people on our left," Tellez said, later adding, "We let the chips fall where they may."

Sorry but I have a hard time believing, in spite of the assurances, that the Witherspoon Institute, a conservative organization with a specific agenda, would approach someone to do a study and freely give what it calls "the largest grant given to faculty research" if it didn't have expectations of what it would be receiving.

Certain questions need to be asked of the parties involved in the creation of this study - specifically why did the Witherspoon Institute want to create such a study and what did it hope to accomplish?

Waaaaah! The gays are picking on me!!!

In the middle of the fest about Mitt Romney picking Paul Ryan, here is something we missed, but I'm sure the National Organization for Marriage won't.

Hold on to your hula hoops because this first paragraph is hilarious:

The gay movement is not a random assortment of motley rebels. It is highly organized, with major nerve centers in places like the Human Rights Coalition. The movement has its prominent generals, such as Dan Savage and Wayne Besen.

In other words, this is a movement equipped to pick its battles. In 1999, history was made because Vermont's high court legalized same-sex civil unions. The battle plan then could have been to focus on civil unions, forging a new model of romantic commitment in a nation where the old notion of "marriage" had long suffered from stasis.

That sounds like something coming from Bryan Fischer or Porno Pete LaBarbera, but guess who wrote that hilarious missive.

Oscar Robert Lopez, whom I wrote about earlier this week. Lopez is a self-described bisexual college professor who claims that he was raised in a same-sex household and that made his life difficult.

I don't have a problem with that. But what I do have a problem with is that Lopez is slowly but surely attempting to make himself the point man in what is becoming a quiet war waged against same-sex couples raising children.

In that same piece about his childhood, he vouched for a recent study on gay parenting that has come under fire for numerous errors.

The paragraph above (which insults me personally because I thought I was a general in the gay rights movement) is from a new piece he wrote claiming that the gay community is waging a war against him because of his earlier piece.

Without going into actual detail, Lopez channels Vanessa Redgrave when she played Mary of Scotland on the way to the chopping block:

Since my article came out, I have been through far worse than I ever thought would happen. My job is at risk, and worst of all, my coworkers received an e-mail from a gay rights organization with the title "COMPLAINT AGAINST CSUN'S ROBERT LOPEZ: GAY BASHER." Soon I got e-mails from administrators. People really investigate claims like this.

Gay basher?

What the heck has this movement come to?

For God's sake, I am a bisexual raised by a lesbian couple, who helped countless people dying of AIDS. I've spent my life cleaning up the messes left by gay politics. I wrote an honest essay. That's bashing?

The gay marriage movement has finally crossed the line into insanity. They must burn their own villages to save them from their phantasmal bullies. All the real things that gays could do to improve their real problems are right before their eyes: be humane to one another, forgive others, care for their most needy, and most of all, pick their battles. Support pro-life politicians and adopt foster kids saved from abortion. Vote for Republicans who believe in school vouchers, get bullied gays into safer schools... But they choose not to. They have dedicated themselves to a scorched-earth campaign for gay marriage.

In between giving command performances of Mary, Queen of Scots, Lopez goes into detail about his personal life. Let those who do such things ruminate. I won't.

I would rather point out how he generalizes about the gay community. I'm not saying that he is lying about his persecution claims, but I don't think that it's a part of a larger effort to silence him.

And the irony is that while he accuses the gay community of missing the larger picture, it is obvious that he is a little blind himself. He mentions several things that we could be doing instead of pushing for marriage equality. Allow me to point out just how clueless he is:

Lopez - Support pro-life politicians and adopt foster kids saved from abortion.

Reality - First of all, how many "pro-life" politicians do you know believe in the concept of gay equality? Secondly, gays and lesbians are already adopting children, period. However if those supporting Lopez have their way, we won't even be allowed to do this.

Lopez - Vote for Republicans who . . . get bullied gays into safer schools...

Reality - And how many Republicans will actually speak about bullied gay students. And also, where has Lopez been when GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) have been doing their job about bullying? Where was Lopez when Dan Savage began "It Gets Better."  I find it hard to believe that Lopez doesn't know about Savage's work seeing that he chose to name him as a "general" in the gay rights movement (yeah I'm still pissed about that).

Basically it come down to this - I don't know what Lopez is facing but him playing the victim seems to follow the familiar blueprint of religious right organizations and figures when the gay community reacts to them calling us out.

I'm certainly not in favor of his job being in jeopardy (IF this is the case), nor am I in favor of name-calling, but the bottom line is this:

Don't screw with our families and expect us not to react.
 

Did NOM's anti-gay pastor lie about involvement in Civil Rights Movement?

Rev. William Owens

Know Your LGBT History has been postponed this week because of this HOT piece from the Huffington Post.

And the hits keep coming at CAAP (the Coalition of African-American Pastors), the astroturf group of black pastors that the National Organization for Marriage is using in an attempt to sabotage President Obama's African-American support as a part of its wedge strategy.

Earlier today, we learned that CAAP had received monies from anti-gay hate groups such as the Family Research Council and the American Family Association.

But now, via the Huffington Post, comes the explosive possibility that the leader of CAAP, William Owens, may have been lying about his history as a civil rights leader:

Owens, who runs a group called the Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP), has claimed that he participated in protests and sit-ins in Nashville in the late 1950s. “I didn’t march one inch, one foot, one yard, for a man to marry a man, and a woman to marry a woman,” he said during a news conference last week at the National Press Club.

. . . But Adam Serwer of Mother Jones spoke to several prominent civil rights leaders who were involved in organizing the Nashville sit-ins and who said they have no recollection of Owens. A librarian at the Nashville Public Library, which maintains an extensive library on the sit-ins and protests, could find no mention of Owens either, outside of a 2004 interview that Owens himself gave with the library in which he said he was involved. 

Here are more details from the Mother Jones article linked in the Huffington Post:

Rev. C.T. Vivian, an ally of Martin Luther King Jr. who helped organize the Nashville sit-ins and who is now president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said he did not recall crossing paths with Owens. Rev. James Lawson, the famed practitioner of non-violence who trained the sit-in activists, did not remember Owens either. The same goes for Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), one of the major student leaders in the Nashville sit-in movement who went on to lead the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

The only evidence Mother Jones could find of Owens' involvement in the Nashville civil rights movement was at the Nashville Public Library, which maintains an extensive collection of historical materials on the subject. In 2004, the library conducted a 60-minute interview with Owens, in which he describes his role during that era. Other than attending some activist meetings, the only protest he mentioned participating in was the picketing of the drug store where he once worked, according to Jennifer Quire, the Nashville Public Library's educational outreach librarian, who handles the civil rights oral history project and who reviewed the tape for Mother Jones. Even this could have been something of a fluke: Owens told Quire he came across the drugstore being picketed and held up a sign to show his solidarity with the protesters. "There definitely was no leadership role, certainly not on the level of James Lawson or Diane Nash or anything like that," Quire says. (Owens did not respond to repeated queries about his civil rights role in Nashville, including a detailed request concerning his oral history interview with the Nashville library.)

In addition, that same article reveals that Owens' group, CAAP, is in fact receiving funding from NOM.

It's up to Owens to fill in the blanks, but most likely he won't.

I don't think it takes a palm reader to guess that Owens will play the victim. He will probably claim that there is a plot underfoot to undermine him because CAAP's protest is resonating.

Let me kill that lie right now.

CAAP's protest is not resonating and this is not a plot to undermine Owens.

What's going on is a bit of truth-telling.

Owens and his cohorts should try it sometime.

'Black pastor group received money from anti-gay hate groups' and other Friday midday news briefs

Black pastors group has deep conservative ties, records show - Surprise, surprise! That supposedly non-biased group of pastors (CAAP, led by Rev. William Owens) attempting to get the black community to withhold its vote from President Obama because of his support of marriage equality has a history that it failed to mention. USA Today gives the scoop, including the following choice tidbits:

Frank Cannon, head of the American Principles Project, a group opposed to same-sex marriage, confirms his group's political action fund is paying public relations firm Shirley & Banister to assist CAAP's communications strategy.

CAAP received loans totaling $26,000 in 2004 from the conservative Family Research Council, American Family Association and Mississippi Tea Party activist Ed Holliday, according to its IRS filings.

Owens, . . . endorsed 2008 GOP presidential contender Mike Huckabee and Ohio GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell.

Remember that the Southern Poverty Law Center has declared the American Family Association and the Family Research Council to be hate groups because of the lies they spread about the gay community.

In other news: 

 Thanks for taking my call, Bryan; long time listener, first time stalker - My blogging buddy Jeremy Hooper has crazy Bryan Fischer on the run.  

Washington State Bishop: Oppose Marriage Equality To Keep Heterosexuality Special - Well now I have heard EVERYTHING!

 Restored Hope Ex-Gay Network Will Not Oppose Criminalization Of Homosexuality - Well that makes me feel special.

 Anti-Gay Ex-Michigan Attorney Taken to Court - Oh mercy! Andrew Shrivell again! 

Anti-gay General Mills arsonist gets schooled by Alan Colmes

That crazy man who set fire to cereal at General Mills (to protest the company's support of gay equality) was recently interviewed by Alan Colmes.

While I despise giving any certifiable nut 15 minutes of fame, I think this interview is important because it illustrates just how ignorant some people are when it comes to actually knowing the Bible.

Colmes practically hands this man his ass and no, I don't want to know why gays like Cheerios.

Street preacher threatens woman with rape during gay pride celebration

Religious right organizations have fought in court to allow folks to disrupt Pride celebrations by protesting and such so I wonder how they feel about the following (I apologize for the language):

Police in Grand Rapids, Michigan say that there was nothing they could do after Bible-preaching protesters threatened to rape and murder pro-LGBT activists at a “Gay Day” event over the weekend.

In a video posted to YouTube, several protesters with Bibles can be seen shouting at a woman celebrating in the inaugural “Gay Day” celebration, an event organized by the human rights group Tolerance, Equality and Awareness Movement (TEAM) to showcase the community’s diversity.

“Back in the day there was no free power, there was no going to the mall,” one protester tells the woman. “There was, ‘sit your ass in this house until I bring my ass home.’”

“And if your ass get to going out there like you said, guess what?” a second protester adds. “You get raped. And that’s what’s going to happen to you. … Keep your pussy clean, that’s all you need to do. Do you understand?”

After one man claims, “the Lord said that,” the woman challenges him to find the corresponding Bible verse.

He responds with Isaiah 13: “Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.”

“What does ‘ravished’ mean? It means, we going to rape your ass,” the protester explains. “And I’m going to have fun doing that shit. And you going to like that. I promise you.”

After briefly arguing that he is misinterpreting the Bible, the woman observes, “Anything I say, you say it doesn’t matter.”

“It’s going to matter right now,” the man shoots back. “It’s going to matter when your clothes off and I’m going inside of you repeatedly. That’s when it’s going to matter. Because you going to enjoy yourself.”

. . . WWMT reported that the men were part of a Christian black supremacist group called the Black Hebrew Israelites. According to the South Poverty Law Center, the quickly spreading movement preaches “a frightening, racist theology that says Jesus Christ is returning soon to kill or enslave white people, Jews, homosexuals, and others.”

Certain cultures practice “corrective rape” to “correct” the sexual orientation of Lesbian women.

More here at Raw Story.

Just want to be clear about something - This is NOT a black/white issue but a crazy vs. sane issue.

'NOM paid black minister $20,000 to oppose marriage equality' and other Thursday midday news briefs

"You Can't Equate Your Sin With My Skin" Will the National Organization for Marriage's plan to pit blacks versus gays work? - Awesome article by Mother Jones magazine on NOM's attempt to play the black and gay communities against one another. It includes an explosive revelation about the relationship between NOM and Harry Jackson, a pastor whom People for the American Way called the point man for the religious right's attempt to exploit the black community:

 Jackson is exactly the kind of African American spokesperson the NOM memo envisions. "There's been a hijacking of the civil rights movement by the radical gay movement," he said on CNN after backing California's Proposition 8 in 2008. "You can't equate your sin with my skin." He has received $20,000 from NOM's education fund and has rallied support for same-sex marriage bans in Florida and Washington, DC, where he joined Councilmember Marion Barry to oppose a marriage equality bill in 2009.

Don't be nonchalant about this, folks because it fills a missing piece of the puzzle. I have long suspected black ministers who are teaming up with NOM aren't doing it solely for their religious beliefs. This revelation about Jackson begs the question just what other black ministers does NOM have on it's payroll. And I would also be remiss if I didn't state the obvious - these ministers are betraying their own people.

And in just in case you need another reminder about Jackson, he is the same man who recently claimed that gays are trying to recruit children and conservative Christians need to "steal back the rainbow:"



 In other news:

 About that writer the far-right is trying to contrast with Zach Wahls... - You know that college professor from the same-sex household I talked about this morning? The one NOM is using to denigrate same-sex families? Jeremy Hooper found out some interesting stuff about him.

 Vanderbilt University Employee Caught Trashing LGBT Newspaper - This is a hot mess!


 

Anti-gay group finds new person to attack same-sex families

Earlier this year, the National Organization for Marriage got into trouble for secret documents outlining a strategy of playing the black and gay community like pawns over the subject of marriage equality.

NOM deserved all of the trouble it got for this. However, in those same confidential documents is another strategy which seems to be now coming to fruition.  

Equality Matters points this out:

NOM Intentionally Seeks Out Children Of Same-Sex Parents.  . . .  According to the organization’s internal documents, NOM planned to spend $60,000 in 2010 alone to try to get the children of same-sex couples to speak on camera: 

I think it's safe to say that NOM has its spokesperson.

Robert Oscar Lopez, a self-described bisexual English professor, has just published a piece in the Witherspoon Institute publication Public Discourse called Growing Up With Two Moms: The Untold Children’s View in which he detailed growing up in a same-sex household.

He does not go into detail about his childhood, but the gist is it is tough growing up in a same-sex household. For his candor on this aspect, I don't fault him. Growing up in marginalized household, be it a same-sex household or a single-parent household is tough.

But what I do fault Lopez for is how he puts down his own family

By citing his childhood, Lopez attempts to give credibility to a recent study on same-sex households which has been criticized for its lack of good science.

This study, by Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, was in part paid for by the Witherspoon Institute, the same organization in whose publication Lopez's piece appears in.

How very convenient.

Lopez says the following about the study:

Mark Regnerus deserves tremendous credit—and the gay community ought to be crediting him rather than trying to silence him.

Regnerus’s study identified 248 adult children of parents who had same-sex romantic relationships. Offered a chance to provide frank responses with the hindsight of adulthood, they gave reports unfavorable to the gay marriage equality agenda. Yet the results are backed up by an important thing in life called common sense: Growing up different from other people is difficult and the difficulties raise the risk that children will develop maladjustments or self-medicate with alcohol and other dangerous behaviors. Each of those 248 is a human story, no doubt with many complexities.

Lopez's words are probably irrelevant.  He is really a symbol.
Or, for lack of a better word, a pawn.

The fact that he is a product of a same-sex household whose words can be used to discredit those households is the important factor here.

And don't think NOM is wasting this opportunity.

Already NOM's former president, Maggie Gallagher, is citing Lopez in a column:

In mediaworld, gay marriage activists are all ordinary loving couples who seek nothing more than to be left alone to snuggle as they choose, and opposing gay marriage is "controversial" for a business executive.

. . . Professor Robert Oscar Lopez, a self-identified Latino bisexual professor of English raised by two lesbian moms, wrote an essay praising professor Mark Regnerus' study on the subject.

Children with a gay parent, Lopez says, are typically kids like him, the product of a previous heterosexual relationship. By declaring the children of "bisexuals" off limits, critics of Regnerus are seeking to shut out the voices of the majority of children with a gay parent, Lopez says, the voices of people like him

He went on to say that Regnerus "deserves tremendous credit -- and the gay community ought to be crediting him rather than trying to silence him."

 It is not known whether or not Lopez is receiving compensation for his "story."  As it is, I really don't care.

The only question I have now is how long will it take before Lopez will be appearing on Fox News.
 

Call out a phony anti-gay study and you are a Nazi

Mark Regnerus' bad study continues to cause chaos.

And yet another person has risen to defend Mark Regnerus' fraudulent study on gay parenting.

Karl D. Stephan, a professor of electrical engineering (you read that right) has published a piece in the Crisis magazine lambasting the critics of Regenrus' study and claiming that Regnerus is being personally attacked because he supposedly dared to publish a politically incorrect study.

And to do so, he even invokes images of Nazi Germany and its persecution of Jewish people:

In the 1930s, many prominent scientists and engineers in Germany lost their reputations, their jobs, and some eventually their lives because of a non-scientific reason: they happened to be Jews, or outspoken Christians, or simply opposed to some political aim of the government. Everyone now agrees that this was a grievous violation of human rights, an early warning sign of the greater wrongs the German government would do in World War II. While that situation differs from the one Regnerus finds himself in by degree, does it differ in kind from what Jewish scientists suffered in Germany in the 1930s?

Regnerus has reached scientific conclusions that oppose the prevailing political winds. Though his punishment has come from activists rather than official government sources, it is no less politically motivated and no less unjust. Smith thinks the integrity of the social-science research process is threatened by the “public smearing and vigilante media attacks” mounted against Regnerus. If such attacks are successful, we have taken a long step away from scientific integrity and a long step toward the encouragement of a political atmosphere that is totalitarian in its effects.

It probably would have been better had Stefan had just addressed the reasons why folks are questioning Regnerus' work. He briefly talks about it in this mind-boggling paragraph in which he pretty much says he isn't going to address the study's errors:

Regnerus’s study, which he himself admits is not perfect, found otherwise. There were significant negative consequences of being raised by parents who were gay, according to the study. I am not going to address the controversial question of defining “gay” or how extensive the negative consequences were or how accurate and scientific the study was.

Stefan then attempts to make it seem that he is merely criticizing the process in which the peer-review of the study was attacked:

A journalist and self-described “minorities anti-defamation professional” whose pseudonym is Scott Rose wrote a letter to the University of Texas administration alleging that Regnerus’s paper falsified data. This is the most serious professional charge that anyone can level against a scientist, comparable to a malpractice charge against a doctor.

The first wrongdoing (as I pointed out in a letter published in the Austin American-Statesman) was for UT Austin to act on such complaints from a person who was not in a competent professional position to make such assessments. Scott Rose is not a sociologist. Rose has since published the full “evidence” he plans to present to UT Austin, and it consists of two kinds of arguments. One kind comprises disputes over methods and definitions that Regnerus used. If Rose had been selected as a reviewer of Regnerus’s paper, these arguments might have played a role at that point. But Rose, not being a qualified sociologist, has no professional standing to make them, and they must be assessed on their merits by other professional sociologists.

Scott Rose is a free-lance writer who has been calling out Regnerus' study from day one. He is probably the one most singularly responsible for a lot of the negative attention it has been receiving.

However, in calling his name, Stefan makes an error. He makes it seem that Rose is the only person responsible for Regnerus' study being criticized. This is not true.

In June, over 200 professors and therapists sent a letter to James Wright, editor of “Social Science Research,” the journal where Regnerus’s study was published, questioning the study and the process in which it was reviewed.

And it's not as if Stefan isn't aware of the letter. He even acknowledges it in an offhand way:

I have not even mentioned the press coverage with derogatory headlines, the letter signed by over a hundred sociologists objecting to Regnerus’s conclusions, and the politically motivated letter-mobbing of the journal’s editor, James Wright, which pressured him to request the review audit.

Furthermore, Stefan omits the other experts (pointed out by Equality Matters) who has condemned Regnerus' study.

 The grand irony of Stefan's sad defense of Regnerus' work is that he cites another defense of the study from sociologist Christian Smith. In his piece, Smith didn't even address the study's errors. Instead, just like Stefan, he attempted to make Regnerus a victim.

But at least he didn't have the poor taste to imply that Regnerus' critics were just like Nazis persecuting Jews.

What's that saying about if you have to invoke Nazis to describe your opponents, that's a sure sign that you have lost the argument?

'What gays have to deal with on a daily basis' and other Wednesday midday news briefs

The news briefs today are dedicated to the crap that gays are subjected to on a daily basis and it is directed at people who can't seem to understand why we at times get angrier than most folks:

 Bryan Fischer: Children Of Same-Sex Couples Must Be Saved Through ‘Underground Railroad’ Kidnapping - Real classy as usual, Bryan Fischer. People who don't understand gay anger can't seem to realize that we hear crap like this on a daily basis.  

Just an FYI to Minnesota For Marriage (subject: stock photo bride) - Speaking of which, check out what this woman says. It comes straight out of a religious right text. 

 Staver & Barber Say Democratic Platform Supporting Marriage Equality will Lead to Christian Persecution - Lies and more lies.

NCLR Responds to Indianapolis Public Schools Termination of Expulsion of Bullied Gay Student - This gay student was expelled for defending himself against bullies and then done dirty by the school district. 

NOM Is Still Protesting General Mills, Now For Supporting Healthy Living - Of course if gays were healthy, then the religious right would have nothing to kick about. 

Call out CAAP for its attempt to divide the black and gay communities

Bill Owens - NOM's tool

As I have pointed out in numerous posts, there is a plot to sabotage President Obama's support in the black community.

The Coalition of African-American Pastors (CAAP) is demanding that members of the black community withhold their votes from President Obama until he no longer supports marriage equality.

However, CAAP is merely a shell group which seems to be backed by the National Organization for Marriage, an anti-gay group who is endorsing Obama's opponent, Mitt Romney.

Tuan N'Gai is concerned about this situation and he has created a petition calling about CAAP for its actions:

Stop the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) from dividing the Black Community and splitting the Black vote. Now is the time for justice and unity.

Instead of uniting the Black Community to fight against Voter ID/Suppression laws, drugs, violent crimes, lack of education, high unemployment and the disproportionate number of Black men in the prison system, the Coalition of African American Pastors (CAAP) is rallying for 100,000 signatures on a petition to stand against President Obama in this election because of his personal views on marriage equality. We must stop allowing our community to be divided over our diversity, and focus on those things that make us the same. Equality has never hurt anyone, it only makes us stronger.

I have already signed it and anyone else interested in calling out CAAP should sign it.  There is also a section to leave comments. I would suggest that you say succinctly why you feel about CAAP's efforts.

Bet succinct. But above all, be polite, direct, and to the point.