Remember when John McCain and FRC claimed the repeal of DADT would be the end of the world?

No locusts.

Military leaders and gay and lesbian service members say the year that has passed since the repeal took effect has been remarkable for what hasn’t happened. Recruitment and retention have not fallen off as some opponents of the repeal predicted they would. Harassment of homosexual troops has not significantly increased. Unit cohesion has not suffered.

In fact, some veterans who left the military under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” have rejoined. And some active-duty soldiers say cohesion has improved in their units, because people no longer have to completely guard their personal lives.

“Basically, there’s been no change in the way we do business,” says Troy Rolan, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon. “All our soldiers, they’re soldiers – regardless of who or what they are. They’re professionals. They do what they need to do to make sure everybody’s taken care of.”

I suspect that the religious right won't pay a price, in terms of their credibility, for claiming that all sorts of horrible things would happen if we repealed DADT. John McCain and other military "experts" claimed the same. And they were all wrong.

Marine Corps Times has an AP story up about how absolutely nothing has changed.

The Pentagon says repeal has gone smoothly, with no adverse effect on morale, recruitment or readiness. President Obama cites it as a signature achievement of his first term, and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, says he would not push to reverse the change if elected in place of Obama.

Some critics persist with complaints that repeal has infringed on service members whose religious faiths condemn homosexuality. Instances of anti-gay harassment have not ended. And activists are frustrated that gay and lesbian military families don’t yet enjoy the benefits and services extended to other military families.

Yet the clear consensus is that repeal has produced far more joy and relief than dismay and indignation. There’s vivid evidence in photographs that have rocketed across cyberspace, such as the military contingent marching in San Diego’s gay pride parade and Marine Sgt. Brandon Morgan leaping into the arms of his boyfriend after returning from six months in Afghanistan.

Let's revisit. First McCain:

"I hope that when we pass this legislation that we will understand that we are doing great damage," said the four-term incumbent before the vote, according to ABC News. "Today is a very sad day."

Great damage. So great, no one can find it.  But the lack of any evidence of harm is actually proof that it exists, if you listen to the officially designated hate group, the Family Research Council:

FRC will continue to monitor the consequences of this reversal of 236 years of American military policy, limit the damage–and demand that the Defense Department do the same. Expect to see celebrations from homosexual groups and fawning stories in the media about how “the sky has not fallen.” That’s only because there will be no press releases from the new victims of sexual harassment or assault, the soldiers exposed to HIV-tainted blood, the thousands of servicemembers who choose not to reenlist rather than forfeit their freedom of speech and religion, and the untold number of citizens who choose never to join the military. It’s clear this President is more interested in appeasing sexual revolutionaries than in fighting America’s enemies.

See how good they are? The proof that all of these bad things are happening is the fact that no one is hearing about any of them.  Bra-vo, sir.

And they object to being called a hate group. Read the rest of this post...

Ann Romney booked for gay-bashing hate-group conference

So much for Mrs. Romney being Mitt's "human" side. Now she's his dehumanizing side.

This is all part of Romney's new embrace of his Mormonism, something he basically hid (in a political sense) up until now.

Romney is trying to convince evangelicals, and voters generally, that he's a Christian too. Except that of late, Romney's version of "Christianity" has only been the wacky-crazy hateful Christianity of wife-beating advocate Pat Robertson and now officially-designated hate groups.

Then again, Mormons know a thing or two about hate and bigotry.  They were openly racist towards blacks until well into the 70s, when their God suddenly changed his mind about finding blacks inferior only after an economic boycott of BYU's sports teams.  Apparently, the racism lingers to today.

The Mormons are also notoriously homophobic, for decades now regularly spending large sums of money in order to oppress gay people and force them to live under Mormon religious edicts.

So it's no surprise in principle that Mrs. Romney, as a member of a faith that treats blacks as inferior, and hates gays, is attending a conference sponsored by three officially designated hate groups.

Though this definitely marks a turning point where Mrs. Romney is no longer the kinder-and-gentler Mitt.  If she's going to attend gay-bashing hate group conferences, then she's as much of a hate-monger and hate-enabler as her ever-flip-flopping and confused husband. Read the rest of this post...

B-list hate groups take advg of FRC shooting to get gays kicked off TV

One guy walked into a religious right organization with a gun, shot one man in an arm, and now America is no longer safe for bigoted right wingers.

The shooting was inexcusable, but give me a break.

The latest effort to take political advantage of the shooting came today when a number of officially designated hate groups - including one that claims gays were the real people behind the Holocaust - called on Fox News to stop having gay rights advocate Wayne Besen on their show because Wayne is mean to people who call him a pedophile.

Last time I checked, Wayne never accused any of these groups of being behind the Holocaust, or being pedophiles.

What's particularly interesting are two things:

1. The groups use the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, who defended FRC's hate and now is apparently a darling of religious right anti-gay activism.

2. No national religious right groups signed the letter.  One of the local groups that signed even had two different employees sign, upping the numbers of signatories.

Karen Ocamb has the rest of the story. Read the rest of this post...

Was the KKK's only mistake not opening an office on K Street?

MetroWeekly editor Sean Bugg has a great article up about Washington Post writer Dana Milbank's opposition over the Family Research Council being labeled a "hate group":

So, into this wades Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, who set off a firestorm with a column denouncing LGBT groups for calling FRC a ''hate group.'' It's not hard to compress Milbank's argument, because it's not much of one: Because FRC is a ''mainstream conservative think tank'' it can't be a hate group because it's not the Ku Klux Klan. Apparently, only people who wear a white hood and brandish a swastika can be labeled ''hateful.''

Unless, perhaps, the KKK opens an office on K Street, in which case we would need to begin carefully considering their policy proposals.

My earlier response to Milbank here.

And here's Mike Signorile reporting on his interview with Dana Milbank on Tuesday. Read the rest of this post...

Buzzfeed: FRC hate group wrote anti-gay language in GOP platform

You have to give the Republicans props for consistency.  Letting an anti-gay officially-designate hate group write anti-gay language into the GOP platform.  From Buzzfeed:

Family Research Council president Tony Perkins told BuzzFeed: “You should read the entire plank on marriage, which I wrote. I feel very happy about it. I feel pretty optimistic about the outcome here.”

Calling out "an activist judiciary," the draft document blasts "court-ordered redefinition of marriage" before taking on the Obama administration.

"We oppose the Administration's open defiance of this principle [of separation of powers] — in its handling of immigration cases, in federal personnel benefits, in allowing a same-sex marriage at a military base, and in refusing to defend DOMA in the courts," the draft states.

Finally, after praising the benefits of marriage, the draft documents state, "[W]e believe that marriage, the union of one man and one woman must be upheld as the national standard, a goal to stand for, encourage, and promote through laws governing marriage."

And nice of the FRC to take a swipe at "activist judges" when the extent of GOP anti-judge language has in the past raised concerns about it motivating violence against judges - and that concern came from none other than GOP former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

I guess the Family Research Council is no longer so concerned about extremist rhetoric inciting violence.

Or perhaps they never really were. Read the rest of this post...

HRC op ed in Washington Post: FRC is a hate group

Good job by HRC, and its new head, Chad Griffin.  HRC enters the fray and lays down the line that the FRC is a hate group, period - and no amount of lies (or crazy one-time shooters) will change that fact. From Chad Griffin in the Washington Post:

Designating the Family Research Council a hate group has nothing to do with disagreements about marriage equality, nondiscrimination laws or any other policy debate. The real issue is the Family Research Council’s well-documented and continuous pattern of hateful rhetoric.

Linking gay people to pedophiles is hateful. Consider Perkins’s words from 2010: “While activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two. . . . It is a homosexual problem.”

Calling for the expulsion of gays from this country is hateful, as is arguing for making homosexuality a crime. In March 2008, a senior fellow for policy studies at the council, Peter Sprigg, said of uniting gay partners through immigration: “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than import them.” He later apologized but in 2009 told an interviewer, “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior.”

Using junk-science to spread propaganda about LGBT people is hateful — as Sprigg does when he says in his 2010 pamphlet “The Top Ten Myths about Homosexuality” that gay men and lesbians can change their sexual orientation.

Now, a word about why this piece is important.

The FRC and the Traditional Values Coalition, among others, continue to hyperventilate about an understandably upsetting incident last week in which some guy walked into FRC headquarters and shot a security guard in the arm. FRC is convinced that the Southern Poverty Law Center is to blame for the shooting since the SPLC had the nerve to call out the FRC for its decades of defamation against the gay, lesbian and trans communities. Of course, FRC also blamed the shooting on President Obama, so any credibility they had on this issue (which was nil to start with) went out with the window with that bit of nuttiness.

TVC went even further yesterday and claimed, falsely, that the SPLC threatened TVC with violence, while offering "proof" that showed the opposite. As "proof," TVC quote a letter the SPLC wrote to TVC in which the SPLC didn't threaten anything at all, and in fact was talking about the threat the far right's anti-gay lies pose to gay people as potential victims of violence.

I'd say it was beyond bizarre that the TVC made this absurd claim, and then had the gumption to offer up "evidence" that proved its claim false, but this is what makes a hate group a hate group.  Their intentional defamation of an entire class of people in order to further subjugate, and harm, that people.  So we should all really thank the TVC for helping make the case that it, and the FRC, truly are hate groups.

And one final word.  A few are asking why we're writing about this at all.  Because as John Kerry can tell you about his war medals, or the President can tell you about death panels, you need to be awfully careful about letting a right-wing lie lay there unchallenged.  If you're not careful, it can quickly become truth and be used against you.

Clearly the religious right has seen this shooting as an opportunity to gin up increased hatred of gays and the left generally, so it's important to have a written record proving that their lies are just that, lies. Read the rest of this post...

Hate group #2, TVC, is fundraising off of nut who got arrested at FRC HQ

There's a reason these folks have all been designated hate groups. It's because of their willingness to defame at the drop of a hat.  Using lies as a matter of policy.  And, sadly, they're very good at it.

And now the Traditional Values Coalition, a group even nuttier than the Family Research Council, is not only claiming that the guy who got arrested at the Family Research Council was coming for them next, but TVC is now claiming - falsely (as if I had to tell you that) - that the Southern Poverty Law Center threatened them with violence.

Then they go and quote something the SPLC said that doesn't even vaguely mention any violence happening to TVC at all.  Zero.  It's really quite appalling.  And typical.  From a group that specializes in defamation.  I'm going to quote TVC's fundraising email at length.  Keep in mind as you read it that for the first time in memory, rather than an anti-gay harming someone gay, for the first time I can think of, someone "maybe gay" tried to harm some folks on the right.

One time.  A guy with a gun made a seemingly half-assed effort to do something at the FRC, and the TVC is now talking about how we simply must help them take the country back from left-wing violence.

Yes, the epidemic of left-wing violence involves one single incident of some guy who we have no idea what his politics are, or orientation for that matter, or religion, shooting a security guard in the arm.  That's it.  A terrible thing being shot in the arm.  But hardly an epidemic of left wing violence.  Need any more explanation as to why these groups are labeled "hate groups"? 

Now read TVC's email - I'm leaving out the fundraising part because I don't plan on helping them:

From: "Andrea Lafferty" grassroots@traditionalvalues.org
Date: August 20, 2012
Subject: TVC Target of Shooter
Reply-To: "Andrea Lafferty" grassroots@traditionalvalues.org

It's been 5 days since the FRC shooting, and the alarming news that Traditional Values Coalition was next still hasn't quite sunk in with staff.

...but I do want to let our steadfast TVC supporters know that we are all OK.

Here are the facts as we have them so far:
The day after the shooting, the FBI stopped by the office. FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force visited the office the next day to interview staff and called me personally Friday morning while I was on travel.
In an off-the-record conversation with law enforcement personnel, I was informed this psychopath had our address in his front pocket and that "if he had gotten out of FRC alive he was headed to TVC's office next."
Immediately, I contacted the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force and confirmed the unthinkable: Traditional Values Coalition was a target.
TVC asked the U.S. Justice Department for increased security, not knowing whether or not the shooter had acted independently or was part of a larger terror cell (as is typical in many cases of domestic terrorism).

After being transferred to the U.S. Attorney for the Washington D.C. area, we were blown off and told to contact D.C. police.

Just like that.

This isn't the first time this has happened where TVC has been the victim of serious threats and the FBI has refused to act.

Now if this had someone sending bacon to a mosque, a "hate crime" would have been reported and the Justice Department would have immediately dispatched an army of attorneys and established an immediate surveillance perimeter.

But this wasn't a mosque.
Or an abortion clinic.
Or a gay nightclub.

...this was Traditional Values Coalition. Once again, Christians take a back seat.

Is this is to be expected from an Obama Administration and a U.S. Justice Department that has been overtly hostile to Christian organizations? Sadly yes, America. We've come to that point now.

The scariest part? TVC can't afford security guards. The only thing that prevented this event from becoming a tragedy was the fact that Floyd Lee Corkins II didn't target TVC first.

What's causing this left-wing violence against Christian groups? The Southern Poverty Law Center.

For years, SPLC has listed mainstream Christian groups such as Traditional Values Coalition as "hate groups" for standing up for marriage as a covenant between one man and one woman, and exposing SPLC for comparing Baptists and Pentacostals with white supremacists.

Because we've stood up for Christian values in the public square, Traditional Values Coalition and a host of other Christian groups have had to tolerate being listed has hate groups on par with the Aryan Nation and the Ku Klux Klan.

The only two organizations in Washington the SPLC designated as "hate groups" on their list? Family Research Council and Traditional Values Coalition.

In fact, the SPLC knew that their designation of TVC (and others) as "hate groups" would inspire the sort of violence we saw on Wednesday. In a December 16th, 2010 letter to this office, the SPLC's J. Richard Cohen leveled this threat:
"You might disagree with our hate group designations. But it's hard for us to believe that you would "stand in solidarity," as the December 15th statement says, with organizations that knowingly spread demeaning lies like the ones we've outlined above. FBI data demonstrate that gay men and lesbians are, by far, the most likely group to be victimized by violent hate crimes. Spreading demonizing propaganda about them obviously does not help the situation."
What situation? Violence.

The implication? That this "violence" would be revisited upon Christian groups, organizations and charities.

It happened just like the SPLC promised it would, didn't it?
(emphasis added)

Uh, no it didn't. SPLC was clearly, on its face, talking about "gay men and lesbians" being "victimized by violent hate crimes." And, if anything, SPLC suggesting that TVC's lies about gays might inspire violence against gays.

There was no implication whatsoever that "this 'violence' would be revisited upon Christian groups." That's just an utter lie. And it's a pretty bad one, considering TVC was dumb enough to quote the "proof" of the supposed threat, which proves that TVC is lying.

Seriously shameless people.

I'd also like to take exception to Ms. Lafferty constantly reference to Christians, as though this was an anti-Christian crime.  First off, they're not Christian groups.  These guys are political lobbyists and activists.  We've seen no evidence so far that suggests that the "shooter" was out to kill "Christians."  None.

Oh but it goes on:

Now you see why Christian groups have been so concerned.

First they targeted Chick-fil-A for standing up for marriage.  Now left-wing violence is coming for organizations like Family Research Council and Traditional Values Coalition.

Obama was right: “If they bring a knife to a fight, we bring a gun.”

They brought a gun last Wednesday.

We can only match it with prayers.

Prayers, and a redoubling of our efforts to take this great nation of ours back from left-wing violence.

"Targeted" Chick-fil-A? Uh, so now voicing opposition to a corporation that donates millions to far right politics, and holding peaceful protests in front of its place of business, is akin to "terrorism"? Right, Andrea. Second, she says that Chick-fil-A suffered "left-wing violence"? When did that happen? But she says it right there in her email, that first they used violence against Chick-fil-A and "now" the violence is coming for FRC and TVC.

Again, what violence was that, Andrea?

And I'm sorry, but that last line is utterly laughable - take this great nation of ours back from left-wing violence? A guy walked into an office and shot a security guard in the arm. A terrible thing, but not exactly on par with September 11, the regular mass shootings we have, usually by some right wing nut, the abortion clinic bombings and shootings (again by religious right nuts), the gay-bashings (by anti-gay nuts), or even the weekly homicides we have in every American city.

One incident of a single security guard getting shot in the arm is now a nationwide problem of left-wing violence. Except you'll note that Andrea doesn't mention any other examples of left-wing violence she's taking our country back from. Only one.  And the violence was a man being shot in the arm.

Once again, they ask why they've been labeled hate groups. Read the rest of this post...

Signorile challenges FRC's Perkins to a debate

Mike Signorile:

The FRC has distributed a pamphlet that shows gay men and lesbians, falsely, as physically and mentally ill pedophiles who can be cured, and another that begins by likening same-sex marriage to man-horse marriage (and uses a horse graphic). Robert Knight, FRC director of cultural studies, said in 1999, "Gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement," and an FRC pamphlet from that year, titled "Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex with Boys," states, "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." In 2002 Timothy Dailey, FRC senior research fellow, wrote a paper titled "Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse," in which he claimed, "The evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners."

These claims are reckless, Mr. Perkins, because they defame an entire group. All the claims about child abuse have been thoroughly discredited by scholars, law enforcement officials, social scientists, and reputable medical and mental health associations. This is what got you designated as a hate group, not your opposition to same-sex marriage.

But maybe we are misunderstanding you. Maybe you have incontrovertible proof behind these and many other claims. Maybe you can convince me that the hate group label is unfair, or maybe I can convince you that some or all of these claims are erroneous. Or perhaps we will each realize that we've misunderstood one another in some ways. So I'm asking you here and now to engage with me in a civil public discussion to debate these and other claims and to talk about hate. We can do it here on HuffPost, or on my radio program on SiriusXM.

Read the rest of this post...

"FRC's own activities are what brought this down on them"

From a post I just put up on the main site (this is just a snippet of the entire post):

The Family Research Council has decided to treat this tragedy as yet another opportunity to defame its victims. First, they blamed the shooting on the Southern Poverty Law Center for standing up to the Family Research Council's decades of hate and defamation against gay and trans people. Then they went so far as to blame President Obama for the shooting.

Since the FRC has been shameless in playing the blame game in an attempt to milk this tragedy for political benefit, then so be it. Let's do what they're demanding we do, and talk about whose rhetoric is to blame for the shooting.

The Family Research Council has claimed for 20 years that gay men are after America's children - either to convert said children into a Satanic lifestyle of emptiness, disease and death; or we simply want to rape the kids, a lot.

Now, I'm not a parent, but I am an uncle. And if I met someone who wanted to rape, or kill, my nieces and nephews, God help him. That's all I'll say on the matter. The suggestion that such language might not inspire violence in the defense of children is ludicrous.

The Family Research Council, and more generally the anti-gay right, can't have it both ways. Either words can incite violence or they can't. Falsely labeling someone a bad person can either provoke violence, or it can't. The FRC would have us believe that our admonitions incite violence but theirs couldn't.

But if words can incite violence, then it's fair to examine all the words of all the parties to the dispute, not just the words of one side.

And if you examine what the Family Research Council, and really the entire religious right, has said - lied - about gay and trans people for the past two decades, not only is what the they've said far worse than what any of their critics have said in response, but their language is so hateful, so damning, so incendiary on its face (and false, which only makes it all the more incendiary), that I believe it's difficult not to consider the possibility that the religious right might share some of the blame for recklessly inciting the violence that finally, and sadly, unfolded this past week.

Read the rest of this post...

FRC: Obama caused shooter to attack our headquarters

I've been tracking the Family Research Council's hate for nearly twenty years now, and I'm still amazed at the levels to which they'll stoop in order to defame people they don't like.  They raise hate to an art form.

From RightWingWatch (via OnTopMagL):

Perkins: What I would call an attack on religious freedom is trickling down in our country. It’s not just isolated to the administration but it’s as if the President and his administration’s indifference towards religious freedom has really created an open season all across this country. In fact next week down in Tampa as the Republican National Committee begins its work on its platform we’ll be working with Liberty Institute and we’ll be releasing a study that shows this increased hostility towards religious freedom in this country and I believe Rick in large part it’s driven in large part by the policies of this administration.

I think as we witnessed this past week at the Family Research Council, clearly linked to that same atmosphere of hostility that’s created by the public policies of an administration that’s indifferent or hostile to religious freedom and groups like as I mentioned the Southern Poverty Law Center that recklessly throws around labels giving people like this gunman who came into our building a license to take innocent life.

Just wow.
Read the rest of this post...

Why the Family Research Council is a hate group

I've just written a long post about why the FRC is in fact a hate group. Read the rest of this post...

Guy who routinely calls us "pedophiles" wants an end to "reckless rhetoric"

I've already posted ample evidence as to why the Family Research Council was officially designated a hate group - it's not their policy positions per se, it's their strategy of willfully and systematically lying in order to defame, and discriminate against, an entire class of American citizens - but it really does still amaze me that after everything this organization has said, and continues to say, about gay people, they have the nerve to lecture their victims about being mean.

It's genius, really.

If they call you a pedophile, it's just their religion.

If you say you're not a pedophile, you're the one who's reckless and inciting violence.  (Forget the fact that most people would sooner kill a pedophile than let one near their children.)

I've been tracking the Family Research Council for going on twenty years now.  And their willingness to twist the truth in order to achieve their objective of demonizing and subjugating entire underclasses of Americans is far worse than most realize.  I watched the Family Research Council quote court cases to prove their point, without point out that they were actually quoting the dissent.

I've watched the Family Research Council publish the most damning quotes from studies against gay people, only to find out that the study wasn't that damning after all - and the quote was actually quite benign, but FRC "forgot" to end the quote, and thus their conclusion came off, accidentally, as the conclusion of the study.

Let me explain this last point further, because it really is genius.  Imagine that this is damning quote against gays from a real scientific study:

"Gay people like to wear jeans a lot... and they routinely abuse children.

You'd say "holy cow," that's a really damning conclusion in that very respectable study.

Then, if you read the actual study (which I did), you'd realize that the quote doesn't end after "abuse children," it ends after "wear jeans a lot."  FRC simply "forgot" to put an end quote after the ellipse, making it look like the study wasn't simply benign, but rather was damning.

They actually did this.  Not with the quote I give above, that's just a made up example, but they actually did this in one of their anti-gay reports - "forgot" the end quote after an ellipse, which made  a study sound incredibly damning when it wasn't that damning at all.

I've spent a lot of time following the FRC's hate research.  And this is sadly typical of what they do.  Like when FRC's head quotes pseudo science organizations to make it sound like a real study slammed us when the group isn't that real at all.  Like when he says that gay parents are bad, and a study proves it - the study shows that kids do better with a mom and a dad!  But doesn't tell you that the study actually says kids do better with a mom and dad versus a single parent - the study says nothing at all about the merits of a mom and dad versus a dad and a dad, or a mom and a mom.

If you follow GOP politics, the trick is familiar.  Using lies, and pseudo-facts, to fool the American people into agreeing with you - "death panels" come to mind.  It's what the GOP excels at it. It's what the Family Research Council excels at.  And it's why they were officially designated two years ago as a "hate group."

Not because they're Christians.  Not because they oppose marriage equality.  But because they knowingly and systematically twist the truth to promote the hatred and subjugation of a minority. Read the rest of this post...

Just checking in... has FRC recanted its two decades of hate and defamation against gays, trans?

Yeah, didn't think so.

There's a reason the Family Research Council has been officially designated as a hate group:

Perkins' accusation is outrageous. The SPLC has listed the FRC as a hate group since 2010 because it has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people -- not, as some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage. The FRC and its allies on the religious right are saying, in effect, that offering legitimate and fact-based criticism in a democratic society is tantamount to suggesting that the objects of criticism should be the targets of criminal violence.

As the SPLC made clear at the time and in hundreds of subsequent statements and press interviews, we criticize the FRC for claiming, in Perkins' words, that pedophilia is "a homosexual problem" -- an utter falsehood, as every relevant scientific authority has stated. An FRC official has said he wanted to "export homosexuals from the United States." The same official advocated the criminalizing of homosexuality.

Imagine had FRC said that African-Americans were prone to pedophilia and needed to be deported en masse from the US? Would FRC defend those statements as not hateful?

The day the Family Research Council actually starts worrying about language (read: lies) that could incite violence - or incite young gay and trans kids to kill themselves - then we'll talk. Read the rest of this post...

SPLC calls out FRC for more lies

Who'd have guessed that an organization that's faced down the Klan for decades wouldn't blink in the face of religious right bullies:

SPLC: Family Research Council License-to-Kill Claim 'Outrageous'

Posted in Anti-LGBT, Extremist Propaganda by Mark Potok on August 16, 2012

Editor's Note: The following statement may be attributed to Mark Potok, Senior Fellow of the Southern Poverty Law Center and editor of its Intelligence Report and Hatewatch blog.

Yesterday's attack on the Family Research Council and the shooting of a security guard there was a tragedy. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) deplores all violence, and our thoughts are with the wounded victim, Leo Johnson, his family and others who lived through the attack.

For more than 40 years, the SPLC has battled against political extremism and political violence. We have argued consistently that violence is no answer to problems in a democratic society, and we have strongly criticized all those who endorse such violence, whether on the political left or the political right.

But this afternoon, FRC President Tony Perkins attacked the SPLC, saying it had encouraged and enabled the attack by labeling the FRC a "hate group." The attacker, Floyd Corkins, "was given a license to shoot an unarmed man by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center," Perkins said. "I believe the Southern Poverty Law Center should be held accountable for their reckless use of terminology."

Perkins' accusation is outrageous. The SPLC has listed the FRC as a hate group since 2010 because it has knowingly spread false and denigrating propaganda about LGBT people -- not, as some claim, because it opposes same-sex marriage. The FRC and its allies on the religious right are saying, in effect, that offering legitimate and fact-based criticism in a democratic society is tantamount to suggesting that the objects of criticism should be the targets of criminal violence.

As the SPLC made clear at the time and in hundreds of subsequent statements and press interviews, we criticize the FRC for claiming, in Perkins' words, that pedophilia is "a homosexual problem" -- an utter falsehood, as every relevant scientific authority has stated. An FRC official has said he wanted to "export homosexuals from the United States." The same official advocated the criminalizing of homosexuality.

Perkins and his allies, seeing an opportunity to score points, are using the attack on their offices to pose a false equivalency between the SPLC's criticisms of the FRC and the FRC's criticisms of LGBT people. The FRC routinely pushes out demonizing claims that gay people are child molesters and worse -- claims that are provably false. It should stop the demonization and affirm the dignity of all people.

False is what FRC does. Read the rest of this post...

If SPLC is responsible for the shooting because they labeled FRC a "hate group"...

...then what responsibility does FRC have for actually being a hate-filled group?

Isn't it a bit like complaining, "Joe punched me because you told him I slept with his wife."

But you did sleep with his wife.

That doesn't mean he should resort to violence, ever.  But you did sleep with his wife.  So let's stop pretending that the sinner here is the guy who caught you. Read the rest of this post...

"The far right is responsible for fostering an environment of hate, intolerance and violence"

A friend writes about the shooting yesterday at the headquarters of the influential religious-right anti-gay activist organization, the Family Research Council, which was designated an official hate group last year by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Romney says, "There is no place for such violence in our society." Of course there's room. There's more than sufficient room for violence because Romney, FRC, the GOP generally, Log Cabin republicans particularly, and all their right-wing lobbyists at the NRA have engaged in systematic behavior designed specifically to create a culture of violence.

Seriously, how can you terrorize gay people for generations, insist on free-flowing guns to every human alive, and act surprised when one of the victims of your unrelenting gay-bashing finally cracks under the pressure? No place for violence? Romney and the FRC cleared the path.

This is not intended to be a statement in support of violence, but, like John above, an observation as to how surprising it is to me that this does not happen more frequently because history has demonstrated that violence begets violence.

I am not shocked when these kinds of things happen because I recognize that very loud, influential forces at work in this society routinely foster an environment where these kinds of events are very, very likely to happen. The disingenuous outrage of the far right (and it is the far right that is largely responsible for fostering the aforementioned environment of hate and intolerance and violence) is amazing.

Thoughts?
Read the rest of this post...

Do we hold all straight people responsible for this?

Read the rest of this post...

Comment: "Members of the LGBT community have been extraordinarily non-violent in our responses"

Reader comment on the FRC shooting:

The shooting and the years of hate are two different things. The hate does not justify the shooting. Fortunately the guard was only wounded, not killed. I hope he recovers quickly. And fortunately no one else was hurt. it appears from the reports that he and some other people had the courage to disarm the the shooter.

But the group has a history of hate. They are rightly called a hate group. They cannot excuse their hate. What is clear is that despite the negative things they say and the things they do to harm us, members of the LGBT community have been extraordinarily non-violent in our responses. What is also clear is that we have been the people who have suffered considerably from not only the emotional violence against us from groups like the FRC, but also the physical violence against us.

Read the rest of this post...

FRC fundraising off of criticism of Dick Cheney, Laura Bush being gay-lovers

(Oops, just re-read my headline. Not "gay LOVERS," but rather, "GAY-lovers," as in "loving the gay too much." I love the English language :)

This should go over well.  As Charles notes, it seems that the Family Research Council is trying to fundraise off of Mary Cheney's wedding (with a bank shot off of Mrs. Bush).

Northfoto / Shutterstock.com

I wonder how former President Bush would feel about his wife being used so precipitously in a fundraising letter.

Forget him. How about Cheney. How convenient is it that FRC comes out with this fundraising appeal days after his daughter, Mary Cheney, married her partner.

Both Laura Bush and Dick Cheney have come out in favor of marriage equality in their own way, which makes FRC's usage of them in a fundraising letter probably appropriate, if not uncomfortably odd seeing that opposition to marriage equality was the wedge issue which got Bush re-elected.

I would practically give my eyeteeth (whatever those are) to hear the reactions should he and Vice President Cheney find out about this fundraising appeal.

They don't call them a "hate group" for nothing. Read the rest of this post...

AFA hate group: "It is all together right to discriminate against homosexuals"

This is the same hate group that is threatening Target with a boycott over some Pride t-shirts the chain is selling.

I'll say this for AFA, at least they're consistent in their hate.  They've said a lot of hateful things about Jews in the past.  And now they continue to pull no punches in their intolerance and bigotry towards gays.

The thing is, AFA always ends up losing these boycotts because they just can't hide the hate.   It's the reason Joe and I beat AFA's boycott of the Ford Motor Company (Ford sided with us), and it's the reason so many of the AFA's "boycotts" go bust.

No American company wants to side with a known hate group that has historically had a problem with Jews and that thinks that "it is all together right to discriminate against homosexuals." Read the rest of this post...