Kill the Gays in CA

A California attorney has filed papers for an initiative that calls for the execution of LGBT people.  Of course, it would take over 300,000 signatures to put it on the ballot, so it's not actually going to be voted on.  But even in a relatively liberal state, this is the degree of animus against LGBT people.

A clear majority of Americans now are okay with LGBT people marrying, and with LGBT people generally.  But efforts to protect LGBT people from discrimination are lagging behind.  Just yesterday, we saw Charlotte, NC narrowly defeat a non-discrimination rule.

Why is it okay to discriminate against LGBT?  We would not for a minute accept someone who advocated against serving black folks, or Jews, or women.  But somehow it's okay to advocate to refuse service to LGBT.  And I'll bet you that they would also like to refuse service for practicing Muslims too.  God help a woman in a headscarf who asks a bakery for a cake for Eid, eh?

Why is it that only about 20% of Americans are Evangelical Christians of a certain political ilk, yet they manage to punch so far above their weight that they dominate the media description of "Christian"?

Meanwhile, it's best to remember that even in liberal CA, there are people who actively hate us and want us dead.

Be careful out there!

Michelangelo Signorile:

We've seen reports of violent attack afterviolent attack in New York against gays in recent weeks, and now, this past weekend, we've experienced the brutal killing of 32-year-old Mark Carson in an alleged anti-gay shooting in Greenwich Village..... 

After decades of struggle, we're finally beating them back in the courts, in legislatures and even at the ballot box. And perhaps the frustration and anger by those who oppose us is now further empowering the thugs who take their hate and rage to the streets. 

It shouldn't come as a surprise then that in New York City, in a state that passed marriage equality in 2011, hate crimes against LGBT people so far in 2013 are almost double what were at this point in 2012. And 2012 itself was a notable year nationally, with outbreak of anti-LGBT violence in some of the country's most gay-friendly cities... 

We sometimes forget that getting laws passed and getting court rulings declared is, comparatively, the easy part -- as monumentally difficult as that has been and continues to be. One reason we in fact get the laws passed, in addition to protecting ourselves, is to change attitudes for future generations. But that part doesn't happen overnight and surely not without a backlash, which can sometimes be violent, as it has been in just about every other movement for equality. The hate is still out there and the haters are getting more desperate. Our worst enemies right now are complacency and the seductive message that we've "arrived."

Paying the price for equality

Have we won? Some commentators argue that it's all over bar the shouting, that the breathtaking steps towards marriage equality in the last 6 months prove that equality is now guaranteedas this article suggests:

But full legal equality is inevitable, as polls show overwhelming majorities of young people do not hold the same prejudices against homosexuals as their parents' and grandparents' generations. ….

Still the author admits

That gays won the culture war may seem paradoxical in light of the fact that, in most states, they still cannot get married or obtain civil unions (something which the Supreme Court is unlikely to change in its pending decision). The victory might also come as cold comfort to gays living in the 29 states where they can be fired due to their sexual orientation. 

Paradoxical?  You bet. The constitutional amendments against marriage equality will be difficult and in some places nearly impossible to overturn. And, we have hardly won if we can be fired for mentioning we have a same-sex partner. We have made progress, but not nearly as much as the media thinks.

 For one thing, there's the backlash, with a steep increase in anti-gay violence culminating a few days ago in a murder in NYC, of a young man, simply for being gay.

From the HuffPo:

Carson's murder highlights the shortcomings of a rights-based, marriage-based approach to LGBT equality, and cries out for deeper, and more difficult, forms of engagement.

With states falling like dominos into the marriage-equality camp, many have expressed shock that homophobic hatred and violence is "still" possible. But why is this shocking? The advent of civil rights for African Americans did not end racial violence, still widespread nearly 50 years after the Civil Rights Act. Feminism has not ended violence against women. Indeed, from Seneca Falls to Selma to Stonewall, to echo President Obama's historic turn of phrase, legal inequality is only the tip of the iceberg. Submerged beneath it are deep-seated patterns of injustice, privilege, prejudice and fear.…

In social struggles, legal equality is not the beginning of the end, but the end of the beginning. Yes, the state's imprimatur upon animus is now being, gradually, removed. But the animus itself remains. Carson's murder; the other acts of violence against LGBT people in New York… are not vestiges of bygone days we thought we'd left behind. Rather, they are a reminder that most of the work still lies ahead.

That's for sure. It's all too easy to fall into the lull that it's all okay.   But anti-gay attitudes are not vestigial.  They are mainstream.  In Virginia, the GOP has just nominated for Lieutenant Governor a man who defines hate speech against gay people with his lies and insults.

So, as the backlash escalates and the rhetoric becomes more poisonous, we must be more careful. Every gay person knows how to guard their contact with each other, to be wary all the time, as described here:

It's a practice well-learned, the art of coming together and slipping apart -- every corner starts not with a footstep but with a glance forward, every kiss begins and ends with darting eyes above a smile. Sometimes people smile -- women with strollers whose babies reach out and gurgle, old couples who nod slowly in silent recognition and acceptance.

Sometimes it's the long, long stare that goes right through my body…..

Oh, the stare.  Yes, we've all felt the stare:  the disdain, sometimes disgust, as they rake you with their eyes. They don't look away.  They want you to be uncomfortable, to pierce you through.   The writer goes on to describe an encounter in a restaurant, where a woman yanks her daughter to another table lest she (the daughter) be contaminated by the proximity of lesbians. You've got to be taught, you see, to hate the gays. The author goes on to lament,

When I hold my wife's hand I only want to feel her skin in my palm and our rings clink together. I only want to feel safe. 

But we are not safe.  All of us know that feeling--the constant awareness of where we are.  Is it safe to touch our fingertips?  To hold hands?  To exchange a glance?  If we get the stare--will violence follow?

And it's not just the threats of physical violence. There is a mental effect too, of having this constantly in the news, of enduring the lies, the bile, and the hatred of those opposed to equality. I've been worn down by this, by the degrading feeling of being talked about with such language. And a recent study suggests that I'm not alone in feeling this:

As the country awaits two important Supreme Court decisions involving state laws on same-sex marriage, a small but consistent body of research suggests that laws that ban gay marriage — or approve it — can affect the mental health of gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans. When several states passed laws to prohibit same-sex marriage, for example, the mental health of gay residents seemed to suffer, while stress-related disorders dropped in at least one state after gay marriage was legalized….

"They reported multiple stressors during that period," Hatzenbuehler [, the lead investigator,] says. "They reported seeing negative media portrayals, anti-gay graffiti. They talked about experiencing a loss of safety and really feeling like these amendments and these policies were really treating them as second-class citizens." ...

Hatzenbuehler says his larger point is really that policymakers, judicial leaders and ordinary citizens need to remember that social policies are also health policies.

What the equality opponents constantly ignore is that they are not talking about anonymous "they". They are talking about me, my family, my loved ones. They are talking about someone's brother, father, friend, or co-worker. As they tell lies about the gays and our relationships, as they beat (and shoot) our brothers, they are attacking all of us.

And here we sit, waiting for the Supreme Court to dissect us again with their pointed legal niceties, for them to decide if we are we, the people, full American citizens with equal rights--or whether once again we will be pushed aside as something other than fully human.

And it is taking a toll.

In France: Oui pour l'egalité

THe vote is in, at 331-225 for marriage. Vive la France!

Expect the violence to continue. I bet the protests are highjacked by ultra-right nationalists and skinheads, who like nothing better than to gay bash.

In France, protests and death threats

In striking contrast to the "eh" of marriage in New Zealand, we now turn to France. The pro-equality bill is close to passing its final vote. But the anti-equality forces in France have taken to the streets. There are scenes of violent clashes between protesters and the police. And now there are death threats sent to Parliament:

The head of the French parliament has received a letter containing gunpowder, ordering him to put off tomorrow’s vote on marriage equality.... 

The one-page letter warns: ‘You wanted war, and you’ve got it.’ 

According to French magazine L’Express, and as reported by The Local, the politician was told ‘our methods are more radical and more swift than protests.’

A French Cardinal also warned of violence.   And of course there have been attacks on gays.

Remember, the leader of the anti-equality movement said [pro-equality French President]"Hollande wants blood and he will get it."

I find this shocking.

Why FRC is NOT the same as the pro-equality side

From Jeremy Hooper, at Good As You:

If we had an organization on our side that was saying the sort of things about evangelical Christians that FRC says about LGBT people, then that would be a different story. And I would add that I would be the first to condemn such a group! But the fact of that matter is that we don't.have.that.kind.of.group. Human Rights Campaign is not printing brochures that begin by comparing Christian marriages to man-on-horse (complete with horse photo). GLAAD is not launching websites referring to gender-different marriages as "fake" and saying those marriages "destroy lives." PFLAG is not inviting someone like Bryan Fischer to speak at its annual conference. FRC does all of that and more than I could ever put in words! 

Look, I HATE having this conversation. My instinct yesterday afternoon was to react with nothing but full-throated support for FRC and its staff and to articulate the concerns that many of us who work in politics feel. These heartfelt concerns should be completely detached from the debate, no matter the things I mentioned above. 

But when groups like NOM work overtime politicizing this, I'm not going to play pretend. If HRC were on the receiving end of yesterday's heinous act, the facts pertaining to HRC's decades of work would remain the exact same today as they were yesterday. Same goes with FRC. And while perspective is needed and nothing compares to the brutality that is gun violence, the facts surrounding the Family's Research Councils' nineteen year mission are rhetorically brutal. We LGBT people are undoubtedly less free an less equal because of them. That is their mission. That is not ours.

Jeremy is right.  THis is   a false equivalence and  isn't helpful. The pro-LGBT groups aren't  calling for conservative Christians to be imprisoned, have their relationships torn apart, their children kidnapped.  We're not saying that they engage in bestiality or abuse children.  We don't say that the state should prevent them from practicing their faith, and we don't say the state should make them live under the tenets of OUR faith (and despite what they say,  many of us DO go to church...).   As the saying goes, one of these things is not like the other....

The FRC shooting (2): on hate speech and calls to violence

Following up on yesterday's post:  The Family Research Council is complaining that the fact the Southern Poverty Law Center calls it out for "hate speech" is a "license to kill". The SPLC responds that this is "outrageous".

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.” ....

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.

The Washington Monthly reminds us that "criticism is not persecution".

This is a group that wants to use the coercive power of the state to....tell churches and other religious organizations whose relationships they may honor. It also engages regularly in slurs of anyone who doesn’t agree with its agenda as secularist Christ-haters.....

Those determined to frustrate the Christian Right’s desire for total secular political power are neither Romans nor Communists nor Nazis, and it is far past time for smug powerful men like Tony Perkins to climb down from that cross and stop pretending they bear any resemblance to the actual Christian Martyrs who suffered and died—and still suffer and die—for their faith.

The Family Research Council is not a religion. It is a professional political advocacy group with an anti-gay agenda.  It does not represent Christians.  Plenty of Christians support gay rights, and plenty of gay people are Christian.

Here are some examples of what FRC folks say, that got it that SPLC designation. Now, if you don't see a problem with the quotes, under each one I've changed it to describe a different minority group. I don't think we'd consider the sorts of comments that they make about gay people to be acceptable to the mainstream if targeted towards other people. Would we?

Gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”
Gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the Roman Catholics. 

“[Homosexuality] … embodies a deep-seated hatred against true religion.”
Jews embody a deep-seated hatred against true religion. 

“[T]he evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners.”
“[T]he evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of black men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners.”

The FRC has the right to say what it wants.  But it does NOT have the right to do so without legitimate criticism.  And legitimate criticism is not a call to violence.

Finally, if you want to look at explicit calls to violence, perhaps NOM (the National Organization [against] Marriage [Equality]) should explain some of these events, duly noted by Rob Tisinai at Box Turtle Bulletin.  Here's some examples.

When Reverend Ariel Torres Ortega stood on your stage as your guest at your rally and proclaimed that gays are “worthy to death,” NOM was there. But you didn’t condemn it at the event, on your website, or on your blog..... 

When Fox News asked NOM founder Maggie Gallagher about a pageant contestant who said gays “shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them,” Maggie was there, not to condemn the call for violence, but to praise “her courage in coming forward.”

As Rob says,

The shooting at FRC was deplorable. Violence has no place in this debate. We can look at this shooting, as well as the people who are killed every year just for being gay, and agree on that. You certainly say you agree. So please, live up your own press release: stop supporting the very thing you claim to condemn.

The FRC shooting

By now you know that a disturbed man shot a guard at the Family Research Council in Washington DC. (Thankfully, the guard will be fine). News suggests that the shooter was opposed to the FRC's anti-gay policies.

Brian Brown of the National Organization (against) Marriage (Equality) immediately complained that this is because FRC is called a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center because FRC opposes marriage equality. in fact, he suggested that the obviously shooter was carrying out a political agenda.

No, Brian. It is you with the political agenda. The FRC is called a hate group because it tells lies and demonizes LGBT people.

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.

Thanks to the GLAD Accountability Project, you can see exactly what people like FRC spokesmen Tony Perkins and Peter Sprigg say about LGBT people.In fact, Sprigg thinks that gay behavior should be criminalized. And you can read more quotes from the FRC at the SPLC site.

Aside: you can also read posts here at my other blog (one, two, three) about the language of violence employed by so-called "Christians" against LGBT people.  And don't get me started on their claim that gay people are anti-Christian.  The right doesn't own the term "Christian" and there are plenty of gay Christians out there.

Meanwhile what about the shooter? He is no more representative of the gay community than the man who shot up the Sikh temple is representative of the Christian community, or the man who killed people at the Batman movie is representative of Neuroscience PhD students.

Although some conservative groups accuse the pro-gay blogosphere of "celebrating" this, the response was not that at all. In fact, 41 pro-gay groups immediately released a statement condemning the violence and sending their prayers and best wishes to the FRC and the victim for healing.

Funny, the conservatives ignore that, instead preferring to demonize the gay community further.

What is the conservative response to disturbed acts of anti-gay violence? In fact, 2011 saw a record high rate of murders motivated by anti gay bias. And what did this conservative pseudo-"Christian" groups have to say about that? what did they say about Bible-verse shouting street preacher  at Grand Rapids GayDay, who threatened to rape a woman attending?

::Crickets::

As Zack Ford writes at ThinkProgress,

Violence is not the answer to solving any conflict and nothing justifies the actions taken Wednesday by Floyd Corkins. But any attempt to use the shooting to justify reinforcing the inequality LGBT people experience everyday is intolerance at its most basic.

Update:  Excellent commentary from Pam's House Blend :

The fact is that the political discourse in this country is at rock bottom — dehumanizing people so that it is easier for those who are filled with rage to act out violently. We see it with the numerous rage-filled hate crimes against LGBTs all the time, race-based preposterous acts claiming to be religious freedom, and comments from public figures like Joe the Plumber’s recent guidance on immigration reform to “Put A Damn Fence On The Border Going To Mexico And Start Shooting.”

Anti gay, anti child,and anti-minority: Amendment 1 supporters

Item:  A minister preaching in favor of Amendment 1 (the drastic North Carolina amendment that would outlaw not only same sex marriages but any form of domestic partnership) advocates beating Teh Gay out of your kids:

"So your little son starts to act a little girlish when he is four years old... Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male."

Because nothing says "parental love" like beating the crap out of your gay kids--and turning them into their own little self-loathing homophobes while you're at it. 

   

Susan Russell, Episcopal priest and outspoken advocate for LGBT justice, takes this guy on,

We're not going to compromise on having the Good News of God's love, justice and compassion that are the core values of our Judeo-Christian heritage hijacked by those who want to turn our religion into a weapon of mass destruction aimed at LGBT people. ... 

Finally, we are most certainly not going to stand by and let the opponents of marriage equality argue that they are "protecting children" while advocating violence against children. You cannot have it both ways.

Jesus said, "Suffer the little children to come to me." He did NOT say "make the little children suffer in order to come to me." Jesus said, "Love your neighbors as yourself." He did NOT say "Love your neighbor unless he has a limp wrist - then give him a good punch."

Violent words beget violent actions and it is long past time for those misusing their bully pulpits to perpetuate bullying behavior against our LGBT youth to be called on it. 

Preach it, sister!

Item: the wife of an Amendment 1 author says its real purpose is to "support the Caucasian race"  From the HuffPo,

According to the alternative Yes! Weekly, writer and campaigner Chad Nance spoke to a pollworker who told him that Jodie Brunstetter said, "The reason my husband wrote Amendment 1 was because the Caucasian race is diminishing and we need to uh, reproduce."

Because apparently if gays marry, well, then white folks won't have babies. or something.  I tell you, the dog whistle is clear:  increasingly, I think anti-gay is code for racist.

Item: Amendment 1 supporters nakedly appeal to religion as the sole justification for denying rights to their fellow citizens. They aren't even pretending there is a rational civil reason for it.

 (One of these days, these guys will realize that putting stuff up on YouTube makes a permanent record that will follow them.  Meanwhile, it makes it easier to see what they really think.)

Gays disproportionately affected by hate crimes

From The Southern Poverty Law Center, which recently declared some of the most prominant anti-gay groups as hate groups, a review of hate crime data.

Although the rash of student suicides drew major media attention for a few days, the reality, gay rights advocates say, is that the LGBT world has been plagued by hate violence for years.

But that’s not the way a hard core of the anti-gay religious right sees it.....anti-gay leaders instead blamed those who sought to protect students from bullying.... Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel said those activists want “to use the tragedies to increase pressure on the real victims: Christians.”

....[B]ullying is only the beginning of the violence experienced by gays in American society. The reality is that homosexuals or perceived homosexuals are by far the group most targeted in America for violent hate crimes, according to an Intelligence Report analysis of 14 years of federal hate crime data. The bottom line: Gay people are more than twice as likely to be attacked in a violent hate crime as Jews or blacks; more than four times as likely as Muslims; and 14 times as likely as Latinos.

A Changing Landscape
Remarkably, most Americans today seem to have a sense of the violence that the LGBT community is regularly subjected to, or in any event are increasingly rejecting extreme religious-right narratives about the alleged evils of homosexuality. An October poll by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found that 65% of Americans believe “places of worship contribute to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth” (33% said “a lot” and 32% said “a little”). Seventy-two percent said places of worship “contribute to negative views of gay and lesbian people” (40% said “a lot” and 32% said “a little”).....

Digging In
It is in just such situations — when long-held societal notions about blacks, Latinos, Catholics, homosexuals or other minorities are shifting — that violent backlashes often set in. As groups like Focus on the Family have moderated their positions on homosexuality, a hard core of anti-gay groups, sensing they are being politically marginalized, seem to be growing angrier and more radical still....

A leading criminologist and sociologist of hate crimes, Jack Levin of Northeastern University, sees evidence of the growing radicalization of the fringe in other ways. He says perpetrators of anti-gay hate crimes appear to be getting older. No longer are they dominated by teens engaging in thrill-seeking with predatory gangs of their peers. More and more, he says, lone adults are committing what Levin calls “defensive hate crimes” — crimes carried out in reaction to sweeping social changes that they see as threats to their home, family, religion, culture or country.
...
[T}he hard core of the anti-gay religious right is digging in.

Does it matter that Daniel Hernandez is gay?

The quick thinking of Daniel Hernandez, an intern in Rep Giffords' office, may have saved her life. He's being called a hero by the President as well as many others.

If you read the comments to the articles, people are saying "why does it matter that he's gay?"

It matters. Because this brave young man is nevertheless a second class citizen.

Daniel cannot serve in the military. DADT repeal is a process, not yet complete, the Department of Justice is still defending DADT in court, and service members are still at risk if they come out.

Daniel cannot marry the person of his choice in Arizona. If he does marry in one of the few states that allow it, there is no legal recognition by the US government, which continues to defend DOMA. He will be described as "single" on his tax forms and his passport; and his marriage is simply viewed as nonexistent in at least 41 states of the Union.

Daniel can be fired simply for being gay in most states, including Arizona.

Republican candidates fall over themselves to explain how much they despise people like Daniel, how they aren't deserving of rights or protections. Religious figures compare the gay rights movement to the works of Satan.

Daniel Hernandez is a fine young man and we should be proud of him. And the fact that he is denied full civil rights is certainly germane to the discussion of his selfless and brave acts in Tucson. Once we have equal rights, then indeed our sexuality will be irrelevant. How I long for that day. But since the nation MAKES us different, that difference matters.

UN votes to condemn gay executions

Remember a few weeks ago when the UN narrowly voted to eliminate condemnation of execution on the grounds of sexual orientation? From UN Ambassador Susan Rice (my emphases)

Today, the United Nations General Assembly has sent a clear and resounding message that justice and human rights apply to all individuals regardless of their sexual orientation.

Several weeks ago, on November 16, the General Assembly’s Third Committee voted by a narrow margin to eliminate any mention of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals from a resolution condemning extrajudicial killing of vulnerable people around the world. The United States fought hard for that reference when it came to a Committee vote, and we lost. As I have said before, I was incensed by that vote.

In the weeks following that setback, the United States was proud to introduce an amendment to restore this critical language to the biennial resolution on Extrajudicial, Summary, and Arbitrary Execution before it came for a final vote of the full UN General Assembly. On December 10, at an event marking Human Rights Day, I announced our effort and said, “We’re going to stand firm on this basic principle, and we intend to win.”

The U.S built a broad coalition of partners and together we galvanized member states to support this effort – and to win.

Today, the General Assembly voted by a significant margin, 93 to 55, to approve the U.S.-led amendment and condemn the extrajudicial killing of people around the world due to their sexual orientation.

The voices of civil society and human rights defenders around the world have been heard today, and for that my delegation is especially proud. Less than two weeks after we celebrated the 62nd anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, today’s vote ensures that the principles enshrined in that Declaration are put into practice – and indeed live on – in the 21st Century.

That's good news. But let's not forget that being gay is a capital crime in many countries around the world, particularly in the third world. A sobering list of punishments can be found at the website Foreign Policy. And this report from NPR talks about how the violence against LGBT people in Uganda is traceable directly to American evangelicals.

The talking points from the hate groups

From the Southern Poverty Law Center, about that tactics from extremist groups who oppose LGBT rights (like the American Family Association or the Family Research Council):

They have gravitated toward three particular tactics: “love the sinner” rhetoric; secular validation; and depicting gays as a global threat.....

Not long ago, anti-gay propaganda was remarkable for its vulgar and wild-eyed tone — depicting homosexuals as immoral, feces-eating, disease-ridden pedophiles. And some of that tone, particularly the idea that gays seek to “recruit” children in school, remains in certain quarters. But that kind of approach doesn’t resonate much with younger audiences, who grew up with positive images of openly gay actors, musicians, artists, politicians and business leaders. As gays came out of the closet, others increasingly found they had gay friends and relatives.

Now, more and more groups on the religious right are framing their arguments with words that are meant to show respect for gays and lesbians. There is no better example of that than the Manhattan Declaration...

Another emphasis has been in seeking secular validation for anti-gay arguments — scientific evidence of the alleged pitfalls of homosexuality. Many on the religious anti-gay right now frame their arguments almost entirely around the idea that homosexuals present various dangers to children, that they will live short and unhappy lives, that they are more vulnerable to disease, and so on.

....There’s just one trouble with this approach. Almost all the “facts” trotted out by the religious right about gays turn out to be false or misleading....

A final new emphasis being used by many of the hard-core anti-gay groups is the charge that homosexuals make up, in effect, an active conspiracy whose agenda includes the destruction of Christianity and, ultimately, Western civilization. Sometimes, their propaganda sounds noticeably like Nazi descriptions of Jewish plots....

...The upshot, in all likelihood, is that violence, hatred and bullying of those perceived as homosexual will continue into the foreseeable future. Although leaders of the hard core of the religious right deny it, it seems clear that their demonizing propaganda plays a role in fomenting that violence — a proposition that has sparked a number of Christian leaders to speak out in the wake of the latest series of tragedies.

“The recent epidemic of bullying-related teen suicides is a wake-up call to us moderate Christians,” the Rev. Fritz Ritsch, pastor of St. Stephen Presbyterian Church, wrote in October in the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram. “To most unchurched Americans — meaning most Americans — the fruit of the church is bitter indeed. … [T]he bullying crisis has put a fine point on the need for moderates to challenge the theological bullies from our own bully pulpits. We cannot equivocate. Children are dying. We need to speak up. If not now, when?”

UN: Okay to Kill The Gay

From the HuffPo (my emphases):

Last week, the Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly voted on a special resolution addressing extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions. The resolution affirms the duties of member countries to protect the right to life of all people with a special emphasis on a call to investigate killings based on discriminatory grounds. The resolution highlights particular groups historically subject to executions including street children, human rights defenders, members of ethnic, religious, and linguistic minority communities, and, for the past 10 years, the resolution has included sexual orientation as a basis on which some individuals are targeted for death.

The tiny West African nation of Benin (on behalf of the UN's African Group) proposed an amendment to strike sexual minorities from the resolution. The amendment was adopted with 79 votes in favor, 70 against, 17 abstentions and 26 absent.

A collection of notorious human rights violators voted for the amendment ….They are all on the list of nations that do not think execution of gays and lesbians is worthy of condemnation or investigation…. In most countries in the Middle East, it is a crime to be gay--in some, like Saudi Arabia, it is punishable by beheading and in others, like Iran, by hanging.

The UN has a remarkable track record of doing virtually nothing when presented with mass killings or genocide. "Never again!" was the cry after the holocaust. Since then, the world has witnessed a dozen more never agains with strong condemnation from the UN coming after the corpses pile up. A resolution of the sort that was voted on in the General Assembly is significant for its clarity of message: "It's okay to kill the gays."

SPLC declares AFA, FRC and others are "hate groups"

The American Family Association, the Family Research Council, and other such conservative groups claim to have a principled objection to the reality of homosexuality. But their rhetoric is based in lies, propaganda and hatred--so much so that the Southern Poverty Law Center has declared these groups as "Hate Groups".

For example, regarding the AFA, the SPLC reports,

In 2009, it hired Bryan Fischer, the former executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance, as its director of analysis for government and policy.... Fischer claimed in a blog post last May 27 that “[h]omosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and 6 million dead Jews.” .... Fischer has described Hitler as “an active homosexual” who sought out gays “because he could not get straight soldiers to be savage and brutal and vicious enough.” He proposed criminalizing homosexual behavior in another 2010 blog post and has advocated forcing gays into “reparative” therapy.

Then there's the Faithful Word Baptist Church and its pastor Steven Anderson

Much of his venom was aimed at homosexuals, who he suggests should be killed (“The biggest hypocrite in the world is the person who believes in the death penalty for murderers but not for homosexuals”). In an August 2009 sermon, he attacked the United Methodist Church, saying “10% of their preachers are queers” and adding, “they got a dyke and a faggot behind the pulpit.” He has described gays as “sodomites” who “recruit through rape” and “recruit through molestation.”

And of course, the lying Family Research Council:

[T]he FRC has been a font of anti-gay propaganda throughout its history. It relies on the work of Robert Knight, who also worked at Concerned Women for America but now is at Coral Ridge Ministries (see above for both), along with that of FRC senior research fellows Tim Dailey (hired in 1999) and Peter Sprigg (2001). Both Dailey and Sprigg have pushed false accusations linking gay men to pedophilia ...

More recently, in March 2008, Sprigg, responding to a question about uniting gay partners during the immigration process, said: “I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them.” He later apologized, but then went on, last February, to tell MSNBC host Chris Matthews, “I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions on homosexual behavior.” “So we should outlaw gay behavior?” Matthews asked. “Yes,” Sprigg replied. ...

Tony PErkins of the FRC also has links to white supremicists.

The AFA can complain as much as it likes about this designation, but John Aravosis (Americablog) has collected examples of their bile over the years.

The SPLC also debunks 10 of the most prominent anti-gay myths these groups tell--a useful resource.

Update: naturally, the AFA and others aren't happy with this. But their attempt to recycle their lies and propaganda is soundly slapped down by the SPLC here.

What NOM really wants

Maggie Gallagher's National Organization for Marriage is doing a bus tour in the East/Midwest to heighten awareness of, and opposition to, marriage equality.

Apparently it's not going so well, as the pro-equality counter-protesters are equaling or exceeding Mag's numbers. There has been great coverage at Prop8trialtracker.

But amongst the flowery sweet soft thoughts of "religious freedom" and "children's welfare", let's not forget what the opponents of marriage equality REALLY think and what they REALLY want. More here.

UpdateProp8trialtracker reports today that the latest stop on the tour, in Madison WI, had the NOM-mers outnumbered 8 to 1 by equality supporters with signs of love and hope. The NOM group walled themselves off behind police tape. At other stops, they have threatened counterprotesters with arrest (though the police later apologized). Seems NOM thinks only hate speech should be free.


Update 2: some consideration of hate speech generally. A progressive organization called the Tides discovered that it was on the target list of a heavily armed man involved in a shootout with the California Highway Patrol last week. As in so many of the recent acts of violence, this was a gun-mad guy mad at liberals.

Writing in the SF Chronicle, the head of Tides writes,

This incident serves to remind us that it should be the obligation of every American, especially those whose voices are amplified by the media, to foster civil discourse and dialogue among those who may disagree about public matters. One does not win an argument by inciting troubled people to violence.

(H/T the Lead)

I don't think NOM and its fans are helping.

What about the threats?

In Doe v. Reed, marriage equality opponents from Washington argued for secrecy for the signatures on the petitions that qualified Referendum 71 for the ballot (and thus allowed people to vote on whether or not domestic partner benefits should be expanded). They claimed that to reveal the signatures would expose the signers to violence.

As we know the Supreme Court decided that generally, signatures should be public. (See my previous post here). So the bad guys lost this round.

One of the amicus briefs filed with the court to support the good guys specifically addressed this claim of violence and intimidation. Several social scientists who study direct democracy and the initiative process actually did the research to see whether there is credible evidence that publicizing the names of petition signers leads to threats.

BRIEF AMICI CURIAE OF DIRECT DEMOCRACY SCHOLARS IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS
The take home message?

More than a million names of signers of petitions for referenda and initiatives opposing gay marriage have been posted on the internet. Yet there is no evidence that any of these signers has faced any threat of retalia-tion or harassment by reason of that disclosure.

First they looked at Washington state petitions on all subjects

Petitioners do not, however, identify a single case in which a voter signing a petition has actually been subject to any form of harassment or intimidation as a result of public disclosure of that voter’s signature, name and address on the petition.
...
The lack of any demonstrable threat of intimidation or harassment is not limited to Washington. In fact, it is difficult to identify any case of intimidation or harassment of a petition signer occurring during the entire previous century.

Then they take on the claims about one particular organization around the gay marriage issue:

Petitioners state that an organization called KnowThyNeighbor.org, an organization supporting equal marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples, “posted the names of traditional marriage supporters signing petitions in Arkansas, Florida, Massachusetts, and Oregon.5 ” .... Upwards of a million names and addresses of these individuals in three states (Arkansas, Florida, and Massachusetts) have been posted online by KnowThyNeighbor. org. Petitioners, however, have not identified a single individual who has actually faced any threat of intimidation, retaliation or harassment as a result of merely signing any of these petitions and having that signature publicly disclosed.

And, in a sting to the tail, the publication of the signatures actually helps weed out fraud, which they show is epidemic in proportion in these initiative campaigns:

In Massachusetts, the public disclosure on the web by KnowThyNeighbor.org of the individuals who signed petitions to ban gay marriage led not to harassment or intimidation of those signers, but rather to the realization by thousands of citizens that they had been duped into signing the petition, thinking they were signing a petition to permit gay marriage.

The anti-gay side is fighting hard to make themselves the victim. Those marauding homos, doing violence against old ladies! Those terrible gays, destroying straight marriages! Those Godless 'mos, viciously attacking religious values!

It is imperative that we challenge these lies. The harassment that there was during Prop8 affected both sides --almost certainly, ours more than theirs. As I've said before, I was spit at, cursed, cut off on the freeway and had my car vandalized. During the post-8 mega-marches I attended, the only arrests were of THEIR side. And it's their campaign who wrote threatening letters to pro-equality donors.

No straight marriage ever failed because two gay people married. And plenty of GLBT and GLBT-friendly folks are very religious (just check out the crowded Episcopal Cathedral in San Diego for an example). The right-wing does not own the term "Christian" (and it's past time progressive Christians managed to wrest that name back again, but that's a subject for a different post).

And NO ONE has ever been harassed or threatened because their petition signature was made public.

Facts matter. Get them out there!

Update a great review of this and another relevant amicus brief at LGBT POV.

Also see another amicus brief at GLAD

Medical "ethics": Curing lesbians and cutting up little girls

The blogs are abuzz with a recent article in the Bioethics forum, describing an "off label" usage of the drug dexamethasone ("dex"). Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) is a condition that results from excessive exposure to androgens in developing female fetuses that can lead to intersex morphologies and other health problems. Some physicians have treated this with dex, although a variety of professional bodies consider this a potentially dangerous, experimental treatment that should only be done with rigorous review and follow up. (More in this Time article).

The article in Bioethics Forum describes one researcher who is doing unsupervised administrations of this drug essentially to "cure lesbianism". It's less the physical aspects of CAH that she's targeting, than the behavioral ones. She is very deliberately targeting behavior and orientation rather than the physical manifestations of CAH, and THAT is why everyone is concerned.

Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University, and her long-time collaborator, psychologist Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg, of Columbia University, have been tracing evidence for the influence of prenatal androgens in sexual orientation. ...

And it isn’t just that many women with CAH have a lower interest, compared to other women, in having sex with men. In another paper ... Meyer-Bahlburg writes that “CAH women as a group have a lower interest than controls in getting married and performing the traditional child-care/housewife role. As children, they show an unusually low interest in engaging in maternal play with baby dolls, and their interest in caring for infants, the frequency of daydreams or fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood, or the expressed wish of experiencing pregnancy and having children of their own appear to be relatively low in all age groups.”

In the same article, Meyer-Bahlburg suggests that treatments with prenatal dexamethasone might cause these girls’ behavior to be closer to the expectation of heterosexual norm....

In a paper published just this year in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, New and her colleague, pediatric endocrinologist Saroj Nimkarn of Weill Cornell Medical College, go further, constructing low interest in babies and men – and even interest in what they consider to be men’s occupations and games – as “abnormal,” and potentially preventable with prenatal dex...

(emphases mine)By pathologizing women who aren't interested in babies, or who are interested in men's jobs (like scientist or doctor?) these physicians are invoking a "Handmaid's Tale" view that would put women back, walking 3 steps behind the men.

There are real concerns with this. From the Time article:

Perhaps most controversially, prenatal dex must be given as soon as a woman learns she is pregnant, which is usually several weeks before genetic tests can determine if the fetus is in fact a female affected with CAH — the chance of which is 1 in 8 for parents who already have an affected child or know they are carriers of the genetic disorder. If the baby is healthy, treatment is stopped, but at that point, the fetus has been exposed to the steroid drug for weeks. There is no data on how many mothers receive prenatal dex, but according to the odds, 7 of 8 may be taking medication unnecessarily.

I am a lesbian. I never wanted children, I was a tomboy who preferred toy cars to baby dolls, and I work in a "man's profession" as a science professor. I'm certainly not a sufferer of CAH; my body isn't at all "masculinized" (quite the opposite! ;-) but at some level, I am the sort of person this "treatment" is intended to eliminate. Who I am is considered a pathology by this "doctor".

From this, I point out another Bioethics post on female genital mutilation on CAH patients. Seems there's another pediatrician in New York who makes a living "cutting down" the clitorises of little girls who are deemed to be "over-endowed". Not that there is anything really WRONG with them, just a somewhat larger than average clitoris, but there is discomfort from their parents that they are different and a physician who "recommends" amputation. Many medical professionals decry these surgeries as unnecessary. Again, with no institutional research subject approval,

At annual visits after the surgery, while a parent watches, Poppas touches the daughter’s surgically shortened clitoris with a cotton-tip applicator and/or with a “vibratory device,” and the girl is asked to report to Poppas how strongly she feels him touching her clitoris. ....Poppas has indicated in this article and elsewhere that ideally he seeks to conduct annual exams with these girls. He intends to chart the development of their sexual sensation over time........Ken Zucker, a psychologist [said]"Applying a vibrator to a six-year-old girl’s surgically feminized clitoris is developmentally inappropriate." "

What sort of parent lets a doctor do that to her little girl?

What all of this boils down to is not simple heterosexism. It's also fear of all women's sexuality, gay or straight, and it attempts to pathologize any female who doesn't fit a rigid gender binary of traditional sex roles. It's absolutely offensive to me that any "physician" would justify these "treatments" which are not based on the needs or desires of the young patient, but on the fears and biases of their parents or of the physicians themselves. I hope the institutional review boards (IRB) go after these doctors, and I hope that patient advocates consider bringing suits for medical abuse.

What this also shows us is that even if the bad guys are forced to admit being gay is not a choice, but a biological fact, we are still deeply endangered by their efforts to turn us into a pathology to be eliminated, or a variant to be cured.

You will know they are "Christians" by their hate

Recently there has been a spate of commentary from the loony wing of the Christian right, calling for the criminalization of homosexuality in this country.

Item Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council said that gays should be imprisoned.

"I think that the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided," said Sprigg. "I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior."

"So we should outlaw gay behavior?" asked Matthews again.

Yes,” said Sprigg.

Item Bryan Fischer of the American Family Associationwrote

If you believe all Scripture is inspired, then you are compelled to accept that legal sanctions may appropriately be applied to those who engage in homosexual behavior.

Item Gary Glenn of the American Family Association of Michigan says:

"We believe that states should be free to regulate and prohibit behavior that’s a violation of community standards and a proven threat to public health and safety — including, as most of the United States did throughout its history, homosexual behavior.”

Item This goes along with the "Kill the gays" bill in Uganda, which is of course a direct result of American Evangelists' influence. They may be embarrassed that their contribution got out, but until then they had no problem with a death-to-homos bills.

But not all of them are embarrased. Cliff Kincaid, of the group Accuracy in Media writes to justify the death penalty

The Ugandan bill does provide for harsh measures against homosexual conduct, including the death penalty for such practices as pedophilia, facilitating homosexual activity, and deliberately spreading AIDS. As such, however, Ugandan Christian ministers see the legislation as a necessary and continuing part of Uganda’s successful anti-AIDS effort.

At the blog PamsHouseBlend, commenter Alvin McEwen is wondering whether this represents a new coordinated angle by the religious right.

Consistent with this, a winger group has filed a suit against the hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, claiming that its itent is to

"criminalize the Bible and use the threat of federal prosecutions and long jail sentences to silence Christians from expressing their Biblically-based religious belief that homosexual conduct is a sin."

Of course, it does no such thing--unless their Biblically based views call for violence.

Meanwhile, I'm getting tired of them claiming the "Christian" card, okay? I'd like to see robust pushback from the mainline religions who support GLBT equality, on the misuse of the term "Christian". (One of themore surreal set of questions in the Prop8 testimony was the Forces of H8 listing all the churches that DO support marriage equality. Of course in total membership they are much smaller than the big kahunas of the Mormons and the Catholics, but to find that even the other side had to admit that religion did not speak with one voice gave me a little hope for reason. Their attorneys had a bad case, but I don't think they are stupid. But I digress.)

What could be gained by this fulminating, this hate-mongering? The right wing is nothing if not organized. It isn't by chance that multiple groups hit on the same argument.

One possibility is that they are concerned that they are losing momentum on the equality issue. Most fair minded people are "live and let live". They may not want to give us marriage equality, but most people don't obsess about us. So those opposed to equality know that they get the most response when they demonize us, thus they are fighting hard to fan the flames of hatred. This is one way to plant the seeds in people's minds that we are so dangerous, how could we possibly have any rights! We should consider ourselves lucky we aren't in prison where we belong! it's the "Ick factor" writ large.

I suspect in a time of economic stress and frustration, most people want to feel above someone else. "At least I'm better than X." In many parts of the US, I'm sure that poor whites felt superior to poor blacks. But that kind of overt racism is no longer acceptable, whereas antigay bias is. There is a bullying mob-tendency to attack the vulnerable, when one is weak oneself.

That's what they are doing here. And make no mistake, this language of hatred and anger is not inert. Bias crimes have already gone up. We need to be vigilant. And we need to push back against hatred. None of us should be threatened with jail, orworse, fore the rare gift of love.

Curing the variant

Periodically, a story pops up in the news about a child near death from a treatable disease, because her family doesn't believe in antibiotics, or other forms of modern medicine. I have no doubt that the parents in these cases genuinely love their children, but they earnestly interpret their Bible as preventing them from using modern interventions. "It's God's will", they say. "Who are we to go against it?"

Most of us in our modern society tut-tut when we hear this, dismayed over this clear mis-use of religion in a way that results in unnecessary pain, grave harm or even death to a child. We simply don't understand how the parents can be so willfully anti-modern, especially where their child is concerned. After all, what is more precious than a child? Wouldn't any parent do anything to save their child? How can they resist modern knowledge and understanding, knowing that their child will die? What they see as "normal" and "natural", the vast majority of us see as abuse.

So this led me to the broader question of how we define "normal" and when we pathologize it. For example, most of us consider left-handedness "normal" and unremarkable, a minor human variant that doesn't affect the predominant right-handed culture. Most hearing people consider congenital deafness a defect to be treated (e.g., by cochlear implants); however, Deaf people often resent their deafness being pathologized, and many forcibly resist being absorbed into a dominant hearing culture. Or consider cleft palate: this is a "naturally occurring" birth defect that we do our best to treat surgically and heal. All of these conditions are "normal", all of them are "natural". So how do we decided what to pathologize as a defect to be treated, as opposed to a variant to be accepted?

Our example of the child denied antibiotics gives one clue. Some people turn to their Bible to determine what is normal, natural, and acceptable to their concept of God. But for them to say they do this outside of the context of modern knowledge is disingenuous. For centuries, left-handedness was pathologized on religious grounds (and still is in some cultures); the efforts to "convert" the left handed led to serious psychological trauma in some cases. We know better now.

Or do we?

Let's consider our GLBT brothers and sisters. Western medicine and science accepts homosexuality as a natural variant, not a pathology, that occurs across cultures and ethnic groups at a fairly consistent rate. Some people are closer to viewing the GLBT community as the Deaf community: one that rejects being identified as a pathology that is imposed upon it by a dominant culture. And, finally, there are those who, as the parents using the Bible to reject antibiotics, similarly use the Bible to reject their gay children in the face of knowledge and science. I argue that there is a distinct parallel between the parents who point to a few texts in the Bible about promiscuous sex, and those who point to the Bible to justify killing their child by withholding treatment. We reject the one. We should reject both.

Finally, I want to draw your attention to a particularly "nasty" form of "treatment" directed at lesbian women in particular: the concept of "curative rape". This has hit the press and the internet numerous times recently.

• Item: In South Africa, men are encouraged to rape women to cure them of their lesbianism. Some of their victims are brutally murdered.
  
  
• Item: A woman in Utah , devoutly Mormon, hires a man to rape her lesbian daughter, reasoning that the only reason her daughter is gay is that she hasn't "known" a man.
  
  
• Item: A lesbian woman is raped in Richmond CA as the perpetrators use sexually derogatory terms.

We all know (I hope) that rape isn't about sex. It's about violence. And rape directed at lesbian women is violence that treats homosexuality as a pathology, rather than a variant. How dare these lesbians reject men! It is the flip side of a "gay panic" defense: she needs to know a "real" man. It's sick, disgusting, and frightening.

And it comes from treating a variant as a pathology: something to be rejected, feared and "cured". It's why many GLBT people view Christians as people intent on harming them. Rather like denying a treatment to a dying child.

H/T Madpriest for the Utah story. Cross posted at Friends of Jake. and Daily Kos WGLB Friday