This post is among a weekly series of examinations about the effect society’s attitudes has on Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgendered and sexual orientation Questioning citizens. Each week’s contribution seeks to expose motivations, machinations, malice and complicity among detractors of the LGBTQ community and supporters.
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rhet·o·ric [ret-er-ik] n 1. (in writing or speech) the undue use of exaggeration or display; bombast. |
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rightwash [rahyt wosh] n 1. The inability of many leading journalists to report the facts if they upset right wing political sensibilities. transference [ˈtræns-fər-əns, -frəns] n 1. The redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object. projection [pruh-jek-shuhn] n 1. the belief, esp in children, that others share one’s subjective mental life. |
Most of the coverage in this column has concentrated on how the Right makes things up about LGBTs to paint gays, et.al, as villainous threats to society. While their fabrications are based on superstition, hearsay, old wive’s tales, anecdote and personal revelation, few if any enjoy even a hint of a reality based origin and most are infused with hypocrisy. Such pronouncements are often attributed to higher authority that absolves the orator from personal liability over making such claims. It’s often claimed that such judgements, coming from that transcendent power, are based in love, compassion and the hope of converting the hopeless corruption of the afflicted to purity and redemption.
The greater and pervasive hypocrisy among purveyors of anti-gay sentiment is more likely than not transference of the accusers’ own worst attributes directly on the accused. The examples are endless and number right up there with the volume of accusations made.
There is quite a list of active, anti-gay propagandists who have carved out lucrative careers built on baseless slander and hateful rhetoric. Coverage of their antics, and the products they sell, is often presented as just one side of a controversy without ample context describing the background from which these opinions spring.
Scott Lively is famous for The Pink Swastika, Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, co-authored with Kevin Abrams, that makes an unprecendented series of claims long disadvowed by any serious historian. His claims include assertions that Hitler was gay, the Nazi Party was controlled entirely by militaristic homosexuals who were specifically chosen for the SS because of their intrinsic, vicious cruelty. Historians agree that the Nazis made homosexuality a capital crime and murdered thousands of gay men in concentration camps. Lively has been connected with The Family of C Street notoriety and the campaign to criminalize homosexuality in Uganda with the “Kill the Gays” bill.
Lively claims that The Pink Swastika is an examination of history. Of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Lively says they “had run out of racists to go after and they started looking for other targets so they could keep beating that drum getting and keep focusing on getting money from their donor base on the theme of hatred.” Lively has created a niche in the anti-gay industry with books, tours, lectures, sermons, debates and other appearances by which he makes his living, and it’s all based on assertions that have either been completely proved false or have no basis in reality. Referring to an article for which the reporter asked his reaction to being named to the SPLC Hate Group list for a second year, Lively claims he was “smeared here in this community where I lived and worked for many years. On the front page, I was treated as some kind of a criminal.”
One wonders how he views the effects his published fabrications and distortions about gays affect the people about whom he so cavalierly writes?
The Family Research Council and Focus on the Family have both been named hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center “because of [their] dissemination of false and demonizing propaganda about gays and lesbians.” Both groups are sponsored by The Charity Give Back Group, formerly the Christian Values Network, which siphons online shopping proceeds to CGBG associated organizations. This practice led to complaints and calls for boycotts against their number that are, in reality, merely anti-choice and anti-gay associations. Up steps the Catholic League, notoriously active in formulating legislation as well as passing ballot initiatives and referenda to limit women’s reproductive rights, marriage equality and gay rights, in defense.
Bill Donohue, president of The Catholic League, spoke with Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins on his Washington Watch radio program, “Radical proponents of gay marriage have taken the culture war to the marketplace,” by having declared “economic war against any organization that embraces the Judeo-Christian understanding of marriage. If these extremists get their way, they will silence the Christian voice. Which is why the bullies must be defeated.”
November of last year saw the Smithsonian remove an art video from an LGBT exhibit because Donohue, specifically, was offended by it. Isn’t that censorship to silence gay art? Donohue doesn’t think so. Donohue also compares Gay Rights achievements to Apartheid, where an entitled few ruled over the many.
Recent polls [one, two, three] have shown American sentiment turning away from evangelical influence on Congress and state governments. More Americans support the Separation of Church and State, as described by the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution, than support the take over of government and society by radical Christians. However, a small group of evangelicals support the Seven Mountains theology which calls for Christians to wrest control, or take dominion, of the seven spheres of influence within society including government, entertainment, education and business. Tony Perkins and Scott Lively are both supporters of this effort to prepare America for the second coming. Dominionists, as they are also called, would turn America into a Taliban-like Christian theocracy.
Censorship and taking control of others lives, limiting choices and eliminating diversity is how anti-gay groups operate. While associating LGBT Rights to Apartieid, Donohue denied he’d ever pressured any groups to change their ways by force. He’s accused “extremists” of trying to silence opponents’voices without mentioning his push to censor art with an LGBT theme. Nor did he mention the numerous, to use his terminology, reprisals and retaliation campaigns against companies that extended rights and benefits to gays and their partners. Most prominent among them are Disney over the movie, Priest (1994), 20th Century Fox for Nothing Sacred (1997), The Passion of Christ (2004), The Simpsons Sunday, Cruddy Sunday, (Se10Ep12 1999); Wal-Mart over using “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas;” New Line Cinema over The Golden Compass, Miller which sponsored the Folsum Street Fair in San Francisco (2007), Showtime over Sister Mary Explains It All (2001), and threatened CBS over Howard Stern’s possible replacement of David Letterman on The Late Show.
But, that’s not Aparthied, that’s righteousness. Just like creating a god in their own image isn’t projection, it’s true faith.
This post is among a weekly series of examinations about the effect society’s attitudes has on Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgendered and sexual orientation Questioning citizens. Each week’s contribution seeks to expose motivations, machinations, malice and complicity among detractors of the LGBTQ community and supporters.
Oh, how they love to make things up.
“They” are a small but vociferous group of perennial malcontents who are steeped in wishful thinking and self aggrandizement. Training starts early in life when they’re most vulnerable, most impressionable, and incapable of telling the difference between fantasy and reality. They’re taught that magic is real. They’re taught that an opinion is equal to a fact. They’re taught that conviction is the same thing as truth.
Infantile brainwashing and childhood indoctrination doesn’t make one stupid. Emotional and intellectual abuse makes one a victim. Often, in cases of abuse, such victims have a higher predisposition to pass on the damage by becoming an abuser – more often than not to their own children.
They think it’s a good thing.
They define themselves as a special, chosen few. As a society they embrace whoever else agrees to be chosen by the same rules. They discourage and deny those who think differently enough to contaminate their pristine conformity. Theirs is given of an immutable, unwavering authority that defies challenge on pain of eternal, infinite, untiring suffering.
The first loyalty among the abused is to their recognized authority. Everything cited under this authority is attributed exactly as described. This authority trumps any other idea. Informed by this authority, it is assumed unassailable.
Of course, there are those who disagree with all or part of such an approach to life, especially when adherents would change or limit choices, opportunities, expression and even the very lives of those who disagree. This is a fundamental challenge to the supernaturally entitled chosen and their free interpretation as a way of life.
A self-appointed subset, among the chosen, raise themselves to meet the challenge. They claim to be called upon by their transcendent authority to engage and subdue those who disagree. Clothed in a mantle of morality, claiming the power of their transcendent authority, they invariably replace fact with opinion and conflate conviction with reality, painting a picture of overwhelming threat that any alternative may pose to all things good and virtuous. Oh, how they love to make things up to illustrate their points. In the coming weeks this column will profile and quote among these servants of virtue
Bryan Fischer is the Director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy for the American Family Association where he serves as their spokesman, blogging on his AFA forum Rightly Concerned, and hosting Focal Point on American Family Radio’s network of around 145 stations, reaching an audience of about two million. Fischer’s attacks on Gays, Muslims, Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics and other immigrants has earned Fischer and the AFA official hate group status by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Fischer earned his baccalaureate in philosophy from Stanford University and his graduate degree in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. He served as the founding director of the Cole Center for Biblical Studies in Boise, Idaho for 13 years. Afterward, Fischer founded the Community Church of the Valley which he headed as senior pastor for twelve years during which time he also served as executive director of the Idaho Values Alliance. Fisher was a commissioner for the Boise, Idaho Parks and Recreation department from 2000 to 2005 and founded the Keep the Commandments Coalition in 2004 to keep a memorial to the Ten Commandments erected in civic Julia Davis Park among museums, a zoo and other public cultural, recreational and educational amenities.
As Director of Issue Analysis for Government and Public Policy at the American Family Association, Bryan Fischer has fabricated a list of threats imposed upon his brand of god and country.
Fischer has directed the greatest proportion of his zeal toward the LGBTQ community using a wide array of bizarre characterizations to vilify innocents he was taught from an early age were not only different but intrinsically corrupt. Fischer has championed amendments to many states’ constitutions banning marriage equality, promoting boycotts among businesses, corporations and state governments that have offered benefits and protections to gays, and ousting state supreme court judges who ruled in favour of marriage equality and equal protection.
It’s not just the volume of Fisher’s vituperative statements, or even the creativity of what he says. What is most telling is his meandering absurdity. Here are some examples of what he gets paid to say.
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The number one group for the perpetration of hate crimes today are [sic] homosexual activitists. (Focal Point audio, Rightly Concerned blog post 26 Jun 11) |
Top ten truths about homosexuality:Homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals
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Not even one among Fischer’s claims is supported by evidence that hasn’t been thoroughly debunked and rendered objectively false. The studies cited by Fischer are mischaracterized, unscientific or use faulty procedure/sampling/analysis/objectivity or have been otherwise falsely applied. All his arguments in The list of ten “truths” about homosexuality are debunked here by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The only reason there is anything remotely resembling a culture war follows radical religious zealots’ resistance of public pressure to rein in the traditional taboo from challenge they’ve been allowed to expand their religious freedoms to the point of running rough shod over the rights – and lives – of innocents. They perceive being told they can no longer dictate controls over others’ lives is somehow an infringement of their religious freedom. You see, their world view includes exerting domination – or dominion, using their terminology – over all aspects of society, and everybody in it, thereby turning the world, and especially America, into a theocracy. [video, video] All of this is in readiness for the corporeal (re)appearance of their chosen, transcendent authority. You know, the one that tells them what to do, how to do it, what to say and what they may and may not think. According to Fischer, anybody who stands up to their tyranny is acting in hate is is therefore guilty of a hate crime. Always the aggressor who cries foul, the bully as martyr. [one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten,]
Everyone is entitled to an opinion and has the right to express it. Yet, victims of early onset religious indoctrination are hard pressed to prove their case among those not subjected to infantile brainwashing. Making a case to people not conditioned to accept magic as a natural state would do well to present credible proof – or even a hint of factual indication – that their transcendent authority exists. The very best on offer to back up their claims so far – well, for the most recent pair millennia – are more assertions, hearsay, superstition, old wive’s tales, myths. The best are neither provable nor testable claims. Arguments in favour of their authority are most often presented in a mind bending array of logical fallacies, most often including appeals to popularity and appeals to authority, the very one for which there is no objective proof. Wanting it to be true doesn’t make it so. Or, in the words of Marcus Bachmann, “Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road.”
America is a land defined by the rule of law. Tradition and popularity are not law. Consider this rule of thumb: would the dispute survive the test of judicial trial? Ask the proponents of Prop 8, Congressional defenders of DADT, and the myriad apologists for the almost three dozen states that have passed discriminatory state level, anti-equality constitutional measures. Each of these examples about the tyranny of the masses the Founding Fathers warned us against are under the threat of judicial review and subject to the dispassionate judgement of jurists who know the difference between opinion and fact, conviction and reality.
“…The things you are liable to find it the Bible: It ain’t necessarily so.”
©2011
Nathan Garcia. All international rights reserved.
The so-called culture war exists only because of a relatively small, however shrill, collection of extremist religionists and political moralists who get away with their distortions because too few more reasonable believers fail to stand up to them at all, much less at every opportunity.
There are a vast majority of reasonable, moderate to liberal believers who support progressive social issues like equality, choice and social justice. After all, these tenets are not only guaranteed by the Constitutional law of the land, but are primary aspects of the creed most religious believers ascribe to. A problem arises when Freedom of Religion is extended beyond the tip of one’s nose to stifle dissent of what a minority claim is part of their pursuit of religion. Too long have even the most outlandish and egregiously overextended abuses of religious freedom gone unchecked under the banner of religious choice and scriptural observation in the name of religious tolerance. Some faithful have enjoyed a taboo against criticism and critique for so long and to the extent that whatever they say is allowed not only to themselves but to affect those around them both near and far. Issues such as slavery, women’s rights, temperance, voting right, segregation, conservation, and xenophobia had historically been justified by religious doctrine and scripture long after a disaffected public turned against them. Many among these issues are contentious today. Assigning divine authority to the observation of non-religious issues is significant far beyond the most radically outspoken few.
Forty years of fusion between political conservatism and religion, since the 1970s have infused public debate with the authority and entitlement claimed by some believers to supersede history, empirical fact and the Constitution of the United States. Beginning with Jimmy Carter’s “I have lusted in my heart” evangelism, but especially since Ronald Regan’s first Presidential bid, the likes of Christian Voice (1978) and the Moral Majority (1979) and, later, the Christian Coalition (1987) have been prominently influential in defining the tone and timbre of public discourse to the effect exclusion of any alternative sources of philosophical authority.
Blending policy with religion serves several purposes. First, a great majority of Americans are taught from near infancy to believe a set of propositions that include prohibitions from questioning and challenging those propositions in any manner, to any degree, at any time, for any reason. An elect few are designated with transcendent power to not only interpret philosophical sources, but correlate ancient thought with current circumstances while enjoying the taboo against challenge, critique and criticism even among those who do not specifically acknowledge those claiming such power. As a result, they can say whatever they want, and inject whatever projection so contrived, protected from challenge by virtue of the specially unassailable authority of religious tolerance. That is assumed without regard of whom it harms, the damage it wreaks or how egregiously it contravenes fact. Even simple objections to their pronouncements on how everybody should think and behave, according the them, abridge their freedom to practice religion and their definition of religious tolerance.
Not all believers follow this paradigm, though there are enough among decidedly radical extremists who are well heeled enough to wield considerate political clout. Religious leaders have long enjoyed privileged access to a succession of chief executives, legislators, jurists, and on down the social structure to include actively compliant followers. Such religious influence in the halls of government has received at least tacit approval by the majority of believers who demur in the name of tolerance.
Who are the most prominent among the regressive religious radicals and what do they say about themselves, our nation and the alleged threats to their view of the world? Jerry Falwell, who founded the Moral Majority and Liberty University, is deceased without a charismatic successor. Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition has receded from prominence though his Christian Broadcasting Network, while faded in eminence somewhat in recent years, is still broadcasting worldwide. Most of the early trend setting organizations have been supplanted by not for profit organizations such as Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth About Homosexuality and the American Family Association whose Director of Issues Analysis and host of their American Family Radio program, Focal Point, is Bryan Fischer. While there are dozens of similar groups in operation, these two organizations epitomize the general evangelical approach to social engineering:
(1) Create an issue.
(2) Justify its relevance with scripture
(3) Label a vulnerable, already marginalized target as the source of the threat.
Both these groups have been certified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center based on criteria of claims made by these groups that have been objectively discredited or demonstrably proven false. While the declarations made by these and similar groups are bizarre and most often absurd, they share an approach which may be characterized as a concerted effort to return racism, misogyny and homophobia to normalized status in American Culture.
According to Bryan Fischer, gay rights will prevent religious freedom because “every advance of the homosexual agenda comes at the expense of religious liberty,” Hitler was homosexual and the Nazi party was founded in a gay bar, DADT repeal will lead to the return of the military draft, and because gays are aberrant, gay role models cannot exist. He says any type of homosexual union should be outlawed.
Peter LaBarbara exhibits a keen interest in fetish sexual practices among gay men in support of his vilification of gay men and Lesbian women in general. Online reporters have opined that LaBarbara has exposed more Christians to gay sexual practices than have ever happened upon such discovery on their own. Last February, in a Twitter exchange with journalist Zach Ford, LaBarbara tweeted, “One man’s “discrimination” is another man’s fidelity to his conscience + moral/rel[igious] code. That’s the essence of this battle.” Earlier this week, his AFTAH organization was stripped of it’s non-profit status for faulty IRS documentation, which may put a serious crimp in the group’s ability to raise funds. Dampening its activities from lack of interest in its positions would have been much better, but even Al Capone was taken off the streets because of IRS issues.
The point of all this is that these religious ideologues have long been claiming religious freedom in undermining the rights of anybody who doesn’t agree with them, look like them, live, think or worship like them. They claim, at least indirectly, that their religious rights trump everybody else’s rights and supercedes any laws that would curtail the active expression of their beliefs. According to them, the mere existence of minorities, women’s needs, and gay people infringes on their rights to object and discriminate however they please.
It’s up to reasonable people to call zealots out whenever these ideologues make claims in the name of some conflated common cause, such as being heterosexual or American citizens, that oversteps the bounds of reason. Bryan Fischer, Peter LaBarbara and those who agree with their philosophies against diversity and inclusion, do not represent any genuine American ideal. They do not represent any opinion or philosophy supportable by the Constitution or any court of law.
I am ready to speak up and speak out. Are you?
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