Filed under: Right-wing

Marriage Equality: National Organization for Marriage teams up with proponents of discredited ex-gay therapy

By Scottie Thomaston

The author of the major study that has been used to promote so-called “ex-gay” therapy has retracted his claims recently, admitting that the research doesn’t prove much of anything, and that trying to convert one’s self from gay to straight is psychologically harmful. This tracks the American Psychological Association’s – along with all other mainstream mental health professions’ – position on the issue: homosexuality is a normal and healthy expression of human sexuality, and is not in any way a mental illness that needs to be corrected.

Undeterred from facts and science-based evidence, the race-baiting National Organization for Marriage is teaming up with the Christian Civic League of Maine to oppose marriage equality in the state. That group is led by an ex-gay proponent, Bob Emrich, who has repeatedly suggested that homosexuality can and should be corrected.

The National Organization for Marriage of course has a long history of inserting itself in various states’ attempts to pass marriage equality legislation while hiding its donors and promoting race-baiting tactics. But even NOM has tried to appear as mainstream as one can possibly appear while trying to deny loving couples legal rights based on nothing other than meanness. This puts their real agenda in the spotlight: it’s one thing to cling to racism as the last hope for denying gays and lesbians legal rights; it’s another thing to side with a promoter of widely discredited, out-of-the-mainstream ideas as a last desperate attempt to hurt gays and lesbians.

Notably, the group says it hopes to play a “major role” in the campaign:

The chairman of Protect Marriage Maine, Rev. Bob Emrich, says it will organize groups of different faiths as well as people with no faith traditions at all in opposition to the ballot initiative. Maine voters defeated a gay marriage proposal that was on the 2009 ballot.

Christian Civic League Executive Director Carroll Conley says his group was not a major player in the 2009 campaign, but he believes it can play a major role in the campaign this year.

So it appears the campaign to deny legal rights to gays and lesbians in Maine will be largely headed by the race-baiting National Organization for Marriage and a group whose chairman is a supporter of discredited and fringe ex-gay therapy.

39 Comments April 23, 2012

Missouri attempts to pass “Don’t Say Gay” bill of its own

By Scottie Thomaston

There’s a new trend happening across the country in which legislators attempt to silence people who are LGBT via passage of “Don’t Say Gay” laws – erasing any school discussions of LGBT people and even refusing to step in and stop anti-LGBT bullying through educating students about the harms it causes. In Tennessee, their “Don’t Say Gay” bill, authored by state senator Stacey Campfield, passed out of committee a week ago.

Now Missouri is joining in on this tactic. They’ve referred to committee their own “Don’t Say Gay” bill:

170.370. Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, no instruction, material, or extracurricular activity sponsored by a public school that discusses sexual orientation other than in scientific instruction concerning human reproduction shall be provided in any public school.

This bill appears to be broader than Tennessee’s. Tennessee recently advanced a measure protecting Gay-Straight Alliances in their schools, but it appears that this measure in Missouri could potentially ban those groups, since they’re an “extracurricular activity” that “discusses sexual orientation… other than human reproduction.” This would be an enormous problem because these groups can often be the only welcoming place inside a school environment. And since they allow gay and straight students alike to talk to each other about these issues, they provide a great educational opportunity. Banning them could cause serious harm:

In its entirety, the bill would not only outlaw any discussion of homosexuality in public schools, but it would also ban any GLBT groups on school grounds.

That’s something Hattie Svoboda-Stel, a junior at Saint Teresa’s Academy, said would give bullies a free pass to target gay students.

“If they’re unable to talk to about sexuality, or the fact that people are not straight, then if someone’s being bullied because of the sexual orientation, teachers wouldn’t be able to stick up or explain the situation or why it’s not ok,” she said.

It may also ban sex education except for heterosexual sex, and it could ban discussions of anti-LGBT bullying and teachers’ attempts to intervene to protect LGBT students. It could ban discussions of IVF. The bill has so far attracted 19 GOP cosponsors.

18 Comments April 23, 2012

Proposed anti-gay amendment in Colorado qualifies for ballot

By Scottie Thomaston

In March I reported on a proposed amendment to Colorado’s state constitution, an attempt by the Alliance Defense Fund and Focus on the Family to allow discrimination if it is claimed to be motivated by “sincerely held religious belief”. Like 1992′s infamous Amendment 2, which was later ruled unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court in Romer v. Evans in 1996, the amendment’s effects would be to target minorities and single them out for discrimination and denial of basic services and needs. In March, the amendment was only proposed, and right-wing groups were trying to qualify the measure for placement on the ballot so the voters can decide whether it will be adopted or not.

A challenge to the amendment has failed:

Today’s title board hearing just finished up. Despite having some of the best legal minds in Colorado working for us and mounting a strong legal case, we lost our initial challenge to Focus on the Family’s deceptive ballot initiative to write discrimination into our state Constitution. Now we have to take our challenge to the Colorado State Supreme Court. If we don’t, this dangerous measure is all but certain to appear on our ballot this fall. If enacted, this measure’s radical effects will be felt in Colorado for decades to come—and would have far-reaching implications for LGBT Coloradans.

Here is the amendment’s language:

Section 32. Religious Liberty.

(1) Government may not burden a person’s or religious organization’s religious liberty.

(2) The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief may not be burdened unless the government prove it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest.

(3) A burden includes indirect burdens such as withholding benefits, assessing penalties, or an exclusion from programs or access to facilities.

In March I said:

Essentially, it suggests that discrimination would be acceptable if it is done for religious reasons unless the government can meet certain strenuous requirements. For the most part, of course, the government can’t restrict or impede religious practices or impose certain religious beliefs on society. Common decency and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment does lead to the conclusion however that different classes of people should be treated equally in our laws, so necessarily this means disfavored classes have equal rights, too.

The amendment would “create a two-tiered society” and disadvantage gay people based on a specious rationalization[.]“

Passage of the amendment would be a serious step back for Colorado. And it would come at quite possibly the worst time for the state, given its recent pro-LGBT advancements. There’s a new proposal in the state to remove the unconstitutional Amendment 2 from the books, and a civil unions bill for LGBTs is advancing in the state legislature. Recent polling in the state indicates strong majority support for the civil unions bill as well as majority support for marriage equality.

45 Comments April 20, 2012

Mitt Romney picks national security spokesman who is gay

By Scottie Thomaston

Attempting to appear moderate and to appeal to independent voters despite his close ties with the National Organization for Marriage and his renunciation of nearly every single pro-LGBT advancement from the past decade, Mitt Romney has hired Richard Grenell as a foreign policy spokesperson:

Mitt Romney’s campaign tonight announced that it has hired Richard Grenell, an out gay former George W. Bush administration official, to serve as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s “national security and foreign policy spokesman,” according to a report from The Washington Post that did not mention Grenell’s sexual orientation.

Grenell is gay, and as a former Bush administration official he was outspoken about his orientation in 2008, leading an effort to get himself and his partner listed alongside other United States diplomats, and telling The Advocate:

Though Grenell and Lashey met in New York and have been together six years, they cannot legally marry in the Empire State. “It is not an option for us in New York, but hopefully someday soon it will be,” he says. “In my mind, and in Matt’s mind, this is it. We’re married.”

Mitt Romney of course supports an amendment to the United States Constitution to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, just as former president George W. Bush did. His stance on repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has shifted from 1994 until now. Currently he says that repeal has already occurred and he isn’t going to change it – though he isn’t comfortable with the fact that it was done during wartime.

Earlier this year, Grenell wrote an op ed criticizing the LGBT community for not pushing President Obama harder on his lack of support for marriage equality. He wrote that LGBT organizations and liberal media should have held the president more accountable to get the results we want from him instead of just accepting that he won’t budge on the issue:

These and other hypocritical actions by gays and lesbians encouraged Obama to take them for granted. Why would Democratic politicians need to deliver on equal rights if there were no consequences for playing both sides of an issue? Gays were going to support Obama no matter what, so the president, like all politicians, pocketed their support and moved on. There was no threat of losing their support, so why pay attention to their issues? Especially when there is a plethora of other needy constituencies clamoring for favors.

It’s actually been a smart political strategy to keep the leaders close and feeling important. They must think they are political masters inside that White House. Not delivering on gay equality risks nothing – Obama can keep the gay base of money and support but reach out to moderate evangelicals and religious activists that still need to be wooed. And the gay liberal media are happy to help keep everyone hyped up and happy – as long as they get their invites.

If Romney wins the presidency, we can hope Grenell will urge the same accountability that he asked for earlier this year. It’s obviously doubtful that Mitt Romney, who donated $10,000 to a homophobic, race-baiting organization in an attempt to deny gay and lesbian couples the legal right to marry, would change his mind or somehow become more open-minded on LGBT rights.

15 Comments April 20, 2012

News round-up: Prop 8, Amendment 1 in North Carolina, and more

By Scottie Thomaston

- Fred Karger, the first openly gay GOP candidate for president, is filing ethics charges against the National Organization for Marriage. The new claim is based on Romney’s secretive $10,000 donation to the organization. From the press release which can be read here:

“NOM has once again conspired to hide its contributions, and this time it was Mitt Romney’s,” stated Karger. “The recently unsealed documents (coincidentally from my last campaign ethics violation complaint against NOM in Maine) revealed that NOM received the $10,000 on October 14, 2008 from Romney’s Alabama PAC “Free and Strong America.” That was only 3 weeks before the Prop 8 election in which NOM was heavily involved. Funny that NOM appears to have reported all the contributions that it received before and after Romney’s, but failed to report Governor Romney’s $10,000 to ban gay marriage in California.”?

- Rob Reiner, who appeared on The Stephanie Miller Show on Current TV, says he is confident the Supreme Court will overturn Proposition 8. He says we’re winning the war:

“Years from now we’ll look back and say, ‘What was all the fuss about?’ People will look back and say, ‘You mean there was a time that women couldn’t vote? There was a time that blacks couldn’t vote or blacks couldn’t marry whites?’ I mean, we look at those things as ridiculous now and we will look at this as being ridiculous but right now we’re in the middle of a fight and we have to keep fighting.”

“We’re going to win this, but we’ve got to keep our foot on the gas.”

On the possibility of the case going to the Supreme Court, Reiner said: “They have upheld gay rights historically in Lawrence v. Texas, in Romer [v. Evans] case. And we believe that they will uphold us in this.”

- On the contractor executive order front, gay activists are launching a “We Can’t Wait” campaign to pressure President Obama to reconsider his decision not to sign it. Meanwhile, Metro Weekly got a statement from the White House saying that:

White House spokesman Shin Inouye tells Metro Weekly today that “the time is right for a comprehensive legislative approach” to address anti-LGBT workplace discrimination — a reference to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — although he added that “the Administration hasn’t taken any options off the table.”

- Pam Spaulding writes about a new $100,000 matching donation campaign to help defeat anti-gay Amendment 1 in North Carolina. She will also feature an interview with the straight ally responsible for this effort.

- Despite popular framing of the issue, opponents of marriage equality don’t actually think their marriages are harmed by the ability of gays and lesbians to marry.

Leave a Comment April 16, 2012

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