Hey, Porno Pete [new readers, see addendum below], whatcha doin?
AFTAH in the News: ABC uses homosexual activist’s mocking slogan, “Pray Away the Gay”
Well, no, the hate group Americans For Truth About Homosexuality wasn’t in the news. Pete seems to be trying to ride the proverbial coattails, here. Peter: We may have given you your special name, but that does not mean you get to come with us everywhere we go.
But yeah, “pray away the gay” has become shorthand for the abusive, hateful, damaging, thoroughly discredited practice known as reparative therapy. They could have always used “beating the pillow with a tennis racket…away the gay,” but Porno Pete’s friend Richard Cohen just isn’t a part of this story.
Folks, it sure didn’t take long for the liberal media to go into Christian-bashing mode against GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). Watch this almost comically biased hit-piece by ABC’s Brian Ross — featuring the militantly anti-Christian homosexual organization Truth Wins Out.
We’re going to have to let our Christian writers and affiliates know that we are “militantly anti-Christian.” I’m sure they would like to know!
(TWO denies the reality that people can leave homosexuality behind; I call them “Focus on the Failures” because their nonsensical argument seems to be that since many practicing “gays” fail in their quest to change, transformation away from homosexuality is a myth.)
This is absolutely the first time you have ever called us “Focus on the Failures,” Pete. Why you would draw attention to the fact that most people who go through “ex-gay” programs come back more damaged than before, and still gay, is beyond me. [The others tend to make lots of ca$h by working for “ex-gay” companies, or they write books and, you know, make ca$h.]
Incredibly, ABC even went so far as to title its piece “Pray Away the Gay at Bachmann Clinic?” — recycling TWO founder Wayne Besen’s mocking and bigoted attack-slogan for the idea that people can overcome homosexual desires through faith in God.
“Incredibly.”
Shouldn’t it have occurred to Ross to sit down with and interview a SUCCESSFUL former homosexual like Janet Boynes…
Hmmmm, yeah, they should have pretended that there are two sides to every single story, I suppose.
Dinosaurs: prehistoric creatures from long ago or Heaven’s most vicious Muppets?! We report, you decide!
I don’t have much hope of changing ABC…
Pray away the ABC! [Pete seems to be saying…]
So all of this from hate group leader Porno Pete was a prelude to a piece by another bizarrely unhinged anti-gay activist, Cliff Kincaid, who is notable for defending Uganda’s genocidal anti-gay legislation. Let’s play with him a minute:
Once a greatly feared investigative reporter, Brian Ross has been reduced to recycling left-wing material from the homosexual lobby.
Translation: any reporting on gays that I don’t like is “recycled left-wing material.”
But the pathetic hit job he narrated on Monday’s ABC Nightline show on GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann has backfired in a big way.
Not that I’ve seen.
The charge was that the Bachmann family counseling service engages in terrible things by teaching homosexuals how to leave their disease-ridden lifestyle.
Aside from the fact that the suggestion that homosexuality is inherently “disease-ridden” is a flat out lie, yes, the charge is that the Bachmann clinic uses discredited, disproven and harmful methods to try to de-gay people. This is quite a revelation in the Western world in the year 2012. It’s important to interpret the news through the lens of reality that exists, rather than the one Cliff Kincaid imagines to exist.
Ironically, however, he presented evidence that ex-homosexuals do in fact exist…
Nah, he showed Janet Boynes, who is basically a charlatan selling a book and has no actual “success stories” to present.
Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth says the phrase, “pray away the gay,” is intended to ridicule Christians and comes directly from homosexual activist Wayne Besen’s group, Truth Wins Out. LaBarbera asks, “Why are the major media repeating these hateful attack slogans by radical gay activists?”
He’s baaaaaaack.
He explains, “We don’t mock the idea of leaving drug addiction or alcoholism with God’s help. Why is it acceptable to mock faith in God to overcome unwanted behaviors like homosexuality in their lives?”
No one is mocking anything. We’re simply shining a light on the lie of reparative therapy. Grown-up mental health and medical associations agree that drug addiction and alcoholism are problems in need of solutions. They also agree that homosexuality is not a problem, that it is perfectly normal. The fact that somebody believes an unscientific book says otherwise is really not relevant to our discussion, here at the grown-up table.
To make matters worse, the ABC hit piece was largely recycled leftist material. Ross borrowed heavily from Truth Wins Out (TWO) and an article in The Nation magazine, in order to concoct the shaky story.
In this case, he is using the term “recycled” to refer to the original print versions of the story, which came out in the days just before the television report. Far from being “recycled,” any journalism student could explain to Cliff and Peter that Brian Ross’s report is known as “breaking a story on television.”
The apparently shocking advice to the undercover homosexual operative was that heterosexuality is natural and homosexuality is not. This is what passes for “investigative journalism” these days.
Yep, Cliff, it’s a significant story because the idea that “heterosexuality is natural and homosexuality is not” is a disproven lie. This is not complicated stuff…
Anyway, the rest of Cliff’s piece is a random non sequitur, and a completely undeveloped one at that, about how Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi is mean. Cliff kinda veers off the road sometimes when it comes to his train of thought in print.
This is just the response from a couple of hate group leaders to the Bachmann clinic story. Responses from other detractors have been pretty weak as well. More on that in a minute.
ADDENDUM: If you are new to our organization, a little back story is in order. Peter LaBarbera is the leader of the SPLC-certified hate group called Americans for Truth About Homosexuality [AFTAH]. Wayne Besen dubbed him “Porno Pete” a few years back on account of his strange affinity for either himself infiltrating [or sending “reporters” into] fetish sex events which cater to people of varying sexual orientations, but which are nonetheless outside of the mainstream of American sexual activity, gay or straight. While people who are comfortable in their own skin but who may not be particularly interested in such fetish events may be content to shrug their shoulders and say “eh, different strokes for different folks!” and go about the chores of their daily lives, Pete has always set himself apart by posting pornographic pictures on his hate group’s blog [americans for truth dot com], and then using said images in an effort to broadbrush all gay Americans as sick perverts. Most casual observers find this to be extremely bizarre behavior. This strategy is of course as disingenuous as it is stupid, and many Religious Right leaders have privately told gay activists [most notably Jeremy at Good As You] that they are very embarrassed by his actions, as they hurt the anti-gay movement by making them look sensationalistic, dishonest, pathetic and approximately as bigoted as a common KKK initiate. While many on the anti-gay side of the fence may indeed have loving and honest motives, but yet are sadly and terribly misinformed on issues of science, human sexuality and reality, Peter has always revealed himself a little bit too much by also being unable to report on gay human beings without using sophomoric anti-gay slurs and digs which are only funny to the quickly dwindling/dying-off segment of the population which still agrees with him. He will wax melodramatic, but not really poetic, on a regular basis about how our use of the term “Porno Pete” proves that we are the REAL hate group here, but we rest secure in the knowledge that A., We don’t lie and B., the causes we fight for actually help people, as opposed to raising the national gay teen depression and suicide rate, which is far too often the end result of the activities of the Religious Right in this nation.
