Alvin McEwen has a great, very important petition at Change.org that you should all check out. In it, he is petitioning the United States Congress to subject Religious Right testimony on LGBT issues to a high level of scrutiny, based on their pattern of cravenly distorting actual research in order to further their anti-gay agenda:
In June of this year during a Congressional hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act, Sen. Al Franken exposed Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery’s attempt to inaccurately cite a study to defame same-sex households.
Earlier this year during another Congressional hearing on DOMA, National Organization for Marriage’s Maggie Gallagher committed the same distortion – i.e. inaccurately citing a study to defame same-sex households. Gallagher’s group (NOM) has also been called out twice by the Pulitzer Prize winning site Politifact for inaccurate negative statements it has made about the gay community.
The Family Research Council was declared as an official anti-gay hate group last year by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its tendency to spread propaganda about the gay community such as gays molest children at a high level and same-sex households harm children.
However, the head of the Family Research Council – Tony Perkins – is frequently called as a Congressional witness on many occasions from discussing issues of gay equality to the selection of Supreme Court justices.
That’s just three examples. Alvin points out at his blog that, though Tom Minnery was called out, Maggie Gallagher and Tony Perkins got away with it, and that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Religious Right distorting the work of real, honest researchers. That petition, again, is at Change.org, so check it out and sign it.
The other petition comes from Kathy Baldock, and focuses on the pride celebration in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you’re not familiar with Kathy, she is a straight, evangelical woman who spends her days fighting for dignity and respect for LGBT people within the church. At Charlotte Pride, as usual, the vehemently anti-gay activist Michael Brown has planned a counter demonstration called “God Has A Better Way.” Brown has a distinct pattern of pretending that he is reaching out in love to LGBT people, and somehow managing to send some of the most grotesque, hateful messages possible to the gay community. Kathy explains a bit more about the message of the God Has A Better Way people:
The stated beliefs of the backers of GHABW * with respect to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are:
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are a deviation from God’s best, God’s intentions and His design.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people can change orientation and be heterosexual with no negative effects.
If they do not succeed in orientation change, they should remain celibate in order to identify as Christians.( “Gay Christian” is always placed in quotation marks to dismiss the existence of gay Christians.)
The majority of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are inherently unhappy, unhealthy, sexually immoral or rebellious to the will of God.
Transgender people would best follow God’s plan by using hormonal therapy, prayer and counseling to overcome the issue of gender identity. Sexual reassignment surgery should never be used as an option.
Acting on same sex attraction is sinful and indicative of non-submission to God.
Same-sex attraction is a behavior, not an orientation.
In your face hateful, as usual. These people, of course, claim that they are bringing this message in “love,” but Michael Brown has shown repeatedly that his concept of “love” is warped at best.
Sign Kathy’s petition to ask the group to cancel their nasty little counter rally here.
