Commentary Tidbits

Truth Wins Out: Hate Groups Waiting in the Wings

Prop 8 Trial Tracker: NOM Opposing Civil Unions in Illinois: "We just don't like the gays"

Religion Dispatches: Glenn Beck Hijacks It’s a Wonderful Life 

Ms. Magazine: I Am Biblical Woman, Hear Me Roar?

Right Wing Watch: Tea Party Leaders Urge GOP to Keep DADT and Defund Planned Parenthood

Friendly Atheist: A Creation Museum Theme Park Contest

An Apostate's Chapel: Clueless Conservative Christian

News Tidbits

Huffington Post: Israel Finds Common Cause With Evangelicals

Huffington Post: Mike Huckabee Lauds Ousting of Iowa Judges Who Agrreed with Decision to Strike Gay Marriage Ban

NPR: Culture War Brewing Within Tea Party?

AOL News: Georgia Preacher Leads Anti-Gay Crusade in Uganda

LGBTQ Nation: Parents Fight School's Anti-Bullying Curriculum Because It Teaches LGBT Tolerance

Public Religion Research Institute: Findings from the 2010 Post-Election American Values Survey

SPLC: 18 Anti-Gay Groups and their Propaganda

SPLC: 10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked

CNN: Another Bishop Long Controversy Erupts

Irish Times: Theologian says much of Catholic clergy is gay

Southern Poverty Law Center Adds to List of Anti-Gay Hate Groups

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) will be adding five new organizations to its list of hate groups next year: the American Family Association, Americans for Truth about Homosexuality, Family Research Council, Illinois Family Institute, and Dove World Outreach Center. According to the SPLC, these organizations were selected based on their propagation of known falsehoods about homosexuality and the LGBT community.



For additional information and commentary on this decision, visit the following links:

SPLC: 18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda

Truth Wins Out: SPLC Designates American Family Association, Family Research Council, Illinois Family Institute As Hate Groups

Zack Ford Blogs: It's Official: AFA, FRC, and Other Anti-Gay Orgs are Hate Groups

Good As You: SPLC Hate Groups: 5 More Anti-LGBT Orgs to Enter Annals

Joe.My.God: Southern Poverty Law Center Adds Family Research Council & American Family Association to Its Anti-Gay Hate Groups List

Sam Seder at Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally

(Hat tip to Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

At Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor Rally in Washington D.C. this summer, Sam Seder interviewed attendees about their political views. The results are jaw-dropping. (Click here if you're having trouble viewing the video.)



At the 0:21 mark, Seder talks with a woman about separation of church and state.

SEDER: What does Restoring Honor mean to you?

WOMAN IN YELLOW SHIRT: Restoring Honor? I guess it means trying to go back to live the actual Constitution. There doesn't need to be a separation of God and church. I think that a lot of our problems have to do with taking God out of the schools and separating it all.

SEDER: But from a Constitutional standpoint, isn't there supposed to be separation of church and state?

WOMAN IN YELLOW SHIRT: Well, I need to take a Constitution class, I will admit that. I have signed up for one starting in October so I can learn more. I don't admit to knowing everything about the Constitution . . .

SEDER: Let me asking you about--because you're hear, you feel like we've gotten away from the Constitution. What happens if you take that course about the Constitution and find out there's stuff in there you don't like?

WOMAN IN YELLOW SHIRT: Then, I will--I don't know what I'll do.

At the 2:06 mark, we hear a young man misunderstanding the concept of rule of the majority.

MAN IN BLACK SHIRT: . . . We have states right now like California. The judge over-passing what the people wanted as gay rights for gay marriage. People said they didn't want it. Seventy percent of them said they didn't want it. The judge goes in there -- oh, we'll pass it.

SEDER: Well, he says it's because the Constitution says equal rights for everybody.

MAN IN BLACK SHIRT: Yeah, but it also says the majority wins, and the majority of the people in that state don't want it, then they shouldn't have it. They can come to Ohio.

:: sighs ::

Commentary Tidbits

Dad's Primal Scream: No You Don't

Gaytheist Agenda: Mormons and Gays: Electroshock and Suicides

Godless Girl: Faith Healing Debunked . . . By Christians

On the Issues: Fighting the Black Anti-Abortion Campaign: Trusting Black Women

Zack Ford Blogs: Will Catholics Ever Admit The Church Has a Problem?

Media Matters: Beck: The European Union is "building a new world order" and aiming for "an affront to God"

Salon: Anti-Gay Group Targets Gay TSA Workers

RH Reality Check: USCCB Passes Over "Obama-Lover and Homosexualist" for "Strict Defender of Church Orthodoxy"

RH Reality Check: "Honest Reproductive Care" At Center of New York City Crisis Pregnancy Center Debate

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Perkins: Blacks, Hispanics Too Bigoted to Serve with Gays

Mother Jones: The Coming Tea Party Civil War

Right Wing Watch: Religious Right Blasts GOProud For Trying To Co-Opt Movement and Destroy Society

Think Progress: Amidst National Islamophobic Upheaval, Arizonans Protest Mosque That’s Actually A Church

Good As You: Newsweek Paints Brian Brown's Portrait; We Fill In a Few Holes

Talk to Action: Denver, Keep Fighting and Educating About CUFI

Louisiana Coalition for Science: Hell just froze over in Louisiana

Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters: Massachusetts hate group angry at teachers who shared coming out experiences

Truth Wins Out: Alan Chambers: ‘Homosexuality Will Disappoint You’ and is a Counterfeit

Religion Dispatches: Sex and Civilization: The Body as Battleground

News Tidbits

The Minnesota Independent: Meet David Barton, Bachmann's Constitution Class Teacher

The Minnesota Independent: LGBT issues poised to be hot debate at the capitol

The Advocate: Prop. 8. Arguments to be Televised

The Advocate: Osteen Tries to Clarify Antigay Remarks

Edge Boston: NOM, GOP lawmakers threaten marriage equality in New Hampshire

Edge Boston: Catholic Bishops’ Vote to Mean Harder Church Stance Against Gay Families

Politico: CPAC under fire over gay conservative group

San Fransisco Appeal: Anti Gay Student Group Loses Claim Against Hastings Law School

Toronto Sun: Pastor denounces transgender bill

Los Angeles Times: LDS Church responds to claims of changes in church policy regarding homosexuality

Pink Paper: Nuns corner bishops over lack of gay teen support

Salon: Florida pastor leads small anti-mosque protest in NYC

Minnesota Public Radio: Catholic school paper deletes student editorials on Catholic DVD, gay teens

Advocate Capitol News Bureau: Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to consider textbooks on Dec. 7-9

WISTV 10: South Carolina Southern Baptists urge pastors to preach against homosexuality

Goodnight, Dear Martyrs

Today is the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, a day for reflection on hate crimes against transgender people. Across the nation, communities are hosting vigils to mourn the murders of transgender hate crime victims, and I attended one such vigil this evening.

TransCentral PA, Equality Pennsylvania, the LGBT Community Center Coalition of Central Pennsylvania, and other organizations hosted a vigil on the steps of the capitol building in Harrisburg, PA this evening. Dozens of attendees gathered in a circle, with Silent Witness Peacekeepers forming a protective rim outside the circle. The mood was humble, reverent, full of sorrow but also full of hope for a better future.

Various speakers discussed transphobic violence, the deaths of individual victims, their respect for brave transgender friends, and the importance of remembering those who have passed. After the sun set, a group of volunteers with candles read accounts of individual hate crime victims, blowing out their candles one by one. A woman from the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape discussed the prevalence of sexual violence against transgender people and the fact that transphobic hate crimes often have sexual elements. At various points in the vigil, a young poet read poetry that mourned the snuffing out of innocent lives. One poem, lamenting the murders of victims who were ahead of their time, ended with the line, "Goodnight, dear martyrs, goodnight."

Goodnight, dear martyrs, goodnight.

Transphobic discrimination and violence must stop. Until that day comes, we must not forget the transgender victims of hate crimes, and we must continue to struggle for justice. Anything less would dishonor the innocent dead.

When Religious Right figures demonize LGBT people, or condemn hate crime legislation, or begrudge rights to LGBT citizens, do they understand that they are promoting harmful transphobia -- and that transphobia has deadly consequences around the world?



For additional commentary on the Transgender Day of Remembrance, visit the links below:

International Transgender Day of Remembrance

Human Rights Campaign: Transgender Day of Remembrance

GLAAD Blog: What Does Transgender Day of Remembrance Mean to You – Q&A with Ethan St. Pierre

Edge Boston: Activists Differ Over Transgender Day of Remembrance's Tone

RH Reality Check: Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance

The DV8: International Transgender Day of Remembrance

FIGHT! Conference in Los Angeles

The International House of Prayer, TheCall, and the Luke 18 Project hosted the FIGHT! Conference in Los Angeles on November 11-13. Geared toward youth, the FIGHT! Conference featured New Apostolic Reformation speakers such as Lou Engle, his son Jesse Engle, Cindy Jacobs, Brian Kim, and more.

To watch the full event online at GOD TV, click here. I skipped through the video, listening here and there to young people praying passionately for conversions on college campuses. From time to time, an attendee would pray into the microphone, some working themselves into tearful repentance or prayerful ecstasy. Young people bowed or rocked back in forth in devotion as Cindy Jacob beseeched God to guide them and Lou Engle urged them to pray for their schools.

CEDAW Draws Fire from the Religious Right

(UPDATED 11/19/10)

Today, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) chaired a hearing of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law on whether the U.S. should ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Adopted in 1979 by the U.N. General Assembly, CEDAW affirms the political, civil, economic, and social rights of women. Currently, 186 countries have ratified the convention, but the U.S., Iran, Sudan, and Syria are among a handful of nations that have yet to do so. President Jimmy Carter signed CEDAW in 1979, and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations later approved it, but it has never been officially ratified by the U.S. By ratifying the convention, the U.S. would thereby agree to undertake measures to end discrimination against women. Respected voices have urged the U.S. to ratify CEDAW, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

What's not to admire about a convention that affirms the full human rights of women? Who wouldn't want to condemn discrimination and human rights violations against half of humanity? Unfortunately, key organizations among the Religious Right think otherwise.

Books from the Religious Right: MARRIAGE UNDER FIRE by James Dobson

At several Religious Right events, I noticed free copies of James Dobson's 2004 book Marriage Under Fire: Why We Must Win This Battle. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, pours his antipathy toward LGBT rights into this small, 123-page book. Saturated with homophobia, Marriage Under Fire is an alarmist collection of stereotypes and scare tactics meant to reinforce the biases of its right-wing audience. For more progressive readers seeking to understand the religious right, the book distills common fundamentalist arguments against LGBT rights, exposing the hatred and fear behind them.

Dobson begins by waxing poetic about the heterosexual family. Claiming that something mystical and intrinsic in human nature draws men and women together, he asserts that passion finds its fulfillment in marriage. Dobson describes heterosexual marriage as a divinely-ordained institution that has formed the foundation of every society in history. (Marriage Under Fire ignores the fact that many kinds of family structures have existed throughout cultures and time periods.) None of the cultures that permitted homosexuality survived, he claims, citing Sodom and Gomorrah, ancient Greece, and Rome. The fact that societies decline for complex reasons, or that all societies rise and fall over time are ignored, as homosexuality is a much simpler scapegoat. Heterosexual marriage is the foundation of human social order, he insists, and "tampering" with marriage by allowing same-sex unions will utterly destroy civilization.

Dobson lambastes European nations that have permitted same-sex marriage, claiming that the institution of marriage is "dying" in those countries and mind-boggling percentages of children are being born out of wedlock there. His disgust also extends to feminists, "liberal lawmakers", and the entertainment industry who have supposedly chipped away at marriage.