Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyAugust 27th, 2011
TODAY’S AGENDA (OURS):
Showing of “This Is What Love In Action Looks Like”: Birmingham, AL. In June 2005, sixteen-year-old Zach Stark announced on his MySpace blog that his parents were sending him away to an ex-gay youth program. He also posted the program’s rules that he would be forced to live under while participating in the program. Thanks to Zach’s blog posts, Memphis-based Love In Action, an Exodus-affiliated program, became the focus of worldwide controversy and daily protests. “Love In Action” was investigated by the state of Tennessee for child abuse and for operating a separate unlicensed drug and alcohol treatment program. Love In Action eventually settled with the state and shut down their youth program.
Memphis-based documentary filmmaker Morgan Fox has spent the past six years working on a documentary about Love In Action, beginning with Zach’s forced commitment into the program. The resulting film, This Is What Love in Action Looks Like, featuring interviews with Zach, then-LIA director John Smid, other former ex-gay leaders and former LIA clients, premiered in San Francisco in June. Today the film today will be screened at the SHOUT Film Festival in Birmingham, Alabama, at 12:40pm at the Alabama Theatre Loft. Morgan Fox is scheduled to attend. You can see the trailer for Fox’s moving documentary here.
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Boulder, CO; Charlotte, NC; Chico, CA; Cornwall, UK; Foyle, Northern Ireland; Manchester, UK; Myrtle Beach, SC; Ottawa, ON; Toledo, OH and Ventura County, CA.
Also This Weekend: Big Bear Adventure Weekend, Big Bear Lake, CA; SHOUT Film Festival, Birmingham, AL and Taste of Provincetown, MA.
Lou Engle protesting Pride in Charlotte, 2009
TODAY’S AGENDA (THEIRS):
Anti-Gay Extremists to Protest Charlotte Pride: Charlotte, NC. On the same day in which Charlotte Pride is scheduled to take place, local anti-gay extremist Michael Brown, former leader of the so-called Brownsville Revival, has organized a counter event he calls, “God Has A Better Way.” The gathering begins at noon at the First Baptist Church in Charlotte, but afterwards they will march to the site of the Pride Festival where they will “either walk through or surround the event to evangelize, sing, pray, hand out water, and reach out with love to those in attendance while resisting the agenda.” Hilarity ensues, I’m sure. A similar event in 2009 featured anti-gay extremist Lou Engle of the International House of Prayer and TheCall. Engle would later travel to Uganda to endorse that nation’s proposed “Kill the Gays” Bill and commend Ugandans for “showing courage to take a stand for righteousness in the earth.” While it appears that Engle won’t be there this year, Matt Barber, associate dean at Liberty University Law School, will be on hand instead. The group will also hold an “outreach concert” later that evening “featuring testimonies from several ex-gays.”
Bachmann To Speak At Florida Family Policy Council: Orlando, FL. GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann will be the keynote speaker tonight at the Florida Family Policy Council’s annual awards dinner at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel in Orlando. In 2008, the Florida Family Policy Council was the driving force behind Florida’s Amendment 2, which added a ban on same-sex marriages to the Florida Constitution. Bachmann supports a similar nationwide ban that would strip millions of gays and lesbians the right to marry, even in states where marriage equality is already the law of the land. In March of this year, Bachmann joined former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and former Arkansas Mike Huckabee for a special Florida Family Policy Council event called “Rediscover God In America,” aimed at revealing “how American history and current events can only be fully understood in light of God and his Word.”
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Tom Ford: 1961. Just so you know, he was born in the same year I was. And today, the award-winning fashion designer and director of the film A Single Man
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revchicoucc
August 27th, 2011
The beautiful city of Chico, California is having its Pride festival this weekend — http://www.stonewallchicopride.com. At the Downtown City Plaza from 10 – 5. The United Church of Christ congregation I pastor will have a booth. Come say hello.
Jim Burroway
August 27th, 2011
Thanks. I wish I had known about it earlier. I’ve added it to the list and will watch for it again next year.
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