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 lobbyFebruary 13th, 2013
Yesterday I wrote our opponents love to claim they’re persecuted simply for opposing same-sex marriage — claiming it so falsely and frequently, I’ve now learned to interpret simply as code for there’s so much we’re not telling you.
I didn’t expect to have another example so soon.
It seems author Orson Scott Card is slated to write a Superman series for DC Comics. People are petitioning DC to dump him for his past statements on gays, and Brian Brown is outraged.
NOM President Brian Brown told Fox News he was simply stunned that gay rights activists are trying to destroy a man’s career.
“This is completely un-American and it needs to be stopped,” Brown said. “Simply because we stand up for traditional marriage, some people feel like it’s okay to target us for intimidation and punishment.”
Brown called the attacks on Card frightening and said it’s another example of gay rights activists trying to punish those who believe marriage should be a union between a man and woman.
There’s that “simply” again (emphasis added). But how simple is it?
In 1990, Card wrote this:
Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
Why, what’s so awful about that? He doesn’t even want to through all gays in jail. Just the uppity ones. And that was 1990. Perhaps Card has moderated his views.
Hmm.
Compare this from his 1990 article:
No act of violence is ever appropriate to protect Christianity from those who would rob it of its meaning.
To this, which he wrote in 2008:
Because when government is the enemy of marriage, then the people who are actually creating successful marriages have no choice but to change governments, by whatever means is made possible or necessary. [emphasis added]
…
Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.
If anything Card has grown more extreme, moving from mere intolerant bigotry to threats of outright treason.*
NOM is trying desperately to claim people are persecuted “simply” for opposing same-sex marriage, and as an example, NOM offers up a man who calls from the imprisonment of gay people and who thinks the violent overthrow of the government is a justifiable response to marriage equality.
It’s time for NOM to answer this question: If your claims are so good…why is your evidence so bad?
*The First Amendment guarantees that talk of treason is not inherently treasonous. Card would have to act on his threat or incite imminent lawless action to be guilty. So far, with same-sex marriage legal in the east, the west, and the middle of the country, Card hasn’t followed through with his threat, revealing himself to be an empty, belligerent blowhard, which is not itself treasonous.
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Priya Lynn
February 13th, 2013
Brown said “Simply because we stand up for traditional marriage, some people feel like it’s okay to target us for intimidation and punishment.â€
Rob said “There’s that “simply†again (emphasis added). But how simple is it?”.
Once again, no one is criticizing Brown or the other anti-gays for “standing up for traditional marriage”. Hell, I stand I up for traditional marriage, virtually all LGBTs support traditional marriage. What their being criticized for is not “standing up for traditional marriage” but for opposing same sex marriage. Please, let’s not let them get away with this well worn lie that they’re “standing up for traditional marriage”, they’re not, they don’t do anything whatsoever to support traditional marriage, all their efforts are solely aimed at preventing same sex marriages. Let’s always insist they call it what it is.
Bose in St. Peter MN
February 13th, 2013
Well put. The anti-gay arguments have largely shifted away from what is being opposed (LGBT integration) or hated (purported sins) to what is ostensibly, “simply” being supported (God, family, tradition).
Except a sound bite is not evidence.
ScooterJ
February 13th, 2013
It seems to me that our anti-anti-gay campaigns often harm our community more than they help. A lesbian couple gets a free cake from a celebrity baker, but the bigot who owns the shop has hit the revenue and media jackpots; point out the homophobic actions of a major chicken chain and the result is the single biggest day in their sales history and a significant increase in month-over-month sales since that time…..the examples are numerous.
What good does calling for DC to can this illustrator when all it seems to be doing is, once again, stirring the opposition? I, for one, will not purchase their product as long as this bigot is employed there. If enough of us take that stand then DC’s decision is clear. But then again, how many of us still have friends and loved ones eating at Chik-Fil-A? Ahhhh, but their chicken is so delicious, (sarcastically).
I am not trying to be provocative and I don’t want an Internet fight. I would just like some help in better understanding the greater good that happens when our community picks these sorts of fights. Thank you for your civility.
Corey
February 13th, 2013
The baker who refused to make the cake for the lesbian couple is another good example of the “simply” argument.
“Klein, who owns the bakery with his wife Melissa, told NBC he was *simply* living in accordance with his religious beliefs by rejecting the lesbian couple’s request.” (my emphasis)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/11/sweet-cakes-by-melissa-oregon-lesbian-couple-business-booms_n_2664036.html
ScooterJ
February 13th, 2013
Agreed 100%, he is absolutely part of the “simply” group and yet the reality is that this situation has rewarded him a revenue windfall and a media platform that allows him and others to reinforce his bigotry. I am just trying to figure out which is worse.
Pacal
February 13th, 2013
Orson Scott Card also has written stuff in his fiction that is very anti-Gay. A few years ago Mr. Card wrote a novella that reimagined the Hamlet story. In Mr. Card’s version of the tale Hamlet’s father is Gay and he made Horatio, Laertes, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Gay by molesting them when they were younger. In retaliation Horatio kills the Hamlet’s father. As a ghost Hamlet’s father deliberately misleads Hamlet into thinking that Claudius murdered him so that Hamlet will be damned to hell and Hamlet’s father can molest him for eternity has he longed to do in life.
What can one say to such sick crap.
gsingjane
February 13th, 2013
@ScooterJ – I think you raise a good point and, like lots of other issues, there isn’t a “simple” (haha), neat or pat answer. It’s absolutely true that when the anti-gay behavior of a company, such as the Chicken One, gets pointed out, people who ARE anti-gay know where to flock so to speak. In the short run, they do seem to experience a surge in profits and publicity.
However, I can’t help but feel, at least knowing a bit of what I know about “crisis management,” that publicity of this sort is, in the long run, bad for a company. A baker is in the cake business, a fast food maker is in the food business… ultimately I think the politics hurt more than they help, because they are irrelevant to the core mission. When people hear your company’s name, you want their first association to be “yummy cake” or “delicious chicken,” you don’t want it to be some completely unrelated political thing. Companies go to tremendous effort and expense to brand themselves in consumers’ minds, and once that brand association starts flying around, attached to a bunch of stuff the company can’t really control, eventually I think it’s bad news for the company.
Also, put another way, a company like Chik-Fil-A really does want 100% of consumers to eat there. If you’re dropping whatever percentage of the market, basically for no reason at all that’s related to your brand, the bump-up in intensity from your supporters probably won’t be enough to compensate for the ones you’ve lost (and, again, lost for no reason related to your product).
In a way, it sort of reminds me of what the Republicans did heading into the 2012 elections – alienating large groups of potential voters like women, hispanics, gays, etc. that they didn’t really have to alienate. Then you have to get a much stronger commitment from the folks who are “left over,” you know? Which is hard, and risky.
gsingjane
February 13th, 2013
Oh, and I do feel bad about the Orson Scott Card thing. He sounds like he’s probably a terrible human being, but gosh he can write the socks off your average sci-fi novel. It really is a shame!
Regan DuCasse
February 13th, 2013
@Cooper: There is no situation that the anti gay can’t turn into a false crisis for themselves.
They have used business owners, county clerks, and anyone who has been held accountable for being incompetent or not doing the work they are required to, as a victim that’s SUFFERED so horribly and unfairly for ‘simply’ standing up for their beliefs.
When subsequent reporting tends to show, they didn’t really suffer at all. Or any suspension until further examination shows they breached a policy they signed on to when it came to their jobs.
These are people that can wrest the victim card so hard and fast from ANYTHING, no matter how ludicrous the situation they try to pose themselves in that role.
Only very lazy people who don’t want to cut through the thick layers of hypocrisy will never get at the roots of what’s true.
I’m thinking it’s impossible to keep these people from playing victim all because of the profit in it.
If they lose at a legislative measure, or by popular vote they’ll say that gay activists ‘outspent’ the traditional marriage proponents. Code for ‘give us more money to outspend THEM’.
If they lose in court for lack if evidence or credible witnesses, it was because of activist judges and legislating from the bench. Or the orientation of ONE judge.
They might claim that any reinstating or other similar factor to do with previous anti gay firing, is a victory.
But typically, they’ll still use an anecdotal incident as if a trend.
Much like what happened at the FRC headquarters is being milked and the SPLC is now being called a hate group out to make the FRC a target of violent killers.
There are complaints on FRC’s FB page that Tony Perkins’s claim on this is being ignored by the media.
I pointed out that not only was it a highly unusual aberration, quickly denounced by all prominent equality groups and leaders.
There was no major tragedy, the perp is in custody and will be in jail.
In light of the massacres that occurred around the same time, Perkins was being grossly insensitive and the media isn’t obligated to indulge defamation.
Perkins is crossing into being a liability for the media.
The reason why, is that what the FRC claims, isn’t true.
And what the SPLC has proven about the FRC, absolutely has been.
I’m pretty sure, that my comments will be deleted and banned.
The usual response from people claiming THEY are the ones censored and silenced. The are quick to do it to other people.
Hunter
February 14th, 2013
gsingjane:
I can’t agree with you on his writing — it’s degenerated badly in the past twenty years — talky and self-indulgent, unless he’s gotten some discipline lately — frankly, I gave up on him after slogging through one too many polemics. (Speaker for the Dead was excruciating.) He’s only written one book since Ender’s Shadow that I found readable. If you want someone who can write the socks off your average sf novel, check out the work of Elizabeth Bear, E. E. Knight’s Vampire Earth series, Glen Cook (although he does mostly fantasy — master stylist, though, and a great storyteller), John Courtenay Grimwood, the late Kage Baker, or Connie Willis. And there are a number of fantasy writers who are just as good — Steven Brust, Patricia A. McKillip, Charles de Lint, just off the top of my head.
Josh
February 15th, 2013
Always amazes me when Christians claim they are persecuted in this country. Persecution is when youare beaten, ignored, murdered for being different and daring to stand up for yourself. Being called out on your BS is not persecution.
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