Box Turtle Bulletin

Is Scott Lively’s “Pink Swastika” Kaput?

Jim Burroway

July 2nd, 2009

Not exactly. He’s made a career out of homophobia for nearly two decades now, but he now claims that he’s turning his attention to other matters:

With the June 17th publication of my final book on the homosexual issue, “Redeeming the Rainbow: A Christian Response to the ‘Gay’ Agenda,” I have completed 20 years of service as a front-lines opponent of the homosexual movement. “Redeeming the Rainbow,” which I have published as a free book in pdf format, encompasses all that I have learned through this long tour of duty and I believe there is little more that I could add on the issue.

As of now I am turning my attention to other interests and needs of the pro-family movement and will no longer be monitoring the day-to-day developments of the culture war regarding homosexuality as closely, nor posting stories about it to this site.

I somehow suspect that he’s not going very far. It’s only two paragraphs later when he reveals another update to his book, The Pink Swastika:

I have one last major project to complete on the homosexual issue, the publication of a 5th Edition of my book (co-authored with Jewish researcher Kevin E. Abrams) “The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party.” It will be published in a web-based, documentation-emphasized format. That project will begin soon and a link to it will be available on this page from the early stages, so that readers can follow its ongoing progress and make use of the facts and documentation in their own pro-family advocacy.

The Pink Swastika is Lively’s primary claim to fame. In it, he claims that Nazism was, at its core, a homosexual movement, and that the gay rights movement today is a barely-disguised update of Nazi ideology. He cites the Holocaust as but one example of the inevitable consequences of homosexuality gaining public prominence. His blatant historical revisionism has earned his Abiding Truth ministries a spot in one of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of twelve anti-gay hate groups.

So no, he’s not giving up his holocaust revisionism anytime soon. And since we will all get to see his “ongoing progress” with his online edition, I doubt he’ll leave it alone when he’s done.

Lively says he will continue to be available for conferences, seminars and the like, and I’m sure The Pink Swastika will continue to be the centerpiece of his talks. More recently, he took his Holocaust revisionism abroad with a three-day conference in Kampala, Uganda, where he peddled his wares alongside Exodus board member Don Schmierer. That conference called for the strengthening of Uganda’s anti-homosexuality law by adding the “option” of forced conversion therapy. Uganda’s law already provides for a life sentence. Lively’s book is now being used by Ugandan religious leaders to fuel an ongoing public campaign of vigilantism and police detentions and torture.

Meanwhile, Dr. Warren Throckmorton, an associate professor at the Christian-based Grove City College, has continued to add to his online series debunking The Pink Swastika. His latest installment is probably the most devastating, where Throckmorton catches Lively lying about his source information virtually red-handed. Throckmorton was joined in this endeavor by associate professor of history, Dr. Jon David Wyneken, whose Ph.D. is in modern German history with a focus on the period between 1933 and 1955. Together, they have undertaken a methodical exposé of Lively’s shoddy scholarship.

Throckmorton’s efforts seem to be having some effect. Leadership University, an online ministry affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ, once proudly hosted a condensed outline of his Pink Swastika thesis. That article, “Homosexuality and the Nazi Party,” has recently been removed.

[Hat tip: Ex-gay Watch]

Anti-Gay Extremists Cite Gay Pedophile As Typical Of All Gays

Jim Burroway

June 30th, 2009

Anti-gay extremists are all over this news item from Durham, North Carolina:

A Duke University official has been charged in federal court with offering his 5-year-old adopted son up for sex. Frank Lombard, associate director of the Center for Health Policy, was arrested Wednesday in Raleigh, the FBI said.

An unidentified informant who already faces child porn charges in a different child sex case pointed investigators to Lombard, according to court documents. The informant told investigators he had met Lombard on the Internet four years ago. The informant described in graphic detail how he allegedly observed Lombard molesting an African-American child on four occasions over an Internet video chat service called ICUii.

…During the chats, according to the affidavit, “FL” [Frank Lombard's screen name] told undercover investigators that he had himself molested his child, whom he adopted as an infant, and that he had allowed others to molest his child. “FL” stated that “the abuse of the child was easier when the child was too young to talk or know what was happening, but that he had drugged the child with Benadryl during molestation.”

Predictably, anti-gay extremists are already using this horrific crime as “proof” that all gay people are unfit to be parents. They’ll tell you that this is how virtually all gay men behave. LifeSite is already eating it up, as are Dakota Voice’s Bob Ellis and Town Hall’s Mike Adams.

We’ve seen them equate homosexuality with pedophilia by tagging the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act with the libelous “Pedophile Protection Act” moniker. Adams piled onto that them by following his first post up with another one noting that Lombard was Facebook Fan with Rev. Gene Robinson, the first openly gay Bishop of the Anglican Church. The Right Rev. Robinson has 3,668 other fans, but that didn’t deter Adams from asking, “Is this arrest thwarting an effort by Lombard to promote tolerance of pedophilia in the Episcopal Church?”

This episode even gave discredited anti-gay “researcher” Paul Cameron the chance to come out of the woodwork to claim that this sad episode “demonstrates why gays should not be able to adopt.”

Kiliann Melloy has a great rundown on anti-gay reactions to Lombard’s arrest at EDGE Boston, including a blog which claims to be a “grassroots network of the Republican Party of Virginia.” And she reviews the contention by Paul Cameron and another so-called “researcher,” Dr. Judith Reisman, that gay men are more likely to molest children. (Reisman’s Ph.D. is in Communications, but as Melloy notes, that doesn’t stop her from writing about the physiological effects of pornography on the brain without the aid of any research.)

The lesson we ought to learn from Lombard’s arrest is that being a horrible, abusive parent is an equal-opportunity crime. Gay individuals are no more immune from engaging in criminal conduct with five-year-olds than straight people. Like this heterosexual couple from Indiana, just to name one tragic example.

But it’s gay men in particular which get the blame for molesting children. Anti-gay activists will claim that gay men are guilty of this horrible crime in numbers far exceeding their proportion in the overall population. The problem with that assertion though is that there is absolutely no evidence to support that claim. That’s not to say that there are no gay predators. But there is no evidence to suggest that gay men are more likely to molest children than straight men, which is the fear-mongering message that extremists return to again and again.

The real tragedy in this case is that a very young boy has been horribly abused. The crime that anti-gay extremists engage in by slandering all gay people with this episode is, without a doubt, the much lesser crime. But it is a crime nevertheless, and it’s one they will have to answer for someday. Just like this Lombard bastard.

Southern Baptists: You MUST Be Anti-Gay

Timothy Kincaid

June 29th, 2009

The interim pastor of Broadway Baptist Church has provided additional detail to the reason that the Southern Baptist Convention has ousted them from communion. It wan’t because they were too pro-gay; it was because they weren’t adequately anti-gay.

More conservative voices on the Executive Committee wanted Broadway to do something clearly not required by the SBC Constitution: take formal congregational action to condemn homosexual behavior. This extraordinary measure has not been required of any other SBC church. It would be unprecedented and unauthorized.
…
The breakdown came when those advocating the more rigorous constitutional test won the day. It became clear several weeks ago from the Executive Committee that Broadway would have to implement measures to identify, isolate, and distinguish our gay and lesbian members from the rest of the congregation in order to be found in friendly cooperation. Of course, conscience, congregational autonomy, and common decency prohibit us from doing so.

Now, it appears that the constitutional language as presently stated in Article III is not sufficient. It is not enough for cooperating Southern Baptist churches simply to take no action to affirm homosexual behavior. They must now take formal action explicitly to disapprove such behavior.

Undoubtedly some well intentioned Southern Baptist will soon stop by to tell us that they “love the sinner” and only hate “the sin.” They will tell us that they believe that God loves everyone, that all sinners are equal in God’s sight, that everyone is welcome at an SBC church, that they really and truly are not haters; honestly.

It’s only fair to let them know in advance that as time goes on I find it harder and harder to believe them.

Stonewall In 2009? Police Raid Texas Gay Bar, Arrest Patrons for “Public Intoxication”

Jim Burroway

June 28th, 2009

Update: One serious injury was reported. See below.

No kidding? The Dallas Voice’s blog is reporting that a gay bar in Ft. Worth, Texas, was raided sometime last night:

According to [Ft. Worth Star-Telegram former critic Todd] Camp, the newly-opened Rainbow Lounge is “the only cool gay bar in town,” but the police raided it, arresting numerous patrons for no reason.

I got another perspective in my in-box this morning:

The not awesome thing was the paddy wagon of homophobic police that showed up … looking for trouble. My group and I were sitting on the back patio at a picnic table. Nobody was being wild out there. [The police] came through with flashlights, being loud asking what was going on out here, then asked why everyone was all the sudden being quiet. When one group started up their conversations again, they took one guy away. I left shortly after and as I walked through the front bar there were numerous cops with plastic handcuffs all ready to go. I [left] the bar and they [had] a big van in the parking lot and numerous cars on the street. And just so you know, it wasn’t fire hazard crowded or seedy wild in there. … The worst part is [friends later told me] that [the police] had numerous people face down on the ground outside. I just moved to Fort Worth from Dallas, so this is such a shock to me. I know Dallas would not put up with this.  … I am still so shocked it is 2009 and this just happened.

Anyone else there last night? Write to me (jones@dallasvoice.com) or my editor (nash@dallasvoice.com).

Other reporters at the Dallas Voice are receiving more first-hand accounts which confirm the above statement. Eyewitnesses say that some ten to twenty people have been arrested. One patron was this visitor from Santa Cruz, California:

We and a few of our friends went to the new Rainbow Lounge last night to dance and have some fun. I was in the VIP section when police officers started coming up there. The first arrest (that we saw) was right in front of me in that section.

They asked the guy if he had been drinking, and he said some, and they snidely replied, “Well, we’ll see how much!” and plastic handcuffed him as they read him his rights The guy was doing NOTHIG [sic] wrong. It was utterly repugnant.

Once I saw this happen, I decided to try and speak with one of the police officers themselves, to go straight to the source and get their side. My sister Kelly and I simply started asking what they were doing here, stating how suspicious it seemed on this date and in this specific club, etc. This was a “State Policeman,” whose name I forgot, who tried to explain their actions by referring to “anonymous tips” and “disgruntled ex-bartenders.” We pointed out the place was open a week, so the disgruntled ex-bartender source seemed a bit unlikely! He wouldn’t really answer my questions. although he did try to grab my hand and flirt with me (which was completely uninvited).

They have also received several photos taken by patrons using their cell phones. Numerous patrons report rough treatment by police. Several fled to a nearby home, fearing arrest if they tried to leave the house to get into their cars. There is one report that one man was slammed to the floor and is now hospitalized with a head injury. Another eyewitness said that police gave her the same excuse about responding to complaints from  “former bartender” at the week-old business. She also observed that police appeared to be specifically targeting effeminate men.

Local activists are calling for protests tonight. One was scheduled for the Rainbow lounge at 5 p.m. CST today, with another one set for the Tarrant County Courthouse in downtown Fort Worth at 7 p.m.

Update: The Dallas Voice has an update on Chad Gibson, the young man who was hospitalized for a head injury. The initial CAT scan showed little or no damage, but a second CAT scan performed this afternoon indicates that “the bleeding in his brain had increased.” Chad has no memory of the incident in the bar, and his memory of events today (visitors and conversations with doctors) “have been spotty.” Chad is being treated at John Peter Smith Hospital in Ft. Worth.

The Ft. Worth Star-Telegram has more details. Seven people were reportedly arrested at the Rainbow Lounge. Ft. Worth Police are offering a sort of a “gay panic defense, claiming that patrons made “sexually explicit moves” toward the police. The bar’s general manager and other patrons dispute that:

The general manager of the Rainbow Lounge and several patrons disputed the police account, saying officers used excessive force to make arrests.

“He was just walking to the bathroom when an officer grabbed him and shoved him against a wall and pulled his head back,” said Chris Hightower of Fort Worth, a friend of the injured patron. “He (the injured man) was then thrown to the ground and three other officers were on him.”

Several patrons claimed that the officers were never assaulted.

“I have friends who are cops and I know what to do when officers are working,” Camp said. “No one was acting aggressive to officers.”

Camp said that he has been attending bars for years in Fort Worth when TABC conducts raids.

“Usually, they’re very orderly and respectful – they work with the bar staff and check IDs, it’s quick and painful and then it’s over and then they’re out,” Camp said. “This was not that. This was harassment, plain and simple.”

General manager Randy Norman said the bar had just been open a week and they had complied with all ordinances.

“Officers just don’t come in armed with zip ties and a paddy wagon for a routine check of a bar,” Norman said.

KTVT, the Dallas CBS affiliate has this:

Raymond Gill was at the bar early Sunday morning.  He says one of the TABC officers targeted him.  “I asked him why I was pulled outside. He stated it was because the way I was walking. He said I looked like I was drunk. But as I stated, I got to the bar 30 minutes before they got there. I sat down had not got up before police got there. No one saw me walk.”

…Fort Worth police arrested seven people for reported public intoxication, and for reportedly inappropriately groping an officer. It’s an allegation witness Chuck Potter disputes.

“I can guarantee there wasn’t a man in this bar that would’ve touched one of those officers, knowing they were arresting people.”

WFAA, the Dallas ABC affiliate confirms that Chad Gibson is in the Intensive Care Unit at John Peter Smith Hospital in Ft. Worth with bleeding on the brain. Chad was ticketed but not arrested:

Danny Crockett said he saw four officers detain Gibson.

“They choked his head back, pulled him back and then slammed him against the wall,” he said.

Poor Pitiful Pathetic David Benkof is Still Spouting His Bitterness

Timothy Kincaid

June 27th, 2009

I hesitate to give attention to anti-gay writer David Benkof. There’s nothing he likes better than seeing his name in print. It makes him feel as though there is validation for the decision he made to create for himself a bitter, empty, lonely, loveless life.

And it’s not like Benkof’s writing deserves commentary. It has no substance to refute, just insinuation, condemnation, nonsense, and lots and lots of whining.

Benkof loves to whine. He whines about gay folks wanting to marry, wanting to serve their country, wanting to live in freedom. He whines about how selfish gay people are to want equality, how cruel to have children, how careless it was for gays to endanger the police at Stonewall. It’s all so shrill it makes my ears hurt just to read it.

Benkof used to live as a gay man. But feeling unfulfilled (and in no small part bitter), he decided to convert to Orthodox Judaism. And as living a life consistent with his orientation is in conflict with his restrictive religion, he now lives in some wacky sexless existence of his own creation dreaming of the day that some nice Jewish girl will choose a loveless marriage to an egocentric man and give him social standing.

And if he can’t be happy, well then he’s going to darn sure try to make you unhappy as well.

But, unlike most “not gay any more” activists, Benkof feels compelled to pretend to be someone he is not. He thinks it adds credibility to act as though he is part of the gay community and speaks for gay people.

For example, here he is at the Houston Chronicle itemizing a list of mostly-imagined grievances that straight folk should have against gays. And to make his spitefulness stand out from the average hate-spouting loon, he says,

Having experienced the closet and coming out as a gay man in my late teens, I understand the common gay experience of overcoming shame and the constant need for self-esteem reassurance.

Of course, he fails to mention that his own obsessive craving for self-esteem reassurance led him to change his name, his religion, and his proclaimed orientation. And if the reader wasn’t adquately left with the false impression that David identifies as gay and is not an anti-gay activist, he lists his bio as

Benkof is the author of Gay Essentials: Facts for Your Queer Brain (Alyson, 1999). He blogs at GaysDefendMarriage.com and can be reached at DavidBenkof@aol.com.

We’ve condemned his deception before, but David just can’t help himself. He’s compulsive. He’s incapable of presenting his arguments with integrity.

But we should pity him. It’s very very sad.

Having chosen to live a life of complicated internal conflict, he’s now required to lie to himself just to survive. He lacks integrity in his writing because he has none in his life.

Poor pitiful pathetic sad little man.

The Synchroblog - A Conversation toward Building Bridges

This commentary is the opinion of the author and may not necessarily reflect that of other authors at Box Turtle Bulletin.

Timothy Kincaid

June 24th, 2009

Wendy Gritter of New Directions is seeking to increase communication and decrease hostility between the Christian community and the gay community. While I do not see these as necessarily exclusive communities, it is unquestionable that conservative Christians and gay people are to some extent at war with each other.

Towards the goal of healing, Wendy came up with the concept of a synchroblog, a time in which everyone would focus on their perspectives about such communication. She chose today, the Wednesday of Pride Week, for this effort. So today, a couple dozen bloggers with various Christian or gay perspectives will be participating in this joint conversation and Wendy invited me to join them.

My perspective:

I was born into a very religious, very conservative Christian family. Where other familes argued sports or politics, my family debated points of faith. And as a consequence, I am not unfamiliar with the mindset of conservative Christians, both the positives and the pitfalls. And consider myself a Christian, though many of the positions I was taught have yielded to different perspectives.

In college, I became involved in Republican partisan politics. Some of the individuals I met at that time have later become players in the battle over equality, on both sides of the issue. I know the dialect spoken by those on the right.

Based on my history, unlike some in the gay community, I do not necessarily look at conservatives and/or Christians and automatically assume that they have nefarious intentions or are motivated by hatred and superstition. Nor do I assume that because we disagree that therefore they are deluded and stubborn and blinded by strict adherence to an archaic text.

My participation:

I was first invited to join the blogosphere as a participant at Ex-Gay Watch. And for a while this was a good match. My interest in politics and religion and how both interacted with the gay community fit with the goals of that site.

But a restructuring at XGW brought their focus a little narrower and deeper. So at the invitation of Jim Burroway I began to blog here at Box Turtle Bulletin. However, as most readers know, I still have a strong interest in the current struggle within Christendom to resolve issues surrounding homosexuality and the place, if any, of gay people within the body of believers.

My perception:

In this process I’ve come to believe that much of the battle between conservative Christianity and the gay community is due to ignorance. We don’t know each other, we don’t trust each other, and we assume the worst about each other.

Recently I traded stinging denunciations with a writer at an organization included in the SPLA’s list of hate groups. I accused the writer of callousness and deceit and she returned the favor. But, oddly enough, this opened a dialogue between us, one which led to a later retraction of a particularly odious claim at the website of that organization.

I should not have been surprised. It was hardly the first time that I found that if I tried a personal approach, many anti-gay activists are receptive to at least listening to what you have to say.

I think that most of those who generate or disseminate anti-gay beliefs and accusations do so out of ignorance. Most do not wish to be telling deliberate lies and genuinely care whether their words are truthful.

And most conservative Christians do not hate gay people, or at least do not think that they do. The culture of Christianity is strongly influenced by Christ’s commandments to love; and most Christians believe that they do love, even if such love is sometimes experienced in ways that others find horrifying or hateful.

One of the biggest pitfall of conservative Christianity is an arrogant and patronizing superiority. Being a religion based on faith - and at times rock-solid certainty - conservative Christians are inclined to believe that they know God’s Will for their life. And far too often, that extends to knowing God’s Will for your life as well - a Will that can be forced upon you for your own good if you aren’t humble enough to submit to it on your own.

One of the biggest problem for the gay community is victimhood. Being a persecuted people, too often we see any disagreement as an attack on our dignity and our personhood. And if others are not inclined to treat us decently, we are quick to use whatever measure is available to force them to do so.

My proposals:

As we go forward,

• We need to know each other. We need to open communication wherever possible and ask about intentions and beliefs and attitudes before we assume the worst about each other.
• We need to believe each other. Should the gay community tell Christians that we aren’t trying to shut down their churches, they need to consider that our motivations may not be directed towards them at all. If Christians tell us that they don’t hate us, we should consider that hate may not be driving their actions, positions, or beliefs.
• We need to tolerate each other. It is not acceptable for either of us to demand that the other must change. Christians cannot insist that gays cease to be gay or that public policy punish those who do not. Likewise, gays cannot insist that conservative Christians change their theology and embrace a change in sexual ethic or that they be otherwise punished by tax law.
• We need to call off the culture war. We are not enemies. We are not mutually exclusive communities. Most gay people consider themselves Christian and most Christians know and love a gay person. This culture war benefits only those who profit from the continued conflict. Let’s stop acting in the best interest of culture war barons and in the interests of our people.
• We need to denounce the haters and the liars. It reflects poorly on each of us when the reactionary and the extreme get to speak for us.

  Christians need to stand up and say that the Traditional Values Coalition and Peter LaBarbera and Scott Lively are instruments of hatred and have no voice in Christianity. While I wish to credit Dr. Throckmorton for having the integrity to speak against Lively and some others, far too often Christians are forgiving of the excesses of their own. It is time for Christian denominations to publicly disassociate themselves from hatemongers and to commit to expressions of love - real love, not the kind that is loaded with contempt, self-righteousness, and demonization.

  And when deceivers like Maggie Gallagher run campaigns of lies, it is the moral obligation of people of faith to denounce those lies and those who are making them. This has not happened in any significant way. Too often Christians have chosen to put the intent of an anti-gay political campaign ahead of an obligation to honesty and objective truth. If Christians really want to build a bridge to the gay community, they need to not only avoid lies themselves but refute the lies of others within their camp.

  And while I believe that the gay community has done a better job of rejecting the liars and haters, we too have a ways to go. While mean spirited bloggers such as Perez Hilton do receive public condemnation from parts of the community, they still have far too many who are willing to listen to their self-centered viciousness.

  And one of the things that our community needs to do - one of the hardest, actually - is to stop mocking Christians. It doesn’t matter if the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have contributed to charities or if we understand how and why they came to be; they are offensive to Christians in the same way that prancing lisping mockery is offensive to us. And while there is a place for those within a faith to protest the teachings of their mother church, it is wrong for gays outside of a faith to desecrate a church or interrupt a service. These are things which needlessly hurt and offend others and which make it difficult for them to accept us as anything other than a threat.

• We need to commit to civility. Even if we cannot agree on theology, perspective, principle, or policy, we can agree to debate and discuss with civility. This has been, I believe, a real challenge for most of us. But it is a challenge to which we can rise.

Let’s hope that this attempt at communication, this synchroblog, will shed light and open doors and lead to a reconciliation between communities. And I thank Wendy for the hard work in bringing it about.

Please go to the New Directions site to link to others who are participating in this event.

Rick Warren Buddies Up to Anti-Gay Ex-Episcopalians

Timothy Kincaid

June 23rd, 2009

In the past couple of years Episcopalians that were furious with their church for ordaining a gay Bishop broke away. Calling themselves Anglicans, they attached themselves to some of the biggest homophobes in Christianity in Africa and South America. All along, they’ve received encouragement from author and “America’s Pastor”, Rick Warren.

This week the break-aways held their first national assembly and Rick Warren jumped at the chance to speak. Warren told the group - who’s sole commonality is opposition to full inclusion of gay people in the church:

“We are to love the people of the world no matter what they believe; we are to not love the value system of the world. And the problem today is lot of Christians are getting that reversed. They love the value system and hate the people”

Those of us familiar with anti-gay activism recognize this type of “love” to be an empty code word for exclusion, condemnation, and political oppression. And by “hating the people”, conservatives mean that those who see God’s welcome to include gay men and women are “hating” them by “allowing them to live in sin.”

Warren’s continued affiliation with anti-gay Anglicans only confirms the fear and betrayal that the community felt when he was selected to speak at President Obama’s inauguration.

Santa Rosa CA Ex-Gay Pastor Not So Ex-Gay

Jim Burroway

June 23rd, 2009

Pastor Matthew C. Manning heads an outfit in Santa Rosa, California known as Lighthouse World Evangelism, which promises to deliver people from alcohol and drugs, mental struggles, homosexuality and HIV/AIDS. The last two are core to Manning’s own story. He claims to have been “delivered” from homosexuality in 1989, and miraculously healed from full-blown AIDS in 1994. Pat Robertson was impressed enough with that claim to feature Manning on an episode of the 700 Club in 2002. Mike Airhart, then writing for Ex-Gay Watch, tried to get to the bottom of those claims, but Manning refused to provide documentation from his doctors.

That was six years ago. Mike moved on to Truth Wins Out, and David Roberts picked up the thread. He recently re-opened the investigation and tried to find proof — any proof — that Manning had once tested positive for HIV for nine years and was then cured more than a decade ago. Unsurprisingly, Roberts was unable to find any evidence for a Manning’s cure, miraculous or otherwise.

But in looking around, he managed to find something else entirely different. Turns out that Manning has been charged in 1998, 2000, and in 2005 with complaints of soliciting other males for sexual encounters in public parks and other venues. The 2005 episode includes an order to stay away from 24 Hour Fitness locations in Santa Rosa for one year.

There are many more details, including source documentation in PDF form, in David Robert’s outstanding investigative report. He promises to have more information in the next few days.

Stop the Presses!

Jim Burroway

June 23rd, 2009

Don Feder has done something he’s immensely proud of, so proud that he issued this press release:

Boycott The New York Times (BoycottNYT.com) marked its 100th web posting this week. Launched during the 2008 presidential campaign, the website is dedicated to exposing and organizing a boycott of America’s most biased media outlet — which also sets the agenda for the rest of the liberal media.

Wow. 100 posts in just under ten months. Rock on!

Last time we heard from Don Feder, he was one of the featured speakers at a Watchmen On the Walls conference in Riga, Latvia. He was there to warn about the “Demographic Winter” that western cultures were experiencing due to dropping birth rates brought on by, oh just about everything, but partially by “homosexual marriage.” He once wrote that his politics “make the legendary Atilla [sic] look like a limousine liberal.” That sounds about right. Attila wasn’t a towering intellect either, nor was he a prolific writer.

Moderate Mormons Launch Apology Site

Jim Burroway

June 23rd, 2009

Via The Advocate and JoeMyGod: A group of moderate members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has launched a new web site, LDSapology.org, with a plea for reconciliation. The web site asks the LDS church to apologize for their anti-gay activities and to soften their attitude towards gay people. The web site maintains an online petition, which the group plans to present to LDS headquarters on the one-year anniversary of Proposition 8 being passed in California. The web site also maintains a series of articles chronicling church history and personal stories of the church’s impact on gay people.

Scott Lively, Gays, and the Nazi Party

Jim Burroway

June 23rd, 2009

Anti-gay extremist and historical revisionist Scott Lively has been much in the news earlier this year when he participated in an anti-gay conference in Uganda alongside Exodus board president Don Schmierer. During his talk there, he quoted extensively from his book, The Pink Swastika, which posits that the Nazi movement was, at its core, a homosexual movement, and that the LGBT movement today is, in essence, a fascist movement. Despite the historical record to the contrary, Lively blames gays for the rise of Nazism and for the Holocaust itself, and claims that “the connection between homosexualism and fascism is not incidental.”

This claim might come as a surprise to the many participants of Springfield, Missouri’s recent PrideFest, which was targeted for protestby members of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement. That claim would also come as quite a surprise for Naples, Florida resident and PFLAG member Ruth Dorfman, who found swastikas painted on her garage door after an article she wrote appeared in the local paper about a PFLAG event.

Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton has undertaken a remarkable series of posts which methodically dissects The Pink Swastikaand looks at the historical distortions behind it. Many LGBT people might find Throckmorton’s work in this area a pleasant surprise. As a conservative Christian psychologist, Throckmorton has supported the right of counselors and ministries to offer ex-gay therapies. Earlier in the decade, Throckmorton worked with PFOX in their efforts to oppose sex education curriculum in a suburban Washington, D.C. which was friendly to gay students, and he produced the video I Do Exist which promoted ex-gay therapy.

In recent years, he has moved away from those activities without disavowing them explicitly, although he has since become a harsh critic of PFOX and its founder, Richard Cohen. He has also become a critic of anti-gay groups like the National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) when they distort the scientific record. And he criticized Exodus over their board member’s participation in the Uganda anti-gay conference.

Throckmorton’s series of posts examining The Pink Swastika, as I said, are quite remarkable and thorough. For two of those posts, he brought in Jon David Wyneken, Associate History Professor at Grove City College, who described several instances of blatant distortion of the source material Lively and his co-author, Kevin Abrams, used in their book. In his latest post, Throckmorton examine Lively and Abrams’ linkage between Friedrich Nietzsche and Nazism and finds it lacking. He promises to offer a similar examination of other historical figures in future posts.

Throckmorton hasn’t been content to publish this material on his web site and leave it there. He has also written articles on the subject for Opposing Views and the conservative Christian Post, bringing his important work before a wider audience. Scott Lively, whose Abiding Truth Ministries is on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s list of anti-gay hate groups, was annoyed to discover one of those posts on one of his “favorite Christian websites” and decided it could only mean one thing: Throckmorton “has gone to the ‘dark side’.”

Here is Throckmorton’s complete coverage of Lively’s work so far:

May 28: Scott Lively Wants Off SPLC Hate Group List
May 31: Eliminating Homosexuality: Modern Uganda and Nazi Germany
June 3: Before The Pink Swastika
June 4: Kevin Abrams: The Other Side of The Pink Swastika
June 8: A Historian’s Analysis of The Pink Swastika, Part 1
June 9: A Historian’s Analysis of The Pink Swastika, Part 2
June 11: American Nazi Movement and Homosexuality: How Pink Is Their Swastika?
June 15: Nazi Movement Rallies Against Gays In Springfield, MO
June 17: Does Homosexuality Lead To Fascism?
June 23: The Pink Swastika and Friedrich Nietzsche

LGBT State Org Betrays ENDA, Carries Anti-Gay Talking Points

Jim Burroway

June 17th, 2009

In a stunning backstabbing move, the egregiously misnamed group “Indiana Equality” has issued a statement carrying the talking points of anti-gay groups and have decided to oppose the Employment Non-Discrimination Act: Here’s a statement from IE’s chair, Jon Keep:

Indiana Equality believes that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities should be engaged in a national dialog about the need for full inclusion in the federal Civil Rights code. There is a window of opportunity now that may not come for another generation. If we push for less than full inclusion, it may be more difficult to motivate public support for full civil right protections. We should not ask for less than we need.

Anything less than full inclusion is unacceptable. Accordingly, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (END) as currently proposed, cannot be accepted, supported or promoted by Indiana Equality.

It has become evident that adding LGBT persons to local and state civil rights laws is not only possible but crucial. Adding only the right to employment at the Federal level will do little to protect the civil rights of all citizens.

Adding LGBT persons to local and state civil rights laws is crucial. But that doesn’t preclude going ahead with laws that address employment issues on a national level. ENDA does not — as Indiana Equality and other anti-gay groups claim — produces a new level of segregation. The act simply bans employment based on sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. Which means that straight people are protected from discrimination by their gay employers.

If that’s not inclusion, then I don’t know what is.

This is extremely important legislation. People really are being fired and encountering other forms of employment discrimination solely because of their sexual orientation. Transgender people are believed to need these protections more than anyone else. This is real legislation aimed at solving a real problem.

IE says they are doing this because they want a more comprehensive civil rights bill. Fine. Let’s begin laying the groundwork for a more comprehensive bill now and maybe we’ll get one in the next five or ten years. But let’s not, in the meantime, cap the knees on an important piece of legislation that lawmakers are prepared to vote on this year!

But Indiana Equality has put itself fully in league with Focus On the Family, Family Research Councils, and all other anti-gay groups who will latch onto IE’s statement and run with it. See? Even gay groups don’t want this. IE’s game is a complete betrayal on one of the more important pieces of pro-equality legislation to enter Congress.

[Hat tip: Bil Browning]

Update: IE’s link appears to have moved. I’ve updated the post to re-link to IE’s statement again. It does not, however appear to be a permanent link. Therefore I’m copying the statement below.

Click here to read Indiana Equality’s statement

Threat Assessment

Timothy Kincaid

June 16th, 2009

This past weekend was Los Angeles’ gay pride parade and festival, Christopher Street West. And police presence was abundant.

Dozens of officers from various departments marched in the parade (accompanied the LA Chief of Police) and dozens more Sheriff’s Deputies were present to control traffic, keep the parade route clear, and be a general visible presence of order.

But I noticed something unusual this year. Some deputies seemed to be wearing bullet proof vests.

So I asked a deputy, “Why are you wearing vests? Are you concerned that gay folks are going to be a threat?”

And he responded, “No. It’s not the gays we’re concerned about. It’s those knuckleheads”.

And then I realized that the only deputies wearing protective gear were those lingering around the nine street preachers that had shown up to protest the parade.

In a time of increased violence from extremists, it’s nice to see a police force taking the threat against our lives seriously.

The Ensign Affair

Jim Burroway

June 16th, 2009

On 2004, Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) supported the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment, which was an attempt to write discrimination of gays and lesbians into the U.S. Constitution. This is what he said from the Senate floor:

“Marriage is the cornerstone on which our society was founded. For those who say that the Constitution is so sacred that we cannot or should not adopt the Federal Marriage Amendment, I would simply point out that marriage, and the sanctity of that institution, predates the American Constitution and the founding of our nation.”

The sanctity of the born-again Senator’s own marriage didn’t last so long. Ensign has now admitted that he had an affair between December 2007 and August 2008 with a woman who worked for both his re-election campaign and his Battleborn political action committee. To make matters worse, the New York Times reports that the woman’s husband had worked on Ensign’s Senate staff. MSNBC is reporting that Ensign is telling fellow Senators that he’s coming forward to head off an extortion attempt by his former mistress. Politico reports that it’s the mistress’s husband who was trying to shake Ensign down.

Ensign demanded Sen. Larry Craig’s resignation in September 2007 over Craig’s arrest for soliciting sexual favors in a Minnesota airport public men’s room. He also called for President Bill Clinton’s resignation during the Monica Lewinsky scandal while running for the Senate in 1998. No word yet on whether Ensign plans on resigning, or if he’s going to relinquish his chairmanship of the powerful GOP Policy Committee. Darlene Ensign, like Larry Craig’s wife, is standing by her man.

In Today’s Army, Neo-Nazis Are In But LGBT People Are Out

Jim Burroway

June 16th, 2009

This is what is so particularly galling about the foot-dragging and finger-pointing going on between President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” While more than two hundred American servicemembers have been discharged from the armed forces in a time of war since the start of the Obama administration simply for being honest about who they are, neo-Nazis — complete with neo-Nazi tattoos and criminal records — are sailing right on through.  This is Forrest Fogarty. He decided to become a Nazi at the age of fourteen:

For the next six years, Fogarty flitted from landscaping job to construction job, neither of which he’d ever wanted to do. “I was just drinking and fighting,” he says. He started his own Nazi rock group, Attack, and made friends in the National Alliance, at the time the biggest neo-Nazi group in the country. It has called for a “a long-term eugenics program involving at least the entire populations of Europe and America.”

But the military ran in Fogarty’s family. His grandfather had served during World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and his dad had been a Marine in Vietnam. At 22, Fogarty resolved to follow in their footsteps. “I wanted to serve my country,” he says.

Army regulations prohibit soldiers from participating in racist groups, and recruiters are instructed to keep an eye out for suspicious tattoos (PDF: 188 KB/25 pages). Before signing on the dotted line, enlistees are required to explain any tattoos. At a Tampa recruitment office, though, Fogarty sailed right through the signup process. “They just told me to write an explanation of each tattoo, and I made up some stuff, and that was that,” he says. Soon he was posted to Fort Stewart in Georgia, where he became part of the 3rd Infantry Division. [Hyperlink in the original]

Fogarty’s ex-girlfriend even tried to disrupt his military career by sending photos of him at Nazi rallies and performing in his band. The military brought him before a commission and he was asked to explain himself. But despite the photographic evidence, he denied the charges and the commission refused to take any further action. He went on to serve as a military policeman in Iraq, where he learned to add yet another group to his long list of people to hate: Arabs. “Them and the Jews are just disgusting people as far as I’m concerned,” he told Salon’s Matt Kennard.

Conservative talk radio and Fox News howled with protest when a Homeland Security assessment on right-wing extremism warned about a very tiny minority of military veterans joining extremist groups after leaving the military (PDF: 2MB/10 pages). Pundits demanded — and got — an apology from Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano. But all of that attention ignored the fact that in 2005, the Defense Department concluded that the military had become a training ground for these very same extremists (PDF: 672KN136 pages):

Effectively, the military has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy pertaining to extremism. If individuals can perform satisfactorily, without making their extremist opinions overt through words or actions that violate policy, reflect poorly on the Armed Forces, or disrupt the effectiveness and order of their units, they are likely to be able to complete their contracts.

Except there isn’t a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy with respect to extremism — at least not in a way that LGBT servicemembers would recognize it. The “Don’t Ask” part of the anti-gay policy is routinely violated by military investigators. Many LGBT servicemembers were identified via their use of LGBT web sites, yet the mlitary doesn’t do any sort of organized internet screening for supremacists among Nazi or Klan websites and forums. They also don’t follow-up when presented with evidence that a servicemember is a member of a Nazi or Klan-style organization.

Furthermore, right-wing extremists routinely flaunt the “Don’t Tell” part of the policy with no repercussions. Fogarty revealed that other members of his outfit knew about his Nazi affiliations, but it just became something of a joke among fellow soldiers and commanding officers. A police officer in Fayetteville, North Carolina who used to be a paratrouper at nearby Fort Bragg said this:

[Hunter] Glass says white supremacists now enjoy an open culture of impunity in the armed forces. “We’re seeing guys with tattoos all the time,” he says. “As far as hunting them down, I don’t see it. I’m seeing the opposite, where if a white supremacist has committed a crime, the military stance will be, ‘He didn’t commit a race-related crime.’”

Fogarty left the military in 2005 with an honorable discharge.

A 2008 FBI report on White supremacists in the Military (PDF: 118 KB/14 pages) found:

Military experience—ranging from failure at basic training to success in special operations forces—is found throughout the white supremacist extremist movement. FBI reporting indicates extremist leaders have historically favored recruiting active and former military personnel for their knowledge of firearms, explosives, and tactical skills and their access to weapons and intelligence in preparation for an anticipated war against the federal government, Jews, and people of color. FBI cases also document instances of active duty military personnel having volunteered their professional resources to white supremacist causes.

…A review of FBI white supremacist extremist cases from October 2001 to May 2008 identified 203 individuals with confirmed or claimed military service active in the extremist movement at some time during the reporting period. This number is minuscule in comparison with the projected US veteran population of 23,816,000 as of 2 May 2008, or the 1,416,037 active duty military personnel as of 30 April 2008. It is also a small percentage of an estimated US white supremacist extremist population, which, based on FBI investigations, currently numbers in the low thousands. However, the prestige which the extremist movement bestows upon members with military experience grants them the potential for influence beyond their numbers. Most extremist groups have some members with military experience, and those with military experience often hold positions of authority within the groups to which they belong.

Fifty-eight of the 2003 individuals identified by the FBI were members of the National Alliance, the group where Fogerty got his start before joining the military. Another 44 of the 203 individuals were members of the National Socialist Movement, the same group which protested at PrideFest in Springfield, Missouri over the weekend. The FBI report describes the National Socialist Movement as being relatively stable and cohesive. They have also been very successful with their strategic decision to target returning Iraq war veterans for recruitment:

In contrast to the NA [National Alliance] and other white supremacist groups, the NSM—although not immune to factionalism—enjoyed a greater degree of stability during the post-9/11 period and benefited from the membership exoduses of other struggling organizations. This relative stability included a sustained campaign to recruit current and former military personnel overseen by a respected figure in the extremist movement and unverified former Marine, who left leadership roles in the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Aryan Nations (AN) to become a Colonel in the NSM and Director of its “Stormtroopers” (the NSM’s security force) from 2002 until his retirement in December 2007. The NSM’s military structure also adds to its recruitment success by offering a familiar organizational context for veterans, including a system of rank that serves as an incentive for joining the group. In addition, NSM literature has outlined the development of a Special Projects Division consisting of “Werewolf Units” intended for special military operations and with a membership favoring those with military backgrounds.

According to sensitive and reliable source reporting in October 2006, the NSM received a number of queries from active duty Army and Marine personnel stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan expressing interest in joining the organization or inquiring about chapters located near domestic US military bases. This report followed—and was consistent with—December 2005 source reporting on the NSM stressing the need to place units close to military bases nationwide in order to recruit military personnel. Whether as a result of group recruitment efforts or self-recruitment by active military personnel sympathetic to white supremacist extremist causes, FBI information derived from reliable, multiple sources documents white supremacist extremist activity occurring at some military bases.

Read the whole article by Salon’s Matt Kennard. It’s an amazing eye-opener. It describes supremacist leaders encouraging members to enlist in the military so that they can be trained at taxpayer expense for what they see as a coming “race war,” which is central to their beleifs.

Extremist Watch: Neo-Nazis, Dominionists Protest PrideFest In Ozarks

Jim Burroway

June 15th, 2009

Several members of the National Socialist Movement protested at a PrideFest celebration in Springfield, Missouri. Another anti-gay group, Minutemen United, was also at the rally. Gregory Thompson told a local Fox affiliate, “We love them so much that we want their soul in heaven for eternity. That’s the greatest love that there is.” That was just after footage of protesters shouting, “Death to Gays!”

The Minutemen United appears to be an offshoot of a similarly named group based in Ohio which disrupted two central Ohio church services in 2007. “Coach” Dave Daubenmire, who heads the Ohio group, was in Springfield in advance of the protest. Daubenmire also heads Pass the Salt Ministries, a Christian Dominionist group. The Missouri chapter of Minutemen United describes itself as “Christian men that are ready to run to the battle; at a minute’s warning!  To take to the field with arms (our arms is the sword of the Lord-the Bible).”

The National Socialist Movement in Springfield is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a neo-Nazi hate group.

Update: The Springfield News-Leader has more. Another chant: “Thank God for AIDS!” Where have we heard that before?

Extremist Watch: Minutemen In Arizona

Jim Burroway

June 14th, 2009

Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider in Wichita, Kansas was shot and killed in his church by a right-wing extremist on May 31. The murderer, Scott Roeder, had extensive ties with militant anti-abortion groups, some of whom see Roeder as a hero. Stephen T Johns, a security guard at the Holocaust museum was gunned down on June 11 by James von Brunn, an avowed racist and Holocaust denier. Von Brunn is being lauded as “a hero and a martyr” by many who share his beliefs.

I saw yesterday in the Arizona Daily Star that an arrest was made in a May 30 home invasion in Arivaca, Arizona, a picturesque little village south of Tucson barely ten miles from the border with Mexico. It’s a rough-and-tumble place populated by aging hippies, artists, and Mexican-American families who trace their deep roots in the region from before the Gadsden Purchase in 1853. Entering the town is like simultaneously crossing the border and a couple of centuries. It is so out of the way, the locals have a saying: “When you’ve found Arivaca, you know you’re lost.”

My partner and I have enjoyed spending a few afternoons at a small rural coffee shop just outside of town, sitting outside on the porch with the stray dogs and the hummingbirds. The idea that a home invasion could occur there is quite unsettling. One in which father and nine-year-old daughter were killed is even more out of place in such a tiny little place. As rough as Arivaca may be, this is the sort of thing that happens in Tucson and Phoenix, not in an out-of-the-way village in the Sonoran desert.

So who would pull off such a thing? Well, it turns out that the ringleader of the three-person assault force was Shawna Forde, the leader of tghe Washington-based Minutemen American Defense. Also participating was Jason Eugene Bush, who serves as operations director for the group. (There are at least three different groups operating in the area calling themselves Minutemen.) This gang of extremists allegedly targeted the home on the suspicion that the father, Raul Flores, was dealing in drugs.

Regardless of whether Flores was dealing in drugs or not (news reports are ambiguous on that), this is just one more example of right-wing extremists not just taking the law into their own hands, but seeking to become a law unto themselves. And just as there are racist extremists, anti-immigrant extremists, and anti-abortion extremists, there are anti-LGBT extremists out there as well. And some of them may well be goaded by some of the more inflammatory rhetoric among more well-known opponents to LGBT equality.

This country has changed in many remarkable ways in the past decade, and the changes that LGBT people have experienced have been especially significant in the last five years. In just this year alone, five new states have added marriage equality, while more than a third of all Americans live in states allowing at least some form of recognition for same-sex couples. This must be galling to many of our more extreme opponents.

There are crackpots out there who would do us harm, and they are becoming increasingly desperate. This is a time for vigilance and a time for all of us to be very careful about our personal safety. But our prudence must not come at the expense of squelching our voices or halting our steps.

Let’s be careful out there.

Researchers Denounce Focus On the Family’s Linkage of Childhood Sexual Abuse and Male Homosexuality

Jim Burroway

June 12th, 2009

Focus On the Family is preparing to have their Love Won Out roadshow make its stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan this weekend. One of the principle arguments they are likely to spring on unsuspecting parents (if past history is any guide) is Melissa Fryrear’s assertion that she has never met a gay person who hadn’t been sexually abused, while drawing the insistent link that this abuse somehow is a major cause of homosexuality. (We saw Pat Robertson mine this same material earlier this week.) This damaging and abusive  claim — imagine the horror of parents of gay kids in that audience who will hear her say that — has been a very steady theme in Love Won Out’s arsenal.

To bolster that claim, Focus On the Family recently issued one of their “reports” by Jeff Johnston, who is touted as the “gender issues analyst” at Focus On the Family (his degree and qualifications are never mentioned). That report, “Childhood Sexual Abuse and Male Homosexuality,” is further intended to reinforce the claim that most gay men have experienced some form of sexual abuse in their childhoods, and that this is the reason they became gay. To back up his claims, he cites the book, Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States, edited by Richard J. Wolitsk, Ron Stall and Ronald O. Valdiserri. That book contains a large number of research papers on various topics related to men’s health, including child sexual abuse. Johnston claims:

In a chapter titled, “Childhood Sexual Abuse Experienced by Gay and Bisexual Men: Understanding the Disparities and Interventions to Help Eliminate Them,” from the book Unequal Opportunity, researchers analyze and report on data from 17 different studies from the past 15 years. They find the rates of childhood sexual abuse (which they abbreviate as CSA) for men who have sex with men range from 11.8% to 37.0%, and note that “the best-designed studies tend to converge on CSA prevalence of 15% to 25%.”

The authors in Unequal Opportunity are reluctant to say that childhood sexual abuse is one of the factors that leads to or contributes to the development of homosexuality, but they do speculate,

The fact that most childhood abusers of MSM were males suggests either an etiological link between CSA and adult sexual orientation, or the existence of childhood characteristics that are related to adult sexual orientation in men that increase vulnerability, or both.”

And later, they say that these early sexual experiences “can be considered a form of sexual learning, even if that learning is involuntary and the results dysfunctional.” They continue, “Sexual orientation and gender identity can be particularly confusing for men who experienced arousal during the abuse, and MSM who experienced abuse may continue to be aroused by circumstances that mirror the abusive situation.

Grove City College professor Warren Throckmorton contacted Ron Stall and Ron Valdiserri and asked them to comment on the Focus On the Family report. They responded with a statement condemning the report as “inaccurate and, in our opinion, a distortion of the scientific literature.” They go on:

Most basically, the Focus on the Family characterization of the literature on childhood sexual abuse among gay men represents a misunderstanding of scientific approaches to distinguishing between correlation and causation. The book chapter in question reports that gay men are more likely to report childhood sexual abuse by men than are heterosexual men. This correlation does not mean that the reported abuse caused the adult sexual orientation. If that were the case, then the fact that some heterosexual men report sexual abuse by women means that sexual abuse by women “causes” heterosexuality in men. It is also worth noting that the argument that childhood sexual abuse causes homosexuality in gay men is undermined by the fact that the vast majority of gay men are not sexually abused as children.

…[W]e want to state clearly that the published research does not support the claim that the development of a homosexual orientation is caused by childhood sexual abuse. Furthermore, adult homosexual orientation is no longer considered a pathology or a maladjustment. We urge those who are interested in trying to better understand some of these complex issues from a scientific perspective to read the discussions in our book, as well as the scientific literature on childhood sexual abuse, and not rely on second-hand interpretations.

You can see Stall and Valdiserri’s full statement at Dr. Throckmorton’s web site.

Update: What kind of qualifications does it take to be a “gender issues analyst” at Focus On the Family? Well in Jeff Johnston’s case, all you have to be is an English major! (PDF: 168 KB/1 page) He has also served on the board of directors of Exodus International and PFOX.

The New Miss California Also Does Not Support Same-Sex Marriage

Timothy Kincaid

June 12th, 2009

The Miss California Pageant has replaced one young Christian girl… with another, Teri Farrell.

According to the Kansas City Star,

She’s a Christian. Farrell recently finished recording her first demo CD and performed during a Christian cruise to the Bahamas last summer. Last fall she worked with Christian recording artists, Sonic Flood, on a new CD project.

And the Mercury News is telling us that she doesn’t support marriage equality

In a television interview Thursday, [Tami] Farrell said she believed marriage should be between a man and a woman. But she added: “I don’t think I have the right or anybody has the right to tell somebody who they can or can’t love.”

But it seems that Tami, unlike Carrie, doesn’t think her opinion on the matter is the result of some battle between God and Satan or that she’s qualified to weigh in authoritatively.

But what about gay marriage? Farrell feels it is “hilarious that the world is turning to beauty queens for the answers” on gay marriage, but she didn’t have a strong opinion on either side of the debate.

“I don’t think I have the right, or anyone has the right, to tell somebody who they can or cannot love. I think this is a civil rights issue, and I think the right thing to do is to let the voters decide.”

TMZ has video from CNN in which she says that the decision should be state by state and that she isn’t interested in hooking up with anti-gay organizations.

Ex-Gay Advocate Seeks to Out Gay Co-Workers

Timothy Kincaid

June 12th, 2009

Philip Irvin ain’t so fond of The Gey. And he very much objects to the way in which his employer, Seattle City Light, allows an LGBTQ employee association to meet. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

Speaking to seattlepi.com Thursday, Irvin said the city has previously opposed his efforts to start a group for employees who had identified as homosexuals but have since become heterosexual.

“They are the most vilified sexual minority, and I’m sorry to say that they’re not really welcomed in the religious community either,” Irvin said. “This is something where they are vilified on the right or the left.”

He also tried to get Seattle City Light to send him as a representative of the company to the Love Won Out ex-gay seminars. In order to make his point, he sent his request by email - and included some gay co-workers on the distribution list.

I don’t know if there are many - if any - employees that identify as ex-gay at Seattle City Light. I think it likely that this was less about a demand for an ex-gay employees group and more of a means to harass gay fellow employees.

Now Irvin has come up with an all new way to annoy and frighten his co-workers. He has used public disclosure laws to try and find out who might be gay so he can out them. In his own words:

Seattle Public Utilities sponsored a “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and friends” employees group which has free use of City e-mail and meeting rooms and most likely even has a city job number to charge their organizational time to. They have even got an all-employees e-mail invitation persuading employees to attend a one-sided forum on lesbian mothers child custody issues. Curious to find out who was using City resources, I, a City Light employee, filed a public disclosure request seeking the names and attendees of their meeting.

The Post-Intelligencer reports

According to court documents, Irvin has also requested the names and city departments of those who are members of the group, or who have attended the group’s meetings, as well as copies of the group’s sign-in sheets, minutes and agendas.

He sees it as a logical extension of reporting the names of those who sign anti-gay petitions for referenda. Anti-gay activists are circulating petitions to overturn rights and benefits granted to domestic partners by the State of Washington. And WhoSigned.org seeks to make those names available to their neighbors.

Irvin argues that if the names of persons who sign a legal petition to achieve the numbers necessary to qualify for a ballot to remove civil rights are public, then so too should the names of employees who attended an LGBTQ workgroup be publicized.

His co-workers did not agree. They sought, and received, court intervention. (the Stranger)

King County Superior Court issued a restraining order that temporarily blocks the city from releasing personal information about members of the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Friends (LGBTQ&F)” affinity group.

Irvin isn’t pleased

I was stunned when told that the gay group would be filing an injunction to block release of this information. There seems to be rank hypocrisy among the gay community. Publishing names and addresses on a website of those who oppose them by signing a petition is fair game but releasing the names of those who use city resources to promote their agenda causes them to howl. Call me a homophobe if you want to but I don’t think the City should fund a secret gay employees group.

But the attorney for the employees sees distinctions between the public dissemination of petitioners to the State on matters of legislation and individuals attending a workplace meeting.

But Coffman says the comparison is apples to oranges. The key in determining whether personal information should be made public rests on state law, which says the public must hold an interest in accessing private information. In the case of a referendum, Coffman says, the public needs to verify that authorized voters signed a petition—thus that information needs to be publicly available.

However, Coffman argues, “I don’t think there is a public interest in identifying who these people are.” He says that it’s unclear what city resources were invested in the group, what the threshold for membership was, or what personal information (such as email addresses) the city might have. For instance, he is concerned that someone who attended one meeting but had no real stake in the group could be outed.

“The interest is Mr. Irvin’s alone, and I would suggest it is for nefarious purposes,” says Coffman. It’s an intimidation tactic that “smacks of something that would happen in the South, circa 1962.”