Posts Tagged As: Anti-Gay Activists

When ADF speaks of children, who do they mean?

Timothy Kincaid

June 16th, 2010

The Christian Post has an article up today quoting supporters of Proposition 8. (I guess the millions of Christians who opposed Prop 8 were all unavailable today, but I digress):

“More than 7 million Californians decided that marriage should be preserved, not fundamentally changed,” said Brian Raum, senior counsel at Alliance Defense Fund. “If a handful of activists is allowed to void a constitutional amendment protecting marriage, we have gutted the core of the American democratic system and will deny more children the mom and the dad they deserve.”

This certainly isn’t the first time the “deny the children” argument has be thrown around. Actually, we hear it quit regularly. But today I got to pondering just how extremely stupid (and contrary to orthodox Christianity) this who notion is.

Who, exactly, are these children that are being denied a mom and a dad?

Is there some great kid factory out there that is sending kids off to gay couples instead of the “mom and dad they deserve?” Does Brian Raum think that if only there were no gay couples then the stork would deliver their kids to straight couples?

OK, so some children of gay parents are adopted. But doesn’t he know that without deliberate effort on the part of these same-sex couples to conceive that many of these kids would not only be “denied” a mom and a dad but they would be denied existence altogether.

Or perhaps ADF is either appealing for Mormon support by fully buying in to Mormon theology. Perhaps he believes that it is spirit children who pre-existed in Heaven that are being denied heterosexual parents.

Or, most likely, he is just repeating a really stupid catch phrase which only appeals to those who don’t have the capacity to think outside of what anti-gay activists tell them.

NGLCC severs contact with McDonald’s after deteriorating relationship

Timothy Kincaid

June 15th, 2010


It seems that our observations about McDonald’s and the company’s less-than-supportive “core values” are not without confirmation. After the 2008 AFA boycott, McDonald’s relationship with the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce has deteriorated.

Considering a string of broken promises and dismissiveness on the part of the company, the NGLCC sees the French ad as a cynical attempt by McDonald’s to capitalize on a gay-friendly market in Europe while simultaneously pandering to anti-gay attitudes in the United States. They’ve issued a letter severing contact with the burger chain and expressing their frustration:

After numerous conversations and frustratingly unfulfilled promises by Patricia Harris, Vice President and Global Diversity Officer, and Gus Viano, Director of Inclusion & Diversity, to produce and share McDonald’s plan to engage the LGBT segment, we have still seen no plan. As such, we have come to the conclusion that these individuals represent the real position that McDonald’s is not interested in doing business with the LGBT segment or engaging in any substantive dialog.

We strongly believe that McDonald’s plan to distance itself from LGBT and other diverse business segments, coupled with the release of the French TV ad, is ill advised and counter to the spirit of good business and sound ethics. We sincerely hope that McDonald’s will reconsider its position and that the company will again show its support for LGBT people, our families and our businesses — not just where it is politically expedient, but around the globe.

McDonald’s won’t market to gay customers

Timothy Kincaid

June 15th, 2010

Don Wildmon, the American Family Association’s director, will periodically declare war on some company or other (usually for undecipherable reasons), get some coverage at WorldNetDaily, send out some fund letters, declare success! (again for undecipherable reasons) and move on to his next target. Back in 2008 the target was McDonald’s. It seems that McDonald’s contributed to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce which meant, somehow, that the company was “endorsing the homosexual agenda”.

When the company’s employee who was on the board of NGLCC moved out of the country, AFA declared victory.

A corporate executive for McDonald’s restaurants who had been on board of directors of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce has stepped down following a boycott of the chain organized by the pro-family American Family Association.

McDonald’s officials confirmed today to WND that Richard Ellis, who had been named to the “gay” chamber board after McDonald’s contributed $20,000 to the organization, “made a personal decision to step down” after he accepted a new position with McDonald’s Restaurants of Canada.

At the time, I wrote this off as coincidental. But perhaps the AFA had more of an impact on McDonald’s than I thought. Or, as new information suggests, perhaps AFA’s message found a sympathetic ear at McDonald’s.

Now a new issue has arisen to get anti-gays into a dither, and McDonald’s response is disturbing. It involves a McDonald’s advertisement which ran on French television.

This charming ad – part of a larger campaign welcoming everyone to come as they are – is not offensive. It is not sexual or provocative or inappropriate. But to those who oppose the existence of gay people, the idea of welcoming gay youth “as they are” is an indication of an insidious homosexual agenda.

And McDonald’s has made it very clear that such a message will not be part of their US marketing.

Lisa Howards, McDonalds’s director of corporate media relations, told Media Matters that the “Come as You Are” campaign was made exclusively for France.

“The ad you’re referencing is one of a series of ads called “Come as You Are,” which recognized he diversity of McDonald’s customers in France. This particular commercial was produced by McDonald’s France and is running only in France,” Howards said in the statement. “Each of our 117 markets around the world determines their own advertising and marketing.”

Companies like McDonald’s have complicated multi-year advertising strategies that include corporate image, message, and theme and I certainly have no expectation that McDonald’s target-market specifically to the gay community. But there is a difference between less narrow marketing and a strategy that specifically excludes gay customers.

And now Don Thompson, McDonald’s new President and Chief Operating Officer, has made it very clear in an interview with the Chicago Tribune that this ad was a “mistake” and that McDonald’s will not market to gay customers. His religion doesn’t approve of gay people.

Tribune: A French TV ad featuring a gay teen and his father has stirred some controversy — not there, but here. Can you talk about that?

Thompson: It is an example that markets, cultures are very different around the world. (For instance), I’ve never shied away from the fact that I’m a Christian. I have my own personal beliefs and I don’t impose those on anybody else. I’ve been in countries where the majority of the people in the country don’t believe in a deity or they may be atheist. Or the majority of the country is Muslim. Or it may be the majority is much younger skewed. So when you look at all these differences, it’s not that I’m to be the judge or the jury relative to right or wrong. Having said that, at McDonald’s, there are core values we stand for and the world is getting much closer. So we have a lot of conversations. We’re going to make some mistakes at times. (We talk) about things that may have an implication in one part of the world and may be the cultural norm in another part of the world. And those are things that, yes, we’re going to learn from. But, you’re right, that commercial won’t show in the United States.

Tribune: How has it done in France?

Thompson: Interestingly enough, there have been no negatives coming out of France. The brand is a local brand and different things will occur in different parts of the world. We just have to make sure that we understand the impact one action may make on another part of the world.

So I guess McDonald’s “core values” do not include marketing to gay youth. Others should come as they are, but there won’t be any marketing to gay people in the United States. In fact, he seems to be saying that there will not be any more marketing to gay people anywhere from now on. It might “have an implication.”

When AFA came calling, Don Thompson was President of McDonald’s USA and there were “things he learned”. I fear that what he learned was that he now has an excuse for implementing his own bigotries and biases. He’s not “imposing on anyone,” he’s just upholding “core values.”

But perhaps McDonald’s has more to learn. Perhaps they need to discover that America’s youth do not share “core values” with the AFA or with Don Thompson.

And McDonald’s certainly doesn’t share “core values” with me.

“Public Advocate” becoming publicly paranoid

Timothy Kincaid

June 10th, 2010

Eugene Delgaudio may be the least effective anti-gay activist ever. Although his Public Advocate of the United States organization spends over a million bucks each year “fighting overtime against the Radical Homosexual lobby”, you’ve probably never heard of him.

Delgaudio is currently representing the Sterling District on Board of Supervisors in Loudoun County, Virginia. Oh, and his name popped up briefly in 2008 when he insinuated that gay people must be responsible for torching Sarah Palin’s church, but otherwise his profile is pretty low. His organization apparently has done some street theater (holding a man-donkey marriage, for example) but even that is so poorly organized that it doesn’t get press.

Oh, but Eugene is a dedicated warrior against those radical homosexuals. And like some others, his public proclamations tend towards the lurid and hint that he may not be fully sane. In fact, he may be downright bat-poop crazy.

In April, Delgaudio sent to his reader an appeal for funds that included this rather imaginative narrative:

One stormy night I drove to a mailshop hidden deep in a nearly deserted stand of warehouses. I’d heard something was up and wanted to see for myself.

As I rounded the final turn my eyes nearly popped. Tractor-trailers pulled up to loading docks, cars and vans everywhere and long-haired, earring-pierced men scurrying around running forklifts, inserters and huge printing presses.

Trembling with worry I went inside. It was worse than I ever imagined.

Row after row of boxes bulging with pro-homosexual petitions lined the walls, stacked to the ceiling.

My mind reeled as I realized hundreds, maybe thousands, more boxes were already loaded on the tractor-trailers. And still more petitions were flying off the press.

Suddenly a dark-haired man screeched, “Delgaudio what are you doing here?” Dozens of men began moving toward me. I’d been recognized.

As I retreated to my car, the man chortled, “This time Delgaudio we can’t lose.”

Driving away, my eyes filled with tears as I realized he might be right. This time the Radical Homosexuals could win.

Poor Eugene. “Long-haired, earring-pierced men” hasn’t been a description of the gay community since 1984. (Just for fun, read that story again and count the sexual innuendos.)

And now he has a brand new appeal out with an even scarier threat.

And as the Radical Homosexuals gain more and more ground in Congress, my hands are tied…

Life here in Washington has been a virtual Hell for me…

I put off sending you this email for a while because I didn’t want to worry you.

You see, I’ve gotten death threats and I never take them lightly. But when they go beyond threatening and actually try to kill me, it’s a whole different story.

There’s more my friend…

In the past, strangers follow my family around town…

Idling cars sit across the street at all hours of the night…

…the threatening phone calls, the death threats and the outrageous lies… oh, it’s endless… but thank the Lord for He truly blessed me with a family so strong, so brave… and yes, so supportive!

I’ve taken precautions to protect my family. Some things I’ve told you about, but some things I must keep confidential or they’d be in more peril.

Will you pray for my family and me? That the Lord would keep us safe? I covet your prayers!

Oh, it’s endless, all right. It’s endless bullsh!t.

Either Eugene Delgaudio is an astonishingly inept but determined liar or his lifelong dedication to a campaign of hatred has finally warped his mind to the point where he no longer is capable of distinguishing fact from fiction (or, in his case, more likely fantasy). Frankly, I think that either one could be true.

The reasons behind the denial of sexual orientation, and why they are not working

Timothy Kincaid

June 2nd, 2010

One common theme found in anti-gay rhetoric is the dismissal of sexual orientation. This can be seen from Exodus’ statement that “the opposite of homosexuality is godliness” to the Family Values Coalition’s redefinition of sexual orientation to include all paraphilia to the obsessive use of “homosexual lifestyle” by virtually every anti-gay activist.

And the reason is clear. It is not overly difficult to condemn people for their lifestyle or even to justify executing them for their “behavior”, but few modern Americans are comfortable mistreating others based on an innate and immutable attribute.

And they know it. Consider this aptly named piece in OneNewsNow by virulently anti-gay writer Peter Heck: Why we’re losing the ‘gay’ debate:

Because of their ceaseless onslaught of propaganda, a majority of Americans (some even within the church) have come to believe in the existence of a group of people whose natural state is “homosexual.” We now casually use this terminology, assuming that there are “heterosexuals” and “homosexuals.”

When we accept this baseline, we have detached ourselves from rational thinking. We have allowed the debates over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” marriage rights, hospital visitation and other legislative objectives like adoption privileges to become ones of civil rights and fairness. And once those advancing homosexuality have successfully framed these debates in this way, those holding to traditional morality are helpless. They are easily portrayed as cruel, discriminatory, hateful bigots unwilling to extend the rights they want for themselves to others who are not like them. Needless to say, this is all by design. It has been the stated strategy of the homosexual agenda from the start.

Heck argues that the only way they will win is if they convince the populace that they are not discriminating against people but discouraging behavior.

But since what they do sexually is always chosen behavior, it has nothing to do with their identity. Who a person is, is different than what a person does.

Heck is right that they are losing, and why, but he’s wrong about the solution. Rebranding homosexuality as a behavior rather than a trait will not and cannot be successful for three reasons:

1) The horse is already out of the barn. Regardless of how you feel about gay people, virtually everyone already recognizes that such a group exists.

Even rabid anti-gay activists who rant about there being no such thing as sexual orientation distinguish between those who are gay and those who are not. In fact, anti-gay activists are among the quickest to assign category and announce differences. They’ve spent years ranting about the imagined mental illness, criminal activity, diseases, and predatory nature of the ever feared homosexual, and now it is too late to declare that such a creature does not exist.

Even Heck, in a desperate effort to avoid any suggestion of an innate trait, talks about “men having sex with men”. Not as a descriptive act, but in substitution for “gay men” or “homosexuals”. It’s kind of amusing once you recognize it.

You can call us gays and lesbians or “men having sex with men” or “those struggling with same-sex attraction” or “militant homosexual activists” or queers, fags, deviants, or dykes and ultimately the effect is the same. Gay people exist, are a distinct population, and everyone already knows it.

2) The attempt to distinguish between behavior and identity, if it were possible, would only work in the favor of gay rights.

One of the more bizarre aspects of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was that it pretended to be based on behavior. And part of the definition of “behavior” was having “a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts”. In other words, being a gay person was behavior. And there we are right back in a great big circle.

So assume for a moment that Heck’s imagined distinction were law. Suppose we took him at his word that “the debate should be held over whether or not those who do serve should be banned from participating in certain sexual behaviors.”

OK. Ban gay sex and not gay people… And just how would you go about enforcing such a law? Sex police?

Anti-gay discrimination in America has never really been about behavior. No gay person is fired from their job for having sex in the breakroom (or if they were, they should have been). And if you want to ban adoptions based on who uploads home porn to x-tube, you might even convince me.

Homophobes almost universally say, “I don’t care what you do in the privacy of your bedroom,” they just don’t want you to “shove it in their face.” And by that, they mean that they don’t want you to be a gay person. Because they don’t really truly care if you are engaging in homosexual acts, as long as you aren’t gay.

It isn’t behavior that is behind the adoption ban in Florida, or marriage in 45 states, or denial of benefits for federal employees, or denied hospital visitation, or any other anti-gay discrimination. A ban on “behavior” wasn’t enforced – or enforceable – in the states that had sodomy law before Lawrence v. Texas.

And behavior is not really Heck’s issue. He’s no more fond of the celibate single gay man that doesn’t sleep around outside a relationship than he is of the guy who is getting it on several times per day. In fact, he’d by far prefer a closeted shame-filled sexually active gay man sneaking off to the bathhouse than he would an out and proud celibate gay man.

It’s not really the behavior to which anti-gays object, it’s the kind of people who might possibly do that behavior, and especially the kind of people who aren’t ashamed of it.

3. Efforts to try and deny sexual orientation only make you look extreme, hateful, and lunatic.

The best thing that an anti-gay activist can do for us is loudly proclaim the ridiculous. It discredits them and those with whom they associate.

With each passing day, more people get to know their gay family, neighbors, friends and coworkers. And claims that “they’re not really gay, they’re just choosing aberrant behavior” are so far from their experiences that they fall on deaf ears.

Anti-gays are, on a rather rapid pace, losing influence on the culture around them. Now it seems that only like minded people will listen, and this reinforces extremism and positions that are further and further from the mainstream.

The more that they ratchet up the rhetoric, the less their positions are given credibility.

But what else can they do? I’m not sure that Heck or any of the others can really come up with a strategy that can, in the long run, allow them to implement or retain anti-gay legislation and discrimination.

As gay people are becoming more recognized as a demographic, a unique people with an innate and immutable attribute known as sexual orientation, the more that discrimination seems to be unAmerican and unChristian. And those who espouse it do, indeed, began to be seen as cruel, discriminatory, hateful bigots unwilling to extend the rights they want for themselves to others who are not like them

The hundreds of churches in Iowa that you should avoid

Timothy Kincaid

June 1st, 2010

The Iowa Family Policy Center and Purpose Ministries have collaborated on a list of about 500 clergy and ministry leaders who are petitioning the legislature to forcibly divorce same-sex married couples in Iowa. (Sioux City Journal)

Keith Ratliff, pastor of Maple Street Missionary Baptist Church in Des Moines, said the issue is not about hate or homophobia or lack of compassion.

“Just because you disagree with someone, it doesn’t mean you hate them. It can just mean we disagree with their viewpoint, and in this case, their lifestyle,” Ratliff said.

Well, no, Pastor Ratliff.

If I petitioned that you (or people like you) should be treated as inferior to me, I think you would find it difficult to locate the compassion in my efforts. And if I were to do so in the context of fighting the “People like Ratliff Lobby”, you might even identify animus in my motivations. And if I disagreed with other “viewpoints” and “lifestyles” without seeking to make them legally disadvantaged, you would probably discount my protestations and see me as a bigot and hater.

I’m just saying.

Does that mean that everyone on the list hates gay folk? No, of course not.

But it does mean that every single signatory thinks that gay people are inferior and not worthy of equal treatment under the law. And it means that they have aligned themselves with some who do hate us and that they have pledged themselves to be enemies of equality.

And they have conveniently provided us with a listing of who they are.

So if you live in Iowa and worship at any of the churches listed on this petition, you may wish to question your attendance. And if you should feel that you cannot in good conscience go back, please do let the pastor know why.

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