Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Sunday, March 18

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Celebrations This Weekend: Texas Bear Roundup, Dallas, TX.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
William F. Buckley, Jr. Proposes Tattooing “All AIDS Carriers”: 1986. Two op-eds appeared in The New York Times’s editorial page under the heading, “Critical Steps in Combatting the AIDS Epidemic.” One was written by Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz, and the other by conservative pundit William F. Buckley, Jr. Dershowitz’s column, in keeping with the general hysteria of the day, was not without its alarmist elements. He repeated the belief that “AIDS may, in fact, be transmissible by tears, saliva, bodily fluids and mosquito bites” — a contention that was quickly refuted by those more familiar with the disease. But he also pleaded that “the flow of solid data should not be polluted by personal moralism. … We have a right to know the hard facts about AIDS, unvarnished by moralistic prejudgements.”

That recommendation contrasted sharply with Buckley’s op-ed that appeared on the same page. Buckley acknowledged that many who see homosexuality as morally wrong also saw AIDS as a “special curse of the homosexual, transmitted through anal sex between males.” But that didn’t stop him from trying to claim that those who “tend to disapprove forcefully of homosexuality … (tend) to approach the problem of AIDS empirically.” And how did Buckley “empirically” approach the AIDS crisis?

We face a utilitarian imperative, and the requires absolutely nothing less than the identifaction of the million-odd people who, the doctors estimate, are carriers.

How?

Well, the military has taken the first concrete step. Two million soldiers will be given the blood test, and those who have AIDS will be discreetly discharged. …The next logical step would be to require of anyone who seeks a marriage license that he present himself not only with a Wassermann test but also an AIDS test.

But if he has AIDS, should he then be free to marry?

Only after the intended spouse is advised that her intended husband has AIDS, and agrees to sterilization. We know already of children born with the disease, transmitted by the mother, who contracted it from the father.

…The next logical enforcer is the insurance company. Blue Cross, for instance, can reasonably require of those who wish to join it a physical examination that requires tests. Almost every American, making his way from infancy to maturity, needs to pass by one or another institutional turnstile. Here the lady will spring out, her right hand on a needle, her left on a computer, to capture a blood specimen.

Is it then proposed …that AIDS carriers should be publicly identified as such?

The evidence is not completely in as to the communicability of the disease. But while much has been said that is reassuring, the moment has not yet come when men and women of science are unanimously agreed that AIDS cannot be casually communicated. Let us be patient on that score, pending any tilt in the evidence: If the news is progressively reassuring, public identification would not be necessary. If it turns in the other direction and AIDS develops among, say, children who have merely roughhoused with other children who suffer from AIDS, then more drastic segregation measures would be called for.

But if the time has not come, and may never come, for public identification, what then of private identification?

Everyone detected with AIDS should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals.

That was in 1986, which might seem like ancient history. But in 2005 when the news media would initiate a new round of hysteria over an imaginary AIDS “superbug,” Buckley was there again, saying that “murderers need to be stopped”:

The objective is to identify the carrier, and to warn his victim. Someone, 20 years ago, suggested a discreet tattoo the site of which would alert the prospective partner to the danger of proceeding as had been planned. But the author of the idea was treated as though he had been schooled in Buchenwald, and the idea was not widely considered, but maybe it is up now for reconsideration.

The so-called “superbug” was a phantom; but Buckley’s Buchenwaldist proposal was, apparently, serious — serious enough for him to raise again unapologetically 20 years later.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Not a gay organization

Corporate America is currently the gay communty’s biggest supporter. Time and again companies have stepped up and supported equality even when under threat from a “million” moms or “families” who are enraged at the idea. This wasn’t always true, but nowadays the bigger the Big Business, the more they seem to want to sponsor events or contribute to campaigns or even lobby legislators on our behalf.

And while some in our community are not going to ever change their perspective about the role of business in society, most of us will happily accept their support. If Microsoft wants to work for marriage equality in Washington, that’s a good thing. If Apple and Levi’s give to fight Prop 8, we’ll use our iPhone to buy some jeans. If Macy’s tweeks the nose of the “marriage protectors”, we’ll chuckle while registering in their marriage register. And if a handful of Republican Wall Street types put enough money and pressure on the Republican controlled NY Senate that they pass a marriage bill, even dedicated liberal Democrats will swallow hard and smile while throwing rice.

Most of us.

But there are those who claim to be gay groups that put gay issues secondary to their radical political agenda. GOProud is a good example. They’ve never met an extremist homophobic Republican or an outrageous Republican position that they couldn’t endorse. Often with logic that would make a pretzel dizzy. And nothing is more important to GOProud than hatin’ on The Left; hate is their primary purpose and driving motivation.

And there’s also this:

As constituents and LGBTQ supporters, we demand that HRC stand with us, to stand against the exploitation of the less fortunate, and stand for those suffering at the hands of corporate criminals. We urge HRC to make decisions that support their mission statement of “equality and fairness for all.” WE DEMAND THAT HRC rescind their Workplace for Equality Innovation Award and revoke Mr. Balnkfein’s title as “national spokesperson for same-sex marriage.”

Lloyd Blankfein’s crime, that which disqualifies him from working for marriage equality in the minds of GetEqual, is being CEO of Goldman Sachs. Because, when it comes right down to it, GetEqual has a lot in common with GOProud. In choosing between advancing equality or hatin’ on the Wall Street fat cats, there’s no question.

And if advancing gay rights is but a secondary purpose – as is the case with GOPride and GetEqual – then you aren’t a gay organization.

UPDATE: I was insufficiently clear above. The group protesting HRC is GetEqual. I only included GOProud generally, as a balance, not because the object to Balnkfein. As far as I know, GOProud has never organized their political allies to picket any gay organization.

Candi Cushman responds to GLAAD with the MSU strategy

The new Commentator Accountability Project of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation was certainly expected to elicit reaction and some of it in objection. And there are reasonable and legitimate responses which some on the list could make.

For example, those who were included primarily due to statements of theological position could simply note that indeed they do disagree with GLAAD but that they think it unfair to be lumped in with folks like Lively or Donohue. Or some might object to specific quotes which they may have once said but no longer believe. And those are objections with which I could sympathize.

But one included party had a different response. Candi Cushman, the Education Analyst for Focus on the Family took what I call the “MSU” response. She just Made Sh!t Up.

Here’s how she opens her rant:

I found it fascinating to read the announcement yesterday that I had been included in a list of 36 dangerous radicals who should be banned from national television and print outlets.

Now no doubt that would be fascinating to read. But if Candi read that, it didn’t come from our community. How GLAAD described the individuals they included is as follows:

The GLAAD Commentator Accountability Project (CAP) aims to put critical information about frequent anti-gay interviewees into the hands of newsrooms, editors, hosts and reporters. Journalists or producers who are on deadline often don’t have the time to dig into the histories of a commentator. Audiences need to be aware that when they’re not talking to the mainstream media, these voices are comparing LGBT people to Nazi Germany, predicting that equal treatment of LGBT people will lead to the total collapse of society, and even making accusations of satanic influence.

The Commentator Accountability Project is bringing all of these statements to light, while calling attention to the sentiments behind them. We will show that the commentators who are most often asked to opine on issues like marriage equality or non-discrimination protections do not accurately represent the “other side” of those issues. They represent nothing but extreme animus towards the entire LGBT community.

Radical? Didn’t see it. Dangerous? Missed that too. And there’s no mention of “banning” at all.

Although, I suppose, if Candi were speaking not of what she has been called but was instead trying to accurately assess the individuals based on the standards that her faith professes, she might conclude that these people are, indeed, dangerous radicals and that any civilized religion would renounce such persons and reject them as representatives in national television and print outlets. I very much doubt that was her intent.

Candi Cushman just wants you to feel sorry for her and to be indignant towards GLAAD. So she engages in MSU.

GLAAD didn’t call her a dangerous radical. But if they had called her a dangerous radical then she would get sympathy and GLAAD would be seen as extremist and hostile to Christians. So she MSUs.

GLAAD didn’t call for banning anyone from anything. But if they had said that these individuals should be banned from national television and print outlets then she would get sympathy and GLAAD would be seen as extremist and hostile to Christians. So she does a little MSU.

And continuing down the theme of martyrdom and how gay activists are unreasonable hate-mongers imposing on poor Candi who only has good intentions, she posts a few comments that Focus has received in the past which were nasty.

I agree with Candi that those comments illustrate hateful attitudes – but no one is inviting those idiots to speak on television about issues. They don’t represent organizations or pretend to speak for anyone but themselves. And to suggest otherwise is just to MSU.

The ironic thing is that some of Candi’s worldview is not really all that objectionable.

While it is increasingly difficult to support or convince oneself, it is not inherently “hateful” to believe that gay people could become heterosexual if they tried. Nor is it “hateful” to think of sin as “spiritual brokenness” which can be healed through faith and to have compassion for those you imagine struggle with temptation. It might be condescending, but isn’t hate to think, “Oh, they would be so much happier if they just gave all that up and got married. A family is such a blessing and joy.”

Such thinking may offend us and may be based in willful ignorance, but it need not be the product of hatred or animus. Many people who see homosexuality by these terms are not motivated by malice, they just have difficulty conceptualizing that this isn’t a matter of being “tempted” to engage in certain forbidden sexual acts but an underlying subconscious difference in how our bodies, minds, emotions and perceptions respond to the two sexes.

But it’s what Candi does with it that places her on the list and excludes others.

Candi is not satisfied with simply saying that homosexuality, like pre-marital sex or remarriage or cursing or gossiping or working on Sunday, are contrary to her beliefs about divine mandates for appropriate behavior and therefore socially unacceptable. Instead Candi creates fictional attributes of gay people to attack. Gays are mentally ill or tools of Satan or infiltrating classrooms or trying to harm Christians or trying to destroy the family.

Unwilling to limit herself to “GLAAD is wrong about me”, Candi goes with

So more than revealing anything about the spokespeople it’s targeting, GLAAD’s “project” reveals the intolerant mindset driving it: The belief that only one perspective—that which is completely aligned with homosexual activist groups—is legitimate, and that all others should be censored and eradicated from the public realm.

Which is definitely MSUing.

What she doesn’t realize is that in her MSU approach, Cushman reveals much more of what she believes about her faith than it does of what she believes about gay people.

Those who have confidence in their position, state it. They believe that the truth, when heard, is compelling. Those who do so about matters of faith believe that their God will make evident the truth of their preaching and convince the listeners of its merit. Christians call it the moving of the Holy Spirit.

But Candi doesn’t believe that her arguments are convincing. She thinks that society would hear her moral code and reject it. She believes that her god is not capable of influencing society to adopt her beliefs or is unwilling to do so. Yet, for motivations that we may never fully know, Candi can neither give up her position or find the faith to let it stand on its own.

So Candi, lacking truth or a god to defend it, is left with her only option. Candi Cushman turns to the MSU strategy: when all else fails, just make sh1t up.

. . .
[presented with apologies to the students, staff and alumni of Michigan State University]

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, March 17

Today is St. Patrick’s Day, a day of special camaraderie for Irish-Americans and anyone who wishes to be Irish-American — unless you’re gay. Gays are no longer banned from the Military, and they can marry in a handful of states including Massachusetts and New York. But in Boston and New York City, LGBT people are barred from participating in St. Patrick’s Day Parades. Last year, the Irish Foreign Minister condemned the New York parade, and the President of Ireland declined an invitation to be Grand Marshal. So I guess that means we’ll have to take our party somewhere else, and make it way, way more fabulous.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Celebrations This Weekend: Texas Bear Roundup, Dallas, TX.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Florida Legislature Issues Report On Homosexuality: 1964. The Legislative Investigations Committee of the Florida legislature released a report declaring homosexuality the crisis of the moment, and called for “increased research efforts to expose the underlying causes of homosexuality and its possible cures.” The report declared homosexuality to be a problem “of control, and that established procedures and stern penalties will serve both as encouragement to law enforcement officials and as a deterrent to the homosexual hungry for youth.” The report included a dictionary of slang terms and even included photos that it said were taken from collections of gay people. The report lamented that “little has been done to reveal the role of the male muscle and physique magazines, the pinup books of homosexuality. The report called for mandatory psychiatric evaluations of anyone convicted of homosexuality, the creation of outpatient treatment centers, a registry that potential employers could check, and making a second conviction a felony.

The report provoked an immediate outcry, but not for the obvious reasons. The State Attorney for Dade County warned the committee not to send any more copies of the report to his area or he would file obscenity charges, declaring that the report was “becoming the object of curiosity in every school in the state and could engender perversion.” Another politician from Daytona Beach criticized the committee for “becoming engaged in the publication of such vile material.” The Miami Herald ran an editorial saying “It is shocking to see that it bears the Great Seal of Florida and the governor’s office as the return address. We feel that the immediate resignation of every state official who had a hand in it, and the full investigation of possible violations of obscenity laws, are called for.” Rep. Richard Mitchell, the committee’s chairman, responded with a special news conference and said that the report would not be distributed “indiscriminately.”

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Bayard Rustin: 1912. Many African-Americans are offended whenever some assert that “gays are the new Black.” That controversy isn’t a new one; just try to imagine the blowback when, in a 1986 speech, the venerable civil rights leader and aid to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. declared “The new niggers are gays”:

Today, blacks are no longer the litmus paper or the barometer of social change. Blacks are in every segment of society and there are laws that help to protect them from racial discrimination. The new “niggers” are gays. No person who hopes to get politically elected, even in the deep South, not even Governor Wallace, would dare to stand in the schoolhouse door to keep blacks out. Nobody would dare openly and publicly to argue that blacks should not have the right to use public accommodation. Nobody would dare say any number of things about blacks that they are perfectly prepared to say about gay people. It is in this sense that gay people are the new barometer for social change.

Indeed, if you wan to know whether today people believe in democracy, if you want to know whether they are true democrats, if you want to know whether they are human rights activists, the question to ask is, “What about gay people?” Because that is now the litmus paper by which this democracy is to be judged. The barometer for social change is measured by selecting the group which is most mistreated. … The question of social change should be framed with the most vulnerable group in mind: gay people.

Rustin insisted on the connection between civil rights for gay people and civil rights for African-Americans. He had a special authority to assert that connection: openly gay his whole life, he was the main organizer of King’s 1963 March on Washington. By then, he had already devoted two decades to Mahatma Ghandi’s teachings on non-violent resistance, having been jailed for refusing to fight in World War II. He is credited with teaching King about the principles of nonviolent protest when he met King during the Montgomery bus boycott, techniques he honed during the first Freedom Rides in 1947. Rustin helped found the Congress for Racial Equality and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Rustin’s open sexuality was not without complications. It was often used against him by enemies of segregation and, later, by more militant members of the Black Power movement. He was forced to resign from King’s organization during the bus boycott, but King turned to Rustin to organize the 1963 March. In the end, King and other civil rights leaders refused to abandon him and expressed their confidence in Ruston’s abilities.

After the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Rustin became more active directly in the Democratic Party. He also became more involved in the labor movement and the gay rights movement. And through it all, he insisted that all fights for equal rights were connected by a common thread, running from Auschwitz to Montgomery to Stonewall:

There are four burdens, which gays, along with every other despised group, whether it’s blacks follow slavery and reconstruction, or Jews fearful of Germany, must address. The first is recognize one must overcome fear. The second is overcoming self-hate. The third is overcoming self-denial. The fourth is more political. It is to recognize that the job of the gay community is not to deal with extremists who would castigate us or put us on an island and drop an H-bomb on us. The fact of the matter is that there is a small percentage of people in America who understand the true nature of the homosexual community. There is another small percentage who will never understand us. Our job is not to get those people who dislike us to love us. Nor was our aim in the civil rights movement to get prejudiced white people to love us. Our aim was to try to create the kind of America, legislatively, morally, and psychologically, such that even though some whites continued to hate us, they could not openly manifest that hate. That’s our job today: to control the extent to which people can publicly manifest antigay sentiment.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Bad Christian B*tches? OneMillionMoms vs. GCB

Please note that the opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of all contributors to Box Turtle Bulletin.

Update: OnMillionMoms has posted a new alert claiming that “most of last week’s sponsors…did not sponsor this week’s episode.” While the reasoning behind any change in advertising is unclear, GCB’s ratings did drop from 7 million to 6.33 million viewers and to a share of 5 in the 18-49 demographic. By comparison, the highest rated show last Sunday evening was “Once Upon a Time,” which attracted 8.6 million viewers and an 8 share of the coveted 18-49 demographic. Given the content of “Once Upon A Time,” which includes witchcraft, murder and adultery, I’m surprised OMM hasn’t targeted it as well. However, since the show does not poke fun at the hypocrisy of the religious right, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised…

One million moms are on the march again. Well, not literally.

The conservative group OneMillionMoms (OMM) has abandoned its unsuccessful attempt to oust Ellen Degeneres as the spokesperson for JC Penny, targeting the advertisers for ABC’s new hit show, “GCB.”

According to the group, “OMM is disgusted with the new program…which is blasphemy at its worst! It is based on the book “Good Christian B*tches”…[and]…blasphemes God…”

Blasphemy is the act of speaking sacrilegiously. If the definition fit, OMM would have good reason to target GCB. Freedom of religion is a human right that should be protected from defamation, whether Christian- or any other faith-bashing.

However, the devil is in the details for the fundamentalists at OMM, who are missing a critical difference: GCB does not mock Christians. It mocks those who blaspheme Christianity, abusing it as a justification for hypocrisy.

This may be hitting too close to home for OMM, a subgroup of the American Family Association (AFA), an organization on the “frontlines [sic] of America’s culture wars.”

Labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the “sins” perpetrated by AFA’s spokespeople include calling Islam “the spirit of Satan,” claiming that “homosexuality gave us Adolf Hitler,” and stating in a recent Twitter post that efforts to mandate insurance coverage for contraception are “totalitarianism on hormones.”

Like the wealthy characters in GCB, the AFA ignores the commandment to “love thy neighbor” in exchange for a religion that not only justifies defamation, but also is very profitable. AFA reported over $19 million in revenue in 2010.

ABC is clearly luring its “Desperate Housewives” audience with a neighborhood populated by wealthier, Texas socialites. These ‘Christians’ are still angry about how they were treated in high school by Amanda, the protagonist, who returns home to live with her mother after her Ponzi-scheming, adulterous husband dies.

This “come to Jesus” experience converts Amanda to a life that honors real moral values like supporting her children through hard,  honest work—even if it’s in a Hooters-like restaurant called “Boobylicious.”

Despite Amanda’s genuine efforts to make amends, her neighbors respond with anything but forgiveness. Altered by plastic surgery and dressed in the finest stereotype of gold-plated, gun-wielding, Texas couture, these characters use Bible verses like bullets to rhetorically inflict vengeful wounds that, while not mortal, are always aimed at the heart.

The Lord saith “vengeance is mine,” but these Texans have selectively forgotten that verse, which is precisely the point.

Trading gun for Bible verse slinging, the ladies attempt to “out-Christian” each other, leading to outrageous displays of hypocrisy. For example, After Amanda revealed during ‘prayer’ before the congregation that Boobylicious is actually owned by Carlene, GCB’s villainess, Carlene is too bedridden with embarrassment to attend church the following Sunday.

Holding his Bible, her husband offers spiritual support. “There is nothing in this book that says you can’t own a boobie bar.”  Paraphrasing Proverbs 31, he continues, “You are a virtuous woman, priceless beyond rubies.”

After a friend offers to sing this week’s choir solo in her place, Carlene is far more motivated to go to church, jumping out of bed and yelling for her maid, “Carmelita get in here! The show must go on! Where are my rubies?”

While OMM is blind to its hypocrisy, the abuse of religion that occurs at the intersection of faith, money, and politics is obvious to many Americans and to GCB’s heroine. “God, she’s such a Pharisee,” laments Amanda, comparing Carlene to the legalistic religious leaders chastised by Jesus.

“Well, someone’s been reading her new testament,” replies her mother.

“No, I just googled ‘hypocrisy,'” quips Amanda.

As the series progresses, I think Amanda will continue to struggle with what it means to be a real Christian, while Carlene demeans salvation into an excuse for behavior that is anything but loving.

In the mean time, OMM continues to target the show’s advertisers. In a recent update, the group claimed “victory,” including a purported direct quote from Kraft foods. “Philadelphia [cream cheese] has decided to pull its advertising from GCB … We have received complaints from consumers and their opinions about our advertising are important to us.”

However, Kraft’s response to a GCB supporter was entirely different. “The brand has decided to redirect advertising to other programs with an established audience…. [T]his decision was not linked in any way to the content of this particular show.”

So much for the commandment to not bear false witness.

GCB puts religious hypocrisy on display before over 7 million viewers, according to the show’s latest ratings. Perhaps that’s the real reason OneMillionMoms is so upset. GCB lifts the proverbial choir robe worn by these modern-day Pharisees, and what’s underneath ain’t pretty.

Obama Opposes NC Amendment 1

President Barack Obama today came out against North Carolina’s proposed Amendment 1, which would ban same-sex marriage. According to multiple sources, the Obama campaign issued this statement:

“While the president does not weigh in on every single ballot measure in every state, the record is clear that the president has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same sex couples. That’s what the North Carolina ballot initiative would do — it would single out and discriminate against committed gay and lesbian couples — and that’s why the president does not support it.”

North Carolinians will vote on the measure during the May 8 primary.

Verdicts Returned in Rutgers Spycam Suicide Case

Dharun Ravi, 20, the Rutgers University student who was accused of setting up a spy-cam and inviting friends to watch his roommate, Tyler Clementi, share intimate moments with another man, was found guilty today of invasion privacy, but was found not guilty on most of the charges of bias intimidation. He was also found guilty on charges of witness tampering, tampering with evidence, and hindering prosecution. He faces up to ten years in prison, and he could be deported to his native India, even though he has been a legal resident in the U.S. since he was a very young child.

Clementi commited suicide in September, 2010 by jumping off of the George Washington Bridge, following two incidents in which Ravi set up a spycam in the students’ dorm room while Clementi was alone with another man. Clementi discovered Ravi’s Tweets inviting fellow student to watch. 

The jury returned its verdicts shortly before noon EDT today after three days of deliberation in a trial that lasted nearly four weeks.

UPDATE: Sentencing has been set for May 21. He will remain free until then.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, March 16

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Bayard Rustin: A Centennial Celebration for Social Justice: Greensboro, NC. Saturday is the centennial of the birth of Bayard Rustin, a leading strategist for the civil rights movement, organizer of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the chief organizer of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington. Being openly gay made him open to attacks from segregationists and the more militant elements of the Black Power movement. To salute his advocacy for racial and gay equality, a free conference will be held in Greensboro, North Carolina this weekend, beginning this evening at 6:30 with the screening of “Brother Outsider, the Life of Bayard Rustin”, at the New Garden Friends (Quaker) Meeting House, at 801 New Garden Road in Greensboro. While the conference is free, pre-registration is encouraged so they can plan for meals, packets and other logistics. You can pre-register here where you can find out more information on the conference schedule, speakers, etc. There will be a dance party on Saturday night.

Celebrations This Weekend: Texas Bear Roundup, Dallas, TX.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Jack Nichols: 1938. The co-founder with Frank Kameny of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Mattachine Society, Nichols was out to his parents since he age of fifteen, when he was inspired by the poems of Walt Whitman and the writings of Edward Carpenter. Beginning in 1963, he chaired the Washington Mattachine’s committee on religious concerns, which eventually became the Washington Area Council on Religion and Homosexuality. With Kameny, he led the first gay rights March in front of the White House in April, 1965, he participated in the annual marches at Philadelphia’s Independence Hall on each July 4 from 1965 to 1969, and led the challenge to remove homosexuality from the APA’s list of mental disorders beginning in 1970. Nichols was among those who appeared on the 1967 documentary CBS Reports: The Homosexuals. (See March 7) He appeared under the pseudonym “Warren Adkins” to protect his FBI agent father. In 1969, he and his partner, Lige Clarke, moved to New York and founded GAY, reputed to be the first gay weekly newspaper in the US distributed on newsstands. He wrote four books: 1974’s Roommates Can’t Always be Lovers: An Intimate Guide to Male-male Relationships, 1975’s Men’s Liberation: A New Definition of Masculinity, 1996’s The Gay Agenda: Talking Back to the Fundamentalists, and 2004’s The Tomcat Chronicles: Erotic Adventures of a Gay Liberation Pioneer. He died in 2005 at his home in Florida of complications from cancer.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Focus launches “religious liberty” ballot amendment in Colorado

Somehow both OutFront Colorado and I missed not one but two articles last week announcing Focus On The Family with the help of Alliance Defense Fund, intends on creating a coalition to pass a ballot amendment in 2012 to “protect” the religious freedoms of individuals and religious groups.

Here’s the proposed wording: (source withheld)

(1) The right to act or refuse to act in a manner motivated by a sincerely held religious belief may not be burdened unless the government proves it has a compelling governmental interest in infringing the specific act or refusal to act and has used the least restrictive means to further that interest.

(2) A burden includes indirect burdens such as a withholding of one or more benefits, assessing one or more penalties, exclusion from one or more government programs, and/or exclusion from one or more government facility.

This is a seemingly new strategy and we don’t have any other states to look to for precedent where such things have been enacted. However North Dakota will vote on a similar amendment in June of this year. (The proposed Colorado amendment would be voted on in November).

As of recently Focus’ CitizenLink has had a bee in their bonnet about so called religious liberty as it pertains to reproductive freedom and health care reform here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, this week alone. In my opinion contraception mandates is merely the political flavor of the month, animus towards LGBT people is in season year round with Focus and friends. Joe.My.God has an eloquent take on the proposed amendment:

Focus On The Family has launched a ballot petition drive that, if successful, will ask Colorado voters to make it legal to deny housing, employment, and services to any person on the basis of religious objections. (Gosh, who COULD they be talking about?)

State equality org One Colorado is already responding by forming a coalition with Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and Interfaith Alliance of Colorado. One Colorado posted an official statement this morning which reads in part:

The initiative’s language, which focuses on “religious liberty” is incredibly deceptive. It doesn’t make clear the widespread implications of enacting this law. Implications that don”t just impact LGBT people, but all Coloradans.

Imagine a law that allows a pharmacist to refuse to fill a birth control prescription. A law that permits an employer to refuse to hire people on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity and expression. A law that gives protection to teachers who refuse to teach sex education or evolution. All for the sake of so-called religious freedom.

At One Colorado, we believe that everyone has a right to their own religious beliefs. But no one should be above the law. And we shouldn’t create a two-tiered society where the law applies only to some and not others.

One Colorado also announced they will be mounting a legal challenge to the proposed amendment, that will occur when the final wording comes before the Secretary of State’s Title Board which has the power to reject proposed ballot items. If you wish to donate to the legal fund click here, One Colorado has set a goal of collecting the $5,000 needed by Monday.

Nobody has much to say from a legal perspective yet. OutFront’s article included comment from the GLBT Community Center of Colorado’s legal director:

Mindy Barton also noted text of the measure is very broad and the potential applications are unclear.

“We are unsure of what the proposed ballot initiative means, and we are interested to hear if Focus on the Family, whose Senior Vice President is listed as one of the proponents, will explain the intent behind it,” Barton said.

Illegal license plates commonly used by sovereign citizens. Note the plate in the top right reads “sovereign, Christian Citizen”

As a lay-person let’s have a look at the amendment’s wording. If allowed to actually take effect, it seems the amendment would allow someone with a “sincerely held religious belief” to disobey any law they see fit based on those beliefs.  Sometimes a person breaks the law by doing something, an example of this would be a Rastafari using marijana (a Schedule I narcotic) in a religious ceremony. Other times a person would break the law by not doing something, an example of this would be “sovereign citizens” who sincerely believe they are exempt from paying taxes. Virtually any law it appears could be challenged, and the government would be obligated to justify they have a “compelling governmental interest” in enforcing it. It could be decades of legal chaos as our courts subject thousand of laws to the compelling interest test to determine if they are trumped by “religious liberty.”

But ultimately that could work to our advantage. When the public views ballot measures as vague or creating chaos, voters tend to error on the side of rejecting them.

The Friendly Atheist blogged about the proposed North Dakota amendment back in 2010 noting how blatantly unconstitutional its implications are, citing the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which was stuck down in Boerne v. Flores. He also has a fabulous quote from an opinion by Antonin Scalia in Employment Division v. Smith in which a Oregon man was denied unemployment benefits after using peyote in a religious ritual  Wrote Scalia:

We rejected the claim (in Reynolds v. United States) that criminal laws against polygamy could not be constitutionally applied to those whose religion commanded the practice. “Laws,” we said,

are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. . . . Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself.

That sums it up perfectly, Focus’ “religious liberty” amendment would allow “every citizen to become a law unto himself.”

Email of the Day

I see huddling homosexuals. Send me 20 bucks.

Dear Jim,

It’s hard to write you this. My office is in trouble.  And I need your help. I have been working overtime fighting against the radical Homosexual Lobby.

Today, I’m worried.

Despite passing Thought Control and repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the radical Homosexual Lobby is drooling for more this year in Congress. And with this Congress, they have adopted new tactics.

I see well-known agents of the radical Homosexual Lobby everywhere. They are huddled in dark corners scheming and plotting.  They meet secretly with members of Congress in hopes of tempting them to advance their perverse agenda with campaign cash and the promise of votes.

This, in spite of the fact that we’ve defeated a major portion of the Homosexual Lobby’s perverse agenda in the past. Together, we held off the Gay Bill of Special Rights in 2011, and cut off the efforts of pro-homosexual Obama White House, but we had to spend everything to do it. The Homosexual Lobby knows this, and it knows as well as you or me that if we can’t finance ourselves, we won’t be able to stand up to them in the future.

…That’s why I need to ask you today to seriously consider making an emergency contribution to Public Advocate.  Even a donation of $20 or $40 would make a huge difference.

Lively Responds to Lawsuit

Scott Lively yesterday responded to the lawsuit filed in Federal District Court by Sexual Minorities Uganda alleging that Lively engaged in a decade-long effort to help plan and encourage the persecution of LGBT people in Uganda in violation of international law. Lively defends his actions as the simple exercise of his freedom of speech, telling The New York Times, “”That’s about as ridiculous as it gets. I’ve never done anything in Uganda except preach the Gospel and speak my opinion about the homosexual issue.” He also told Bob Unruh at World Net Daily:

I am an American citizen [being targeted] over the persecution of homosexuals as they define it as a crime against humanity – for speaking the truth of the Bible in a foreign country,” Scott Lively, of Abiding Truth Ministries, told WND today after he found out about the legal action.

Warren Throckmorton responded to that rather quickly:

Where does the Bible say that homosexuality is responsible for the Holocaust? For the Rwandan genocide? That gays are pedophiles? Are those Biblically based beliefs?

Warren also notes that Exodus International board member Don Scmmierer and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge also spoke at that 2009 conference, but neither of them are named in this lawsuit.

Lively also told World Net Daily:

“Frankly, I don’t this is actionable,” Lively told WND. “They make it clear that this suit is … premised on speeches or writings.

“I spoke to members of parliament in their assembly hall, and advised them to focus on therapy and not punishment [for homosexuality],” he said.

“What they’re suggesting here is that the duly elected legislative representatives of Uganda, the cream of Ugandan society, cannot be responsible for their own [legislative] actions – that they adopted legislation because a white evangelical came and said something to them,” he said.

Casting this in racial terms is desperate. The complaint also notes that Lively has traveled to Moldova, Russia and Latvia with similar goals. The measure if his influence in those areas are mixed. Frank Mugisha, Executive Director of Sexual Minorities Uganda, notes that there was a clear difference in the atmosphere for LGBT people in Uganda after 2009 when compared to the time before that fateful 2009 conference.

Lively’s strongest argument so far however is his contention that “this suit is … premised on speeches or writing.” The Center for Constitutional Rights senior staff attorney Pam Spees emphasized that the suit is not about his speeches or beliefs, but about a series of planning meetings that took place since 2002 that reached its fruition in the events of 2009. “He was the go-to guy,” she told reporters in a conference call, “the man with the plan.” The challenge in court will be for CCR to provide enough evidence to support their contention of that plan to keep the lawsuit away from being solely about Lively’s speech and beliefs.

While speech alone cannot be the sole basis for this lawsuit (It would, and should, be thrown out immediately if it is), I can envision that Lively’s speeches can be a major part of the evidence presented. Since Lively opened the subject of the Rwandan genocide during his talk in Kampala in 2009, let me return to those events as an example. As the Hutu militias were engaged in a bloodthursty orgy of murder and mayhem in 1994, they were urged on by radio announcers broadcasting anti-Tutsi propaganda, complete with announcements of which Tutu’s live where so that mobs could find them. Were the radio announcers simply exercising free speech? Or were they accomplices in crimes against humanity? International law sides with the latter.

When Lively appeared on Ugandan media, he too broadcast his own virulent brand of anti-gay propaganda, although he didn’t call out people by name and address and urge that they be hunted down. His friends did that instead. Mercifully, Uganda did not slide into genocide, although the proposal before Uganda’s Parliament, if enacted into law, would result in a state-sanctioned outcome that would be remarkably similar. (Lively disavows the proposed death penalty, although he struggled with it a while before finally deciding that it was not something that he would support.) The real question, then, is what specific role did Lively play, in addition to his public talks, which led to the events of 2009? That is CCR’s challenge before the court.

Finally, Lively also had this response for the Associated Press:

“Most of the ostensibly inflammatory comments attributed to me are from selectively edited video clips of my 2009 seminars in Kampala,” he said. “I challenge the plaintiffs and their allies to publish the complete footage of the seminar on the Internet. They will not do this or their duplicity would be exposed.”

It’s my understanding that the Kampala-based Family Life Network, who sponsored the 2009 conference, owns the copyright to the video. While it is legal to publish excerpts of the video under the “fair use” clauses of U.S. copyright law, it would be illegal for anyone who is not the copyright owner to post the entire video. Why hasn’t Stephen Langa’s Family Life Network published the video? Who knows. It’s theirs to do as they wish. But by not publishing it, they leave the door open for Lively to complain about “selectively edited clips.”

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, March 15

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Celebrations This Weekend: Texas Bear Roundup, Dallas, TX.

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
The Delivery of “Safe” Electric Shock for Psychological Treatments: 1935. Two years earlier in April 1933, the New York Branch of the American Psychological Association decided to form the Committee on the Use of Electric Shock in Psychological Experimentation. The committee was formed to “exchange views regarding some of the difficulties involved in electrical stimulation,” namely the delivery of powerful electric shock in aversion therapy as part of the popular new therapeutic craze known as Behavioral Therapy. The electric shock had to be powerful enough to serve as a negative reinforcement against undesired thoughts, feelings or behaviors, but not so strong that it would prove lethal. That was not a small issue in the 1930s. Electrical executions had been by then well on their way to replacing the hangman’s noose and the firing squad as more “humane” ways of imposing the death penalty on criminals. To avoid the same fate for psychiatric patients, research was needed to invent “safer” devices and institute safety standards so that clinicians could begin shocking their patients into conformity.

In a paper published in the March 1935 edition of Psychological Bulletin, New York University’s Louis William Max came to the rescue with a nine page thesis, describing his research into the problem. He had experimented with three types of protective devises: fuses, mechanical relays, and vacuum tube-based devices:

The ideal protective device must meet three requirements: (1) it must operate smoothly and unfailingly at the pre-determined cut-off current; (2) this operation must be sufficiently rapid, since the duration factor is an important one in lethal shock; and (3) the cut-off action must never occur below the prearranged maximum, as this would interfere with experimentation. Since the quantitative evidence thus far available is of a more or less anecdotal nature, and the physiologically safe limits both as to time and intensity have not yet been satisfactorily determined, we recommend as provisional maxima 12 m.a. and 8 sigma (½ cycle of 60 cycle A.C), these values being subject to subsequent increase when justified by further experimentation. This means that an adequate safety device must eliminate all currents above 12 m.a., and that this elimination must take place within 8 sigma after the onset of the stimulus. The 8 sigma limit is but a small fraction of the threshold shock-duration reported by Duchosal as producing ventricular fibrillation in the animal heart, and thus affords a good margin of safety; as ½ cycle A.C. it also provides a convenient electrical parameter for specifying and checking the speed of A.C. protective devices.

While his study of the three types of devices was still ongoing, his investigation into the use of fuses and mechanical relays didn’t appear promising. Instead, he recommended a “vacuum-tube protective device for A.C. shock with adjustable cut-off,” complete with crude hand-drawn schematics. He had been using a version of his device using D.C. electric shocks on human subjects for the previous two years. But D.C. shocks were unsatisfying; A.C. was what delivered the best jolt (electric chairs, for this reason, used A.C., not D.C.):

Schematic diagram of Louis William Max's device for inducing a powerful electric shock. (Click to enlarge.)

Of the vacuum-tube devices investigated, the one which best meets our requirements is that of Fig. 2. As regards expense, a complete stimulator circuit built around this device would cost less than present electrostimulators. Its chief disadvantage is that its underlying circuit is more complicated than a fuse or relay circuit would be. But the manipulative adjustments required are rather simple, and could easily be made even by a non-electrically minded experimenter, by following a set of operating instructions.

…Regardless of which protective device proves most adequate, the design of shock apparatus needs improvement. All live and exposed connections with which an operator may come in contact or which may be short-circuited by an accidentally dropped screwdriver or metal pencil should be eliminated. Experimenters, for example, have reported unpleasant shocks from exposed studs and tap switches…

Even the most ideal of protective devices cannot substitute for the exercise of care in the use of shock apparatus. For the operator’s protection, it is recommended that only one hand be employed in the manipulation of the controls in present high-voltage apparatus. In locating the shocking electrodes on the subject, avoid all contralateral leads {i.e., from one side of the body to the other), or ipselateral leads above and below the heart (such as right hand to right foot). Where possible, electrodes should be firmly fastened to the subject, especially when intense shocks are contemplated, as the subject’s “startle” responses may dislodge an electrode and throw it into contact with a body part to be avoided. The subject might well be insulated from the ground, by means of a rubber mat or glass casters, particularly where the floor is of cement or composition. Finally, every experimenter using shock apparatus on human subjects should learn the Shaefer method of resuscitation.

Six months later, Max would present a paper before the 43rd annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Ann Arbor, Michigan (See Sept 6) describing the use of his new invention in an attempt at “breaking up” a “homosexual neurosis in a young man.”

[From Louis W. Max. “Protective devices and precautions against lethal shock” Psychological Bulletin 32, no. 3 (March 1935): 203-211.]

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

GLAAD regains focus with new accountability project

The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has contributed mightily to the way in which gay and lesbian people are perceived and treated in society. Organized to oppose hysterical and defamatory coverage of the AIDS epidemic in the New York Post in 1985, GLAAD soon expanded to address media image in general and through its Hollywood office began to influence television and cinema. And few organizations can claim greater success.

Those who recall the public presentation of gay and lesbian people in the 80’s will recall that the rare gay person included in a news story or entertainment seemed to be a creature to pity or to scorn. Flamboyant – or sinister – this was the murderer, the molester, the schemer, or the freak. You could laugh at him or fear him (lesbians didn’t exist) but to empathize or in any way associate with him was unthinkable.

And every media story about gay people required a counterpoint of condemnation. Homosexuality was an “issue” so while coverage of the Lotus Festival and Octoberfest and St. Patrick’s Day Parade included information about attendance and events, the Pride Parades included the reminders that sin abounded.

Things have changed. Now, media is so careful of responsible presentation that it is rare that GLAAD has to publicly object about a television show or news coverage. In fact, public image of gay people has so shifted that a what might once have been thoughtless stereotyping of a gay man’s flamboyance now, in Eric Stonestreet’s playing of Cameron on Modern Family, is quirky and endearing. And even the Unification Church-owned Washington Times, the last significant hold-out, has agreed to refer to gay people as such rather than “homosexuals” (which, in the United States, had become a code word connoting disapproval).

And no where was GLAAD more successful than in Hollywood. In the 80’s and early 90’s, many a good Hollywood liberal would tell a reporter that they supported gay rights, but well when it came to actually being in the presence of both a gay person and a camera, well… there was their career to consider.

The early years of the GLAAD media awards were not well supported. Awards were given primarily on the basis of who would show up to receive one. And, considering that this was a laudable action, that wasn’t such a bad criterion. But thanks to hard work, committed support from people like producer Gary Marshall and the incomparable Elizabeth Taylor, gradually it because little risk to be seen at the show. By the mid 2000’s the GLAAD Media Awards was a must-show for studios and Hollywood insiders who used the opportunity to not only be counted among the “good guys” but also informally connect and network.

And their success was not accidental or incidental. GLAAD held themselves to an idea that seems to elude so many activist organizations: define your parameters and stay in them. GLAAD did media advocacy; not lobbying politicians, not supporting gay soldiers, and certainly not “supporting our comrades in the struggle”. Just media advocacy.

GLAAD also adopted another tactic that is seldom employed by activists (other than Log Cabin and other duel-identity groups). They were as quick to praise good behavior as to condemn bad. And when they went after a studio or a director or newspaper, there was a road to redemption. The horrible thing you did resulted in you being a “bad guy”; but if you would just meet with gay film students or spend time with lesbian victims of violence or headlined an AIDS event, you could not only stop the criticism but be praised as a hero.

And it worked.

But success is difficult for advocacy groups. What do you do when you accomplish your goals?

If you are a marriage equality group in a Vermont, you might disband. But if GLAAD folded tent then the next television season would have lovely little gems like this year’s “Work It” (which managed to offend both my values and my lenience towards stupid television) with no organized objection. Theirs is not a “mission accomplished” type of work.

Another problem came from GLAAD’s shift from gay activists to Hollywood players. Gradually GLAAD had become the group that you went to with a script to be sure you were not offensive, the organization who helped you be a good guy rather than slapped your hand when you were not. And with the increased profile of the Media Awards, their funding came more from studios and corporations than from gay people.

There is no question that it is better for our community to avoid defamation than to protest it. But to protect gay people, GLAAD needed to be connected to the gay community. And they found this challenging.

They tried to be media advisors to local marriage advocacy groups, but that only goes so far. And the behind the scenes work where they are so effective is invisible to the gay public.

Sadly, the few efforts they made were ill advised. For a while GLAAD became The Word Police but they were so out of touch that they chastised our friends and allies for using ‘bad words’, much to the consternation of the community. And seen as part of “Gay, Inc.”, they have become a group that appeared (wrongly) irrelevant and unnecessary.

Which has made me sad. I have an emotional investment in this group and tremendous respect for the work they have done. But when every dollar and every moment of time is essential, “what have you done for me lately” is not an invalid question.

So it is with pleasure and relief that I can report on a new project of GLAAD: the Commentator Accountability Project.

In what surely was a “duh” moment, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation decided to take on, of all things, defamation of gays and lesbians. Or, more specifically, they had decided that those who defame us and lie about us and take positions that are unconscionable towards us when they are in the safe confines of their own communities should not be free to pretend to be just ‘concerned citizens’ or ‘defenders of religious freedom’ when they go on news shows.

If you can say that gay people are a public health risk and that anti-bullying programs are an assault on religious freedom, then people who see you in a nice suit talking to the pretty lady on the boob tube about “protecting the people’s right to define marriage” deserve to know that you don’t represent their opinions at all. If you tell Aunt Thelma to send you money because gays hate Western Civilization and must be stopped before they enact their evil plan to destroy marriage and bring down the government, then you should explain to CNN just what that plan entails and how you came to know about it before you spout your equally-valid opinions about gays in the military.

Any reporter appreciates a tool that simplifies their research, and who better to track, compile, and report defamation than GLAAD? They already have the inroads with media, and they are seeking a partnership with that collection of unique individuals who – for reasons we will not dwell on – enjoy reading decades-old newsletters from obsolete local religious-right political groups: us bloggers.

This is a project that lies at the heart of their existence. So I commend GLAAD and congratulate them on regaining focus.

But, sadly, I can’t end this commentary there. I don’t think they’ve got a product that is ready for usage. While in time this should become a valuable tool, currently it lacks nuance and perspective.

Unforunately, GLAAD is utilizing the snip-quote method of criticism. They take one sentence out of context, assume that our objection reflects inherent offense, and ignore both motivation, implementation, and impact of that person’s views. The goal appears to be “make this person look bad” rather than an accurate portrayal and little effort seems to have gone into distinguishing credible respected voices from bit-players.

And some of the objectionable material is outdated and no longer reflects the speakers public positions. Does Maggie Gallagher still oppose non-discrimination policies like she did in 1996? Does that matter to why she would be invited?

The result is a listing that presents Scott Lively, who endorses execution of gay people, with Alan Chambers, who opposes sodomy laws. The president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Albert Mohler, who broke ranks recently to question the ‘no one is born gay’ mantra, is there with Joseph Farah, the wacky huckster who runs WorldNetDaily and published a series claiming that homosexuality is caused by soy products. Jim Daly, the president of mega-lobbyist Focus on the Family, is on the same page as two-second-sensation Frank Turek, the guy Bank of America dropped from presenting a ‘team building’ exercise when they found out that gay employees would not easily overlook his assertion that they hate the constitution. Maggie Gallagher, whose high-profile anti-gay activism has for years been limited to relationship recognition is cater-corner from Peter LaBarbera, the go-to guy for an over-the-top quote on all things homosexual who has little impact and less respect.

Each of these has said things that are offensive. Each has engaged in defamatory language. But without context or contrast the uninformed guest booker doesn’t find much guidance here.

I think it would be useful to know that when Dr. Mohler speaks about religious freedom, he does so from his concerns about how proposed changes will impact the abilities for his church or his fellow Southern Baptists to respond in certain ways, while when Bill Donohue speaks of religious freedom, he is using a rhetorical tool in defense of his church’s aggressive pro-active attack on the lives of gay people.

It is useful to know that Gallagher, though wrong, is articulate and presents a thoughtful argument while Brian Camenker is a loon that believes in conspiracy theories and thinks that Mitt Romney secretly supports gay marriage (ignore those legal scholars; Romney could have used an obscure article in the Massachusetts constitution to block it).

It might be important for an interviewer to know that David Barton’s anti-gay position is part of his belief that he is not only entitled but mandated by God to bring about theocracy and impose dominion over government and society, while Bishop Harry Jackson’s anti-gay position is heavily tied to his ideas about what it means to be a black man. This is not an immaterial difference.

This is not to suggest that they are “wrong”, just that while the tool holds promise, it needs further work. In current state it’s a hammer made of plaster of paris, the right shape but not yet functional.

So my congratulations and commendations to GLAAD are, for the moment, tempered. I am delighted to see them going in a direction of usefulness rather than nannyism and I look forward to the time (soon, I hope) when their Commentator Accountability Project is a tool I can use and recommend.

Lawsuit Filed Against Scott Lively For Instigating Anti-LGBT Persecution in Uganda

L-R: Unidentified woman, American holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Brundidge, Exodus International boardmember Don Schmierer, Family Life Network (Uganda)’s Stephen Langa, at the time of the March 2009 anti-gay conference in Uganda.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has announced this morning that they are filing a lawsuit on behalf of Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG) against American anti-gay extremist Scott Lively for his role in “the decade-long campaign he has waged, in coordination with his Ugandan counterparts, to persecute persons on the basis of their gender and/or sexual orientation and gender identity.” CCR announced its action this morning in a conference call with reporters. I was among those participating in the call.

The complaint (PDF: 2.2MB/47 pages) was filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts at Springfield, where Lively currently resides. CCR is bringing the suit under the Alien Tort Statute, which provides federal jurisdiction for “any civil action by an alien, for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” In other words, it allows a foreign national to sue in U.S. courts for violations of U.S. or international law conducted by U.S. citizens overseas. According to CCR, the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed that ATS is a remedy for serious violations of international law norms that are “widely accepted and clearly defined.”

The crime against humanity in international law that CCR alleges that Lively violated is the crime of persecution, which is defined as the “intentional and severe deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason of the identity of the group or collectivity.” CCR alleges that the defendant plaintif, Sexual Minorities Uganda, as well as individual staff members and member organizations, suffered severe deprivations of fundamental rights as a direct result of a coordinated campaign “largely initiated, instigated and directed” by Scott Lively.

In a conference call with reporters, CCR Senior Staff Attorney Pam Spees said that the Alien Tort Statute act had been applied in other specific cases of human rights violations against individuals. But she acknowledged that if this case prevails, it would establish a precedent for applying it to the crime of persecution, which, as a crime against a group, is different from a general “ordering the killing of people in his custody.” She pointed out U.S. asylum cases have acknowledged sexual orientation and gender identity and expression as legitimate claims for persecution.

Lively is best known for his role, reported first here on BTB, as featured speaker at an anti-gay conference held in Kampala in March 2009. During that conference, Lively touted his book, The Pink Swastika, in which he claimed that gays were responsible for founding the Nazi Party and running the gas chambers in the Holocaust. Lively then went on to blame the Rwandan genocide on gay men and he charged that gay people were flooding into Uganda from the West to recruit children into homosexuality via child sexual molestation.

During that same trip, Lively met with several members of Uganda’s Parliament. Only two weeks later, there were already rumors that Parliament was drafting a new law that “will be tough on homosexuals.” That new law, in its final form, would be introduced into Parliament later in October. Meanwhile, the public panic stoked by the March conference led to follow-up meetings, a march on Parliament, and a massive vigilante campaign waged on radio and the tabloid press. Lively would later boast that his March 2009 talk was a “nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.”

In the complaint filed in Federal District Court, CCR provides details of Lively’s activities in Uganda going back to 2002, when Lively began touring Uganda and establishing contacts with leading Ugandan figures, including Stephen Langa (who organized the March 2009 conference) and Pentecostal pastor Martin Ssempa. While there, he was interviewed for major daily newspapers and appeared on radio and television. In a conference call with reporters, Spees said that Lively’s particular influence on Uganda’s religious leaders was the primary avenue for “telegraphing the sense of terror” through his accusations against the gay community, and that influence picked up significantly following the 2009 conference. The complaint includes several examples where Lively’s rhetoric showed up virtually verbatim in statements from Ugandan religious and political leaders. She also pointed out that the preamble of the bill’s original draft included language that was lifted straight out of conference materials.

Tarso Luís Ramos, Executive Director of Political Research Associates, echoed Spees’s assertion that Lively’s influence played a major role in the growing climate of persecution in Uganda. He described the main avenue of influence as from religious leaders like Lively to prominent Ugandan religious leaders who also wield considerable moral and political influence. Ramons said that during Lively’s 2009 trip to Uganda, he also met with members of the Ugandan Christian Lawyers Association and members of Parliament, and spoke at an assembly of 5,000 college students and at major pentecostal churches. According to the complaint, M.P. David Bahati, author of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, was among those who attended the Kampala conference. Bahati and former Ethics and Integrity Minister James Nsaba Buturo were also named as co-conspirators in the complaint.

Ramos and Spees contrasted Lively’s role with that of the secretive U.S. organization known as The Family or The Fellowship. Spees described Lively as the “go-to guy whose rhetoric went into hyperspace to stamp out” LGBT people “in a strategic way.” She alleged that he provided a “tangible, clear plan” in contrast to The Family, which tried to distance itself from the bill. One  part of the “clear plan” outlined in the complaint was Lively’s recommendation for the criminalization of LGBT advocacy in Uganda. That recommendation became Clause 13 in the Anti-Homosexuality Bill.

Spees emphasized that while Lively’s “violent anti-gay rhetoric” forms a basis for the evidence of the complaint, the case is not about hate speech but what she described as his systematic efforts to provoke persecution in Uganda and elsewhere. She described Lively as a “key player in persecution” in a concerted effort to deprive and remove rights for LGBT Ugandans.

Speaking via telephone form Uganda, SMUG Executive Director Frank Mugisha welcomed the filing. He said that when the March 2009 Kampala conference was announced, they had no idea how far that conference’s influence would go. Before 2009, he described an atmosphere where people were somewhat freer to live in groups as gay people, but after the conference there were demonstrations, meetings, reports of arrests, people being thrown out of their houses and churches, beatings, and severe curbs on freedom of assembly. Just last month, Ugandan authorities raided a meeting by LGBT leaders at a hotel in Entebbe and tried to arrest Kasha Jacqueline Nabagese, founder of the lesbian rights group Freedom and Roam Uganda.

More information about the lawsuit against Lively can be found at the CCR web site.

Update: The New York Times has this reaction from Lively:

Reached by telephone in Springfield, Mass., where he now runs “Holy Grounds Coffee House,” a storefront mission and coffee shop, Mr. Lively said he had not been served and did not know about the lawsuit. However, he said: “That’s about as ridiculous as it gets. I’ve never done anything in Uganda except preach the Gospel and speak my opinion about the homosexual issue. There’s actually no grounds for litigation on this.”

Third, Y’all

My favorite headline of the day came from the Associated Press yesterday morning: “Voting in Alabama, Mississippi could clarify race.” As if. If anything’s clear, it’s that Republican voters don’t want anybody to win the nomination, and it looks like they just might get their way.

The man with the money, the candidate with not only every issued covered but every position for each issue, the establishment’s favorite who who came in second in the race for the 2008 nomination and is therefore “next” — that’s who came in third in Alabama and Mississippi. Third! That’s, you know, after second. Ronmey managed to pull in a first place showing in the Hawaii caucuses, and he also captured all nine delegates in the American Samoan caucuses.

In this race, every delegate counts. The delegate count, which is always an approximation, looks like this according to CNN.

A total of 1,144 delegates are needed to win the nomination. It’s hard to see Romney getting there before the convention. According to the CNN count, there are still 1,356 delegates, including superdelegates, up for grabs. Romney needs to win 48% of all the remaining delegates to capture the nomination. The next big prize is Illinois, which if Michigan and Ohio are any indication, means that Romney will probably split that state. Whether its enough to make up for the loss he’s likely to receive in Louisiana and the Missouri caucuses, it’s hard to say. April will be kinder to Romney, with Deleware, Maryland, D.C., New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island coming up, but Santorum is likely to win Pennsylvania. Wisconsin may end up a tie like Ohio. But the primaries go south, literally, in May, with contests in Nebraska, Arkansas, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Texas. That will be rough territory for Romney.

The only way he can win is for the superdelegates to step in and throw their weight behind Romney. That is a very real possibility. Romney’s picked up some powerful endorsements in the party, but those endorsement’s haven’t meant much when it comes to votes. Santorum  or Gingrich won despite major establishment endorsements for Romney in Tennessee (Gov. Bill Haslam), Oklahoma (Sen. Tom Coburn), South Carolina (Gov. Nikki Haley), Minnesota (former Gov. Tim Pawlenty) and Kansas (former Sen. Bob Dole)

But as hard is it will be for Romney to wrap up the nomination, it’ll be even harder for anyone else to catch up and surpass him. If Gingrich’s ego were to somehow deflate like a popped balloon and all of his delegates went to Santorum, he’d only increase his haul to 373. (And there’s no way Paul’s giving up his delegates.) In the unlikely event that happens, Santorum would still have to pick up 57% of the delegates outstanding. Without it, he needs to win 67% of those remaining. Gingrich needs to pick up 74% and Paul needs 79%. So it means that when the Republicans hit Tampa this summer, there will still probably be a lot of horse trading going on.