Tag Archives: rightwing

Weekend Updates: From Sea to Shining Sea Edition (7/4/2015)

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MemeoGraphs.Com (Click to embiggen)
MemeoGraphs.Com (Click to embiggen)
So CatholicVote.Org, a political action organization that tries to portray itself as serious but is known far and wide as a haven for the most bigoted of wingnuts, put out a video depicting people who discriminate on the basis of their religious beliefs as victims. To call it ridiculous, melodramatic, ludicrous, or even batshit stupid would be an insult to actual bat guano.

MemeGraphs.Com posted a review pointing out that the video has received over 1 million views, far surpassing any previous video by the group by more that 800,000 views. Unfortunately, it’s also gotten 30,000 thumbs down and and even for YouTube a truly amazing number of negative comments. Here’s the best part of the MemeGraphs review:

The auteurs at Catholic Vote have created an instant classic Christian cinematic masterpiece to rival Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas. Not since National Organization for Marriage’s “Gathering Storm” of 2008 have we seen delusional hyperbole, paranoia and self-pity lifted to such delirious heights. Like an episode of The Bachelor or a Lindsey Lohan court appearance, Not Alone is both terrifying and impossible to look away from. This important piece of filmmaking will surely inspire countless imitators, but Not Alone is so earnest in its own clueless, privileged insensitivity that parody may be superfluous (see Poe’s Law). Still, I look forward to seeing what influence this motion picture exerts on Stephen Colbert and the creative staff at The Daily Show, Funny or Die and Saturday Night Live.

As always, the bigots are completely unaware for their own deeply tragic irony. One of the lines from their video lamenting the fact that they are no longer allowed to discriminate against gay people is, “No one should be looked down upon, no one should be suppressed or their views be suppressed.” Unless, of course, you’re a gay or lesbian or bisexual person, then you should be looked down upon, you should be told to keep your feelings to yourself, to hide your relationships, and most definitely not get any legal rights to visit your dying partner in the hospital or not be kicked out of your home by bigoted relatives when a partner becomes incapacitated. Then, of course, you should be suppressed, looked down upon, and told to stop complaining.

Soundly Awake made a nice and funny video assuring Catholic Vote that they’re not alone:

People claiming to speak for Catholics aren’t the only ones flipping out. Presidential hopeful (and Baptist minister) Mike Huckabee has doubled-down on his calls to “protect religious liberty” in an opinion piece for Fox News (which I will not directly link to it (here’s the Do Not Link link, if you don’t want to go to Fox News, If You Only News has a nice summary) where he vows to issue executive orders to protect hospitals, public schools, private business’ et cetera religious liberty to discriminate against gay people. Hospitals. Can’t you just feel the christian compassion?

Meanwhile Scott Walker, another clown with presidential aspirations, thinks that the reason we celebrate Independence Day is because we don’t want government. Except that’s completely wrong. Independence Day, and the Declaration of Independence, are about our right to form our own government. Which is a very different thing. His official campaign email also manages to mix up the 4th of July with Veteran’s Day and to make it all about america’s founding being about god. (Forgetting that important clause of the Treaty of Tripoli, “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion” which was initiated by George Washington near the end of his last term in office, signed by Secretary of State John Marshall, submitted to the Senate by newly elected President John Adams, ratified by said Senate in a unanimous vote in the 7th of June, 1897, and affirmed in a signing statement by John Adams).

But enough of these people who don’t know what Independence Day is all about. Please enjoy this, one of my favorite songs from the musical, 1776:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

While we’re at it, enjoy another great song from this, the perfect movie for this holiday:

(If embedding doesn’t work, click here.)

Hired hate

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TheMetaPicture.com (Click to embiggen)
TheMetaPicture.com (Click to embiggen)
My plan had been to wrap up most of the Hugo reviews with a couple more posts this week, since last week my blog was extra special über queer what with the final week before the Seattle Pride Parade and the marriage equality ruling. I failed to take into account how much the heat is sapping me of energy each day, among other interesting complications of the weekend. And then I saw this story: Orthodox Jews Can’t Protest Gay Pride Parade, Hire Mexicans Instead.

They hired people to protest for them.

It didn’t surprise me when the douche-iest presidential candidate, Donald Trump reportedly paid actors $50 to cheer for him at his 2016 announcement. (I especially liked one post I saw about this, someone photographed one of Trump’s employees collecting the “home made” signs and t-shirts from the actors afterward). But come on, if these are your sincerely held religious beliefs that us queers are evil or going to hell or luring other people into sin or whatever, you should have the stones to show up and protest. You don’t hire immigrant day laborers to be your poxies!

On the other hand, Vice reports from Los Angeles that, Protesting Against Gay Pride Was Super Boring. It does give me new appreciation for Jessica Willams’ report for the Daily Show last month about this being the end of a hate era: The Hate Class of 2015.

The Jewish groups outsourcing their hate got me searching for any more stories about protestors at the parade, and there were a few protests within some of the parades intended to remind us that there are still plenty of other civil rights battles left for the queer community. And there was a story of one protester at one of the smaller town parades yesterday who got his sign stolen by one of the parade marchers.

All the rightwing Christian sites had headlines yesterday about ‘thousands protesting gay pride parades’… except it was in Korea. They couldn’t come up with anything like that happening here.

Surveys show that at least 57% of Americans are in favor of gays marrying. And they also show that 63% think that gays should be legally allowed to marry (the discrepancy presumably meaning that about 6% of the population believing personally that gays oughtn’t marry, but that it shouldn’t be illegal for consenting adults to do it if they want to). Experience over the last decade has been that about a year after marriage equality becomes legal in a particular state, support for marriage equality jumps up by at least another 10%, with opposition shrinking. Lots of states have had marriage equality for a while, so the nationwide number probably isn’t going to jump that much, but it will jump.

When you add in the decades-long trend of support for any specific gay rights question increasing by about 2 percent a year, that 37% of the population sincerely and deeply opposed to it will just keep shrinking. I don’t know how tiny it will get, eventually. Will it be as infinitesimal as the percentage of people who think that women should have the right to vote taken away (estimated at less than two one-hundredths of a single percent)?

Maybe in a few generations. I think in the foreseeable future it’s going to drop down to about 22% and then hover there for a long time.

One may ask why is seems like all of the Republican presidential hopefuls went ballistically, foaming-at-the-mouth anti-gay starting on Friday when nearly two-thirds of Americans support marriage equality. The reason is that Republican primary voters are not at all representative of the country as a whole. Likely Republican primary voters oppose marriage equality at almost inverse rates of the population at large: 60% oppose, less than 30% support, and the rest are undecided.

Even the few Republican candidates who intend to try to sell themselves as moderates to the general electorate know that they have to get those hardcore haters to vote for them in the primaries in order to become the nominee. And let’s be frank, on most of the issues voters care about, all 16 or 17 or however many we’re officially up to now of the Republican candidates have extremely similar positions. Most of them have name recognition problems at this point in the campaign. The only way they can break out of the pack at this point is to latch onto something that some of those hardcore voters care deeply enough about to remember when the primaries actually roll around.

So despite the fact that a lot of the more mainstream Republican pundits and so forth were hoping that a Supreme Court win for the gays would finally take this issue away as a wedge issue that drives moderate voters to the Democrats, I don’t think they’re going to get their wish.

That’s the problem when you hitch your wagon to hate and anger.

Oppressed oppressors, part 3

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CBbs1thUsAALYOrMat Staver is the head of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel, featured speaker at several Values Voter Summits over the years, a man who has gone to court many times defending laws that discriminate against gay people, and someone who as recently as June has testified to congress about why gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered people shouldn’t be included in anti-discrimination law, and has many times on his radio show praised laws in places like Russia and Uganda that criminalize gay people and even talking about gay people. For example, last year he was on another radio show, ranting about those Christians who have said that gay rights and marriage equality are losing battles. “To assume that you can go against the created order is hubris, it’s arrogance, it’s dangerous and it is not something in which we can simply say, ‘the battle’s over, we need to figure out how to coexist.’ There is no coexistence.”

“There is no coexistence.” If he insists that his side can’t co-exist with us, that’s another way of saying either we have to cease to exist or he does, right? And I’m pretty sure he isn’t suggesting that all true believers (his side) should commit mass suicide.

When Staver says “there is no coexistence” that means he’s ultimately willing to kill. The reason Staver’s organization encourages things like Uganda’s kill-the-gays laws, and talks up the rhetoric of how dangerous we are to society is because he believes we should not be allowed to exist. Which means killing us. Or at least, scaring us with a credible enough threat of death that we all go back into the closet.

Just like the people who regularly go to Seattle’s old gayborhood (Police investigating weekend hate crimes on Capitol Hill) every weekend (‘Not one more’ — March strikes back at anti-queer violence on Capitol Hill), the aim isn’t to kill each and every queer person, it’s to scare the rest of us back into the closet. When rightwing Texas preacher Rick Scarborough announces that he’s willing to be burned to death to oppose gay marriage, he doesn’t mean that he’s going to set himself on fire; he wants to whip up fear and anger so that people who agree with him will do horrible things to some of us to frighten us into silence.

It’s the same tactics used by the hate leaders who radicalized Dylann Roof into shooting nine innocent people in a church in Charleston: making members of the majority believe that a historically oppressed minority somehow has all the power. Roof told the lone adult survivor of his shooting, “I have to do it. You’re raping our women and overrunning our country.” In a country where white police officers gun down unarmed black children in the street without facing murder charges, he believes that black people are the ones threatening the existence of white people.

Similarly, in a country where:

  • 1500 queer children are bullied into committing suicide every year,
  • where thousands of queer children are thrown out onto the streets by so-called Christian parents whose religious leaders have told them they have to show tough love,
  • where the authorities don’t investigate those parents for child neglect,
  • where the numbers of homicides of LGBT people have climbed to record highs,
  • where more than half of hate-motivated murder victims are trans people of color,
  • where state legislators are rushing to enact religious-belief based “right to discriminate” laws,
  • where in most states it is perfectly legal for employers to fire someone simply because they think the person might be gay (and where landlords can evict gay tenants or refuse to rent to them, et cetera),
  • where queer people are 2.4 times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than jews, and 2.6 times more likely to be victims of hate crimes than muslims,
  • where the number of hate crimes against all groups except lesbian, gays, trans, and bi people is going down while all categories of anti-queer hate crimes remain the some or are rising,
  • where the overwhelming majority of elected officials at the federal, state, and local level are Christian (far out of proportion to their percentage of the population),
  • where state and federal tax dollars are funneled into “faith-based” charity organizations that are often allowed to discriminate in how they administer those tax-funded activities,
  • where religious schools are often supported by tax dollars diverted from public schools,
  • where high school kids are threatened with expulsion for wearing “Gay OK” t-shirts to school after a bunch of Christian bullies beat a gay classmate (but the bullies weren’t punished),
  • where a public school teacher responding to an incident of anti-gay bullying read a book about acceptance to his class, then was forced to resign for “promoting homosexuality,”
  • where Christian organizations rally and raise money to combat anti-bullying policies unless said policies include exemptions that allow their kids to bully gay kids in the name of their faith,

…Christians are claiming that queers are persecuting them.

Seriously? Not being able to bully, discriminate against, and torment their gay neighbors is oppression?

Sincerely (up) yours,

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Indiana RFRA protest rally earlier this year. (WISH-TV/Howard Monroe)
Indiana RFRA protest rally earlier this year. (WISH-TV/Howard Monroe)
I stared at my iPad, flabbergasted. A writer whose work I admire, and who has always come across as thoughtful in his personal blog, stated that after carefully reviewing the blog posts and comments of another writer who has been spearheading a particular bigoted movement concluded, “I can find no solid evidence to support the frequently repeated charge of homophobia.” It took me three minutes with Google to come up with five rather blatant homophobic statements. One of which was in a post that the writer who now says he can find no evidence of homophobia had commented on. A few sentences later I found the answer: “While it’s clear he opposes marriage equality for religious reasons, there’s no evidence of blatant animosity.”

Oh, dear, not that old fallacy again!

It comes up all the time. People who consider themselves progressive and pro-gay rights, but who are themselves not queer, will turn a blind eye to homophobic statements and actions so long as the perpetrator refrains from employing obviously offensive language too frequently and claims they are doing it for religious reasons. As if, somehow, only when an oppressor is openly vicious are the actions actually oppressive… Continue reading Sincerely (up) yours, →

Weekend Update – 6/6/2015

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BettyBowers.Com (Click to embiggen)
BettyBowers.Com (Click to embiggen)
I missed this before Friday. InTouch magazine posted a fact-check/refutation of seven of the claims the Duggars made in the interview: DUGGAR INTERVIEW: 7 CRUCIAL FACTS THEY DIDN’T TELL YOU — THE COVER-UP CONTINUES. Contrary to one of their biggest claims, they did not cooperate with policy. They hid their son and refused to bring him in for scheduled interviews. Much more at the link. On the other hand, Dan Savage interviewed a therapist who works with juvenile sex offenders to find out how parents who find out their child has sexually abused another child ought to handle the situation: What Should the Duggars Have Done?

And the scandal surrounding former Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert paying millions in extortion money is beginning to turn up names: Exclusive: Alleged Dennis Hastert Sex Abuse Victim Is Named By Family. This is not the victim Hastert was paying off because this victim died of complication of AIDS many years ago, but if the allegations of the family are true, it confirms our worst fears: when Hastert was a High School wrestling coach he was having sexual relationships with his students. Again, I ask is there any reason that we don’t just all assume that whenever a politician, pastor, or other sort of public figure is rabidly anti-gay that they are also a deeply twisted closet cases?

And all sorts of interesting things are bubbling around since Vanity Fair put Caitlyn Jenner on the cover: For Social Conservatives, Acceptance of Caitlyn Jenner Is the Apocalypse. Though the writing has been on the wall regarding societal acceptance of marriage equality for some time (NOM has a plan; and some snowballs plan to summer in hell, too), the wingnuts have been pivoting to trans issues as a means to drum up fear and much-needed donations to their think tanks, et al. The way that Caitlyn’s transition has been embraced by a significant fraction of the population is making their heads explode (Their rhetoric has turned macabre and concerning). I think a lot of them really do believe the insane hyperbole they are spewing, but many of them know it is not the end of the world, and are much more worried about preserving their cash flow. Otherwise they might have to actual work for a living, right? Then there’s things like this: Man learns amazing lesson in irony after mocking Caitlyn Jenner’s ‘bravery’ in viral Facebook post.

And here’s a nice follow-up on a story I posted a link to earlier: Larry Wilmore Lets Gay Student Give Banned Valedictorian Speech On-Air (VIDEO). Watch the clip for context and a fun intro. They only show part of the speech on the show, but the entire speech is available on the web: EVAN YOUNG’S COMPLETE GRADUATION SPEECH.

It bothers some people that we exist, part 2

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...especially if it means make the world a brighter place. (MemeBlender.Com)
…or especially if it means make the world a brighter place. (MemeBlender.Com)
Being reminded that queer people exist at all drives some people to crazy lengths. For instance, as noted at the Crime and the Forces of Evil blog, the Sad Puppies are angry that books containing queer characters aren’t clearly marked. For those not in the know, the Sad Puppies (and an allied group, the Rabid Puppies) are a bunch of arch-conservative sci fi writers and fans who organized a bloc-voting scheme to game the selection process for the Hugo Awards and put a specific slate of anti-progressive authors, editors, and fans in every major category. Their rhetoric leading up to their success was full of blatant misogynist and homophobic language (and threats), and only slightly-less-blatant racist language. It’s worth noting that they’ve been trying this for a few years without success. It appears that their success this year is primarily due to the fact that they managed to enlist a bunch of GamerGate trolls into the process… Continue reading It bothers some people that we exist, part 2 →

Weekend Update: 4/18/2015

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Pastor Manning and his church are at it again with weird anti-gay messages on their church sign. (Click to embiggen)
Pastor Manning and his church are at it again with weird anti-gay messages on their church sign. (Click to embiggen)
There have been further developments of some of the stories I posted about in yesterday’s Friday Links (Hugos and movies edition), as well as some things I would have included if I had seen them earlier.

Eric Flint delivers Some comments on the Hugos and other SF awards. Specifically explaining why any system of awards drifts into a subset of any large set of works. It’s a really good read if just for the information about some of the giants in the field who never won awards.

The Family Research Council is once again calling for weeks of fasting and praying to save America from the evil of homosexuality (they say it’s about other things, but just take a look at the list of prayer topics in the article). As part of this they have been publishing a suggested prayer each day. After they published one earlier this week that seemed to be suggesting that gay people raising children should be forcibly drowned, news sites started publishing stories about the other awful anti-gay things said in all of the published prayers. Suddenly, FRC has decided that the prayers needed “editing” and removed them. Fortunately, someone took screen captures each day as they were published: WHOA: FRC ‘reediting’ all those heinous fasting-for-marriage prayers I’ve been showing you!

It’s not just national anti-gay rights activists who are suddenly deleting things they were saying quite opening just a few weeks ago. The Sad Puppies (a.k.a. the anti-gay, racist, misogynist GamerGate allies who are trying to screw up science fiction awards) are suddenly trying to erase hateful things they posted, sometimes just weeks ago. Fortunately there’s Google Cache, Wayback Machine, and screen captures: since some puppies are deleting things.

As Predicted, Antigay Mechanic Says He’s Received Death Threats, Calls For Support From Fellow Christians.

The National Organization of Marriage’s (NOM) email money begs have started claiming they may have to cancel some of the buses to bring people to D.C. for this year’s anti-gay “march for marriage.” Jeremy Hooper as Good As You thinks that NOM pre-spins its likely low #March4Marriage attendance. Given how they tried to explain away the low turn-out last year, I bet he’s right.

I can’t not share these great stories about parents supporting their kids: Doubts Removed: The Day My Son’s Breasts Were Surgically Taken Off. Which lets me end this update on a positive note!