Dan Savage Is Right About Tony Perkins, But Just How Many Gay Bodies Are Evangelicals Sitting On?

Right Wing Evangelical Christianity has a lot to answer for.

Accountability is not one of religion's strong suits: witness the reaction of the Family Research Council to Dan Savage's charge:

On Mike Huckabee's program:

Mike Huckabee: “I found Dan Savage to be unnecessarily rude, vile, and angry. Just angry. He was not a happy person and he just takes out his venom on other people, but he’s gone to a level I’ve never seen.”
Perkins responded, “As my teenagers would say, he has some issues. He is a man with some real deep-seated issues … and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he’s a hundred and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It’s wrong and I will tell you this, we are pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control.”

Note that Perkins did not answer to the responsibility the FRC has in teen suicides.

Refusal of culpability always leads to further investigation, and even though the Christian Right counters such investigation with cries of "PERSECUTION!", investigation is indeed necessary: a grain of truth can be supplanted in everyone's mind and counter-actions must be taken.

Walking Backward: A Much Wider Sphere Of Hate And Destruction

Going back to the origins of demonizing gays and lesbians is, to some, like going back to the Stone Age in America's Evangelical vs LGBT culture war, but it must be done to give scope to the current battle. Perkins' demonizing is following a tradition laid down by Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Jesse Helms. So to get a clearer perspective it may be necessary to walk backwards - to a time even before the Age of AIDS.

In November of 2010, The Family Research Council was named a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The reason: disseminating false information about gays and lesbians in order to create animosity towards a specific group. Tony Perkins, of course, hit the ceiling, but he had good company: the evangelical American Family Association was also named a hate group. One strong reason for this: the rhetoric of the AFA's Director Of Issues Analysis (whatever that means), Bryan Fischer*. Fischer's celebrity stems from the fact that he has denigrated not only gays, but Muslims, feminists and African-Americans. 

In 1992, the Family Research Council came out with a video, the Gay Agenda in which was cited the discredited research of Paul Cameron. This video was widely distributed among evangelical church groups and conservative organizations. In that same year, minister-turned politician Mike Huckabee came out with the statement: "I feel [homosexuality] is an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk." He also suggested that AIDS patients should be "isolated from the general population."**

From 1982 onward, the most favorite culture war battle cry was 'AIDS is a gay plague." The demonizing that resulted from groups like the Southern Baptist Convention is still far-reaching:

From OPEdNews (Demonizing America - Part 2: "Kill Them All! God Will Take Care Of His Kind!"):

Probably the most obvious (and the most vicious) holdout as far as demonizing PWAs is concerned is the powerful Southern Baptist Convention. Almost thirty years after the start of the epidemic, the SBC still cannot point to the sponsorship of any faith-based agency dealing with AIDS ...in this country. ...Today, they still follow Jesse Helms dictum that helping AIDS victims in Africa was fine because they were "all heterosexuals" while all AIDS victims in America were perverted sodomites.

(Of note: Tony Perkins is Southern Baptist and carries on its traditions extremely well.  In 1991, Mr. Perkins was cited during a political campaign for failing to report that he had knowingly purchased the mailing list of former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke.)

In 1980, the Traditional Values Coalition was formed by Rev. Lou Sheldon as a bulwark against what it deemed a "deviant lifestyle."*** And although discrimination against homosexuals had long been in place by the evangelical community, the formation of the Coalition marked the first organized attempt to demonize a group. 

Body Count

The number of fatalities resulting from the demonizing of people like Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council is impossible to calculate: to count the number of pulpits, televangelists, hate groups and hell houses that have caused people to be kicked out of their homes while they were sick and dying, that have caused adult and teen suicides, that have caused people to be bashed and killed, is incalculable. It is unknowable, because the nature of demonizing is too insidious to calculate.

And this is what Tony Perkins and his ilk count on: without direct cause and effect, the Family Research Council will continue to going skipping merrily down Unaccountable Lane.

* Wikipedia: "In August, 2012, AFA Director of Issue Analysis Bryan Fischer compared the children of gay parents to slaves, tweeting that "we need an Underground Railroad to deliver innocent children from same-sex households".
 ** This was several years after the CDC determined that AIDS was not transmitted through casual contact.
***Both Lou Sheldon and the Traditional Values Coalition were later embroiled in the Jack Abramoff scandal.

I Agree With Dan Savage

So President Obama has finally EVOLVED. There's still a long, long way to go. And here's what the Right will make of it:

BATTLE OF THE BULLIES!!: Dan Savage and Brian Brown To Fight Over ... "Bullsh*t"

(Author's note: Why didn't I get as much attention for calling some beliefs "crap"? Some people have all the luck!)

At a high school journalism convention, anti-bullying and gay activist Dan Savage (founder, It Gets Better movement and creator of the neologism "Santorum"), as is his want, made a crude remark making a point we all know: parts of the Bible are simply ... bullsh*t. However, he didn't say that the Bible was ALL bullsh*t, just parts of it, especially some of the laws of Leviticus. Some students showed their disdain for Savage's comments by walking out.*

Now people (aka FOX News) are calling Dan Savage a bully
...and THE WAR has begun.

Glenn Beck's THE BLAZE:

ANTI-BULLYING CRUSADER ATTACKS THE BIBLE AND CURSES CHRISTIAN TEENS DURING HIGH SCHOOL SPEECH**
Front and center in the phalanx of Christian Right critics is Brian Brown. The National Organization for Marriage's president became absolutely incensed at Savage's "savaging" (Brown's wit is astounding) of the Bible. Yes, that's the same National Organization for Marriage (NOM) that tried unsuccessfully to boycott Starbuck's for its support of same-sex marriage.***

Let me lay down a public challenge to Dan Savage right here and now: You want to savage the Bible? Christian morality? Traditional marriage? Pope Benedict? I’m here, you name the time and the place and let’s see what a big man you are in a debate with someone who can talk back. It’s easy to make high-school girls cry by picking on them. Let’s pick on someone our own size!

You will find out out how venal and ridiculous your views of these things are if you dare to accept a challenge.

The response:

FRIDAY, MAY 4, 2012

HORRORS / RELIGION / LGBTQITSLFAConfidential to NOM's Brian Brown: You're On, Motherfucker

posted by DAN SAVAGE on FRI, MAY 4, 2012 at 2:02 PM

I will name the time and the place, per your offer, as soon as possible. Looking forward to it, NOMnuts.

Lines have been drawn. Souvenir dueling pistals are being made. National bookies are taking bets. People are praying that the event take place near their home so that they won't have to break their bank accounts on airfare to attend the event. Forget the upcoming election debates - this will be the one for the history books.

The uproar even spawned some critics who are usually Savage's biggest allies, but most of that criticism resulted from what they considered Savage's being "crass" and not the message itself: that parts of the Bible are pointedly ignored because they are WRONG. 

But what exactly is this "war" about? The horrendously rotten, bullying, evil, persecuting passage of Dan Savage's speech:

“People often point out that they can’t help it. They can’t help with the anti-gay bullyings because it says right there in Leviticus, it says right there in Timothy, it says right there in Romans that being gay is wrong. We can learn to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about gay people the same way we have learned to ignore the bullshit in the Bible about shellfish, about slavery, about dinner, about farming, about menstruation, about virginity, about masturbation. We ignore bullshit in the Bible about all sorts of things.

The immediate context of the offending speech is here. Savage points out the strict Leviticus laws concerning slavery and stoning women who have been found not to be virgins before marriage ("Calista Gingrich lives") and focuses on the fact that we totally discount such concepts while taking the one concept of homosexuality and making discrimination against gays legitimate. He was making the bullying point of "you're going to hell" ridiculous, i.e:  "bullshit." 

What the incident brought out, however, is that an enormous over-sensitivity to anything dealing with the Bible is...bullshit. Students began walking out once the Bible was mentioned. Their brains shut down before Savage's point could even be formed. The possibility of the entire walk out having been staged has been discussed: knee-jerk reactions can be suspicious.

Note in the clip below, the fact that FOX News' Steve Doocy says nothing about the applause and laughter Savage's speech also created. In fact, the amount of students in agreement far outnumbered the dissidents, conveniently making "Christianity" look like a persecuted minority.

For the convenience of Savage's critics, I created a Wordle with a graphic that NOM can use, it being in the form of a wedge - NOM's favorite shape. It's too bad that the word "bullsh*t" wound up to be so small because Savage only said it about three times. (If you click on the actual Wordle below it, "bullsh*t" is easier to read).

 




So the uproar is really it's own "bullshit" - but the debate promises to spawn super bullshit from the losers: Odds are on Savage to win, but "belief" and twisted reasoning will belong to Brown in the end. Leave it to the likes of Glenn Beck and Steve Doocy to see to it.  




*Some people think the walk-out was suspiciously contrived since, you will notice in the video, students began to walk out BEFORE the offensive term.
**Evidently being called "pansy-assed" is extreme cursing. (NOTE: this article was posted under the heading of "Science" WTF?)
 *** Starbuck's stock remains at an all-time high.

When Giving Hope Is Considered Evil: Dan Savage Gets Savaged By "Ex Gay" Minister And Associate Of "Bishop" Eddie Long

The gay teen anti-suicide/bullying movement, It Gets Better, finally got the unkindest cut of all, courtesy of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality Radio Hour with Peter LaBarbera:  Pastor DL (short for "Down Low") Forster called for the arrest of Dan Savage, the creative mind behind the phenomenally successful attempt to quell the country's spate of teen suicides.


And the supposed pastor has long billed himself as "ex-homosexual," and has had a close association with "Bishop" Eddie Long and his New Birth Missionary congregation. Go figure.


Dan Savage responded in his inimitable Dan Savage way:

Gay Kids Are Still Killing Themselves

posted by DAN SAVAGE on MON, FEB 13, 2012 at 10:34 AM

And it's not because gay kids are still being told that they're sick and sinful by their preachers. And it's not because gay kids are still being failed by cowardly school administrators and callous school boards and cowed teachers. And it's not because gay kids are still being bullied by straight kids who have been told that gay people are sick and sinful and that gay people, by simply existing, represent an existential threat to their families. And it's not because the religious right opposes all efforts to prevent anti-gay bullying in our schools and is pushing for new laws that create a special right for little religious bigots tobrutalize gay children. And it's not because some gay kids have parents who subjected to years of psychological and spiritual violence before throwing them out and cutting them off.

No. It's my fault. And I should be arrested.

The Low Down On Down Low

DL Foster (Christian name Darryl, but attributes the DL to "Down Low") does not have a page on wikipedia.org. He is, however, mentioned in passing as one of the leaders of the ex-gay movement, which is surprising, considering that Exodus International (the leading "ex-gay" group) distanced itself from Rev. Foster back in 2006. Foster's own ministries are a dizzying mixture of self-inflicted racism, self-loathing, come-back-to-God because you are "sexually broken" polemics centering on the African American Community, in particular Atlanta, the hub of "Bishop" Eddie Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church (at which Foster was invited to speak about the evils of homosexuality ... and to hawk his book


Foster's autobiography,  Touching A Dead Man: One man's Explosive Story of Deliverance from Homosexuality,  has long been out-of-print and is available only by downloading it through Foster's website.* It is, of course, a "book that launched a thousand deliverances." [sic]. Needless to say, however, unless you read the book, you will not know just how much Foster was in "the homosexual lifestyle" or if, in fact, he was ever gay at all. 

Bigot-enablers


The 27 videos of "ex-gays" and their proclamations are problematic: the self-loathing cannot be hidden. Their self-acceptance comes across as a merely a polemic (as Low Down would have it, but a poor one) based upon deep-rooted self-loathing: "falling" back into a destructive lifestyle of sex and drugs is predominant. Even those who admit to being born gay, never look upon themselves as have ever having any self-worth. Some actually state that they were "enticed" back into a "homosexual lifestyle," as if their own lives were worthless to begin with.


These "testimonies" seldom address one problem: that they may do more harm than good; for the purely prejudiced, "change" is the name of the game. And they care not if it is true or false, because they need something to hang their prejudices on. Harking back to the thoroughly researched topic of the relationship between I.Q. and prejudice, sociologists and psychologists can tell you that such testimonies can cause serious physical and emotional harm to gays, lesbians and transgendered people. And while the "ex-gays" are told how many souls they are helping to save, the reality is this: people will be hurt. 


The Target Is The Message

Foster's latest raison d'etre is not African American men and women who identify as gay, but gay men and women who identify as Christian. Yes, you read that right. Gay Christian Movement Watch - one of Foster's online "ministries" - is perhaps more like Gay Christian Movement Witch Hunt, alerting people to more progressive ministries and organizations and demonizing them ad infinitum:

GCM Watch seeks to facilitate balanced discussion regarding the “gay christian movement” and enlighten the broader Christian constituency through research, documentation and examination of movement’s various adherents and their beliefs in contrast to traditional Christian doctrine.

A close look at his polemics (his own word, since he considers gay Christians and affirming churches heretical) reveal nothing that could be considered a "discussion" and certainly nothing approaching balance.
To sum up: after the American Family Association warned us that Ellen Degeneres was dangerously "nice" and should be fired from being a spokesperson for JC Penney, a suppoosedly "ex-gay" minister has called for the arrest of Dan Savage because he founded the movement It Gets Better. 


Being nice to people and giving them hope sure ain't what they used to be.




*One reviewer of Touching A Dead Man: "I feel sorry for this man's wife. He'll be skulking around the men's room sooner or later, if he isn't already."
4 copies of the paperback book are available for an astounding $64 ea. Perhaps someone thinks of it as a curious collector's item. 

Wowie Malawi, Dude! Africa's Getting More American Every Day!!

   

And Bart Simpson May Be Right!!

So many African countries are trying to emulate America that I'm sure there's an "Afro-Disney" in the works. At most, the attempts to be like America are very palpable: 

A visitor to South Africa today can scarcely help but be struck by how American it seems. Yet few appreciate the long historical roots of the U.S. presence in South Africa, or the complex political and cultural conflicts to which it has given rise.

Dr. James Campbell, Brown University

Americanization of (South) Africa

But in some countries, the "aping of America" goes only as far as the amount of money they receive. Or the amount of aid from American faith-based charities.   And while we do not know approximately what Rick Warren's P.E.A.C.E. program in Uganda and Rwanda   dishes out, it is enough to allow it and others like it to proselytize (excuse me) evangelize whole nations.

With the encouragement of people like Lou Engle, Tony Perkins, Rick Warren and a host of evangelizers Africa has shunned the virtues of compassion and tolerance: people are scouring the villages and towns for sinful gays to report on.. Many are practicing "corrective rape" on lesbians and now... 

From The Times Online:

A court in Malawi yesterday convicted a gay couple of gross indecency and unnatural acts in a case that has highlighted the persecution of homosexuals in Africa and drawn international condemnation.

...Large crowds have jeered and pilloried the men on each occasion that they have been brought to court. At a previous court appearance Mr Chimbalanga, who was sick with malaria, was forced to return to the court room to mop up his vomit.

The Malawi Government insists that the men broke the law. Church leaders say that the West should not be allowed to use its financial power to force Malawi to accept homosexuality. Some analysts believe that the rows over homosexuality in Africa are really a proxy war in an American cultural dispute, with both evangelicals and gay rights groups in the US pouring money and support into the continent. (emphasis mine)

That last statement should be qualified because the amount of money to subsidize hatred against gays is staggering in comparison to amounts raised to save the lives of many Malawians. If the Mormon Church paid over $40 million to back California's Proposition 8, think of what they're willing to spend on a people who are ripe for conversion.


Talk of withholding financial aid to Malawi has begun in the U.S. and Europe (especially Britain), but there are some people who insist that "starving the people of Malawi into tolerance" is not the answer.

Huffington Post 

While [Dan] Savage and most of the civilized world is rightly outraged at the decision to imprison homosexuals, it doesn't mean we punish the rest of the country for the crimes of its government.

And Madonna jumped into the fray:

Today, Malawi took a giant step backward. The world is filled with pain and suffering; therefore, we must support our basic human right to love and be loved. 

But is that "basic human right" restricted to heterosexuals simply because Africans feel obligated to legislate what the evangelizing American Christians tell them to legislate? Lou Engle lied when he stated that he did not agree with Uganda's "kill the gays" bill, then appeared in Uganda at a prayer rally praising the "courage" of the proposed law's authors. And as with many right-wing actions, you can tell they have influence when they choose NOT to do something; in this case, actively intervene.  Rick Warren only stated his opposition to the Uganda bill after an enormous public outcry, and did nothing to intervene and talk to local religious leaders. 


The Christian Right is tired of today's "culture wars" and views Africa as a new place  entrench, regroup and plant the seeds of their (strictly) American Christianity in a land  rife with the problems of 3rd world chaos, 3rd world poverty 3rd world disease and 3rd world gullibility. Today's uber-Christians come to Africa with stories of their own beleaguered land, a land in which they are "persecuted", a great land which has buckled under the yolk of hedonism and sin, a land that will not listen to their pleas to make that land holy and righteous.

So, is Africa really getting Americanized? Depends. Which America are you from?