What Was Behd Geia’s Anti-Gay Rally? | The New Yorker

Contents:

• ANTI-GAY SUPPORTERS RALLY FOR ROY MOORE, WORRYG LGBTQ MUNY
• 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
• HISTORY OF THE ANTI-GAY MOVEMENT SCE 1977
• WHAT WAS BEHD GEIA’S ANTI-GAY RALLY?
• ETHPIAN ERNMENT NCELS ANTI-GAY RALLY
• TED CZ AND THE ANTI-GAY PASTOR
• FLORIDA SCHOOL VTIGATG AFTER STUNTS YELL ANTI-GAY SLURS, STOMP ON PRI FLAG

ANTI-GAY SUPPORTERS RALLY FOR ROY MOORE, WORRYG LGBTQ MUNY

REUTERS/Irakli Genidze TPX IMAGES OF THE DAYJuly 8 (Rters) - Up to 2, 000 anti-LGBT protters broke up a Gay Pri ftival the Geian pal Tbilisi on Saturday, scufflg wh police and stroyg props cludg rabow flags and plards, though there were no reports of juri. Geia has passed laws agast discrimatn and hate crim, but LGBT+ rights groups say there is a lack of aquate protectn by law enforcement officials and homophobia remas wispread the socially nservative South Cs years ago, several journalists were beaten durg attacks on LGBT+ activists Tbilisi.

Activists who long cried gay rights, often assailg them as a threat to nservative fay valu and procreatn, said they’ve found new alli, particularly their efforts to lim medil re and athletic opportuni for transgenr youth. In the 1970s, Christian sger and anti-gay activist Ana Bryant lnched the “Save Our Children” mpaign to fight back agast a lol Da County, Florida, ordance that banned discrimatn based on sexual orientatn hog and employment. Ken Harrison, the chairman of the Promise Keepers, appeared on former Tmp ai Steve Bannon’s podst, and said anti-LGBTQ remarks that the gatherg is necsary bee of “how quickly we went om homosexual marriage to, now, men puttg on drs and beg lled women.

Democratic policians across California nmned a volatile anti-gay prott outsi a suburban Los Angel school board meetg on Tuday, as the school board heard public ment on whether to officially signate June as LGBTQ+ Pri month. The cy uncil Huntgton Beach had prevly voted not to display the Pri flag on cy the state’s Inland Empire regn, a school board Temecula rejected a history curriculum bee of s mentn of the murred civil rights activist Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official California history, who was posthumoly award the printial medal of eedom. ”Lol news acunts and footage of the volatile anti-gay protters Glendale and North Hollywood showed some protters g rhetoric now mon far-right protts across the Uned Stat, suggtg that LGBTQ+ people are pedophil or predators, and argug that any mentn of the existence of gay people or gay fai is appropriate for young children.

18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA

Many wore intil T-shirts readg “Leave our kids alone, ” and some voked Christian fah as the reason for their opposn to Pri events are faiar l of attack that have often been mobilised by anti-gay activists the past, cludg by Ana Bryant her “Save our Children” mpaign the 1970s, which also foced on “parents’ rights” as a way to ph back agast advanc civil rights for gay as equaly for LGBTQ+ people has bee creasgly popular and accepted the US, wh 71% of rponnts a recent Gallup poll exprsg support for same-sex marriage, many Amerins scribed the renewed attacks as ighteng and disturbg. Trans people have been sgled out as the foc of much of the legislatn, and ntue to be the target of many particularly vilent polil attacks, but, as Florida’s “don’t say gay” law, which regulat what tors are allowed to discs public school classrooms, any mentn of genr inty or homosexualy is now g unr attack. Government spokman Mos Kunkuyu told protters the admistratn would take to acunt the ncerns raised by relig monstratns cid wh a nstutnal urt se brought by Jan Willem Akstar, a Dutch NGO worker, and Jana Gonani, a lol transgenr pair is seekg to have bans on same-sex marriage and gay-sex overturned, argug they vlate the right to privacy and digny, among sex is a crimal offence punishable by up to 14 years jail the and Gonani have separately faced charg unr the lonial-era legislatn outlawg was sentenced to eight years jail 2021.

HISTORY OF THE ANTI-GAY MOVEMENT SCE 1977

Their s were joed before the nstutnal urt, which will beg heargs next 's jtice mistry issued a moratorium on arrts and prosecutns for nsensual homosexual acts 2012, but the orr was spend by the High Court 2016 pendg a judicial review.

And an anti-Moore rally at a Birmgham church on Saturday drew more than 100 people, some of whom rried signs cryg his opposn to gay a Senate mpaign sudnly hyper foced on Moore's relatnships wh teenage girls s ago, Moore's hardle stance on gay rights and other LGBTQ issu has bee ltle more than an afterthought for many voters as Electn Day first ught the attentn of many the LGBTQ muny after scribg homosexual nduct as "an herent evil agast which children mt be protected" a 2002 child ctody se volvg a lbian mother. "Ined, other LGBTQ activists suggted this week that open acceptance of Moore's anti-gay rhetoric harkens to a dark and vlent time Alabama 's Democratic challenger, Doug Jon, is known bt, perhaps, for prosecutg the men who bombed Birmgham's 16th Street Baptist Church — a prosecutn that me nearly 40 years after the 1963 crime that killed four black girls. In 2000, Alabama beme the last state the untry to overturn s ban on terracial state has been slow to embrace gay rights as well: 81 percent of voters supported a ban on same-sex marriage 2006.

"It's awful bee he says the most hateful thgs, " she ntrast to many nservative policians wh natnal ambns, Moore has ma ltle attempt to change his tone on LGBTQ issu as equal rights for the gay muny has earned creasg acceptance among mastream 's hero stat among many Christian nservativ was cemented 2016 when, as the chief jtice of the Alabama Supreme Court, he refed to ply wh a Supreme Court lg that legalized same-sex marriage natnwi. 12 — were celebrated at Thursday's news nference by the relig lears who traveled om as far as Colorado, Oh and Texas to stand at his Noson Leer, who once lled Hurrine Sandy's stctn "dive jtice" for same-sex marriage, lashed out at "homosexualist gay terrorism. After gettg sued, the Kettle Morae School District announced a legal analysis had prompted them to vise a new terpretatn of a longstandg district policy, which now prohibs, among other thgs, staff om hangg gay pri flags on mp or cludg their own personal pronouns their email signatur.

WHAT WAS BEHD GEIA’S ANTI-GAY RALLY?

Even as some well-known anti-gay groups like Foc on the Fay morate their views, a hard re of smaller groups, most of them religly motivated, have ntued to pump out monizg propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual mori. The book mak a seri of claims that virtually no ser historian agre wh: that Hler was gay, that “the Nazi Party was entirely ntrolled by aristic homosexuals, ” and that gays were pecially selected for the SS bee of their nate btaly.

Takg a page om the anti-gay fabulist Stt Lively (see Abidg Tth Mistri, above), Fischer claimed a blog post last May 27 that “[h]omosexualy gave Adolph Hler, and homosexuals the ary gave the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war mache and 6 ln ad Jews. In a 2010 “actn alert, ” the AFA warned that if homosexuals are allowed to openly serve the ary, “your son or dghter may be forced to share ary showers and barracks wh active and open homosexuals.

Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy (AFTAH) was formed as a part-time venture 1996 by long-time gay-basher Peter LaBarbera, who reanized 2006 as a much more ser and fluential, if often vic, operatn.

ETHPIAN ERNMENT NCELS ANTI-GAY RALLY

A one-time reporter for the nservative Washgton Tim, LaBarbera has been an energetic mpaigner agast “the radil homosexual agenda” sce at least 1993, when he lnched The Lambda Report, which claimed to do first-hand reportg to expose s gay enemi. AFTAH is notable for s postg of the utterly discreded work of Pl Cameron (of the Fay Rearch Instute; see below), who has claimed that gays and lbians live vastly shorter liv than heterosexuals.

The same year, he posted an open letter to the Lhuanian people om long-time gay-basher Stt Lively (see Abidg Tth Mistri, above), who has ma a seri of false claims about gays nng the German Nazi Party. DeMar has modified that dictum slightly the past, sayg that homosexuals wouldn’t all be executed unr a “renstcted” ernment, but that he did believe that the ocsnal executn of “sodom” would serve society well bee “the law that requir the ath penalty for homosexual acts effectively driv the perversn of homosexualy unrground, back to the closet. It has lled the ia of allowg gays to serve openly the ary “evil”; opposed hate crim legislatn (which many relig-right groups falsely assert would make easy to send pastors to prison for nmng homosexualy); and raged agast a judge’s overturng of California’s Proposn 8, which had validated same-sex marriag.

TED CZ AND THE ANTI-GAY PASTOR

Although is somewhat benign by parison, the CADC has an advisory board that clus some of the untry’s most hard-le anti-gay activists: Lou Sheldon, head of the Tradnal Valu Coaln (see below); Donald Wildmon, the founr of the Amerin Fay Associatn (above); and O’Neal Dozier, a pastor who wrote his 2008 book that “[h]omosexualy not only spreads disease and ntraliz God’s mand, ” but also “stroys fai.

FLORIDA SCHOOL VTIGATG AFTER STUNTS YELL ANTI-GAY SLURS, STOMP ON PRI FLAG

In 2001, she hired proment anti-gay propagandists Robert Knight (now wh Coral Ridge Mistri; see below) and Peter LaBarbera (now wh Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy, above) to lnch CWA’s Culture and Fay Instute. CWA long relied on and displayed Knight’s articl and talkg pots, cludg claims that “homosexualy rri enormo physil and mental health risks” and “gay marriage entic children to experiment wh homosexualy. ” Last year, CWA acced the Gay, Lbian, and Straight Edutn Network (GLSEN), a group that works to stop anti-gay bullyg schools, of g that missn as a ver to promote homosexualy schools, addg that “teachg stunts om a young age that the homosexual liftyle is perfectly natural … will [e them to] velop to adults who are sensized to the harmful, immoral realy of sexual viance.