18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda | Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents:

• 2,692 ANTI GAY MARRIAGE STOCK PHOTOS & HIGH-R PICTUR
• PHOTOS: GAY MARRIAGE SUPPORTERS AND OPPONENTS ON SUPREME COURT STEPS
• GROUPS OPPOSED TO GAY RIGHTS RAKE LNS AS STAT BATE ANTI-LGBTQ BILLS
• 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
• THE PEOPLE WHO OPPOSE THE GAY MARRIAGE LAW
• I’M GAY AND I’M AGAST GAY MARRIAGE
• THE TOP 10 ARGUMENTS AGAST GAY MARRIAGE: ALL RECEIVE FAILG GRAS!
• THE CASE AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE
• THE GRANDDGHTER OF A NOTOR ANTI-GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST IS MARRYG A WOMAN — AND SHE'S NOT SURE WHETHER TO VE HER GRANDMOTHER TO THE WEDDG
• GOP LAWMAKER ATTEND GAY SON'S WEDDG 3 DAYS AFTER VOTG AGAST SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
• LATVIA BE 7TH NATN TO BE LED BY AN OPENLY GAY HEAD OF STATE

2,692 ANTI GAY MARRIAGE STOCK PHOTOS & HIGH-R PICTUR

It’s been a way for to both signal to thori that we have polil power and agency, but also for gay, lbian, and transgenr people to see that they are a have the protts changed over the years?

PHOTOS: GAY MARRIAGE SUPPORTERS AND OPPONENTS ON SUPREME COURT STEPS

It’s important to realize that beg gay or lbian was a crime the Uned Stat up to 2003, and was also thought of as a mental illns that [people] uld be stutnalized and subjected to electroshock treatment for.

So for the people to publicly make a statement that they were gay or lbian was this enormo risk for them — they uld have lost of the statement that was beg ma the early march was the refal to be an visible mory. WASHINGTON (RNS) From siwalk preachers totg megaphon to anti-gay zealots warng of the stctn of Ameri to gay and lbian upl proudly wavg gay-pri rabow flags, the scene on Tuday outsi the U. The multiln-dollar war cht has bolstered a movement that jt a few years ago appeared to be losg ground Ameri’s slong culture war around lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer rights.

“Many of those, while not specifilly tied to a church, are rooted the nservative Christian, biblil sense of human sexualy, ” said Stt McCoy, the terim puty legal director for LGBTQ rights and special ligatn for the SPLC and the SPLC Actn Fund, the group’s polil actn simply holdg a relig belief that views homosexualy or transgenr inty as sful do not tomatilly land a church or an anizatn on the SPLC’s list of hate groups. 'The hard re of the anti-gay movement' When the SPLC began trackg anti-LGBTQ hate the early 2010s, the anizatn noted that “a small terie of groups now prise the hard re of the anti-gay movement. “The groups that are opposed to LGBTQ equaly did their msage ttg and found that attackg gay people is no longer the broadly popular culture war totem that they ed the ’90s, ” Gberg said.

GROUPS OPPOSED TO GAY RIGHTS RAKE LNS AS STAT BATE ANTI-LGBTQ BILLS

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 groups’ fluence reach far beyond what their size would suggt, bee the “facts” they dissemate about homosexualy are often amplified by certa policians, other groups and even news anizatns. 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.

18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA

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.

THE PEOPLE WHO OPPOSE THE GAY MARRIAGE LAW

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.

I’M GAY AND I’M AGAST GAY MARRIAGE

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.

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.

THE TOP 10 ARGUMENTS AGAST GAY MARRIAGE: ALL RECEIVE FAILG GRAS!

The AFTAH se repeats bog claims like the ia that a proposed bill California would “promote cross-drsg, sex-change operatns, bisexualy and homosexualy” to krgartners and other children.

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. Wh regard to that last, said: “Homosexuals have turned away om humbly worshippg the te and livg God and his transcennt moral orr orr to make an idol out of their sexual perversn and chaos.

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. 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. While at CWA, on April 12, 2007, Barber suggted agast all the evince that there were only a “miscule number” of anti-gay hate crim and most of those “may very well be rooted dulent reports.

THE CASE AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE

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. Print Wendy Wright said this Augt that gay activists were g same-sex marriage “to doctrate children schools to reject their parents’ valu and to harass, sue and punish people who disagree.

” 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. In one recent say on the CRM webse, he argued agast allowg homosexuals to serve openly the ary, sayg that “Bible-believg Christians would quickly fd themselv unwele Barney Frank’s new pansexual, cross-drsg ary.

In 2002, before jog CRM, Knight wrote that gay marriage “entic children to experiment wh homosexualy” and that acceptg homosexualy leads to “a loss of stabily muni, wh a rise crime, sexually transmted diseas and other social pathologi. Much of his venom was aimed at homosexuals, who he suggts should be killed (“The biggt hypocre the world is the person who believ the ath penalty for murrers but not for homosexuals”).

THE GRANDDGHTER OF A NOTOR ANTI-GAY RIGHTS ACTIVIST IS MARRYG A WOMAN — AND SHE'S NOT SURE WHETHER TO VE HER GRANDMOTHER TO THE WEDDG

Both Dailey and Sprigg have phed false accatns lkg gay men to pedophilia: Sprigg has wrten that most men who engage same-sex child moltatn “intify themselv as homosexual or bisexual, ” and Dailey and Sprigg voted an entire chapter of their 2004 book Gettg It Straight to siar material. In a 1999 publitn (Homosexual Behavr and Pedophilia) that has sce disappeared om s webse, the FRC claimed that “one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of nsent laws and to eventually regnize pedophil as the ‘prophets’ of a new sexual orr, ” acrdg to unrefuted rearch by AMERICAblog. 30, 2010, bate on MSNBC’s “Hardball wh Chris Matthews” between Perks and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok, Perks fend FRC’s associatn of gay men wh pedophilia, sayg: “If you look at the Amerin College of Pediatricians, they say the rearch is overwhelmg that homosexualy pos a danger to children.

” AMERICAblog also reported that then-FRC official Yvette Cantu, an terview published on Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy’s webse, said, “If they [gays and lbians] had children, what would happen when they were too by havg their sex parti? More recently, March 2008, Sprigg, rpondg to a qutn about ung gay partners durg the immigratn procs, said: “I would much prefer to export homosexuals om the Uned Stat than to import them.

Started 1987 by psychologist Pl Cameron, the Fay Rearch Instute (FRI) has bee the anti-gay movement’s ma source for what Cameron claims is “cuttg-edge rearch” — but is, fact, pletely discreded junk science phed out by a man who has been nmned by three profsnal anizatns.

GOP LAWMAKER ATTEND GAY SON'S WEDDG 3 DAYS AFTER VOTG AGAST SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Over nearly three s, Cameron has published “rearch studi” (though almost never peer-reviewed journals) that suggt that homosexuals are predatory and diseased perverts who victimize children. ” In yet another, he wrote, “Homosexuals were three tim more likely to adm to havg ma an obscene phone ll” and “a third more apt to report a traffic ticket or traffic accint the past 5 years. In 1985, the Amerin Soclogil Associatn adopted a rolutn sayg Cameron “has nsistently misterpreted and misreprented soclogil rearch on sexualy” and “repeatedly mpaigned for the abrogatn of the civil rights of lbians and gay men”; the followg year, the same group formally nmned Cameron for that misreprentatn of rearch.

) Gazette that he believed homosexualy should be crimalized Ameri and that he was fe wh a proposed bill Uganda that would punish some gay sexual acts wh ath (“Whatever they ci, I’m OK wh”). They clu the Amerin Fay Associatn, Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy, Concerned Women for Ameri, Coral Ridge Mistri, the Fay Rearch Council (see above for all five) and, until recently, the Illois Fay Instute (see below).

It says that gays should apologize “for all the STDs [sexually transmted diseas] they’ve spread, and all the money those STDs have st, and pecially for settg bad moral exampl for our children. In 2006, then-Executive Director Peter LaBarbera (see Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy, above), told a relig-right gatherg hosted by Visn Ameri that homosexualy was "disgtg" and mand the closg down of all "homosexual tablishments.

LATVIA BE 7TH NATN TO BE LED BY AN OPENLY GAY HEAD OF STATE

" He lled for the repeal of all "sexual orientatn laws" — laws that ban discrimatn agast gays — and spoke of the "need to fd ways to brg back shame to those practicg homosexual behavr. ” The rponse of Lrie Higgs, IFI’s belligerent director of school advocy, was that Daly was showg “surprisg naïveté, ” g the same language as pro-gay “homosexualists, ” and failg to nont “the pro-homosexual juggernt. In 2009, Higgs pared homosexualy to Nazism, likeng the German Evangelil Church’s weak rponse to fascism to the “Amerin church’s failure to rpond appropriately to the spread of radil, heretil, stctive views of homosexualy.

Matt Barber, formerly wh Concerned Women for Ameri and Amerins for Tth About Homosexualy (see above for both), joed Liberty Counsel as director of cultural affairs (also beg Liberty Universy’s associate an for reer and profsnal velopment). A year earlier, Barber had argued that given “medil evince about the dangers of homosexualy, ” should be nsired “crimally reckls for tors to teach children that homosexual nduct is a normal, safe and perfectly acceptable alternative.

Like other anti-gay groups, Liberty Counsel argu that hate crime laws are “actually ‘thought crim’ laws that vlate the right to eedom and of nscience” — an opn rejected by the Supreme Court. Sce 2006, Liberty Counsel has also n s “Change is Possible” mpaign wh Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays to protect people who say they’ve changed om gay to straight om “discrimatn” by “tolerant homosexuals. ” Later, MassRistance charged that groups like the Gay, Lbian and Straight Edutn Network (GLSEN), which support school anti-bullyg programs, actually want to lure children to homosexualy and, very possibly, sadomasochism.