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

Contents:

• FIRST RSIA, THEN HUNGARY, NOW ROMANIA IS CONSIRG A 'GAY PROPAGANDA' LAW 
• WHAT DO GAY PROPAGANDA LOOK LIKE TO YOU?
• GAY MARRIAGE. PROOF PROPAGANDA WORKS
• SPREADG GAY MARRIAGE PROPAGANDA
• WHY RSIA IS SO ANTI-GAY
• HOW SOCHI BEME THE GAY OLYMPICS
• 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
• NEWSWEEK’S GAY MARRIAGE PROPAGANDA PIECE
• WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT RSIA’S SO-CALLED ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ BILL

FIRST RSIA, THEN HUNGARY, NOW ROMANIA IS CONSIRG A 'GAY PROPAGANDA' LAW 

BUCHAREST -- Romania is nsirg a bill that would ban mors om beg exposed to so-lled "gay propaganda" schools and public life, spe warngs om rights groups that would "fuel Rsian propaganda and disrmatn mpaigns" and restate censorship the former munist untry. "If a child is on the street and se a Pri march, or if he or she se a story about gay issu on televisn, or watch a film approved by the Romanian thori that has LGBT issu, " the would all be illegal unr the law, Ion-Rotar said. One article of the proposed law says that a child "has the right to be protected agast the spreadg of ntent through any means about the viatn om sex which is tablished at birth (by a doctor) or the popularizatn of sex change or homosexualy.

WHAT DO GAY PROPAGANDA LOOK LIKE TO YOU?

In Romania, marriage and civil partnerships for same-sex upl are already banned, but supporters of the referendum hoped that by changg the wordg of the nstutn to say that marriage uld only be between a man and a woman rather than "partners, " as currently stands, they would prevent gay marriage om ever beg enshred law. " Cred: "Anyone out there n nnect an image, a story, a vio, a piece of their life that they exprs on social media wh that hashtag and tell a sort of global story of what gay propaganda is that isn’t based fear and anger and vlence and a really backwards notn of love and relatnships, ” #GayPropaganda's Joe Babarsky says. Released Nov 21, “The Scream” is one of a seri of vio-based public service announcements produced by the (We Are) #GayPropaganda mpaign that Babarsky, Pt, Kev Dolan and other like-md social-media-savvy profsnals are spearheadg a bid to build a ee-form, global aln-by-hashtag.

Lookg at the reach of the law, and Rsian thori’ abily to voke to try to silence those who speak out fence of gay rights and relatnships, Babarsky says he realized that almost every teractn his everyday life uld be nsired an act of gay propaganda. Anyone out there n nnect an image, a story, a vio, a piece of their life that they exprs on social media wh that hashtag and tell a sort of global story of what gay propaganda is that isn’t based fear and anger and vlence and a really backwards notn of love and relatnships, ” Babarsky says.

Whatever story people have to tell, whether ’s about beg upset and wantg to make their voice heard, or whether ’s about showg gay people around the world who are persecuted, facg vlence or feel that they don’t have hope, the many plac the world where people stand solidary wh their immediate suatn. Speakg before Put signed the bill to the law on Monday, Tanya Loksha, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch said: “The 2013 ‘gay propaganda’ law was an unabashed example of polil homophobia, and the new draft legislatn amplifi that broar and harsher ways.

GAY MARRIAGE. PROOF PROPAGANDA WORKS

Nearly three-quarters of Rsians believe that homosexually is morally unacceptable, more than disapprove of other hot-button issu such as extramaral affairs, gamblg and numbers e om newly released data om the Pew Rearch Center, which surveyed Rsians on their moral attus sprg 2013. Jt eight months before the gam, Rsia's ernmental body, the Duma, passed a law makg illegal to distribute homosexual "propaganda" to mors, which clus stagg gay pri events and advotg for gay law also bans foreign same-sex upl om adoptg Rsian the openg day of the Olympics (Feb.

[5 Myths About Gay People Debunked]History of anti-gay attusUnrstandg Rsia's wispread gay sentiment requir a look back, said Tatiana Mikhailova, a senr stctor of Rsian Studi at the Universy of Colorado, Boulr. "Where gays are allowed, pedophilia will soon flourish, " says Rsian Orthodox prit Sergei Rybko a new BBC documentary, "Hunted, " released this month, that explor vlence toward Rsian Rsian Orthodox Church is a major driver of anti-gay public opn, Mikhailova said, but there is a paradox at most untri, religsy is lked to anti-gay attus.

SPREADG GAY MARRIAGE PROPAGANDA

Another 9 percent say homosexualy is not a moral issue, and 72 percent say beg gay is parison, 69 percent of Rsians say extramaral affairs are unacceptable, 62 percent disapprove of gamblg, and 44 percent say abortn is immoral. 3, a urt eastern Rsia sentenced three men to between ne and 12 years prison each for the beatg and stabbg ath of a man they believed to be gay, one of several recently reported crim allegedly motivated by anti-gay sentiment. The Stonewall rts were more than a the past; a year earlier, reports had surfaced about rare pnmonia and ncer afflictg homosexuals New York and California—the first glimmers of what would later be lled AIDS.

” “Direct ntact” wh athlet om the natns, Day argued, would be enlighteng for Amerins livg a untry where ternatnal visors were often nied entry bee of their sexual s later, sports are once aga stirrg to take stock of gay rights around the world.

WHY RSIA IS SO ANTI-GAY

Ultimately, the stlit Olympics history may be remembered for markg a perd which gay rights aren’t so much advancg globally as expandg certa parts of the world while regrsg or languishg 6, 000 athlet om 85 untri gather Sochi, the global gay-rights divi will be unmistakable. But gay rights only me to the fore the summer of 2013, when the Rsian ernment, which crimalized homosexualy 1993, banned the dissematn of “propaganda of nontradnal sexual relatns” around children—makg more difficult for gay activists to operate and, rights groups allege, fuelg a rise anti-gay vlence the untry. The mayor of Sochi sayg there were no gay people his cy didn’t help, perhaps the most provotive rebe to Rsia’s lims on LGBT rights, Print Obama has clud three openly gay athlet—Billie Jean Kg, Cal Cahow, and Brian Boano— the U.

Gay Olympic athlet have exprsed outrage as well; the Atralian snowboarr Belle Brockhoff, for stance, has vowed to “rip on [Put’s] ass” after petg and possibly flash an oblique six-fger salute reference to “Prciple Six, ” an anti-discrimatn clse the Olympic Charter. Then there’s the solutn proposed by Saturday Night Live: an all-heterosexual Team USA figure-skatg squad:The laws agast homosexualy that have recently ma ternatnal headl aren’t necsarily new, Stern says, but they are “gettg more attentn today bee of the level of progrs that we’ve seen other parts of the world. In recent months, India’s Supreme Court has restated a ban on gay sex ( one fell swoop doublg, by one timate, the number of gay people the world who n be imprisoned for their sexualy) and Atralia’s High Court has overturned gay-marriage legislatn.

HOW SOCHI BEME THE GAY OLYMPICS

” We know the story Rsia, where Vladimir Put has anoted himself the lear of an ternatnal nservative unteroffensive agast the Wt’s “genrls and fertile” the Bssels-based Internatnal Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Associatn (ILGA) noted s latt report on “state-sponsored homophobia, ” “ltle has changed the proportn between untri crimalizg same-sex sexual acts between nsentg adults and those which do not, i. ”The “current divisn of the world—om the pot of view of legislatn—to an LGBTI-iendly field and an LGBTI-uniendly field is the rult of different cultural, social and polil procs rooted the histori of the untri and the history of their relatns wh one another, ” the study ’s how that divid world looked as of May 2013, when ILGA me out wh s report (click on the map to expand):ILGAIn a June report tled “The Global Divi on Homosexualy, ” the Pew Rearch Center arrived at siar nclns, fdg “broad acceptance of homosexualy North Ameri, the European Unn, and much of Lat Ameri, but equally wispread rejectn predomantly Mlim natns and Ai, as well as parts of Asia and Rsia. S., where public support has grown signifintly, and that “acceptance of homosexualy is particularly wispread untri where relign is ls central people’s liv”—natns that also tend to be the wealthit the world.

18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA

Exceptns clu Rsia and Cha, where levels of religsy and tolerance for homosexualy are both Rearch CenterHere are the percentag of rponnts the 39 untri Pew surveyed who said society should accept homosexualy. Except South Ai, where gay marriage is legal but only 32 percent accept homosexualy, same-sex marriage has, not surprisgly, advanced the most untri where support of homosexualy is Rearch CenterRelign undoubtedly rms opns on LGBT rights—a dynamic rerced by the recent trend of globetrottg Amerin evangelils, stymied at home, craftg and promotg rtrictns on homosexualy foreign pals—but ’s not the only factor at play.

NEWSWEEK’S GAY MARRIAGE PROPAGANDA PIECE

Vladimir Put, ILGA Executive Director Renato Sabbadi argu, se anti-gay legislatn as a means of platg the powerful Rsian Orthodox Church and fendg ‘tradnal valu’ opposn to the Wt, where LGBT rights are generally advancg.

Stern pots to the Kampala-based Civil Society Coaln on Human Rights and Constutnal Law’s outspoken opposn to Uganda’s anti-gay bill, while Sabbadi c how Indian gay-rights activists swiftly mobilized to prott the rtoratn of the untry’s ban on homosexual acts. ” In Brazil, for example, same-sex marriage is legal, but more transgenr people are murred than anywhere else the also tak issue wh the notn that Sochi is simply a dramatizatn of today's global gay-rights divi.

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.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT RSIA’S SO-CALLED ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ BILL

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. 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.

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.