A Dozen Major Groups Help Drive the Relig Right’s Anti-Gay Csa | Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents:

• 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
• GROUPS OPPOSED TO GAY RIGHTS RAKE LNS AS STAT BATE ANTI-LGBTQ BILLS
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• A DOZEN MAJOR GROUPS HELP DRIVE THE RELIG RIGHT’S ANTI-GAY CSA

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. 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.

” 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. 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.

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

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. 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.

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. Camenker, who has long foced on the purported “homosexual agenda” the schools and equently claimed gays are dangero to kids, has repeatedly ced discreded claims om anizatns like the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy that lk homosexualy and pedophilia.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

” Wh regard to LGBT teen suicis, TVC, unr the headle “Homosexual Urban Legends, ” claims that “[t]he ld, hard fact is that teens who are stgglg wh homosexual feelgs are more likely to be sexually molted by a homosexual school unselor or teacher than to m suici over their feelgs of spair. The TVC also mak assertns on s webse about disproportnate homosexual pedophilia and attacks the ia that people are born gay and the claim that gays want the right to marry for the same reasons that heterosexuals do — the TVC suggts the real purpose of marriage equaly is to stroy the ncept of marriage and ultimately replace altogether wh group sex and polygamy.

“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. “When you nsir that the life of the average homosexual is not ntrolled by reason, not ntrolled by the will, ’s really a life ntrolled by this lt, this passn, that has kd of overwhelmed them, and so you have kd of the sence of a lack of self ntrol. The Liberty Counsel has also been active the battle agast same-sex marriage and hate crim legislatn, which claimed a 2007 news release to be “'thought crim' laws that vlate the right to eedom of speech and of nscience" and will "have a chillg effect on people who have moral or relig objectns to homosexual behavr.

In 2004, Staver published Same-Sex Marriage: Puttg Every Hoehold at Risk, an anti-LGBT screed about the perceived threat of homosexualy that clus numero false claims about LGBT people, cludg that they’re promiscuo, that homosexualy is ed by a “longg to fill emotnal fics, ” and that the goal of the “homosexual agenda” (an anti-LGBT nspiracy theory) is to move om simply beg tolerated by heterosexuals to domatg them. The book me one year after the Liberty Counsel lnched s "Change is Possible" mpaign wh Parents and Friends of Ex-gays (PFOX), to protect ex-gays om "discrimatn" at the hands of "tolerant homosexuals, " who are "g our youth to advance an agenda" as well as to promote so-lled “ex-gay” therapy (also lled “nversn” or “reparative” therapy).

A DOZEN MAJOR GROUPS HELP DRIVE THE RELIG RIGHT’S ANTI-GAY CSA

Many of the tablished and reputable major Amerin medil, psychologil, psychiatric and unselg associatns the Uned Stat have rejected nversn therapy, and noted that homosexual orientatn is normal and not a disorr and th requir no attempts to change . The Liberty Counsel has also provid a platform for other anti-gay activists, such as attorney and former boxer Matt Barber, who joed the Liberty Counsel 2009 as Director of Cultural Affairs and then later served as the vice print of Liberty Counsel Actn, the group’s lobbyg arm. Barber, who found the vilently anti-LGBT se “” early 2014, which he eds, has spent years verbally bashg LGBT people, lkg them to pedophilia, llg them dangers to children and at one pot sayg that gay partnerships volve “one man vlently crammg his penis to another man’s lower tte and llg ‘love.

Though the urt dismissed the lawsu, Ponsor’s 25-page lg acknowledged Lively’s anti-LGBT activi, statg that the “Defendant’s posn on LGBTI people range om the ludicro to the abhorrent, ” and that, “he has tried to make gay people spegoats for practilly all of humany’s ills. He went on to note that the rerd monstrat that Lively worked wh elements Uganda who share some of his views to reprs eedom of exprsn of LGBTI people that untry, “prive them of the protectn of the law, and renr their very existence illegal, ” notg that Lively proposed 20-year prison sentenc for gay upl Uganda “who simply lead open, law-abidg liv. While the laws impose long prison terms on LGBT people, Slater sists that her posn is a passnate one: by rercg a culture imil to homosexualy, she claims, LGBT people will be enuraged to unlearn their attractn, turn ntralizg the threat they prent to what the Christian Right lls the “natural fay.

“Reparative therapy is so threateng to the gay agenda bee when an dividual stands up and says, 'I have changed, ' that’s a fundamental threat to one of the basic prcipl of the gay agenda, which is to have people believe that people are simply born that way. Slater even attempted to take on the Girl Suts 2011, creatg a webse lled “100 Qutns for the Girl Suts” to rm parents about the many ways the youth anizatn was “creasgly nnectg young girls to radil femism, the promotn of sexual rights, LGBT (lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr) issu, and the abortn rights movement.