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

Contents:

• RSIA: EXPAND 'GAY PROPAGANDA' BAN PROGRS TOWARD LAW
• GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET
• WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT RSIA’S SO-CALLED ‘GAY PROPAGANDA’ BILL
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• HOW THE MEDIA HAS HELPED CHANGE PUBLIC VIEWS ABOUT LBIAN AND GAY PEOPLE
• US WHE SUPREMACISTS FOUND GUILTY OF GAY PRI RT PLOT
• 'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY
• 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
• EXGAY CALLG

RSIA: EXPAND 'GAY PROPAGANDA' BAN PROGRS TOWARD LAW

"When we showed gay people, " he says, "when we elevated the voic of gay people as part of the nversatn — and I say this as someone who is gay — we wanted to show the gay people as part of a fay, the gay people as part of a workplace, the gay people this se as part of a classroom.

The draft legislatn classifi displays of non-heterosexual relatns or orientatn as “rmatn harmful to children’s health and velopment” and provis that webs and other onle sourc hostg rmatn about lbian, gay, bisexual, and transgenr (LGBT) people n be blocked. “The 2013 ‘gay propaganda’ law was an unabashed example of polil homophobia, and the new draft legislatn amplifi that broar and harsher ways, ” said Tanya Loksha, associate Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

But even though the nversatns that muted this lumn for six weeks are nowhere close to beg over, I do feel like some thgs that me up durg that time of ntemplatn are worth sayg now — particularly to my fellow whe gay cis out more stori on LGBTQ+ ins and activistsHowever, the ghost of Larry Kramer very much remaed my own head as I ma my way through a Pri month unlike any other. I spent a few quiet afternoons readg his 1978 but novel Faggots, a satiril (yet clearly tobgraphil) look at the liv of gay men 1970s New York Cy that he wrote jt before AIDS ma him a figurehead of Amerin activism. Followg a man his late 30s (based on Kramer himself) who is seekg out a lovg, long-term relatnship a sea of hedonism, the novel has a clear msage: gay men need to start lovg each other stead of beg so obssed wh gettg fucked up and (lerally and figuratively) fuckg each other.

GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET

In mastream gay media, the phrase almost always refers to a fairly specific subset of the LGBTQ "muny" largely ma up of whe gay cis men — even though many of the battl won around queer rights were fought by people of lour, trans and genr-nonnformg folks, and queer women, and fact the morn Pri movement self was large part iated by Black trans women. If an imprsn of a monolhic "gay culture" fed by such a homogeneo mographic exists, is bee whe gay cis men have until very recently domated mastream reprentatn unr the LGBTQ umbrella and have, general, been hand a level of privilege the last that is wildly disproportnate to any other mographic unr said umbrella.

In analyzg the show's pictn of young gay men livg San Francis, wrer Daniel Wenger diagnos what he terms the "new gay sadns": an entire generatn of urban, privileged gay men who seem to have no clue what they're lookg for or who they are. Largely born the 1980s, they are the earlit wave of a "post-Stonewall, post-plague, post-activist" generatn of gays — "too old to have brought a boy to the prom and too young to have nursed a fantasy of nng away to an urban gay utopia, " Wenger explas. Queeri5 pneerg LGBTQ Canadian films you n watch for ee right nowI've seen many of my fellow whe gay cis men seemgly rise to the ocsn by retweetg Black and Indigeno voic, gog to ralli and vowg to te themselv on how to tly be anti-racist (though how performative that is some s is unclear).

Rettg "gay culture" will require fightg back agast entrenched social prsur and expectatns of gay cis men — and llg them out when they perpetuate, even passively, any form of discrimatory dialogue. Petersburg and Mosw have been marked by state vlence and arrts, while an crease the number of attacks on LGBTQ people throughout Rsia—both by dividuals and by anized homophobic groups—creased after the 2013 law, acrdg to a 2014 report published by Human Rights Watch. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights led that Rsia’s “gay propaganda law” was discrimatory, promoted homophobia, and vlated the European Conventn on Human Rights and that “served no legimate public tert.

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

A rash of laws ncerng the teachg of human sexualy school curricula, banng trans stunt athlet and strippg parents of the right to help their genr-variant children obta appropriate re have popped up numero red stat this same-sex marriage is now part of the fabric of Ameri, nservativ have chosen to explo Amerins’ unfaiary wh trans people and piggyback on parental anger over the perceived overreach of Covid-era school closur, nflatg wh an sid sense of “wokens”, the hop of fdg an electorally viable sluiceway for anti-LGBTQ+ most famo of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws is the piece of Florida legislatn banng stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty schools between krgarten and third gra, the so-lled “don’t say gay” law. The ernor and his supporters have labeled as a “groomer” anyone who believ children n learn LGBTQ+ people exist, argug that simply by talkg about gay relatnships to a child, you are sexualizg that child. He was followed by Arizona’s ernor, Doug Ducey, who, after barrg mors om genr-affirmatn treatment, wouldn’t even state for the rerd that trans people were Florida lawmaker Michele Rayner-Goolsby, left, hugs her wife, Bian Goolsby, durg a march at cy hall St Petersburg agast the ‘don’t say gay’ bill.

Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Wire/Rex/ShutterstockPolicians are supported the media by mentators like Tucker Carlson, who claimed “no one had heard of this trans thg four years ago”, or Charlie Kirk, channelg 1980s fears sayg “gays want to rpt your children” rejuvenated, the right wg is poised to make transphobia and homophobia rnerston of the midterms and 2024 electns, wh promis to liver “don’t say gay” legislatn stat cludg Michigan and New Perks, the print of the Fay Rearch Council, a nservative lobbyg group, veighed agast the ernors of Indiana and Utah for vetog legislatn banng trans women om participatg sports, llg the bills “timely, mastream protectns”. The Republin US reprentative Marjorie Taylor Greene vowed to troduce a feral “don’t say gay” bill if Republins w the Hoe this November, only to one-up herself days later by tweetg that for people to be pro-trans is to be pro-pedophilia.

”The bs-iendly wg of the GOP that would quietly team up wh Democrats to scuttle rabidly homophobic bills is now outnumbered, and legislators a dozen or more stat that lean even farther to the right than DeSantis are takg, the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights legal director, believ Florida is the tt se for a renewed ph for an aggrsive, Christian-natnalist program.

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

”The “don’t say gay” bill, Mter not, is very siar to what’s been passed Rsia, tetherg Amerin nservativ to their thorarian unterparts who have succsfully rolled back mocratic norms across eastern Europe.

HOW THE MEDIA HAS HELPED CHANGE PUBLIC VIEWS ABOUT LBIAN AND GAY PEOPLE

“I’ve seen this movie before over the last 30 years: The right wg cid to target the LGBTQ muny, whether ’s around marriage or adoptn or trans kids playg sports or bathrooms, ” says the California state senator Stt Wiener, who is gay. “I thought was really important to ph back on the policy level, and to send a clear signal that California and other stat really re about the kids, ” he believ that “don’t say gay” is “patently unnstutnal” but also ntends that relyg on the judicial system to protect human rights may no longer be a sound optn. Increas reprentatns of gay people news, televisn, and movi started the 1990s – promently exemplified by Ellen DeGener’s g out on mastream Amerin televisn her portrayal of Ellen Men the ABC-s, Ellen.

Portrayals of lbian women and gay men have ntued to crease over the two s sce they were featured popular shows like Will and Grace and Morn Fay; and the portrayals have and recently spread to shows for teenage dienc such as Glee and Teen Wolf. In an creasgly ternnected world, we hypothize that effects om virtual ntacts through media exposure to portrayals of lbian women and gay men should hold cross-natnally, pendg on the natnal media outlets willgns to transm portrayals. However imperfect media portrayals of gay people may be – and however poor a substute for personal ntacts – the media do troduce new bat and new am of reference about homosexualy across multiple domtic ntexts.

US WHE SUPREMACISTS FOUND GUILTY OF GAY PRI RT PLOT

Another route for change may have occurred as new media portrayals creased the terpersonal visibily of gay and lbian people and the likelihood that they would e out and openly reveal their inti to iends, neighbors, and -workers. The takeaway of our rearch is that as the liberalizatn of attus towards gays and lbians has occurred many untri across the globe sce the 1980s, change has been enuraged part by munitns climat – wh and across natns – that allow for the ee transmissn of mory viewpots. Image source, North Country Off Grid/Youtube/via RtersImage ptn, Photos shared on social at the time allegedly showed dozens of the hate group's members beg arrted near the pri eventFive members of a whe supremacist hate group nvicted of plottg to rt at a gay pri event will spend three days jail, a urt has men and dozens other members of the Patrt Front group were arrted last June after a rint spotted them wh masks and shields gettg to a were lled and found rt gear and a smoke grena the lorry was stopped near where the North Idaho Pri Alliance was holdg an event the cy of Cor d'Alene.

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.

'WE'RE NOT HIDG': GAY AND LBIAN RSIANS SAY A CULTURAL SHIFT IS UNRWAY

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.

18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA

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.

EXGAY CALLG

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. 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. 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.