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

Contents:

• GROUPS OPPOSED TO GAY RIGHTS RAKE LNS AS STAT BATE ANTI-LGBTQ BILLS
• BT AND WORST STAT FOR LGBTQ FOLKS? DIVI WORSENS AFTER 'DON'T SAY GAY,' REPORT SAYS
• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• 18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA
• CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS COULD REMOVE IT NEXT YEAR

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

Jt as stat followed Florida’s bill that opponents labeled “Don’t Say Gay” — which rtricts -school discsns about sexual orientatn or genr inty — several joed Tennsee proposg bills that would ban drag performanc. Then me the trans sports bans and trans medil re Well, when to the so-lled don't say gay bills - the on that al wh classroom stctn - they've been amed by supporters, like, around parental rights. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)ANITA BRYANT: Jt blogilly - that God ma mothers so that we uld reproduce - homosexuals nnot reproduce blogilly, but they have to reproduce by recg our And that throwback smear - the obvly false claim that LGBTQ people are predators or pedophil - that's gaed tractn as the bills advance.

LONGWELL: I got married to my wife 2013, we had kids, and those fights that I was so engaged the early 2000s, all the way up to the Supreme Court makg the cisn to legalize gay marriage - they had started to bee kd of a Longwell told me, I thought we were past as a untry.

2% OF AMERICANS IDENTIFY AS LGBTQ:Gen Z is drivg force among adults intifyg as LGBTQ, poll showsTRANSGENDER DAY OF VISIBILITY:See terview wh MAP's Logan Casey here Here are the eight ways that MAP says LGBTQ people are beg targeted:Censorg discsns of LGBTQ people schoolsThe origal “don’t say gay/trans bills” surfaced the 1980s, MAP says, but stat began to repeal those laws the mid-2000s – until last year. Among those exampl are a parison of same-sex marriage to a marriage between “a man and his horse”; llg the “It Gets Better” project, an iative signed to help LGBTQ young people pe wh bullyg and margalizatn, “disgtg” and a “ncerted effort” to rec kids to the gay “liftyle”; and claimg that the “blood” of “young Mar” would be on the hands of lawmakers who voted to repeal the ary’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” Fay Rearch Council did not rpond to a requt for ment.

BT AND WORST STAT FOR LGBTQ FOLKS? DIVI WORSENS AFTER 'DON'T SAY GAY,' REPORT SAYS

Another “anti-LGBTQ hate group” named the report is the Alliance Defendg Freedom, a nservative Christian legal group wh attorneys across the untry and a long track rerd of ligatg agast LGBTQ a lawsu that ma natnal headl last year, ADF reprented Jack Phillips, a Christian baker who refed to make a ke for a gay weddg, a narrow victory at the Supreme Court. Acrdg to Ta Fetner, a soclogy profsor at Canada’s McMaster Universy, anti-LGBTQ activists began anizatn “not too long after Stonewall, ” the 1969 uprisg at the Stonewall Inn, a New York Cy gay bar. “Along the same l that you see today, they put forward stereotyp and vilify, pecially gay men, as predators and predators of children, and e that to jtify the tactics of takg rights way om LGBTQ people, ” Fetner ced as an early example the activism of Ana Bryant Florida.

The sger-turned-anti-gay-activist was behd the “Save Our Children” mpaign, which 1977 helped overturn a newly passed lol ordance Miami-Da County that prohibed discrimatn based on sexual orientatn employment, hog and public servic. Reached a tippg pot for acceptance of homosexualy, acrdg to a Pew study, and by 2016, LGBTQ advot had solidified many civil rights gas, such as the legalizatn of same-sex are we seeg a surge?

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

“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. Alabama’s laws go a b further than most: The state’s sex tn program mandat that “class mt emphasize, a factual manner and om a public health perspective, that homosexualy is not a liftyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual nduct is a crimal offense unr the laws of the state.

” Then aga, he’s hardly the bt thory when to matters of health, as Perry recently pared homosexualy to alholism: “I may have the geic dg that I’m cled to be an alholic, but I have the sire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way. This wave of anti-LGBT vlence is part of the reason why Detro was named the most dangero cy the natn for gay travelers, and the survey also ced the metro area’s dwdlg number of gay bars and high poverty rate.

''Florida, Montana among worst for LGBTQ muny The x ranked stat acrdg to five areas: work environment, legal protectns, youth and fay support, health accs and safety, and polil and relig at the top tend to get more clive over the past year, while their lower-ranked peers beme ls tolerant or didn't move om where they were 'T SAY GAY LAWS SPARK FEAR:If they 'say gay, ' will my child be safe? 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.

18 ANTI-GAY GROUPS AND THEIR PROPAGANDA

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”.

CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS COULD REMOVE IT NEXT YEAR

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. ”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.