Connect with us

Anti-Gay Hate Groups Are ‘Simply Fighting For Their Values’ Says Family Research Council

Published

on

Family Research Council Teaming Up With Catholic League To Wage War On Southern Poverty Law Center And Gays

Since 2010 the Family Research Council has been included on the Southern Poverty Law Center‘s list of active anti-gay hate groups. The Family Research Council doesn’t particularly care for that designation. They erroneously blame the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” label for a shooting last year at their Washington, D.C. headquarters which left a guard/maintenance worker wounded in the arm. But that lone attack does not make the label of anti-gay hate group any less appropriate.

It is extremely appropriate.

LOOK: How Does The Discovery Channel Feel About Being Used By A Certified Hate Group?

Contrary to what the Family Research Council and other anti-gay hate groups like the American Family Association will tell you, the Southern Poverty Law Center doesn’t call them hate groups over a difference of opinion on social issues. The Southern Poverty Law Center labels these groups anti-gay hate groups because they have demonstrated over time a pattern of lying about gay people.

skitched-20130807-154246

Image of Family Research Council headquarters staff supporting last year’s anti-gay “Eat At Chick-fil-A Day,” posted to their Facebook page

Case in point:

“Our principal concern is not with people who experience involuntarily same-sex attractions as much as it is with engaging in homosexual conduct, which we believe is harmful to the people who engage in it and to society at large.”

[Bolding ours]

That was the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg, on Tuesday, filling in for FRC President Tony Perkins on his daily radio show. (You can listen to it, and read Jeremy Hooper’s response over at Good As You, or listen to it and read Zack Ford’s response over at Think Progress.)

But to be fair to Sprigg, that rhetoric isn’t really representative of his comments about gay people. Usually, his words are filled with much more anti-gay hate.

Case in point:

February 3, 2010, on MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews:

Matthews: Let me ask you Peter, so you think people choose to be gay.

Sprigg: People do not choose to be have same sex attractions, but they do choose to engage in homosexual conduct. And that conduct also which incidentally is against the law within the military. It violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It doesn’t make any sense for us to be actively recruiting people who are going to violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Matthews: Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior?

Sprigg: Well I think certainly…

Matthews: I’m just asking you, should we outlaw gay behavior?

Sprigg: I think that the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided. I think there would be a place for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.

Matthews: So we should outlaw gay behavior?

Sprigg: Yes.

skitched-20130807-153940Image posted by the Family Research Council to their Facebook page

Now, enter CNS News, a project of anti-gay extremist and Fox News contributor Brent Bozell III. Bozell III’s claim to fame includes his father — who in 1954 co-authored the book McCarthy and His Enemies, which defended the disgraced Senator Joe McCarthy, and which the New York Times called “a bald, dedicated apologia for ‘McCarthyism.'” Bozell III’s other claim to fame is his group of anti-left watchdog websites which are expert at twisting truth and logic into pretzels. And Bozell happens to sit on the Board of the Catholic League — more on that later.

LOOK: If Anyone Needs ENDA It’s Conservative Christians, Not Gays, Says Tony Perkins

Bozell’s CNS News Tuesday, in an interview with Southern Poverty Law Center co-founder Morris Dees, wrote that FRC shooter Floyd Lee Corkins “attempted a mass shooting on Aug. 15, 2012, opening fire at the Family Research Council and  wounding Security Guard Leo Johnson.”

Armed with more than 95 rounds of ammunition and 15 Chick-fil-a sandwiches, Corkins told the FBI that he chose the FRC as his first target after looking at a list of “anti-gay” groups on the SPLC’s website.

CNSNews.com questioned Dees about the Hate Map when he was in Washington, D.C.,  last week, asking whether his group has ever considered removing the FRC since the revelation from Corkins,” the gunman who shot the FRC guard.

“Well, first of all, having a group on our Hate Map doesn’t cause anybody to attack them anymore than they attacked us for one thing or another,” Dees said.  “This group that says gay people—statements attributed to their people said that gay people caused the Holocaust.  Demonstrably false things they say about gay people.

“It’s not on our Hate Map because they’re against gay people—and many, the Catholic Church is against people who are gay, so as others—it’s because of the demonstrably false things they say about people that are just total lies that demean gay people, they cause people to attack gay people,” he said.

“They claim that somebody attacks them because they say hateful things, think about how many gay people get bashed because these people say that gay men are pedophiles, which is demonstrably false,” Dees said.

Now, enter the infamous Bill Donohue, head of the (pretty much) one-man show, the Catholic League.

“In a statement to CNSNews.com, the Catholic League took umbrage with Dees’s remarks,” CNS writes:

“Morris Dees is a man in search of people and institutions to hate,” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, said.  “Branding the Family Research Council a hate group is not only irresponsible, it trivializes the status of hate-ridden groups that have claimed real victims.”

“Now Dees is casting the Catholic Church as the enemy by misstating its teachings,” he said.  “Nothing the Catholic Church has ever said about the moral status of homosexuals—which is as irrelevant as the moral status of heterosexuals—could possibly be construed as hateful.”

“Quite frankly, no amount of remedial education can help someone who can’t tell the difference between sexual orientation and sexual behavior,” Donohue said.

“Stupid or malicious, either way the guy [Dees] is a disgrace,” he said.

And now back to the Family Research Council.

LOOK: Nothing Catholic Church Has Said About Gays ‘Could Possibly Be Construed As Hateful’ Says Donohue

“Our team is still dealing with the fallout of the attack, that was intended to have a chilling effect on organizations that are simply fighting for their values,” FRC Executive Vice President Genneral Jerry Boykin (ret.) told CNSNews.com:

“We are very disturbed that the Southern Poverty Law Center is now expanding its reckless attacks against the Catholic Church,” said Boykin.  “The SPLC has made false and inaccurate claims against the Family Research Council for years.   The SPLC should fact check their own statements before making reckless accusations.”

“Hate labeling is dangerous enough but outright misrepresentation of the facts further increases the likelihood of an attack on an organization similar to FRC,” said the general.

“Simply fighting for their values”? Really?

It is shocking that int his day and age, with Google and YouTube, the Family Research Council actually thinks they are not an anti-gay hate group.

Because their “values” and their words make it quite clear they are.

And those who surround themselves with hate group leaders should remember the old adage about “the company you keep…”

Photo by marcorubiofla

Via an image posted by the Family Research Council to their Facebook page

 

Image, top, via Family Research Council on Facebook
Related:

Guns Vs. Gays: Tony Perkins’ Extremely Dangerous Hypocrisy

Tony Perkins: Straight Felon Arrested During Seattle Pride Is A ‘Homosexual Activist’

Morally Straight? Hate Group Publishes Anti-Gay Ad Urging Boy Scouts To Vote Against Equality

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Click to comment
 
 

Enjoy this piece?

… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.

NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.

Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.

FASCISM

‘Just Shoot Them’: Trump Told Top US General to ‘Crack Skulls’ and ‘Beat the F’ Out of Civil Rights Protestors: New Book

Published

8 hours ago

on

June 24, 2021

By

President Donald Trump told America’s highest-ranking general and top law enforcement officials to “shoot” civil rights protestors in Seattle and Portland, “crack their skulls,” and “beat the f–k” out of them, according to a new book by a Wall Street Journal reporter.

“The President would highlight videos that showed law enforcement getting physical with protesters and tell his administration he wanted to see more of that behavior,” CNN reports, citing excerpts from Michael Bender’s book, “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost.”

“That’s how you’re supposed to handle these people,” Trump told his top law enforcement and military officials, according to Bender. “Crack their skulls!”

Trump also told his team that he wanted the military to go in and “beat the f–k out” of the civil rights protesters, Bender writes.

“Just shoot them,” Trump said on multiple occasions inside the Oval Office, according to the excerpts.

But Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley (photo, right) refused, Bender reveals, with Milley and Attorney General Bill Barr often finding themselves the only ones willing to push back against the president.

General Milley, who made headlines Wednesday after delivering a stunning lecture on critical race theory and “wokeness” to U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who was not pleased by it, also pushed back against Trump senior advisor, white supremacist Stephen Miller.

During one Oval Office debate, senior Trump adviser Stephen Miller chimed in, equating the scenes unfolding on his television to those in a third-world country and claiming major American cities had been turned into war zones.

“These cities are burning,” Miller warned, according to the excerpts.

The comment infuriated Milley, who viewed Miller as not only wrong but out of his lane, Bender writes, noting the Army general who had commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan spun around in his seat and pointed a finger directly at Miller.

“Shut the f–k up, Stephen,” Milley snapped, according to the excerpts.

Read the entire report at CNN.

 

Image of President Trump and General Milley: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead via Flickr

Continue Reading

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO COMPETENCY?

‘No Time to Waste’: DeSantis Blasted for Going on Fox News as Biden and Miami Mayor Urge Him to Request State of Emergency

Published

10 hours ago

on

June 24, 2021

By

Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis is taking time to pose for the cameras and talk to Fox News in the wake of the stunning partial building collapse that more than 12 hours later has left 99 people missing, and feared dead.

DeSantis reportedly added an interview with far right Fox News host Mark Levin to his calendar for Thursday.

President Joe Biden during a news conference announcing a bipartisan agreement on, appropriately, an infrastructure bill on-camera Thursday afternoon urged the Florida Republican governor to ask for a declaration of a state of emergency, but DeSantis has yet to do so – nor has he declared a state of emergency himself for the Surfside disaster. President Biden appears to have ordered FEMA to Florida to assess the situation, which is the most they are allowed to do until the governor acts.

Also urging DeSantis to request a state of emergency declaration is Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, who says “there is no time to waste.”

Apparently DeSantis believes there is, and many are blasting the likely 2024 GOP presidential hopeful.

Continue Reading

NOT AN EXPERT

Watch: MSNBC’s Joy Reid Takes Down Architect of the Critical Race Theory Culture War in Epic Debate

Published

14 hours ago

on

June 24, 2021

By

MSNBC host Joy Reid took on Christopher Rufo, the think-tank “scholar” who claimed to be an expert on race because he works as a “scholar” at a conservative think tank. Speaking Wednesday, Reid got him to confess that he’s neither an expert in race nor in law, which is where the idea of critical race theory is generally taught.

Rufo claimed that Reid was attacking him on air, which she corrected, saying that she was doing nothing more than reading the quote from his own documents.

Reid began by asking at what point “critical race theory” was invented, and he didn’t know, saying sometime in the 1980s or 1990s. Reid cited the Harvard University paper in which it was first mentioned in 1981 by Professor Derrick Bell, who died in 2011.

She cited Rufo’s “documentary” on critical race theory that cites professors or professorial types who he admits are academics who he claims are replacing equality with equity, which is a conservative charge Reid said she’s been hearing since she was in high school. “To ending individual property rights and even to committing reverse genocide or calling for reverse genocide.”

Rufo said that it wasn’t true, which is when Reid said she would play the clip if Rufo allowed her to do it, but he wouldn’t. He said that the term is counter genocide, a genocide perpetrated in retaliation to another genocide.

Rufo claims in his talking points that the father of critical race theory was Ibram X. Kendi, who told Reid that he wasn’t a critical race theorist.

“I admire critical race theory but I don’t identify as a critical race theorist. I’m not a legal scholar, so I wasn’t trained on critical race theory,” Kendi said. “I’m a historian and Chris would know that if he actually read my work or understood that critical race theory is taught in law schools. I didn’t attend law school.”

Rufo began to complain that Reid was citing things and not letting him answer, but she explained she wanted to go through her list of disputes.

Rufo claimed that he wasn’t a political operative, but Reid rolled a video of Rufo speaking at the Claremont Institute on May 18 in which he called critical race theory a political “cudgel,” meaning a giant political weapon. He went on to supplement his point by quoting Barbara Applebaum, who he said was a critical race theorist. She’s, in fact, listed as being trained in philosophy and education and “her research is heavily influenced by feminist ethics, feminist philosophy, and critical race theory.”

He also quoted American author Robin DiAngelo who did her thesis on whiteness in racial dialogues. She also is an education professor, not a critical theorist, according to her website.

“There are these very pathetic and very angry graduate students who try to fight me on these highly technical haggle interpretations,” said Rufo. “I don’t have time for this. Like I don’t give a sh*t.”

Reid noted that there again explains that critical race theory isn’t something being taught in kindergarten, it’s a graduate-level conversation among academics.

His argument fell apart from there.

See the videos below:

 

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2020 AlterNet Media.