Christian “Family” Group Head Brands The New Civil Rights Movement A “Homosexual Hate Group”
Today I wrote about Buster Wilson, the General Manager of the American Family Association’s American Family Radio — the home of Bryan Fischer, the public face of AFA, a certified anti-gay hate group. Wilson claimed that there are people who want to marry their cars, dogs, and buildings, and for that reason the Christian view of traditional marriage must be observed. He also claimed AFA is not homophobic, despite employing and broadcasting Bryan Fischer, who has called for the criminalization of homosexuality and called gays “Nazis,” among other things.
Wilson found my post rather quickly and wrote on his blog a piece titled, “And yet again, they demonstrate their ignorance……or, is it their deception?”
Wilson writes, “Another homosexual hate group has taken my comments and written about them.”
I’ll take that as a compliment!
He adds a stern warning:
“I warn you FIRST, if you go to this site, there are extremely Offensive pictures there. Be careful. Don’t let your little ones see this!”
See, the capitalization of the letter “O” in “Offensive” means the pictures here are really offensive.
No, you wouldn’t want your “little ones” to see a picture of two men, sans their shirts, kissing. Because that’s offensive?
Rather, it’s OK for hate-peddlers like Wilson and Bryan Fischer to host an entire radio station that reaches millions of Americans across 40+ states via 180+ radio stations, broadcasting anti-gay, anti-Islam filth and lies and hate during the daytime, when the “little ones” are home — or, in many cases, given their audience, home-schooled.
American Family Radio, owned by the American Family Association, indeed hosts Bryan Fischer, who has routinely called gays “Nazis,†claimed that Hitler’s Brownshirts — and Hitler himself — were all gay “thugs†and good at what they did because they were gay, claimed that gays cannot be monogamous or maintain relationships, said gays are a threat to national security and to public health, said the “homosexual agenda†is incompatible with religion, called for putting gays in jail, called “the gay lifestyle†a “death style,†called gays “bigots†who commit hate crimes, and said the repeal of DADT will lead to a draft. That’s not everything, just from October to June. Yes, Fischer has said all that over the course of about four months.
So, that, apparently, is an example of “family values,” on a Christian “pro-family” radio network, but a photo — which happens to be an ad for an HIV/AIDS research study, which you can currently see in the top left corner of this site, is “offensive.”
I’m not sure what’s really in Wilson’s mind, so I can’t think what else he might have found offensive, but I’ll tell you this: our content versus his? Anyone in their right mind would find Bryan Fischer’s anti-gay, anti-Muslim hatred far more offensive than anything published here.
Wilson writes that “the reality TV shows, Taboo and Forbidden Loves had those on who talked about their deep desires to marry their ‘LOVES’ (ei: a building for one, a car for another….). The push to do away with traditional marriage REQUIRES US to accept that one should be allowed to marry whomever or whatever he or she wants. It’s all about the ‘love’, they tell us. If we love each other……and that’s the rub for these homosexual writers. They say that my arguement is faulty because a building or a car can’t love someone back. True, but that small fact isn’t keeping those who ‘love’ those objects from wanting to “marry†them, and they use the EXACT SAME LANGUAGE AND REASONING THAT THE HOMOSEXUAL, GAY RIGHTS ADVOCATES USE!”
Um, no.
What if fact we argue is that these people who, for whatever reason, supposedly love their buildings, cars, dogs, etc., cannot ever marry them because marriage is a legal contract and for the contract to be legal both parties must be able to consent to it.
If you’re not human you cannot consent. Period.
So, Mr. Wilson, get your facts straight.
And, seriously, are you really worried that a rash of people are going to start falling in love with animals and inanimate objects if gay marriage is legal? I’m sure, regardless of the law, people fall in love, and law has nothing to do with it.
By the way, any cases of someone claiming to love and want to marry an animal or inanimate object that I’ve seen — albeit, I have seen a very few — were heterosexual love. A man wanting to marry a “female” car, for instance.
Here’s an invitation: Debate me, Mr. Wilson, here, on the site, on how legalizing same-sex marriage will lead to people marrying their pets, cars, boats, trailers, or buildings.
Let’s put this to rest once and for all.
And, one last thing: Tell Bryan Fischer to seek mental help.
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The Department of Justice celebrated World AIDS Day by calling out a Tennessee law that discriminates against people with HIV.
The DOJ released a report Friday that the state’s aggravated prostitution law violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. A person arrested under the aggravated prostitution law is normally changed with a misdemeanor, and faces up to six months in prison and a $500 fine. However, if the person arrested has HIV, the crime becomes a felony, and if they’re convicted, they would face between three and 15 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
“Tennessee’s aggravated prostitution law is outdated, has no basis in science, discourages testing and further marginalizes people living with HIV,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “People living with HIV should not be treated as violent sex offenders for the rest of their lives solely because of their HIV status. The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that people with disabilities are protected from discrimination.”
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The law was originally passed in 1991. It classifies HIV-positive sex workers as violent sex offenders, according to WKRN-TV. This means that in addition to the sentence, those convicted are put on the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry, usually for the rest of their lives.
The DOJ advised the state—and particularly, the Shelby County District Attorney’s Office, which enforces the statute most frequently, the department says—to stop enforcing the law. It also calls on the state to repeal the law and remove anyone from the registry when aggravated prostitution is the only offense. If this doesn’t happen, Tennessee could face a lawsuit.
Tennessee isn’t the only state to have laws applying to only those living with HIV. In 1988, Michigan passed a law requiring those with HIV to disclose their status before sex, according to WLNS-TV. The law is still on the books, but was updated in 2019 to lift the requirement if the HIV-positive person has an undetectable viral load. The law now also requires proof that the person set out to transmit HIV.
Laws like these can work against public health efforts, according to the National Institutes of Health. The NIH says these types of laws can make people less likely to be tested for HIV, as people cannot be punished if they didn’t know their status. In addition, critics say, the laws can be used to further discriminate. A Canadian study found a disproportionate number of Black men had been charged under HIV exposure laws.
World AIDS Day was first launched in 1988 by the World Health Organization and the United Nations to highlight awareness of the then-relatively new disease. The theme of the 2023 World AIDS Day is “Let Communities Lead,” calling on community leaders to end the AIDS epidemic.
Featured image by UNIS Vienna/Flickr via Creative Commons License.
Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) called Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) a “senator for Egypt,” and said he needed to be expelled from Congress, much like the now-former Representative George Santos.
Fetterman appeared on The View on Friday. The live broadcast aired as Santos had been kicked out of the House. When host Joy Behar asked what he thought of the vote, Fetterman immediately replied, “I’m not surprised.”
“If you are going to expel Santos, how can you allow somebody like Menendez to remain in the Senate? And, you know, Santos’ kind of lies were almost, you know, funny,” Fetterman said. “Menendez, I think is really a senator for Egypt, you know, not New Jersey. So I really think he needs to go.”
Host Sunny Hostin then asked if Fetterman was uncomfortable with expelling Menendez, as, like with Santos, he had only been indicted, not convicted.
“He has the right for his day in court and all of it, but he doesn’t have the right to to have those kinds of votes and things. That’s not a right,” he said. “I think we need to make that kind of decision to send him out.”
This September, Menendez was indicted on corruption charges. He is accused of accepting bribes of cash, gold and a car, as well as giving “highly sensitive” information about U.S. Embassy staffers in Cairo to the Egyptian government, according to USA Today. Menendez was forced to step down as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was replaced by Ben Cardin, Maryland’s Democratic senator.
Menendez denied wrongdoing, and has refused to resign, despite many calls to do so from both Democrats and Republicans.
“For years, forces behind the scenes have repeatedly attempted to silence my voice and dig my political grave,” Menendez said in a statement following his indictment. “Since this investigation was leaked nearly a year ago, there has been an active smear campaign of anonymous sources and innuendos to create an air of impropriety where none exists.”
This is not Menendez’s first brush with the law. Menendez was indicted in 2015 on federal corruption charges. He was accused of helping Salomon Melgen, one of Menendez’s campaign contributors, by intervening in a dispute with federal regulators and helping Melgen get a port security contract in the Dominican Republic.
In 2017, Menendez’s trial ended with a hung jury, and the Department of Justice declined to retry the case, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Menendez denied all wrongdoing.
Representative George Santos (R-NY) has been expelled from Congress following a 311-114 vote; two House members voted “present.”
The expulsion of Santos follows a debate on his fate on Thursday. The vote required a two-thirds majority, or 290 of the 435-seat chamber. This is Santos’ third vote of expulsion; last month, a vote failed with 31 Democrats voting against, according to The Hill.
While the vote was decisive, some notable Republicans voted to save Santos, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN).
“We’ve not whipped the vote and we wouldn’t,” Johnson told CNN Wednesday. “I trust that people will make that decision thoughtfully and in good faith. I personally have real reservations about doing this, I’m concerned about a precedent that may be set for that.”
READ MORE: ‘If I Leave They Win’: Santos Claims ‘Bullying’ at Off the Rails Press Conference
Santos himself had harsh words for the House following the vote. Leaving the capitol building, he briefly spoke with reporters.
“The House spoke that’s their vote. They just set new dangerous precedent for themselves,” he told CNN. “Why would I want to stay here? To hell with this place.”
He then cut his time short, telling reporters, “You know what? As unofficially no longer a member of Congress, I no longer have to answer your questions.”
Santos also faces 23 federal charges, which include fraud, money laundering and misuse of campaign funds, according to CNN. He has pleaded not guilty. An Ethics Committee report found evidence that Santos used campaign funds for Botox and even an OnlyFans account.
On Thursday, Santos said he refused to resign because otherwise, “they win.”
“If I leave the bullies take place. This is bullying,” Santos said. “The reality of it is it’s all theater, theater for the cameras and theater for the microphones. Theater for the American people at the expense of the American people because no real work’s getting done.”
Santos also threatened to file a resolution to expel Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY). Bowman pulled a fire alarm in September. Bowman pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge, and said it was an accident. He said he thought the fire alarm would open a locked door as he rushed to a vote. Bowman paid a $1,000 fine.
There have only been six total expulsions from the House, including Santos. Santos is the only Republican to ever be expelled from the House.
The previous expulsion was in 2002, when Representative James Traficant (D-OH) was expelled after a 420-1 vote. Traficant had been convicted on 10 counts of corruption-related crimes.
Before Traficant, Representative Michael “Ozzie” Myers (D-PA) was the first representative of the modern era to be expelled. Myers got the boot following his conviction for accepting bribes. Myers couldn’t keep out of trouble; in 2022, he was convicted and sentenced to 30 months in prison on charges of election fraud.
Prior to Myers, the only expulsions from the House were in 1861, at the start of the Civil War. Henry Cornelius Burnett (D-KY), John William Reid (D-MO) and John Bullock Clark (Whig-MO) were all expelled for joining the Confederacy.
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