By Tim Lilienthal, Bank Accountability Campaign Coordinator for PICO National Network,
Last summer, Ray Mercado and his wife began to struggle to keep up with their mortgage payments on their home in Orlando, Florida. Like responsible homeowners, they reached out to their bank, J.P. Morgan Chase. Ray – a disabled veteran – estimates that he has spoken to 37 different bank representatives in his quest to get help. A barrier to negotiating an affordable payment: their home is worth $100,000 less than what they bought it for just four years ago.
Ray’s story is all too common. Since 2006, the nation’s largest Wall Street banks have foreclosed on over 10 million homes across the United States, according to Realty Trac. Many of these foreclosed homeowners received a mortgage modification and yet lost their home anyway. Why? Because most modifications only reduce interest, not the principal, and so the modified payment is oftentimes still unaffordable. READ FULL POST
Megan Haberle, The Opportunity Agenda,
While the subprime mortgage rupture and the foreclosure crisis have been making headlines for several years now, steep and unequal barriers to sustainable lending have characterized the housing landscape for decades. Minority and low-income communities were targeted by predatory lenders against the backdrop of a dual credit market in which affordable, sustainable loans were out of reach for many qualified prospective homeowners. In the wake of the subprime collapse, the details of those predatory practices finally came into public view. With the support of civil rights advocates, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, aiming in part to reform lending practices. Despite the important consumer protections advanced by Dodd-Frank, however, the movement towards fair and sustainable credit remains incomplete: the legislation created a framework for more robust, focused consumer protections and restraints on lenders, but did not address fundamental issues in the secondary market. The window of debate over a successor structure to the government-sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (known as the GSEs) provides an opportunity for policymakers to ensure that all Americans can participate in the market on fair terms. READ FULL POST
The New York State Senate’s vote to legalize marriage for all people (though dogs could very well be next, followed by dog-human marriage) has disastrous consequences for our world, our country, our state and especially New York City, which will now be flooded with guys. I saw that first hand when gays rushed from who knows where into New York’s Greenwich Village, converting it into a total gayborhood. Here is the celebration I caught with my very fancy camera and sophisticated shooting style (a flip camera I was too excited to hold very still for more than a second). But that’s not all! In all seriousness (please allow me to not be the funniest, most hilarious person in the world for a few seconds) as I was “filming,” I said to my friend, “I just need a moving and appropriate song to set this footage to*.” She suggested YMCA but I rejected the song as being much more grating and annoying than moving and appealing. (In all fairness, Village People, there’s no need to feel down for not making a more moving song and neglecting to think of future generations. I was once in your shoes and I know that all of your creative energies and juices went into the intricate choreography of the YMCA dance) The next morning I learned that masterful jockey of the discs, Marc Faletti, had made a perfect mash-up, which he generously allowed me to use. It keeps the great lyrics of the disco hit and removes the terrible disco hit music. So without further ado, here is the music video for More than a YMCA or It’s Fun to Stay at the More than a Feeling
*I end sentences with prepositions only when talking, literally, on the street.
By Lisa Rice, Vice President, National Fair Housing Alliance,
Whether or not one believes that the Qualified Residential Mortgage (QRM) should be narrowly defined or more broadly construed is an important question to resolve. However, a key concern of the civil rights community is that no matter whether QRM risk retention represents a very narrow space so that the standard mortgage falls outside the scope of QRM or whether QRM represents a more broad space which would encompass the standard mortgage – the criteria for determining risk retention should not be based on something that is so closely connected to the race of the borrower.
The discovery that many people with life problems or occasional bad moods would willingly dose themselves with antidepressants sailed the drug industry through the 2000s. A good chunk of the $4.5 billion a year direct-to-consumer advertising has been devoted to convincing people they don’t have problems with their job, the economy and their family, they have depression. Especially because depression can’t be diagnosed from a blood test.
Unfortunately, three things dried up the depression gravy train for the drug industry. Blockbusters went off patent and generics took off, antidepressants were linked with gory and unpredictable violence, especially in young users and — they didn’t even work, according to medical articles!
That’s when the drug industry began debuting the concept of “treatment resistant depression.” It wasn’t that their drugs didn’t work (or you didn’t have depression in the first place), you had “treatment resistant depression.” Your first expensive and dangerous drug needed to be coupled with more expensive and dangerous drugs because monotherapy, one drug alone, wasn’t doing the trick!
You’ve got to admire the drug industry’s audacity with this upsell strategy. Adding drugs to your treatment resistant depression triples its take, patients don’t know which drug is working so they’ll take all of them and the defective drugs are exonerated! (Because the problem is you.)
Now the drug industry has a new whisper campaign to keep the antidepressant boat afloat. Your depression is “progressive.”
Once upon a time, when depression was neither seasonal, atypical, bipolar or treatment resistant, it was considered to be a self-limiting disease. In fact, just about the only good thing you could say about depression was it wouldn’t last forever.
But now, the drug industry is giving depression the don’t-wait scare treatment like coronary events (statins), asthma attacks (”controller” drugs) and thinning bones (Sally Field). If you don’t hurry and take medication, your depression will get worse!
“Depressive episodes become more easily triggered over time,” floats an article on the physician Web site Medscape (flanked by ads for the antidepressant Pristiq.) “As the number of major depressive episodes increase, the risk for subsequent episodes is predicted more from the number of prior episodes and less from the occurrence of a recent life stress.” The article, unabashedly titled “Neurobiology of Depression: Major Depressive Disorder as a Progressive Illness,” is written by Vladimir Maletic who happens to have served on Eli Lilly’s Speaker’s Bureau, says the disclosure information, and whose co-authors are each employees and/or Lilly shareholders.
On WebMD, a sister site to Medscape, the depression sell is even less subtle. An article called Recognizing the Symptoms of Depression, smothered with five ads for the Eli Lilly antidepressant, Cymbalta, submits, “Most of us know about the emotional symptoms of depression. But you may not know that depression can be associated with many physical symptoms, too.”
Depression may masquerade as headaches, insomnia, fatigue, backache, dizziness, lightheadedness or appetite problems mongers the article. “You might feel queasy or nauseous. You might have diarrhea or become chronically constipated.” And here, you thought it was something you ate!
The danger with these symptoms says the article is that you would fail to diagnose yourself as suffering from a psychiatric problem and buy an over-the-counter drug like a normal person. “Because these symptoms occur with many conditions, many depressed people never get help, because they don’t know that their physical symptoms might be caused by depression. A lot of doctors miss the symptoms, too.”
But when head and backaches aren’t labeled as depression, the drug industry make no money and insurance rates could stop climbing from over-treatment with unnecessary, expensive and dangerous psychoactive drugs!
To prevent such goring of marketshare, the article (whose content was “selected and controlled by WebMD’s editorial staff and is funded by Lilly USA,” an original WebMD financial partner according to the Washington Post) counsels worry about physical symptoms. “Don’t assume they’ll go away on their own.” Symptoms may “need additional treatment” and “some antidepressants, such as Cymbalta and Effexor, may help with chronic pain, too.”
Before direct-to-consumer advertising, the health care system was devoted to preventing over-treatment and assuring patients they were probably okay. Who remembers “Take two aspirin and call me in the morning”? Now patients are assured they probably aren’t okay but probably have a progressive disease. Luckily their disease can be treated with progressive prescriptions from pharma.
Obama calls for ‘Patience and Persistence’ in LibyaArticle Summary: The why of the massive bombing of Libya continues to grow more nonsensical. Congress is baffled into paralysis, and our major media stick to the most honorable interpretation— despite evidence to the contrary.
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Are you following the growing madness that is Libya policy?
We’ve been harping on this for some time, so if you’re a regular visitor to our site, you know all about this. If not, get a primer here, here and here. Last week, we reported on the bizarre insistence by the bipartisan duo of Democratic Senator John Kerry and Republican Senator John McCain that the US Congress needs to authorize US military involvement in Libya for up to a year. Their justification: unspecified but urgent “national security” concerns.
This contradicts the original claim that it was humanitarian concerns that motivated the NATO-US involvement—the need to protect Libyan civilians from the forces of Muammar Qaddafi during a supposedly spontaneous uprising. (An uprising which, as we note, was getting a whole lot of help from CIA and the like.)
On to the latest insanity:
Last Friday, the House of Representatives made an unexpected split decision that only underscores the Looney-Tunes nature of the Libyan debacle. The House rejected a resolution that would have officially authorized the involvement of US troops in Libya. But, on the other hand, it also rejected a tough attempt to restrict funding for the same Libyan adventure.
The first bill, let’s call it Legislation A, is the House version of what we previously reported was being pushed by Senators Kerry and McCain, and will be taken up by the Senate this week.
Here are key parts of Legislation A, the full wording of which you can read here:
(a) Authority- The President is authorized to continue the limited use of the United States Armed Forces in Libya, in support of United States national security policy interests, as part of the NATO mission to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 (2011) as requested by the Transitional National Council, the Gulf Cooperation Council, and the Arab League.
(b) Expiration of Authority- The authorization for such limited use of United States Armed Forces in Libya expires one year after the date of the enactment of this joint resolution.
So the House did not go along with Kerry/McCain/Obama, and defeated the bill 123-295. (The Senate is taking up its own version this week).
But then the House voted down what we’ll call Legislation B, by 180 to 238. It would have barred funds going to support the bombing and other offensive operations, even though it was vaguely worded in such a way that the military could probably interpret at will—and would have allowed intelligence, reconnaissance, and so on.
None of the funds appropriated or otherwise available to the Department of Defense may be obligated or expended for United States Armed Forces in support of North Atlantic Treaty Organization Operation Unified Protector with respect to Libya, unless otherwise specifically authorized by law.
Bottom line—a majority in the House doesn’t want to authorize continued US operations in Libya, but neither does it want to block it outright. The top Republican in the House, Speaker John Boehner, supported what we’re calling Legislation B, but 89 of his own Republicans voted against it.
What we’re seeing is a chaotic bipartisan free-for-all, with some pro-Obama Democrats going along with whatever he wants to do, and some war-oriented Republicans abandoning partisanship and saying, “why sure, bombs away!”
Here’s what the Washington Post said about it:
The two votes highlighted the way that a decade of war has scrambled the politics of foreign policy, and left both parties deeply divided over the Libyan conflict and American warmaking in general.
Contrary to this assertion, the two parties are not just “deeply divided.” They’re terminally confused. In other words, they, like the American people, have absolutely no clear sense of what is at stake, or of why this country is involved in Libya.
Things are so bonkers that the Republicans are now a big factor in the anti-war element, and the New York Times is pro-war. In an editorial, the Times argued for Legislation A, and against Legislation B. About the House, it said
…There are two main proposals — and a clear choice to be made. We fear they are leaning in a wrongheaded and dangerous direction.
About Legislation B, it said
…the damage to this country’s credibility, and its leadership of NATO, would be enormous. Any sign that the United States is bailing out could lead others to follow.
Well, yes, that would be the idea—to encourage an end to the bombing. The Times editorial continues:
…It is hard to view this bill as anything but a partisan play to embarrass the president.
Or, maybe, its supporters actually think the US has no business bombing the heck out of another country—or intervening for unclear or morally dubious reasons. No consideration of this by The Times:
…The one sure victor would be Libya’s strongman, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, who would see it as a sign that NATO’s resolve is faltering and another reason to keep brutalizing his people…We are certain if NATO had not intervened, thousands more Libyans would have been slaughtered.
You could say the same thing about other places, like, say, Syria. Or Sudan. Or….(you pick the place). Yet only Libya is invoked.
What is perhaps most intriguing here is that the Times is still buying the original raison d’guerre, that this is a humanitarian mission, while Kerry, McCain and others have long moved on to something else—some unspecified urgent, “national security” interest…
The Washington Post, like The Times, is still selling this hoary myth, as in this article, which characterizes the House vote as having
. . . revealed a Congress that has been fractured by a weary decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The debate over Libya showed that some Republicans and Democrats were fixated on moral questions–what is the American responsibility to defend democracy? Others were preoccupied with fiscal ones. How should the national debt affect a foreign policy built on the idea of America “bearing any burden” for freedom?
Thus, like the New York Times, it resolutely ignores the clear statement from Kerry and McCain that the Libyan intervention is essential to American “national security” concerns. At the end of its editorial, The Times does invoke “National Security,” but only in a very narrow and peculiar context:
Thankfully, some Senate Republicans also seem to understand the importance of the United States following through on its national security commitments.
“National security commitments”—represented as being about nothing more than willingness to go along with NATO. No indication of the underlying reasons for what is transparently—but never acknowledged” to be— an invasion to remove a foreign leader.
All to be revealed in future books, no doubt. Years from now.
GRAPHIC: http://www.csmonitor.com/var/ezflow_site/storage/images/media/images/0525-obama-cameron-libya/10191594-1-eng-US/0525-obama-cameron-libya_full_600.jpg
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WhoWhatWhy is a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news site founded by Russ Baker. Follow it on Facebook and Twitter or visit WhoWhatWhy.com
By Philip Tegeler, Executive Director of Poverty & Race Research Action Center,
The American dream of homeownership did not magically emerge after World War II from some invisible hand of the market. The readily available, low downpayment, thirty-year mortgage that flooded the market with credit in the 40s and 50s was the result of a series of government policies, including those that created the “secondary mortgage market.” This new market began with the extension of government backed mortgage credit through the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (1932) and federal insurance of long term amortized mortgages by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA, 1934). To enable the rapid growth of this new market, the federal government created the Federal National Mortgage Association (“Fannie Mae,” 1938) a government-sponsored enterprise (“GSE”) that bought mortgages from local banks and later packaged and resold them as government-backed securities, thus permitting mortgage lending on a scale previously unimaginable (the other major GSE, the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac) was established in 1970 – both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are currently in receivership.
In a press conference held by the National Organization for Marriage and its allies days before the NY Senate voted for marriage equality, NOM head Maggie Gallagher brought up the so-called negative religious impacts of marriage equality by citing the work of “leading legal scholars.”
Skip to 16:29 of the video where Gallagher makes these comments:
Gallagher: It’s not just pastors who are talking about it. My understanding is that there was a letter from a Stanford law professor who is an expert on religious liberty, a Harvard law school professor; Mary Ann Glendon, and one of the editors of a book called Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberties. The leading legal scholars are acknowledging . . . that the foundational idea that equality requires gay marriage . . . is going to impact people who disagree . . . “
According to Equality Matters, these scholars Gallagher spoke of are not objective, but have a very strong personal disregard to not only marriage equality but to the gay community in general. For example, take Mary Ann Glendon:
She has called marriage equality a “radical social experiment,” warning that “children will have to be taught about homosexual sex” and fear mongering about the threat posed by “alternative family forms”:
But, believe it or not, Gallagher’s biggest deception at the press conference is a name she chose omit.
A man by the name of Robert George was one of the so-called legal scholars who signed the letter and my guess is that Gallagher chose to omit his name for following reason (brought to you by Equality Matters):
George is the Chairman Emeritus of the board for the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) and has a long history of anti-gay activism. George has argued that marriage equality will pave the way for polygamy and claims same-sex marriage will lead to “disastrous effects” on children.
Allow me to break it down: in a high intense press conference, Gallagher nonchalantly snuck in a notion that “leading legal scholars” have an objective concern over the plight of religious liberties should marriage equality be passed in New York.
However, she omitted – and probably not by accident – the simple fact that these so-called “leading legal scholars” have negative views on marriage equality in general.
Also, Gallagher omitted – and again probably not by accident – that one of these so-called “leading legal scholars” (Robert George) is on NOM’s Board of Directors – the very same board on which she also serves.
Of course Gallagher pulled a big deception and as sure I am sitting here, count on her doing it again and again.
And frankly, neither Gallagher nor NOM really care about getting caught because very few have made an effort in calling them out on their questionable tactics.
Cue up the violin for a sad, sad and familiar song: Conservatives are victims once more in the Age of Obama.
In New York City’s Bryant Park, with “patriotic” blanket in tow, Glenn Beck was set upon by “bloodthirsty,” “hateful,” liberals that wanted to “lynch him” because he is a Conservative.
[Insert finger into mouth to induce vomiting]
Question: How long until the Right wing media and blogosphere are going to call for Eric Holder and the F.B.I. to investigate this egregious violation of Glenn Beck’s civil rights as a white conservative?
Second question: Is Glenn Beck a liar, liar with pants on fire regarding this whole attention getting episode?
Let’s just file this one in the capital “I” irony file. Glenn Beck is a political thug and provocateur who calls for violence against his ideological foes. Now, he has reaped a minuscule bit of what he has sowed. Thus, the rules governing the conservation of energy apply once more, even in the world of political theater:
Energy can be converted from one form to another, though. Mechanical energy, such as the kinetic energy of motion, can be converted to heat energy, for example in the heating of a car’s brakes when it slows down. Chemical energy in the gasoline of the car can be converted into both heat energy in the exhaust and heating the engine, and into mechanical energy to move the car. Potential energy, such as the gravitational potential energy stored in an object which is on a high shelf, can be converted into kinetic energy as the object falls down. Electrical energy can be converted to heat or mechanical energy or sound energy in a variety of useful ways around the house using common appliances.
It is often the conversion of one form of energy to another which is the most important application of this rule. Often predictions of the behavior of physical systems are very much more easily made when using the idea that the total amount of energy remains constant. And careful measurements of different kinds of energy before and after a transformation always show that the total always adds up to the same amount.
What say you all? Is Beck’s bad night out at the movies just a little bit of poetic justice? Or is Glenn Beck, crocodile tears on full display, a legitimately aggrieved person, and “victim” of a Liberal/Progressive “lynch mob?”
Batten down the hatches (and keep down your breakfast) because the anti-gay hate group Family Research Council is coming out with a documentary about the so-called dangers of marriage equality:
FRC’s documentary is, in reality, one-sided trash will feature such phony horror stories as:
- The British couple whose Christianity supposedly barred them from becoming foster parents – omitting the fact of course that it wasn’t their religious beliefs which caused problems, but their ineffective answers as to how they would treat the bullying of lgbtq foster children who may be placed in their care,
- Julea Ward, who not only felt that her personal beliefs that homosexuality is a sin should take precedent over the needs of the patients she will be paid to counsel, but also that Eastern Michigan University should accommodate this madness,
- and other various lies about children being “recruited,” HIV/AIDS, interviews with those who want to deport gays or put them jail for sexual behavior (that’s you, Peter Sprigg), and junk science from the discredited National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (betcha they won’t mention former NARTH associate George Rekers).
I should be upset but instead, I am exasperated. Is this the thousandth “homosexuals are evil space aliens who are plotting to take over the world if we don’t stop them” documentary coming from the religious right?
I’m exaggerating but religious right groups do have a history of anti-gay “documentaries.”
Let’s look at some of the past junk:
There was the 14-part Speechless: Silencing Christians from the anti-gay hate group the American Family Association. Using the same format that FRC is using in its documentary (i.e. spinning anecdotes about “intolerant gays” without giving telling the full story – Ocean Grove Pavilion, anyone?), Speechless put forth the false notion that gays are trying to destroy freedom by “silencing Christians.” Check out this last part:
One of the many ironies of Speechless is that it features former Family Research Council head Janet Parshall as host. Don’t be fooled by her non-assuming guise here. Parshall has a history of going beyond the pale is saying absolutely horrible things about the lgbt community. The following are her words from a discussion on Larry King Live in 2006 about Matthew Shepard’s murder.
. . .in reality, I understand that Matthew was somewhat of a person who hung around some of the gay bars and was coming on to some people. So, was he looking for trouble in all the wrong places?
If I were his mom, I would have given him some counsel, “stay away from that kind of a lifestyle,” because there’s a way that seems right on demand and the end therein is death, and, unfortunately, it cost Matthew his life.
On that same program, she also called same-sex families “pretend families” and gay adoption “state-sanctioned child abuse.”
Parshall’s participation in AFA’s documentary is akin to a bully crying because the target of her hostility is fighting back.
But even worse than FRC’s and AFA’s videos was one put out by Jeremiah Films in 1993 called Gay Rights/Special Rights:
This video is best described as a “hot mess,” juxtaposing the 1963 March on Washington with the 1993 gay rights march on Washington after Clinton was elected. It was created to exploit the fear and ignorance of the African-American community regarding the lgbtq community, as demonstrated by this partial transcript:
Lester James (Afro-American): [The high-handed attempt on the part of gay and lesbian movements to highjack the 1964 Civil Rights Act in order to try to give national credence to their immoral lifestyle is an offence to Black America.]
Emanuel McLittle : [There are few people willing to stand up and rebut this whole notion that there is any kind of comparison to the ....]
SOUND RETURNS
Emanuel McLittle :… sexuality of homosexuals, and the skin tone (FADE TO A BLACK MAN IN THE 1963 CIVIL RIGHTS MARCH) of Black people. It is a horrendous lie. (CUT TO EMANUEL MCLITTLE) Black people are not born … choosing to be Black. [But] {the} homosexual[s] on the other hand, despite what all of them seem to want to (CUT TO TWO WHITE MEN, IN WHITE SHIRTS AND BLACK BOW TIES, KISSING) indicate to us, choose their homosexual lifestyle[s].
(CUT TO A SCENE OF THE US SUPREME COURT WITH THE FOLLOWING TITLE ACROSS IT “TO QUALIFY FOR MINORITY CLASS STATUS: THE GROUP MUST HAVE SUFFERED ECONOMIC DISCRIMINATION”).
Commentator: The group must have suffered a history of discrimination resulting in the lack of ability to earn an average mean income, obtain [an] adequate education, or enjoy cultural opportunities. (CUT TO A SPLIT SCREEN, WHITE MEN ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE SCREEN, BLACK MEN ON THE RIGHT SIDE) Compare these results of a nationwide survey reported in The Wall Street Journal between homosexuals and African Americans regarding, (FADE TO THE TITLE ON SCREEN “AVERAGE HOUSE INCOMES: HOMOSEXUALS $55,430; AFRICAN AMERICANS $12,166″) average household incomes, (CHANGE THE TITLE TO “PERCENTAGE OF COLLEGE GRADUATES; HOMOSEXUALS 60%; AFRICAN AMERICANS 5%”) .. percentage of College graduates, (CHANGE THE TITLE TO “PERCENTAGE OF PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS: HOMOSEXUALS 49%; AFRICAN AMERICANS 1%”) percentage of those holding professional managerial positions, (CHANGE THE TITLE TO “PERCENTAGE OF OVERSEAS VACATIONS: HOMOSEXUALS 66%; AFRICAN AMERICANS 1%”) … percentage of those who have taken overseas vacations. (CHANGE THE TITLE TO “EVER DENIED THE RIGHT TO VOTE: HOMOSEXUALS: NO; AFRICAN AMERICANS: YES”) Have either African Americans [or homosexuals] ever been denied the right to vote? (CHANGE THE TITLE TO “EVER FACED LEGAL SEGREGATION: HOMOSEXUALS: NO; AFRICAN AMERICANS: YES”) ever faced legal segregation? (CHANGE THE TITLE TO “EVER DENIED ACCESS TO PUBLIC RESTROOMS HOMOSEXUALS : NO; AFRICAN AMERICANS : YES”) ever denied access by law to public drinking fountains and restrooms? (CHANGE THE TITLE TO “EVER DENIED ACCESS TO BUSINESSES AND RESTAURANTS: HOMOSEXUALS: NO; AFRICAN AMERICANS : YES”) ever been denied access by law to businesses and restaurants?
(CUT TO JAN RICE, A BLACK WOMAN, WITH TWO OTHER BLACK WOMEN).
Jan Rice : Their high income, (FADE IN TITLE “JAN RICE, COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS”) their education, their, their current status in society, compared to the mean, (FADE OUT TITLE) or the median, income in, in minority families today there’s just, there’s no comparison. So for them to want protection under this law, {is to try to} [and to try to further] beat down the minorities and further lessen their chances of equal protection and equal chances at jobs, I just think is ludicrous.
Gay Rights/Special Rights also feature an interview with former US Senator Trent Lott years before his controversial defense of former segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond. Talk about your ironies.
The point is when religious right groups like FRC and AFA come out with “documentaries” describing the so-called dangers and scourges of homosexuality, they should NOT be believed. These documentaries are repulsive propaganda pieces akin to what the Nazis put out about those of the Jewish faith in the 1930s and 40s, like so:
Now there are some who may say that I am trying to silence those who feel that homosexuality is a sin or that I have gone too far by bringing up the Nazi comparison.
However I am not backing down.
In both cases, we are talking about groups of people being scapegoated and unfairly demonized as a nefarious groups bent on cataclysmic mass destruction.
I fail to see the differences, no matter how subtle some may claim that they are.
So to FRC and the rest putting out these untrue documentaries, please know that I don’t want you to shut up. I don’t want you to be silent. I want you to stand on the mountain tops and trumpet your mess. Hell, I will hold the the megaphone to your mouths.
But do not expect me or anyone else to sit by and say nothing when we notice the disturbing similarities between your horror stories of now to demonize the lgbtq community and those relayed in the past to demonize other innocent groups.
Hat tip to Joe Jervis for giving me this idea for this post.
