 |
| Alveda King |
When the NAACP passed a resolution support marriage equality, I knew that THEY were coming.
By “THEY,” I am talking about a group of wannabe black leaders who I like to refer to colloquially as “The Vultures.”
These folks claim to lead “big time” organizations with important sounding names. Something like “The High Impact Leadership Coalition” or “Brotherhood for a New Destiny” or “Center for Urban Renewal and Education.”
I should tell you right now that these organizations are astroturfed. They don’t speak for the black community because a vast majority of us have never heard of them. And why should we? Whenever there needs to be a true voice in the black community addressing issues such as poverty or socio-economic equality, these groups are never around.
They exist only as convenient black faces to be trotted out by conservatives or the religious right when it comes to issues of race. These so-called black leaders don’t care about the black community because they are too busy telling some whites what they want to hear about the black community.
That’s all they do. That’s the only reason why they exist.
And in the case of the NAACP accepting marriage equality, these folks are in rare form. Religious Right Watch covers what several of them had to say:
Stephen Broden, a Republican politician who has said that the violent overthrow of the government should be “on the table,” dubbed the NAACP “irrelevant”:
Stephen Broden, pastor of Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Dallas, notes that the black community is suffering from soaring unemployment, an extraordinarily high rate of abortions, a high school drop out rate among black teenagers that is breathtaking, an exploding rate of single parent households and the decimation of black families.
Yet, Broden says, the NAACP is making statements about same-sex marriage. “The NAACP has proven again to be an irrelevant organization as it relates to issues of survival for the black community,” says Broden who co-authored Life at All Costs with King and Gardner. The book addresses issues such as abortion and homosexuality.
Domestic violence perpetrator turned “pro-family” activist Timothy Johnson called on African Americans to ditch the NAACP and join his own group, the Frederick Douglass Foundation:
“When you recognize that the black community is strongly a Christian-based group of people, conservative in most of the things they believe, the NAACP has gone diabolically the opposite direction of tradition of the black community,” he states. “[The NAACP] really is doing this in order to stay relevant and in order to build up their revenues as it relates to what they can get from the gay community.”
“… I think those individuals who call themselves Christian or call themselves Jewish who are members of the NAACP should denounce the organization, should cancel their membership, and really look for something else or another organization such as the Frederick Douglas Foundation to be affiliated with,” he states.
Religious Right Watch also mentions comments by the “Queen Mother” of the group, Alveda King, Martin Luther King, Jr’s niece:
Alveda King, as always, tied the topic to the question of abortion rights and claimed to speak for her uncle and other relatives in claiming that the King family has always opposed the “homosexual agenda”:
“Neither my great-grandfather an NAACP founder, my grandfather Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr. an NAACP leader, my father Rev. A. D. Williams King, nor my uncle Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. embraced the homosexual agenda that the current NAACP is attempting to label as a civil rights agenda,” says King, founder of King for America and Pastoral Associate for Priests for Life.
“In the 21st Century, the anti-traditional marriage community is in league with the anti-life community, and together with the NAACP and other sympathizers, they are seeking a world where homosexual marriage and abortion will supposedly set the captives free.”
Alveda King is a sad fraud. Practically her entire career has been reaping off of her famous uncle, a man who lived and died when she was a child. I doubt she knew anything about King. I doubt very much that she is aware that one of King’s advisers, Bayard Rustin, was an openly gay man. It was Rustin who not only coordinated the March on Washington, but also introduced King to the idea of non-violent resistance.
I also seriously doubt she knew what was in King’s heart when it came to the gay community. However, we do know what she thought of Coretta Scott King, MLK’s wife and the person who did know his heart and was also a very vocal ally of the gay community.
Two years ago, when she was asked about Coretta Scott King’s support of the gay community, she made a highly inappropriate comment:
“She (Coretta) was married to him (Martin Luther King, Jr.). I’ve got his DNA. She doesn’t. She didn’t. She’s passed away.”
That comment alone gives a great indication of Alveda King’s mindset and lack of integrity.
But generally speaking, anyone using Alveda King or any of these other spokespeople or groups as proof that the black community has turned on the NAACP for the organization’s support of marriage equality is lying to their readers.
Neither these groups nor their spokespeople never really cared for the NAACP in the first place.
Because to them, it’s all about the spotlight.
 |
| Rev. Billy Graham |
Using religion to distract is the unkindest cut of them all so why should we be surprised that Amendment One supporters in North Carolina are doing just that.
That has been their modus operandi since the beginning, but now they have stooped exceedingly low.
Legendary pastor Billy Graham has endorsed Amendment One in full page ads set to appear in 14 newspapers across the state:
“At 93, I never thought we would have to debate the definition of marriage,” the national religious leader says. “The Bible is clear — God’s definition of marriage is between a man and a woman. I want to urge my fellow North Carolinians to vote FOR the marriage amendment on Tuesday, May 8.”
I mean no disrespect to Rev. Graham, but it disappoints me that he is lending his name and reputation to this deceptive campaign. His statement is deliberately simplistic and ignores several issues, including the fact that Amendment One is not a Biblical issue and that marriage equality is already outlawed in North Carolina.
However, I would prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt. I personally don’t believe that he would endorse Amendment One if he was educated on the realities of what would happen should it pass.
Legal experts across the state, even those who are conservative, have spoken out against Amendment One, calling it extreme because it “threatens a range of other protections for unmarried partners and their children, including domestic violence protections and child custody law.”
University of North Carolina law professor Maxine Eichner, during a recent press conference on Amendment One, said:
. . . as indicated in the “Statement from Family Law Professors,” which was signed by family law professors from every law school across the state, every one of us believes that the Amendment One threatens domestic violations protections for unmarried couples, whether they are same-sex or opposite-sex.
I sincerely doubt that Rev. Graham would knowingly endorse something which could harm not only children, but also women trapped in domestic violence relationships.
I also sincerely doubt that Rev. Graham would endorse Amendment One had he known the parties involved in its attempted passing, included:
- An organization (The National Organization for Marriage) which unashamedly uses a strategy deliberately dividing the black and gay communities, a strategy so heinous that the NC NAACP has come out strongly against Amendment One,
- A pastor, Patrick Wooden, who spread foul sexual lies about the gay community in order to get voters on Amendment One’s side,
- A Neo-Nazi group which has also endorsed Amendment One,
- And the amendment itself, which was allegedly written to protect the white race.
Rev. Graham, these are the people on your side, sir. And maybe it’s just me but there is something really, really wrong with that.
There is a saying that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” and it is very apt here. Rev. Graham’s supposed “good intentions” in endorsing this sham of an amendment would definitely send innocent North Carolinians down a road to hell paved with harmed children, damaged domestic violence laws, racism, and the stigmatization of the state’s gay community
I know in my heart that this is not the future he intends for North Carolina.
Based upon information I received from an anonymous source, there is a project afoot by members of the religious right to strike at the gay community via sites like Youtube, Twitter and Facebook.
This project is conducted by a secret Facebook group called Truth4Time. According to the creator of the group (whose name shall remain anonymous because he is not a public figure), Truth4Time is supposed to be a library of anti-gay articles, blogs, and other materials for its members to use in their fight against the supposed “gay agenda.” Apparently the group has a large lists of documents which contains anti-gay information (i.e. propaganda) that members are invited to use. The founder says that the group is supposed to be a sort of a “behind the scenes support system for the religious right. He seems to think that he is on some type of divine mission. If that is the case, I seriously doubt that it is God who is dictating his marching orders. :
In all fairness, the group isn’t breaking any rules (or any laws) with this idea. Members of Truth4Time also encourage each other to go on webpages featuring anti-gay or pro-gay articles and freely comment. Some members of this group who have written columns in publications such as the conservative Town Hall also encourage fellow members to bombard the prospective sites with comments:
Again, the group isn’t breaking any rules or laws by doing this.
But it is the following questionable tactics, such as “ganging up” on pro-gay pages with comments and flagging Facebook pro-gay pages multiple times with the intent on getting these pages removed, which is sure to raise eyebrows. Truth4Time seems to be under the ludicrous impression that gays stoop to this action, so they figure “what’s good for the goose is sauce for the gander:”
One member of the group, a certain Georgia pastor (who has a long history of maligning the gay community) provides tips on what he calls “leveraging public perception on the subject of homosexuality,” or in layman’s terms, providing an inaccurate picture of whether or not there is support for lgbt equality:
And just who are the members of this group you ask? I have the list of the members, but I won’t reveal it because many are ordinary citizens, not public figures.
However, that’s not to say that Truth4Time does not many contain public figures and prominent members of the anti-gay industry, including:
- a Fox News pundit,
- former employees of Concerned Women for America and The Family Research Council,
- a prominent member of the American Family Association,
- long term anti-gay activists, including those who testified in front of Congress,
- prominent members of the so-called “ex-gay” movement,
- a member of a state legislature,
- college professors from right-wing universities,
- activists who have called for laws declaring homosexuality illegal,
- members of a prominent anti-gay marriage equality group, and
- various religious right talking heads who us bloggers have had to refute many times in the past.
I should also add that I did not steal this information. A member of the group – who has been disturbed by the comments and plans of this group – freely gave me this information. The member in question was especially disturbed by a plan (whether it will come to fruition or not) to bombard physicians and school boards with negative and distorted information about the gay community:
Gayterribletruth is a quackery webpage. It’s filled with headlines implying that gay men are beset with all sorts of awful diseases due to their orientations alone. However, if one took the time to read several of the articles, they clearly demonstrate that the bad health besetting these gay men have less to do with their orientation and more to do with how homophobia leads to their poor health choices. And other headlines lead to biased religious right articles on the gay community.
Studies already show that the gay community faces negative health problems in part due to the perceived homophobia of their health physicians. Information such as this sent out to physicians can only serve to exacerbate this problems.
And I don’t think that I have to mention what would happen to gay youth if at least one school board takes this information as fact.
One hilarious thing about Truth4Time is how members absolutely despise Joe Jervis of the famous blog Joe.My.God (which of course makes me jealous as hell). Many members of the right have been on a tear against Jervis since he won the GLAAD Blogger of the Year award two years ago. Also Jervis has never been known to mince words when it comes to confronting members of the religious right. Naturally that drives them nuts:
I omitted the post in which members speculated whether or not Satan whispers in Jervis’ ear.
Lastly, according to my source – the member of the group who gave me this information – several members have a serious hang up about “gay sex” like such:
While I am not an armchair psychiatrist, that last point brings to mind the recent study which says that those who speak out the loudest against homosexuality are secretly gay themselves.
But there is something else you should know. According to my source, there is one other secret Facebook group like this one which refers to the gay community in a viler language. And a few folks from Truth4Time are members of that group.
While it is not my intent to make the gay community paranoid as to the plots of the religious right, I am a firm believer of knowing all you can about those who designate themselves as your enemies.
Perhaps it’s time for members of the gay community to stop laughing some of these folks off as mere homophobes and take into account the depths they will stoop to in their homophobia.
After all, you never know who is lurking on Facebook.
Author’s note – I deliberately obscured all the names in the listed graphics because the comments of private citizens are mingled with those of religious right public figures. I thought it would be best to be consistent and obscure all of the names. However, during a radio interview with Michelangelo Signorile, I do in fact reveal the names of prominent religious right members involved in this group.
 |
In the piece, Focus on the Family’s also defends Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council against the group Faithful America. Faithful America recently began a campaign asking that Chris Matthews of Hardball stop featuring Perkins as an expert on his show. Focus on the Family claims that Faithful America and GLAAD wants to silence people like Perkins for supposedly standing up for Christian values:
*By “anti-gay activist,” GLAAD means anyone who believes and speaks out on the truth that God designed sex to unite a man and a woman in marriage, ruling out sexual activity outside that union, with children being a possible result.
But Jeremy Hooper from Goodasyou.org just published something which exposes Focus on the Family as hypocrites. Apparently in January, a staffer from the organization lodged some concerns about Perkins’ rhetoric in an email to Hooper:
You know what, Focus on the Family staffer? I did stay tuned to see if these concerns made their way to the public. I held up my end of the bargain. But while I was waiting for that to happen, a funny (but not funny “ha ha”) thing occurred. I instead watched as Focus on the Family personality after Focus on the Family personality flat-out lied about GLAAD CAP, completely overlooked the “approach and tone” that led someone like Tony on the list, and acted as if we LGBT activists are absolute crazypants opponents of free speech for having and expressing these concerns. I waited patiently, sitting on information that I knew to be true, in hopes that some of you would have the fortitude to publicly talk about reasonable concerns that I know that you know to be true as well.
. . . Even though “off record” was never requested, I never intended to make this public. I never intended to burn down whatever personal bridges had been forged over the years in spite of the deep political differences. I never wanted to force Focus on the Family to go public with their own conversations of concern about Tony Perkins’ “approach and tone.” The startling lack of ethics and hypocrisy that Focus on the Family has shown towards GLAAD CAP, a project with which I have intimate familiarity, forced my hand.
It is pretty much hypocritical for Focus on the Family to attack GLAAD and Faithful America for lodging concerns about Perkins’ anti-gay rhetoric when some in the organization itself has done the same thing.
 |
The National Organization for Marriage has been steadily attempting to blunt the charges that it engaged in attempts to drive a wedge between the black and gay communities on the subject of marriage equality.
Ever since confidential documents came out detailing NOM’s strategy to play the gay and black communities against one another, the organization has engaged in several tactics push aside the knowledge that these documents exist.
The most egregious has been when NOM shines a spotlight on black ministers defending the organization’s attempts to manipulate the black community.
The last time NOM tried this was with Bishop George McKinney and in his attempt to defend NOM, he went out of his way to avoid talking about the specific passage in the documents which outlined NOM’s wedge strategy.
This week, NOM spotlighted Minister Harry Jackson of the High Impact Leadership Coalition.
Jackson says the following on a post naturally published on NOM’s blog:
For three years, I have stood shoulder to shoulder with Brian Brown and the National Organization for Marriage, fighting to protect marriage in Maryland and in our nation’s capital.
Together—for the first time in Maryland—we have built a true rainbow coalition of Blacks, Latinos and whites, Republicans and Democrats, Catholics, evangelicals, Mormons and Jews, all working together to protect and preserve marriage. It’s a new phase in the battle for marriage—and critical as we head toward a referendum this fall.
The National Organization for Marriage has done so much to protect marriage, not only in Maryland, but in similar battles all across the country.
It’s no wonder groups like the Human Rights Campaign and The New York Times are trying to tear our coalition apart.
My answer? Not a chance!
The ugly insinuations and outright lies I have seen over the past two weeks are nothing short of reprehensible. They’re trying to create the impression that NOM is exploiting racial division—using Blacks and Hispanics to further its political agenda.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Naturally Jackson doesn’t address NOM’s documents anywhere in his piece. The documents which said the following on page 11:
The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks – two key democratic constituencies. We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; and to provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party.
This is nothing that Jackson hasn’t done before You see, Jackson has provided cover for the religious right several times. In fact, according to a People for the American Way report, Harry Jackson: Point Man for the Wedge Strategy, he is considered a star in the religious right’s supposed outreach into the black community:
In recent years, Religious Right leaders have made a major push to elevate the visibility and voices of politically conservative African American pastors. The star of that effort has been Bishop Harry Jackson. Jackson, the pastor of a congregation in Maryland, has been ushered into the Religious Right’s inner circle since he announced in 2004 that God had told him to work for the reelection of George W. Bush. Since then, Jackson has become somewhat of an all-purpose activist and pundit for right-wing causes – everything from judicial nominations to immigration and oil drilling — but his top priorities mirror those of the Religious Right: he’s fervently anti-abortion and dead-set against gay equality. And he has enthusiastically adopted the Right’s favorite propaganda tactic: he routinely portrays liberals, especially gay-rights activists, as enemies of faith, family, and religious liberty.
Jackson has big ambitions. He sees himself as a game changer in the culture war, someone who can help conservative Christians “take the land” by bringing about a political alliance between white and black evangelicals. Religious Right leaders see him that way, too, which is why they’ve helped Jackson build his public profile.
The irony is that this report was written over a year before the documents regarding NOM came out. And if you have never heard of the High Impact Leadership Coalition, then don’t hate yourself. It’s nothing more than a silly shell group which has not pull nor any power in the black community as the vast majority of us have never heard of it. The organization is nothing more than an ego booster created by Jackson to make it seem that the Black church is going hand-in-hand with the predominantly white religious right on several issues.
Like so many other African-Americans put on a pedestal by conservative groups, Jackson’s purpose is not outreach in the black community, but to give the inaccurate impression that predominantly white conservative groups actually care about the black community.
In other words, Harry Jackson is a token. Other African-Americans would use stronger words to describe Jackson’s bowing and scraping and “yess suh bossin” to the predominantly white conservative movement.
But I won’t. At least not here.
I will say however that I find Jackson’s willingness to defend NOM to be extremely distasteful. He is a liar who sold his integrity and soul to defend an organization who is exploiting his people like they aren’t human, but rather chess pieces who exist on NOM’s will and pleasure.
His personal feelings about gays are irrelevant. Jackson is a minster, which is a prime leadership position in the black community. Ministers in the black community are seen as protectors. They are not only our voices but our consciences. They are not supposed to lead the community into any type of danger, whether it be physical, mental, or spiritual.
If Jackson was a true black leader, then he should have been demanding answers from NOM for its race-baiting and its attempt to use black people as soulless pawns. But instead, he not only provides cover for it, but participates in this exploitation. I wonder if he realizes how many lgbtq youth will be harmed from hearing their pastors attack them in the pulpit thanks to NOM’s strategy.
I wonder if Jackson thinks about the many resources wasted in the black community because of NOM’s divide and conquer strategy.
And I wonder if Jackson thinks about how much focus and attention will be taken away from the true problems which plague the black community because of NOM’s strategy.
I’m sure that Jackson has thought about these things. And frankly, I’ll bet that he just doesn’t care.
 |
| Matt Barber |
Matt Barber of the anti-gay Liberty Counsel is upset.
Apparently a new study has confirmed what many of us knows when it comes to how homophobia hurts gay health:
A conservative attorney disagrees with the findings of “Private Lives 2,” a study of Australian homosexuals that suggests discrimination, not lifestyle, is the reason why homosexuals seek psychological counseling — a conclusion similar to that reached by the American Psychological Association.
The online study was conducted by Malbourne’s La Trobe University with the support of Gay and Lesbian Health Victoria, as well as the Victoria state government and the Australian national depression initiative. But Matt Barber, vice president of Liberty Counsel Action, tells OneNewsNow other research has repeatedly concluded that it is the lifestyle — not discrimination or lack of societal “acceptance” — that results in homosexuals seeking counseling.
He believes groups like the APA have lost credibility over the years by suggesting otherwise.
“The APA has really in large part simply become a political activist organization,” Barber decides. “They are no longer objectively a scientific group that views things through an objective prism; but rather, they are pushing a political, sexual, anarchist agenda.”
He says the APA is helping “to facilitate” those caught up in the lifestyle to continue a destructive, unhealthy, immoral and biologically wrong way of living and thinking. “So for the APA to help them rationalize these behaviors, it’s really irresponsible of the American Psychological Association to do this,” the attorney submits.
That’s the gist of the article. Barber offers no proof of his claims that the APA is a “political organization.” Nor does he offer up any of the “other research” which supposedly concludes that the supposed homosexual lifestyle is the reason for depression in gays.
Basically it comes down to the fact that Barber simply doesn’t like the conclusion of the Australian study and that’s why he is trashing it. Nor does he like the fact that the APA has done research confirming the same conclusions of the Australian study.
You see the Australian study refutes theories put forth by Barber and other religious right phony experts that homosexuality itself is a dangerous “lifestyle.” Usually when folks like Barber push this notion, they cite health statistics, like those from the Centers of Disease Control.
But no legitimate study nor any medical organization has ever said that homosexuality in itself is a “dangerous lifestyle.” They usually cite outside factors, such as homophobia. The following is what the CDC said when it comes to HIV/AIDS amongst gay men:
Stigma and homophobia may have a profound impact on the lives of MSM, especially their mental and sexual health. Internalized homophobia may impact men’s ability to make healthy choices, including decisions around sex and substance use. Stigma and homophobia may limit the willingness of MSM to access HIV prevention and care, isolate them from family and community support, and create cultural barriers that inhibit integration into social networks.
Racism, poverty, and lack of access to health care are barriers to HIV prevention services, particularly for MSM from racial or ethnic minority communities. A recent CDC study found a strong link between socioeconomic status and HIV among MSM: prevalence increased as education and income decreased, and awareness of HIV status was higher among MSM with greater education and income
To put it more succinctly, Matt Barber is typical of the religious right spokespeople. When researchers come out with something they disagree with, they whine about how gays have “infiltrated” or simply cherry-pick the research to push their bogus conclusions about the gay community.
Barber has no expertise in science, research, or health. The reason why he didn’t cite any proof to back up his charges is because he doesn’t have any.
And he knows it.
When an organization has been discovered to be deliberately exploiting hostilities between the gay and black communities on the subject of marriage equality, will that group:
a. deny that the allegation is true
b. say that the allegation is true while apologizing
c. claim that the discovery of the allegation is a plot while continuing to attempt to play the gay and black community like pawns, this time in a fundraising appeal.
The organization in question is the National Organization for Marriage, so you can guess the answer, And if you can’t, the following photo posted on NOM’s blog recently should give you a clue:
It’s a big turn from what former NOM head Maggie Gallagher said recently during a debate at Washington and Lee University in Virginia against gay author Andrew Sullivan when talking about the confidential documents which outlined NOM’s “divide-and-conquer” plans:
Gallagher insisted that while the language in the memos was inappropriate, NOM’s racial strategies were acceptable.
“What NOM has actually done is go across the country and reach across lines of race, party, and color and religion to work with people who believe marriage is the union of a husband and wife for a reason,” Gallagher said. “I don’t think that’s a racist or unethical strategy at all.”
Gallagher also said she didn’t like the language in the memos because it suggested that minority leaders only opposed gay marriage because of NOMs efforts.
“I think it’s disrespectful to the African and Hispanic leaders who have stood up because they oppose gay marriage in fights across the country,” Gallagher said. “For us to suggest that they are doing so as a result of being manipulated by white, suburban, Republican girls like me [is wrong].”
Don’t let Gallagher’s sad talking points fool you. The wording of the documents were as follows:
“The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks — two key Democratic constituencies,” reads one document. “Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party. Fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop 8 is key to raising the costs of pushing gay marriage to its advocates and persuading the movement’s allies that advocates are unacceptably overreaching on this issue. Consider pushing a marriage amendment in Washington D.C.; Find attractive young black Democrats to challenge white gay marriage advocates electorally.”
Gallagher continues to play this paragraph off like a minor blip, an unfortunate choice of words. But it’s much more. There are too many words in this paragraph for it to be looked upon as a minor blip. Those words outline a deliberate strategy.
And every time Gallagher opens her mouth in a sad attempts to soothe shock over this, she only makes it worse. She claims that NOM’s goal was to “go across the country and reach across lines of race, party, and color and religion to work with people who believe marriage is the union of a husband and wife for a reason.”
If that was truly the goal, then words or phrases which denotes “togetherness” and “unity” would have been in the document.
Instead, the document talked about “wedges” and “fanning hostility.”
And speaking of “fanning hostility,” there is this item:
On the post, NOM says the following:
Media elites seem to imagine NOM is responsible for the wedge between blacks and gays on the issue of gay marriage.
But the reality on the ground in North Carolina and so many other places is that black church leaders are bravely standing up for what they think is right. It is insulting for the elite media to imply they are NOM puppets, just like it would be arrogant for anyone at NOM to imagine we are responsible for this show of support.
It’s a classic case of NOM trying to shift the blame. But trying to cite Wooden as an example of black pastors standing on their own to attack marriage equality contradict NOM’s talking points.
You will remember that it was Wooden who said that:
gay men have so much sex that they require surgery and diapers,
gay men use gerbils, baseball bats, and cell phones as sexual instruments.
NOM using Wooden only underscores the organization’s tone deaf devotion to stopping marriage equality.
Seems to me that if you are trying to disprove the belief that you are playing divide and conquer games between the gay and black community, you don’t dust off center stage for a black leader known for making outrageously offensive comments about the gay community.
Yes, it is true that the disagreement between the black and gay communities regarding marriage equality didn’t start with NOM. But that’s not the point.
The point is that NOM is attempting to exploit that disagreement.
Yes, it is insulting to think that African-American leaders are puppets of NOM. But it isn’t the so-called media elites who pushed this belief. It was NOM.
The so-called media elites didn’t write those documents advancing the idea of driving a wedge between the black and gay community. NOM did.
And sadly, NOM continues to play that game.
The subject of irony seems to be lost on the National Organization for Marriage. That would explain its latest action:
On the post, NOM says the following:
Media elites seem to imagine NOM is responsible for the wedge between blacks and gays on the issue of gay marriage.
But the reality on the ground in North Carolina and so many other places is that black church leaders are bravely standing up for what they think is right. It is insulting for the elite media to imply they are NOM puppets, just like it would be arrogant for anyone at NOM to imagine we are responsible for this show of support.
It’s a classic case of NOM trying to shift the blame. But trying to cite Wooden as an example of black pastors standing on their own to attack marriage equality contradict NOM’s talking points.
You will remember that it was Wooden who said that:
gay men have so much sex that they require surgery and diapers,
gay men use gerbils, baseball bats, and cell phones as sexual instruments.
NOM using Wooden only underscores the organization’s tone deaf devotion to stopping marriage equality.
Seems to me that if you are trying to disprove the belief that you are playing divide and conquer games between the gay and black community, you don’t dust off center stage for a black leader known for making outrageously offensive comments about the gay community.
Yes, it is true that the disagreement between the black and gay communities regarding marriage equality didn’t start with NOM. But that’s not the point.
The point is that NOM is attempting to exploit that disagreement.
Yes, it is insulting to think that African-American leaders are puppets of NOM. But it isn’t the so-called media elites who pushed this belief. It was NOM.
The so-called media elites didn’t write those documents advancing the idea of driving a wedge between the black and gay community. NOM did.
And sadly, NOM continues to play that game.
One could almost admire NOM’s audacity. But there is nothing to admire about an organization who will use anyone as pawns and then try to shift blame in the face of discovery.
The National Organization for Marriage’s president, Brian Brown, has responded today specifically to the race-baiting scandal which has engulfed the organization:
“Let me be the first to say that the tone of the language in that document as quoted by the press is inapt. Here’s something I know from the bottom of my soul: It would be enormously arrogant for anyone at NOM to believe that we can make or provoke African-American or Latino leaders do anything. The Black and Hispanic Democrats who stand up for marriage do so on principle—and get hit with a wave of vituperative attacks like nothing I have ever seen. We did not cause it, nor can we claim credit for these men and women’s courage in standing up in defense of our most fundamental institution: marriage.”
Do those talking points sound familiar? They should if you read this blog. This is what NOM founder Maggie Gallagher said in the comments section of a National Review blog post she authored (the same blog post in which she asserted that the controversy was the subject of a slow news day):
Let’s put up the comparison, shall we (emphasis on the important portions is done by me).
Brian Brown today:
“Let me be the first to say that the tone of the language in that document as quoted by the press is inapt. Here’s something I know from the bottom of my soul: It would be enormously arrogant for anyone at NOM to believe that we can make or provoke African-American or Latino leaders do anything. The Black and Hispanic Democrats who stand up for marriage do so on principle—and get hit with a wave of vituperative attacks like nothing I have ever seen. We did not cause it, nor can we claim credit for these men and women’s courage in standing up in defense of our most fundamental institution: marriage.”
Maggie Gallagher just a few days ago:
“The documents used language which I would call ‘inapt’ – - in part because it’s tremendously vain to think that I or NOM or any other white Christian conservative can manipulate black and latino church leaders. I don’t think so. They speak out of their own convictions and become subject to tremendous vituperative for doing so.”
You have to be kidding me! If they expect this to be some sort of credible explanation of NOM’s attempt to drive a wedge between the black and gay communities, then Gallagher and Brown failed.
Almost word for word, these two folks say the same thing.
Apparently the leaking of the confidential documents detailing NOM’s plan of divide and conquer got members of the organization scared witless.
How else can you explain this sadly cobbled explanation? It’s bad enough when one of them says it because it doesn’t even address the point of NOM’s discovered plan. But when both Gallagher and Brown repeat the same explanation almost word-for-word, there is a certain disturbing robotic function to it. It’s like they are reading from a script. There is nothing real about this explanation. It’s plastic.
It simply demonstrates cynical and rushed planning devoid of integrity or honesty, much like the original plan which got NOM into trouble in the first place.
The National Organization for Marriage’s unsuccessful fight to skirt Maine’s financial disclosure laws just backfired majorly on the group by revealing a distasteful part of its game plan to stop marriage equality.
According to a court document that was uploaded online, NOM specifically worked to drive a wedge between the black and gay community on the subject of marriage equality:
According to page 11 of this document called Marriage: $20 Million Strategy for Victory:
3. Not a Civil Right ProjectThe strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks – two key democratic constituencies. We aim to find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; to develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; and to provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of the party.
NOM has portrayed whatever African-American opposition to marriage equality its spotlighted as spontaneous attempts by leaders and members of the black community to keep its civil rights legacy from supposedly being “tainted” by a comparison to gay equality.
But now we see that there was nothing spontaneous about this. It was a cynically planned effort by NOM – which the organization continues to exploit – in order to drive a wedge between blacks and gays.
And notice how NOM says that one of the purposes of creating this division was to create a negative reaction from gay equality supporters against the African-Americans speaking out against marriage equality.
One doesn’t have to spell out how this benefits NOM’s efforts. The two sides attack each other with extreme anger causing magazine articles to be written about the division, news programs to focus on the division, and venomous chats to occur on places like Facebook and Twitter.
Some heterosexual African-Americans will let loose with homophobia against the gay community. And some white lgbtqs will express racist comments about the black community. Both communities will be at each other’s throats. There will be no intelligent conversations on the matter and neither community will benefit an iota.
And NOM will sit back and reap the benefits of causing this chaos.
It reminds me of an Aesop fable I once posted:
An Eagle had made her nest at the top of a lofty oak. A Fox, having found a convenient hole, lived with her young in the middle of the trunk; and a Wild Sow with her young had taken shelter in a hollow at its foot. The Fox resolved to destroy by her arts this chance-made colony. She climbed to the nest of the Eagle, and said: “Destruction is preparing for you, and for me too. The Wild Sow, whom you may see daily digging up the earth, wishes to uproot the oak, that she may, on its fall, seize our families as food.” Then she crept down to the cave of the Sow and said: “Your children are in great danger; for as soon as you shall go out with your litter to find food, the Eagle is prepared to pounce upon one of your little pigs.” When night came, she went forth with silent foot and obtained food for herself and her young; but, feigning to be afraid, she kept a look-out all through the day. Meanwhile, the Eagle, full of fear of the Sow, sat still on the branches, and the Sow, terrified by the Eagle, did not dare to go out from her cave; and thus they each, with their families, perished from hunger.
Moral – Gay folks and black folks can argue all day as to who gets to be the “sow” and who gets to be the “eagle.” But both groups better damn well recognize who the hell the fox is.
