Saturday, July 21, 2012

Spokesman for Venango County-based Hate Group Uses Colorado Massacre to Attack Gay People

Hate Group Leaders Use Colorado Massacre To Attack Gay People

by David Badash for The New Civil Rights Movement:

Hours after the tragic shooting at a screening of the new Batman movie in Aurora, Colorado, leaders of hate groups began to use the massacre, which left twelve dead — including a six-year old girl — and 50 injured, to demonize and attack gay people.

Bryan Fischer, the public face of the certified anti-gay hate group, American Family Association (and its affiliate the Venango County-based American Family Association of Pennsylvania), said via Twitter, “Chick-fil-A provides free meals to first responders in CO. Let’s see Big Gay demonize that.” The Chick-Fil-A comment is a reference to attacks Chick-Fil-A president and COO Dan Cathy has made on LGBT people and same-sex marriage.

Fischer, whose own attacks on gays have included the false claim that gays “are Nazis,” linked in his tweet to a Breitbart.com article noting the local Aurora, Colorado Chick-Fil-A restaurant near the movie theater had opened its doors and served tired police and emergency workers. That Breitbart article used the tweets of anonymous Twitter users to sarcastically claim that it is “heartwarming to see that people can put aside political differences in a time of tragedy.”

Meanwhile, “God Hates Fags” stepped into the mix as well. Margie Phelps, daughter of Westboro Baptist Church scion Fred Phelps, also via Twitter, pointed to a month-old gay pride parade in Colorado and falsely claimed it was to blame for the massacre.

Both the American Family Association and the Westboro Baptist Church, aka God Hates Fags, have been certified as anti-gay hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Birds of a feather…

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