The New Evangelicals

Here's to the day that the "new evangelicalism" begins to emerge in Venango County, home base for the viciously anti-gay hate group, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania.

by Marcia Pally for the New York Times:


Though public support for both major political parties is very low, one group of voters is usually exempted from this malaise: evangelicals. It’s assumed that at least these “values voters” are getting what they want. But we should look more carefully.

A sizable portion of evangelicals have left the right, so to speak, in what the theologian Scot McKnight called “the biggest change in the evangelical movement,” nothing less than the emergence of “a new kind of Christian social conscience.” These new evangelicals focus on economic justice, environmental protection and immigration reform — not exactly Republican strong points. The religious right remains a potent political force, but where once there was the appearance of an evangelical movement that sang out in one voice, there is now a robust polyphony.

In numbers, that means Christians who don’t think of themselves as part of the religious right come to roughly 24 percent of the population, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. Subtract the Catholic left and you’ve got some 19 percent of the population distributed among the ‘60s evangelical left; younger, emergent progressive churches; and red-letter Christians, who focus on Jesus’ words in scripture (printed in red) and who lean towards progressive activism. Others have quietly broadened the activism associated with the religious right.

These “new evangelicals” are quick to say (correctly) that all this is not new but consistent with tradition. Evangelical emphasis on individual moral responsibility made them, from the colonial era to World War I, politically anti-authoritarian and economically populist — anti-banker and anti-landlord. Before the Civil War, they created many of the associations that helped build the country and, in the North, were crucially important to the abolitionist movement. After the war, they fought for labor against robber-baron capitalism and supported William Jennings Bryan three times for president on a pro-worker, pro-farmer platform. Even the Fundamentals pamphlets, circulated between 1910 and 1915 as a conservative call to evangelicals, included a section on the benefits of socialism.

In the 20th century, evangelicals became associated with the right, especially after World War II. So why another shift in the 21st? One reason is generational, with idealistic youth rejecting the politics of their parents. Another is that views about sex, the environment and global connectedness have shifted nationwide, including among evangelicals. In their self-critique, “Unchristian,” evangelicals David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons title their chapters: Hypocritical, Sheltered, Too Political, Judgmental and Antihomosexual. Ouch.

In a group that takes ethics seriously, still another reason for the change is new thinking about what matters most. The cavalier militarism and the justification of torture during the Bush years, along with the strident in-group-ism of the last four decades, prodded many evangelicals to re-examine themselves and their actions. George W. Bush may have fractured the Christian coalition that elected him.

Richard Cizik, president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, describes the movement as a “slow earthquake.” A developing grassroots movement won’t have one overarching policy position, but the new evangelical concerns collect in a few areas. One is an embrace of church-state separation. “Let it be known unequivocally,” declared the 2008 Evangelical Manifesto, signed by over 70 evangelical leaders, “we are firmly opposed to the imposition of theocracy on our pluralistic society.”

Another is participation in civil society through public education, lobbying and coalition-building. New evangelicals have been working through their churches on substance abuse, care for the homeless and the elderly, prison ministries, and affordable housing, and they have been developing projects overseas on environmental protection, disease reduction and education.

These programs, which have some overlap with those run by the religious right, are staffed largely by volunteers, who raise much of the money to fund them as well. But forget bake sales. These are sophisticated operations, expertly run NGOs really, based on nuanced policies and listening to others. The point here is not only alms-giving but the restructuring of opportunity through education, health care and job training.

A third concern is critique of government. Since all governments are human and therefore corruptible, new evangelicals understand the vigilance needed to keep politics honest. This is the church’s “prophetic role” — not to become the government but to “speak truth to power.” Recently, the National Association of Evangelicals called on its members — over 40,000 churches — to protest Republican cuts in programs for the needy. “Approximately one percent of the federal budget is devoted to helping the poorest people around the world,” one call for advocacy in the organization’s legislative action center began.

“In 2011, our international assistance budget was cut by 11 percent. For 2012, the House of Representatives has recommended a further 30 percent reduction. While saving money and reducing the federal deficit is very important, this is the wrong place to cut. We did not get into the fiscal mess we are in by spending too much on the world’s poor.”

Evangelical concern about Republican policies has been evident for some time. In 2006, over a quarter of white evangelicals (27 percent) voted Democratic in the midterm elections — and nearly 40 percent of evangelicals who attend church less than once a week. In 2008, there were evangelical PACs working for Obama, and once again over a quarter of white evangelicals voted Democratic (34 percent of less frequent church-attenders). Obama earned nearly a third of the votes of white evangelicals under 30 years old, regardless of church attendance.

This growing political independence poses a conundrum. On the one hand, opposition to abortion along with their traditional preference for self-reliance has made evangelicals a Republican bloc. But if the new evangelicals are less suspicious of Mormonism, they might be less put off than the religious right if Romney heads the Republican ticket. At the same time, their support for economic justice and environmental protection strains their allegiance to the Republican party.

When Rudolph Giuliani was still a contender for the Republican nomination in 2008, Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, pointed out that if abortion were taken “off the table, other issues would get oxygen, issues where evangelicals are not nearly as certain that Republicans offer the best answer.”


In the meanwhile, our 19 percent — that’s a lot of votes — don’t have a candidate they love: someone who will help the poor, protect the planet, and dramatically reduce the need for abortion, someone who will help both secular and faith-based organizations to do this work. That’s a political void, and those are votes that are up for grabs.

The impact of new evangelicals, however, goes beyond voting. The real work of politics happens not during elections but between them when policies are developed and when groups lobby their representatives and run their own programs that change the way we live. Even if most new evangelicals remain Republican, were they to move the party toward economic justice, immigration reform and environmental protection, that would be a very large achievement.

Marcia Pally’s most recent book is “The New Evangelicals: Expanding the Vision of the Common Good.”

Gays, Guns & God

Unbeknownst to the Venango County-based Hate Group, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, "conservative orthodoxy is badly out of step with emerging majority support for full citizenship rights of gays."

by Timothy Egan for the Opinionator:


How do you praise the sanctity of traditional heterosexual marriage when the best-known nuptials of the year, between a Kardashian and a basketball player, lasted all of 72 days? Or, for that matter, when a possible Republican nominee for president, Newt Gingrich, cares so much about marriage that he’s tried it three times?

You don’t. The above mockeries of marriage are just the latest reasons one of the most potent wedge issues of American politics — the banner of gays, guns and God — will have little impact next year.

This trio is usually trotted out in big swaths of the West, in rural or swing districts and in Southern states at the cusp of the Bible Belt. The proverbial three G’s was the explanation in Thomas Frank’s entertaining book “What’s the Matter With Kansas” for why poor, powerless whites would vote for a party that promises nothing but tax cuts for the rich.

It’s misleading to think people will vote against their economic interests simply because a candidate doesn’t mouth the same pieties as they do. But the cultural cudgel works to a point. I’ve certainly seen the three G’s launched late in a campaign, to great effect. Jim Inhofe won a Senate seat in Oklahoma in 1994 using the three G’s as an overt slogan.

At the same time, I’ve watched smart politicians, like Montana’s two-term Democratic governor, Brian Schweitzer, blunt the attack by showing off their guns and waving away the God and gay questions as none-of-your-business intrusions.

But this year I think we’ve reached a tipping point on these heartless perennials. When George W. Bush won re-election in 2004, political sophisticates were stunned by a national exit poll in which 22 percent of voters picked “moral issues” from a list of things that mattered most — more than any other concern. This was heralded as the high-water triumph for evangelicals.

Later analysis showed that the phrase “moral issues” was being used rather broadly by voters, from concern about character to worry over poverty. It was a catch-all. Still, the ranking of moral issues as the top reason to pick a president came as a surprise.

Now look at this week’s New York Times/CBS News Poll of likely Republican caucus-goers in Iowa, about as conservative a cohort of voters as anywhere in the country. Iowa, for Republicans, is where gays, guns and God will grow in political fields long after corn is no longer planted for ethanol subsidies.

Topping the list of voter concerns was the economy and jobs — picked by 40 percent of respondents, followed by the budget deficit at 23 percent. Social issues came in a distant third, with 9 percent. And the candidate who polled highest as the one who “most represents the values you try to live by,” Michele Bachmann, has nothing to show for that rating in the overall race, where she is in fifth place.

But the decline of the three G’s hasn’t stopped a few of the dead-enders in the Republican field from raising the flag. Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, last seen trying to find a verb to follow “oops,” is out this week with a very specific culture-war ad in Iowa, vowing to end “Obama’s war on religion,” whatever that is.



“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian,” says Perry, in a folksy drawl. “But you don’t need to be in a pew every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.” The surprise here is that he actually completed several sentences, though it may have required a number of takes.

Perry and Rick Santorum, another badly wounded culture warrior, blasted Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week for saying that the United States would assist human rights groups fighting for tolerance in countries where people have been imprisoned, and even killed, for their sexual orientation.

“This administration’s war on traditional values must stop,” said Perry, siding, apparently, with mullahs living in caves.

This is Perry’s last gasp; in desperation, he shows how this particular balloon has run out of hot air. Poll after poll has found that Americans now overwhelmingly favor letting gays serve openly in the military — a sentiment backed even by a sizable majority of Republicans.

The gay marriage issue is moving in the same direction. Earlier this year, Gallup reported that, for the first time in its tracking of the issue, a majority of Americans believe same-sex marriage should be legal. In 1996, only 27 percent felt that way.

Which brings us to guns. President Obama has done nothing to curb gun use. If anything, he’s expanded gun rights. There are probably a dozen Democrats in Congress from the West who know more about guns than Mitt Romney or Professor Newt Gingrich. That dog, as they say, will not hunt — not this year.

The irony is that two of the G’s could actually hurt Republicans in 2012. Conservative orthodoxy is badly out of step with emerging majority support for full citizenship rights of gays. And with religion, some Republicans have already made an issue of Romney’s Mormonism, and Gingrich’s switch to Roman Catholicism. In Gingrich’s case, questions have been raised about how a multiple-married man could win the favor of high-ranking Catholic clerics who usually look askance at people who ditch their wives.

Do we dare expect these two fine men to be the ones, at long last, to bring an end to the gays, guns and God wedge issue, even if it’s by accident?

Another Teen Bullied To Death; Another Reason for a New Christianity

By John Shore in Christian Issues:

Another kid has been bullied into killing himself. His name is Jacob Rogers. He went to Cheatham County Central High School, in Ashland City, TN. Apparently he’d been being pretty severely bullied for four years. It got so bad that around Thanksgiving he quit going to school.

A friend of Jacob’s told reporters, “He started coming home his senior year, saying ‘I don’t want to go back. Everyone is so mean. They call me a faggot, they call me gay, a queer.’”

Yesterday Jacob took his own life.

You can read more via MSNBC. (An important detail not mentioned in that MSNBC story comes from from KingstonSprings.org: “Dr. Tim Webb, Director of Cheatham County Schools [said] that his almost all-new staff at the high school only knew of one incident of bullying and confronted the accused over the bullying. However, Dr. Webb also noted that because staff were new to the school, they were perhaps not aware of the extent of bullying that Jacob had endured in years past.”)

I’ve done a fair amount of writing on these sorts of tragedies (see this past Saturday’s Tell Me, Christian, That You Hear this Boy, Christians and the Blood of Jamey Rodemeyer, and My Gay Christian Cousin Committed Suicide, to name just three). And so I have no doubt that some will claim that the primary reason Jacob killed himself is not because he was bullied. They’ll say that we don’t know the whole story. They’ll point to the fact that Jacob lived with his grandmother, that his family is poor (not, God knows, that poverty is any sin)—that it’s safe to assume this kid had problems beyond being bullied.

And I will respond with what I always say: that certainly there are always myriad causes behind the suicide of any person. But that that does not alter the fact that the root cause of tragedies like the Jacob Rogers story is that strain of Christianity which continues to insist that homosexuality is an evil affront to God.


If Christians would actually read the Bible, instead of daring to insist that three or four isolated phrases within it justifies a theology that has no more to do with Christ than Fred Phelps has to do with Welcome Wagon, we would arrive at a popular Christianity that is not, as so much of our Christianity is today, a pure affront to anyone with half a conscience.

And that Christianity would dissipate the motivation of those kids who bully in the name and spirit of condemning homosexuality. Quickly and inevitably, that particularly noxious train would come to a halt. Because there wouldn’t be left any enduring reason for anyone to ever condemn gay people at all.

Then gay people would just be … people. You know: that thing God made in his own image.

Homophobic? Re-Read Your Bible

An Op-Ed Classic by Peter J. Gomes, an American Baptist minister and professor of Christian morals at Harvard who passed away in March 2011. The article was published in the New York Times on August 17, 1992.

Homophobic? Re-Read Your Bible

Opposition to gays' civil rights has become one of the most visible symbols of American civic conflict this year, and religion has become the weapon of choice. The army of the discontented, eager for clear villains and simple solutions and ready for a crusade in which political self-interest and social anxiety can be cloaked in morality, has found hatred of homosexuality to be the last respectable prejudice of the century.

Ballot initiatives in Oregon and Maine would deny homosexuals the protection of civil rights laws. The Pentagon has steadfastly refused to allow gays into the armed forces. Vice President Dan Quayle is crusading for "traditional family values." And Pat Buchanan, who is scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention this evening, regards homosexuality as a litmus test of moral purity.

Nothing has illuminated this crusade more effectively than a work of fiction, "The Drowning of Stephan Jones," by Bette Greene. Preparing for her novel, Ms. Greene interviewed more than 400 young men incarcerated for gay-bashing, and scrutinized their case studies. In an interview published in The Boston Globe this spring, she said she found that the gay-bashers generally saw nothing wrong in what they did, and, more often than not, said their religious leaders and traditions sanctioned their behavior. One convicted teen-age gay-basher told her that the pastor of his church had said, "Homosexuals represent the devil, Satan," and that the Rev. Jerry Falwell had echoed that charge.

Christians opposed to political and social equality for homosexuals nearly always appeal to the moral injunctions of the Bible, claiming that Scripture is very clear on the matter and citing verses that support their opinion. They accuse others of perverting and distorting texts contrary to their "clear" meaning. They do not, however, necessarily see quite as clear a meaning in biblical passages on economic conduct, the burdens of wealth and the sin of greed.

Nine biblical citations are customarily invoked as relating to homosexuality. Four (Deuteronomy 23:17, I Kings 14:24, I Kings 22:46 and II Kings 23:7) simply forbid prostitution, by men and women.

Two others (Leviticus 18:19-23 and Leviticus 20:10-16) are part of what biblical scholars call the Holiness Code. The code explicitly bans homosexual acts. But it also prohibits eating raw meat, planting two different kinds of seed in the same field and wearing garments with two different kinds of yarn. Tattoos, adultery and sexual intercourse during a woman's menstrual period are similarly outlawed.

There is no mention of homosexuality in the four Gospels of the New Testament. The moral teachings of Jesus are not concerned with the subject.

Three references from St. Paul are frequently cited (Romans 1:26-2:1, I Corinthians 6:9-11 and I Timothy 1:10). But St. Paul was concerned with homosexuality only because in Greco-Roman culture it represented a secular sensuality that was contrary to his Jewish-Christian spiritual idealism. He was against lust and sensuality in anyone, including heterosexuals. To say that homosexuality is bad because homosexuals are tempted to do morally doubtful things is to say that heterosexuality is bad because heterosexuals are likewise tempted. For St. Paul, anyone who puts his or her interest ahead of God's is condemned, a verdict that falls equally upon everyone.

And lest we forget Sodom and Gomorrah, recall that the story is not about sexual perversion and homosexual practice. It is about inhospitality, according to Luke 10:10-13, and failure to care for the poor, according to Ezekiel 16:49-50: "Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy." To suggest that Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexual sex is an analysis of about as much worth as suggesting that the story of Jonah and the whale is a treatise on fishing.

Part of the problem is a question of interpretation. Fundamentalists and literalists, the storm troopers of the religious right, are terrified that Scripture, "wrongly interpreted," may separate them from their values. That fear stems from their own recognition that their "values" are not derived from Scripture, as they publicly claim.

Indeed, it is through the lens of their own prejudices and personal values that they "read" Scripture and cloak their own views in its authority. We all interpret Scripture: Make no mistake. And no one truly is a literalist, despite the pious temptation. The questions are, By what principle of interpretation do we proceed, and by what means do we reconcile "what it meant then" to "what it means now?"

These matters are far too important to be left to scholars and seminarians alone. Our ability to judge ourselves and others rests on our ability to interpret Scripture intelligently. The right use of the Bible, an exercise as old as the church itself, means that we confront our prejudices rather than merely confirm them.

For Christians, the principle by which Scripture is read is nothing less than an appreciation of the work and will of God as revealed in that of Jesus. To recover a liberating and inclusive Christ is to be freed from the semantic bondage that makes us curators of a dead culture rather than creatures of a new creation.

Religious fundamentalism is dangerous because it cannot accept ambiguity and diversity and is therefore inherently intolerant. Such intolerance, in the name of virtue, is ruthless and uses political power to destroy what it cannot convert.

It is dangerous, especially in America, because it is anti-democratic and is suspicious of "the other," in whatever form that "other" might appear. To maintain itself, fundamentalism must always define "the other" as deviant.

But the chief reason that fundamentalism is dangerous is that, at the hands of the Rev. Pat Robertson, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and hundreds of lesser-known but equally worrisome clerics, preachers and pundits, it uses Scripture and the Christian practice to encourage ordinarily good people to act upon their fears rather than their virtues.

Fortunately, those who speak for the religious right do not speak for all American Christians, and the Bible is not theirs alone to interpret. The same Bible that the advocates of slavery used to protect their wicked self-interests is the Bible that inspired slaves to revolt and their liberators to action.

The same Bible that the predecessors of Mr. Falwell and Mr. Robertson used to keep white churches white is the source of the inspiration of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the social reformation of the 1960's.

The same Bible that anti-feminists use to keep women silent in the churches is the Bible that preaches liberation to captives and says that in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free.

And the same Bible that on the basis of an archaic social code of ancient Israel and a tortured reading of Paul is used to condemn all homosexuals and homosexual behavior includes metaphors of redemption, renewal, inclusion and love -- principles that invite homosexuals to accept their freedom and responsibility in Christ and demands that their fellow Christians accept them as well.

The political piety of the fundamentalist religious right must not be exercised at the expense of our precious freedoms. And in this summer of our discontent, one of the most precious freedoms for which we must all fight is freedom from this last prejudice.

Gay Rights Are Human Rights Are Gay Rights

This is a speech that should be delivered by a leader, any true leader, in Venango County, home of the Pennsylvania state affiliate of the American Family Association, a viciously anti-gay hate group that spreads homophobia and transphobia around the country and around the globe.

Secretary Clinton's Landmark LGBT Speech
Shows Importance of Electing Pro-Equality Candidates

by John Becker for The Huffington Post:


Today is truly a momentous day in human rights history. This morning President Barack Obama issued the first-ever executive memorandum dealing with the subject of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights worldwide and directing federal agencies working overseas to "promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons." Later, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivered a landmark address on LGBT rights in recognition of International Human Rights Day at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. (Watch below.)

After acknowledging that America's own record on human rights for LGBT people is "far from perfect," Clinton told those gathered, "Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights." The Secretary went on to condemn laws, violence, and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression, calling them violations of human rights. She specifically rebuked the false notion, popular in many religiously conservative nations, that homosexuality is some kind of Western phenomenon. Clinton condemned religion-based anti-LGBT bigotry, saying that "while we are each free to believe whatever we choose, we cannot do whatever we choose, not in a world where we protect the human rights of all." And she announced the creation by the United States government of a $3-million Global Equality Fund that will support the work of organizations working on LGBT rights issues worldwide.


Many LGBT activists, including me, write and speak constantly about the importance of electing LGBT people and allies to political office, and today's historic speech should put an end to any skepticism about that point. After all, Secretary Clinton is articulating the official policy of the United States of America under a pro-equality administration. There's absolutely no way she would have delivered a groundbreaking address to the United Nations, exclusively devoted to LGBT rights worldwide, had she not been specifically authorized to do so at the highest level of the executive branch.

Today's speech should also serve to both galvanize the American LGBT community and throttle us out of any apathy we might feel about throwing our enthusiastic support, checkbooks, blood, sweat, and tears into electing pro-equality candidates.

Members of our nation's LGBT community should make no mistake: apathy at the ballot box, or anything less than a full commitment to providing the maximum amount of support possible -- of all kinds, on all fronts, and at all levels -- to political leaders who explicitly support LGBT rights inadvertently helps to hand the country over to people who have specifically and repeatedly promised to do everything in their power to make sure advances like this are stopped for as long as possible, by any means possible, regardless of the consequences to millions of LGBT people around the world.

Secretary of State Delivers Historic LGBT Speech in Geneva

Heaven and Hell

When Did You Choose To Be Straight?

Monumental Cryptography Discovery Reveals Homosexuality Not Forbidden in Bible

by Kevin Farrell:

We don’t necessarily run in cryptography circles here at UB, but even we have to admit that “internationally acclaimed cryptographer” Michael Wood’s publishing on the Apostle Paul’s teachings on homosexuality piqued our attention.


Apparently Paul’s paradoxes laid out in the book of Romans in the Bible have plagued theologians and historians for thousands of years. A classic argument against cultural permissiveness toward homosexuality stems from Romans, in which Paul appears to say homosexuals need not apply for an all-inclusive pass to Heaven – because they will be denied.

But Wood’s discovery has turned the entire scripture upside down, and it appears that the Bible has had a welcome mat out for the gays all along.

“Michael Wood’s discovery is remarkable because it solves a colossal paradox regarding Paul’s Greek that has baffled scholars for 2,000 years,” says Dr. William Berg, who taught Greek and Roman Classics at Stanford University.

Paul’s only unequivocal reference to homosexuality is found within Romans 1:18-3:20, a Biblical passage that has mystified scholars for two millennia. “The interpretation of Romans1:18-3:20 has been notoriously difficult for almost every commentator,” Richard Longenecker, the Distinguished New Testament Scholar at Wheaton College, writes in his book Studies in Paul. “Earlier interpreters such as Origen, Jerome, Augustine, and Erasmus wrestled with this issue and it continues to plague commentators today.”

The passage is riddled with paradoxes. It says that “only the doers of the law will be vindicated by God,” and “by the works of the law no one will be vindicated.” The passage also mysteriously separates idolatrous, homosexual orgy fests from transgressions worthy of spiritual death. “In finding the definitive solution to Paul’s legal paradox, I inadvertently discovered why he separated the idolatrous, same-sex orgies from the things he considered worthy of spiritual death,” said Wood.

Wood’s solution is definitive, elegant, and verifiable. Romans 2:13-26 teaches: Only the doers of the “Justices of the Torah” will be vindicated before God. Romans 3:20 says, “By the ‘Jobs of the Torah’ no one will be vindicated.” Not only is there no contradiction, but the two teachings have always been simple restatements of each other; the “Great Paradox” is no paradox at all!

This legal solution fully explains Paul’s treatment of homosexuality. Paul’s passage excludes idolatrous, homosexual orgy fests from things which he considered worthy of spiritual death, things such as “bad-mouthing others,” “deceiving,” and “inflicting pain.” Those engaged in idolatrous, homosexual orgies weren’t violating the Justices. (They weren’t violating the precept “Love your neighbor as yourself.”) Therefore, Paul was obliged to separate this from his list of things which did violate the Justices.

The finding is significant because it documents that Paul purposefully separated the same-sex acts; it was a conscious, deliberate decision consistent with the rest of the passage. In fact, it was demanded by the rest of the passage. The resolution of the paradox empirically proves that Paul’s view on homosexuality was very different from what Christians had thought for 2,000 years.

Although Romans 1 contains the only unequivocal reference to homosexuality, anti-homosexual statements have been introduced into other passages in newer versions of the English Bible. As for these modern changes to the Biblical text: “Michael Wood has gone the extra mile in being faithful to Paul’s Greek,” said Dr. Berg. “He shows, time and again, that the words traditionally mistranslated as ‘homosexual,’ ‘effeminate,’ ‘impure,’ and so forth, are really targeting selfish, unloving, unjust activity and have nothing to do with sexual orientation. He shows that once again Paul was condemning those who violate the Justices of the Torah, and nothing more.”

Wordy, we know. But how about them apples? Real talk, we’re full grown, non-robotic, autonomous adults capable of making our own decisions regarding morality here at UB, thankyouverymuch – but it’s always nice to hear that those who promote the idea of an all-loving God that hates some of the things He created have been reading their Bibles the wrong way all this time.

What say you about this biblical development?

The Homosexual Lifestyle -- Rated PG

The Gospel According to Hypocrisy

by Domenick Scudera, Professor of Theater and Chair of the Theater and Dance department, Ursinus College, for The Huffington Post:


And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him,

And maketh no mistake, these single male followers were not homosexuals,

And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,


"Blessed are the negative in spirit: for they shall find fault with just about everyone and everything.

"Blessed are they who judge others: for they are entitled and superior.

"Blessed are the intolerant: for they most rightfully deny the humanity of others.

"Blessed are the ignorant: for they shall equate homosexuality with pedophilia and shall promote other equally specious arguments.

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall tell everyone else what to do with their lives.

"Ye are the light of the world and ye shall shine brightly over all those who do not live by your code or standards.

"Think not that I am come to destroy the law. I want you to do that. Change all the laws of the land through ballot measures so that people will only live the way that ye think is right.

"Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

"But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman or an intern lustfully shall make sure that any activity is well hidden and not documented:

"Be warned that the wide web of the world, and liberal news media, will exploit your personal deviant behavior against you.

"It hath been said, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement:

"But I say unto you, That whosoever shall divorce his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry a divorced woman committeth adultery.

"And I also say unto you, That you may ignore this last piece of advice if it is not convenient for you. Marry and divorceth whomsoever you wish, as many times as you wish, and do not worry about it. Just make sure that the homosexuals do not ruineth everything by taking husbands.

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy:

"And I say unto you, That sounds pretty good. Some of those enemies are horrible. Blessed are you who curseth them whenever you can. Do evil unto them who hate you.

"For if ye love them which love you, you may be perceived as homosexual. Make not this mistake.

"Salute your brethren only. Why do something for others?

"Be ye therefore perfect. And everyone else is not.

"Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. Masturbation must be denied.

"And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

"No, I take that back. Ignore that last one. Pray and preach as loudly as you can. Let everyone see and hear you. I realizeth now that hypocrisy is a good way to be respected and still allow you to do whatever you want.

"Use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do:

"Unless your words are 'talking points.' Repeat these as often as you can, so that ye may drill your opinions into the minds of the masses.

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.

"But lay up for yourselves treasures in righteous politicians and causes.

"For wherever your treasure is, there will lieth your political power.

"Judge not, that ye be not judged [LOL!]

"Enter ye in at the strait gate. Strait meaning straight.

"Therefore whosoever interpreteth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock."


And it came to pass, when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine:

For he did not seem very Christian.

"Hope Will Never Be Silent" - Harvey Milk

On this day in 1978,
Harvey Milk was assassinated in San Francisco.
His are one set of shoulders on which we stand.

Harvey Milk, Hero and Martyr
(May 22, 1930 - November 27, 1978)

For an entire community, Harvey Milk is remembered as a hero,
a martyr to a cause.

After three unsuccessful campaigns, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors. His election was a landmark event. The reason? Harvey Milk was gay, and his election was the first of an openly gay elected official in the United States. To win the election, Milk had to gain the support of all segments of his district. On election night, Harvey Milk reminded his supporters: "This is not my victory -- it's yours. If a gay man can win, it proves that there is hope for all minorities who are willing to fight."

Harvey Milk was born in 1930 in Woodmere, Long Island, New York. He graduated from New York College for Teachers, served four years in the US Navy, taught high school mathematics and history on Long Island and worked in finance in New York City. When he moved to San Francisco in 1972, he opened a camera store on Castro Street.

Milk's friends and associates remember him as an outgoing person with a keen sense of humor. A brilliant speaker and neighborhood leader, he was soon referred to as "the Mayor of Castro Street." He entered San Francisco politics by campaigning for supervisor as an openly gay candidate in 1973; he lost but won an impressive 17,000 votes. Milk then established the Castro Village Association of local merchants. He ran for supervisor in 1975 and lost again but Mayor George Moscone appointed Milk to the Board of Permit Appeals, making him the first openly gay commissioner in the country.

In 1977, after district elections replaced citywide elections, Milk ran again for the post of supervisor and won. The first openly gay elected official, he was aware of the tremendous discrimination and prejudice that confronted gays and lesbians. Under his urging, the city council passed a Gay Rights Ordinance in 1978 that protected gays from being fired from their jobs. Milk championed the cause of those with little power against downtown corporations and real estate developers, campaigning especially hard for the rights of senior citizens.

Milk knew that his position as a San Francisco Supervisor advocating gay rights placed him in danger. Hate mail began to pour into his office. With chilling foresight Milk made a tape recording on November 18, 1977, with instructions to have it read only if he died by assassination. In it he says, "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." On November 27, 1978, Supervisor Milk and Mayor Moscone were assassinated by Dan White, a former police officer who had clashed with Milk over gay issues. After shooting the mayor, White entered Milk's office and shot him five times at his desk.

At the trial, White's attorney used the "Twinkie" defense -- that too much junk food affected White's reasoning abilities. The jury found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to seven years, eight months for the two murders. Many San Franciscans were outraged at his light sentence. Demonstrations at City Hall erupted into riots on May 21, 1979 (the eve of what would have been Milk's 49th birthday), which became known as "White Night."


Harvey Milk left a legacy. He profoundly influenced gay and lesbian politics, and was also a champion of human rights. Milk once said, "...you've got to keep electing gay people...to know there is better hope for tomorrow. Not only for gays, but for blacks, Asians, the disabled, our senior citizens and us. Without hope, we give up. I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it life is not worth living. You and you and you have got to see that the promise does not fade." His martyrdom is a painful reminder of the length and difficulty of the journey to freedom.

The Einstein Of Sex

Speaking of the effects of homophobic and transphobic bigotry, Magnus Hirschfeld said:

"The time will come when such tragedies will be no more, for knowledge will conquer prejudice, truth will conquer lies, and love will triumph over hatred."


Magnus Hirschfeld (May 14, 1868 - May 14, 1935) was a German physician and sexologist. An outspoken advocate for sexual minorities, Hirschfeld founded the Scientific Humanitarian Committee, which Dustin Goltz called "the first advocacy for homosexual and transgender rights.

Learn more at GLBTQ.

Common Sense

Role Models and other Glimpses of Self

A Message from Betty Hill, Executive Director of the Persad Center, the nation’s second oldest licensed counseling center specifically created to serve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) community:


Barbara Grier, lesbian-themed novelist and publisher, died this week. She and 3 other women founded Naiad Press in 1973 which she is quoted as saying “to publish books about lesbians who love lesbians and where the girl is not just going through a phase.”

She was overwhelmed by the volume of orders for her books. While she was surprised at the demand, I am not. Think about the thrill of a young lesbian who finds a story that reflects how she thinks and feels and loves in the world in the midst of a lifetime of stories and books where she is out of place and cannot relate.

It speaks to me about the need for evidence and reflection that is hungered for by a population of people who are made invisible in their world.


Heterosexism is institutionalized isolation. In heterosexism, it isn’t just that GLBTQ people are a minority and so you don’t run into them as much as heterosexual people; there is deliberateness about omitting any signs of the minority population’s existence. It sends the message that there isn’t just fewer of you, “we wish there weren’t any of you.”

GLBTQ people are seeking signs of their existence and of their realities. You figure out who you are in the world by seeing signs of yourself in others and in aspiring to bring into life what sparks as a glimmer of you in people you admire. Barbara Grier brought stories of lives that were glimmers of hope to the reality and existence of women who love women.



We need visible signs and safe spaces to sort out our way of relating in the world.

This can happen in small and everyday ways where we acknowledge and name the relationship between a family member and his partner, or where we include the possibility that some kids may want bring a same-sex partner to the school dance, or while we watch “Dancing with the Stars” that we talk about the challenges of being transgender, and we make information available to young people about sexual or gender orientation.

Persad works with organizations to help them eliminate institutional heterosexism and homophobia. We can conduct on-site assessments of environments, policies, practices and staff /worker attitudes and understanding, as well as to assist in achieving goals to improve diversity and inclusion.

Hypochristians

by Laurence Watts for The Huffington Post:

More learned people than I claim that William Shakespeare originated more than 1,000 words of the English Language. The fact that Shakespeare (c. 1564-1616) predated Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of The English Language (published in 1755) undoubtedly helped cement his reputation in this regard. Nowadays it's much harder to create a new word that catches on.

Huffington Post blogger and author Mark Simpson succeeded in this regard when in 1994 he coined the term "metrosexual," a term once reserved for the likes of David Beckham, but which can now be used to describe almost every man in every mall the world over. It's one of those things that I wish I'd thought of. It seems so obvious with hindsight, and yet to have spotted the trend, coined the phrase and watched it go viral requires pinpoint accuracy and not a small amount of luck.


In 2003, Dan Savage famously created the word "santorum." If you're not familiar with its meaning, I'll let you look it up rather than describe it here. In doing so he has effectively neutralized one of America's most enduring homophobes. It was a masterstroke that still fills me with awe.

My most recent why-didn't-I-think-of-that moment came recently while watching Comedy Central's The Colbert Report. During a scathing report covering ridiculous Republican amendments to the Michigan Senate's anti-bullying bill (SB 137), Stephen and his writing team coined the phrase "hypochristian" as a joke. The report was clever and scathing, but the word "hypochristian" hit my ears like a kipper soaked in rubbing alcohol being slapped across my face. What an amazingly powerful word! What a great invention.


"Hypochristian," derived from "hypocrite" and "Christian," is a word I would encourage you all to use in future. If I may, I would like to provide you with my proposal for its definition:

"A hypochristian is someone who claims to be Christian but fails to follow the principal teachings of Jesus Christ (hereby summarised as love, tolerance and forgiveness), preferring for selfish, cultural or political reasons to selectively emphasize passages from the Old Testament instead."

Allow me to give you two examples so you'll know how to spot a hypochristian in future. Let's start with Newt Gingrich.

Newt Gingrich claims to be a Roman Catholic. He opposes same-sex marriage, believing that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. As Speaker of the House he pushed the Defense of Marriage Act through the House of Representatives in 1996 when it looked like marriage equality might be won in Hawaii. Despite opposing marriage for same-sex couples, he has taken full advantage of his right to marry: he has married three times.

Gingrich married his first wife, Jackie Battley, in 1962. In 1980 he had his first affair with a woman called Marianne Ginther. He divorced Battley in 1981 and married Ginther, who became his second wife. Not having learned his lesson, he then began an affair with Callista Bisek in the mid 1980s. He finally divorced Ginther in 2000 and married Bisek, who then became his third wife. Not only did Gingrich clearly misunderstand Jesus when he said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," but he also appears to have ignored what the Bible says about adultery. Without a shadow of a doubt, Gingrich is a hypochristian.


Texas Governor Rick Perry also claims to be a Christian. Yet in spite of being "pro-life," he is a strong supporter and celebrator of the death penalty. This may very well be in accord with the Old Testament's "an eye for an eye" view of crime and punishment, but it's hard to believe that Jesus Christ would have allowed 234 people to be executed by the state of Texas had he been governor. It's also worth emphasizing that "thou shalt not kill" covers criminals just as much as it covers their victims. Oh, and before anyone points out, I'm well aware that the people of Texas would never actually elect Jesus Christ as governor. Perry is undoubtedly a hypochristian.

I, for one, am fed up with hypochristians denying gay men and women their human rights in the name of "God" through some kind of selective amnesia of what Christianity is about. These people are taking the Christ out of Christianity and replacing him with their own right-wing agenda. Put simply: Jesus did not preach hate. Those who use his name to justify their own hate and ignorance need to be called out. We now have the perfect word with which to do so.

Is Homophobia Natural?

Preach Love Not Hate

One Day, The Voices of Those in Venango County Who Have Lived Too Long in the Shadows, In Fear and Isolation, Due to Anti-LGBT Bigotry, Harassment, and Discrimination Will Also Rise Up Against Those Who Promote Division and Hate.

So, While Watching This Video, Imagine, Just Imagine, That Moment by Substituting Vengango County's Own Hate Group, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, in the Place of this Video's Target, Scott Lively and his Abiding Truth Ministry.



"Scott Lively is one of the most outspoken leaders of the anti-gay movement both nationally and internationally. He is more than just hateful rhetoric; he has played a major role in legislating the criminalization of homosexuality here in the U.S. and in Uganda. Today Occupy Springfield marched on his "Holy Grounds" coffee shop demanding a stop to this hatred. It is appalling that this bizarre little hate cult is operating right on State St across from STCC! Check out the video as we run into Lively and his oddball collection of confused Tea-hadists who put their Libertarian routine aside for a day to get in a little old fashioned homophobia,& Beck following nuts who ironically think everyone left of lunatic right is with the defunct ACORN. A few garden variety kooks with the direct line to Jesus round out the squad. Hopefully you'll be as outraged as we are after hearing his "sermon" of violent hatred today."

Children are the Real Victims of Anti-LGBT Laws and Stigma

by Michael Cole-Schwartz for The Huffington Post:


One of the oft-repeated arguments for excluding gay and lesbian couples from marriage is that it will somehow "protect children." People like Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage want Americans to believe that if only we lock the doors to marriage and don't let anyone but straight couples in, children will be healthy, happy and safe from harm. But a new report from our movement colleagues at the Center for American Progress, the Family Equality Council and the Movement Advancement Project makes clear that children are actually the victims of the laws and stigma that disadvantage lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults.

First, it's critical to acknowledge that LGBT people are parenting in large and growing numbers. Studies estimate that 2 million children are being raised by LGBT parents in nearly every county in the country. Interestingly, same-sex couples in the South are most likely to be raising children, and LGBT families are more likely to be racially and ethnically diverse. When you hear the Maggie Gallaghers of the world talk about doing what's best for children, remember that 2 million of this country's children are being denied what children of other families get.

One of the chief obstacles to children of LGBT families being protected is the federal Defense of Marriage Act. By limiting marriage to only one man and one woman for federal purposes, DOMA denies 1,138 rights, responsibilities and benefits to legally married same-sex couples and their children. These are things like the ability to take family and medical leave, receive social security survivors' benefits or take advantage of numerous tax provisions aimed at strengthening families. This is true even for families in the six states and D.C. where same-sex couples can legally marry.

Even opponents of marriage or other relationship recognition for same-sex couples agree that discriminating against gay parents hurts their children. During this summer's landmark hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy got Focus on the Family's Tom Minnery to admit under oath that when you have some families with fewer rights than others, it disadvantages kids.


This week we heard from Chairman Leahy that he is continuing to push this issue with a markup next month. In early November, the full committee will consider the Respect for Marriage Act -- the bill to repeal DOMA and level the playing field for all families. If you want to do what's actually best for the children of this country, tell Congress it's time to end discrimination against LGBT parents.

More Lies from the American Family Assoication of Pennsylvania

The American Family Association of Pennsylvania is the Venango County-based affiliate of the American Family Association, a nationally recognized Hate Group headquartered in Tupelo, Miss.

While the lies that such groups use to demonize and dehumanize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people have been well documented, including in a recent report from the Southern Poverty Law Center titled "The Propagandists: Bryan Fischer, the American Family Association, and the Demonization of LGBT People," it's also important to see and document how the delusional adherents of these hate groups persistently spread such mendacious and harmful propaganda at the local level.


Here in Venango County, for example, Diane Gramley (at right), mouthpiece for the AFA of PA, recently posted this blatant lie on its web site:

afaofpa says:
October 27, 2011 at 12:55 am

In 2003, the International Human Genome Consortium announced the successful completion of the Human Genome Project, which, among other things, identified each of the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA. The press release read: “The human genome is complete and the Human Genome Project is over.”


While this accomplishment was widely reported, almost no one reported the words of Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the project. Collins, arguably the nation’s most influential geneticist, said, “Homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.”


THE TRUTH has actually been documented by Grove City College professor, Warren Throckmorton:

What Did Francis Collins Really Say About Homosexuality?

In his book, "The Language of God: A scientist presents evidence for belief," Francis Collins has this to say about homosexuality on page 260:

An area of particularly strong public interest is the genetic basis of homosexuality. Evidence from twin studies does in fact support the conclusion that heritable factors play a role in male homosexuality. However, the likelihood that the identical twin of a homosexual male will also be gay is about 20% (compared with 2-4 percent of males in the general population), indicating that sexual orientation is genetically influenced but not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations.

On the web, there are a number of sources who have quoted the OneNewsNow report that Francis Collins said the following:

‘Homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.’”

The problem is – Dr. Collins did not say this. As I noted here, Dr. Collins confirmed to me that he did not make this statement. He did say this:

It troubles me greatly to learn that anything I have written would cause anguish for you or others who are seeking answers to the basis of homosexuality. The words quoted by NARTH all come from the Appendix to my book “The Language of God” (pp. 260-263), but have been juxtaposed in a way that suggests a somewhat different conclusion that I intended. I would urge anyone who is concerned about the meaning to refer back to the original text.

The evidence we have at present strongly supports the proposition that there are hereditary factors in male homosexuality — the observation that an identical twin of a male homosexual has approximately a 20% likelihood of also being gay points to this conclusion, since that is 10 times the population incidence. But the fact that the answer is not 100% also suggests that other factors besides DNA must be involved. That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.

Your note indicated that your real interest is in the truth. And this is about all that we really know. No one has yet identified an actual gene that contributes to the hereditary component (the reports about a gene on the X chromosome from the 1990s have not held up), but it is likely that such genes will be found in the next few years.

Note this part of the quote: “That certainly doesn’t imply, however, that those other undefined factors are inherently alterable.” Sexual attractions may come from the operation of several factors, in different ways for different people. The nature of the cause however, does not directly lead to understanding of how alterable the attractions might be. Perhaps attractions develop with some mix of environment and pre-natal factors. However, once set, attractions for most people seem to be pretty durable.

How Long Will Venango County Be A Safe Harbor For and A Silent Partner in the American Family Association of Pennsylvania's Harmful Propaganda War Against LGBT People?

THE PROPAGANDISTS: Bryan Fischer, the American Family Association and the Demonization of LGBT People

The Pennsylvania chapter of the American Family Association, the Mississippi-based Hate Group that is the focus of a disturbing new Intelligence Report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, summarized below, is based in Venango County. (The AFAofPA's activities are chronicled in the Emmy Award-winning film "Out In The Silence.")


It is from Venango County where vicious attacks against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are broadcast (on the airwaves of American Family Radio station WAWN, 89.5 FM, Franklin), and it is from Venango County where the AFA of PA's president, Diane Gramley (pictured), launches vitriolic attacks and smear campaigns against LGBT people and their allies across the state.

Until Venango County's elected representatives, opinion leaders, and other voices of influence publicly denounce this organization's hateful and harmful activities, it must be assumed that they condone them.

In this case, cowardly silence must be seen as support.

THE PROPAGANDISTS:
Bryan Fischer, the American Family Association & the Demonization of LGBT People

Executive Summary

The American Family Association (AFA) is one of most powerful religious-right groups in the nation, with a $20 million budget, a network of 200 radio stations and two Internet television channels. Its spokespersons have appeared on all major networks and cable news channels, and in leading print and radio media. It is also one of the leading purveyors of lies about LGBT people and homosexuality.

The AFA has come under fire repeatedly over the years since it was founded in 1977 by the Rev. Donald Wildmon, who was sharply criticized in the 1980s for suggesting that obscene content on television and in the movies is largely due to the media being con- trolled by Jews. It once demanded that an openly gay Arizona congressman be barred from speaking at the Republican National Convention and suggested that he be arrested under a state law criminalizing sodomy. It regularly attacked corporations like Disney, which it described as a “two-faced” company that “welcomed hordes of homosexuals to celebrate their sexual perversions.”


But in the last three years, since hiring a radical Idaho preacher named Bryan Fischer (pictured) as its director of issue analysis, the AFA has gone even further. Since moving to Mississippi to join the group, Fischer has declared that “homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler … the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews” — a complete falsehood, as any historian knows. He has suggested that gay sex be recriminalized. He has routinely claimed that gay men molest children at rates far higher than those of heterosexual men — another falsehood, as all the relevant professional scientific associations have long agreed. Fischer has said that President Obama “nurtures a hatred for the white man” and suggested that welfare incentivizes black “people who rut like rabbits.” He has said that non-Christian religions “have no First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion,” claimed that the “sexual immorality of Native Americans” was part of what made them “morally disqualified from sovereign control of
American soil,” and suggested that the best way to deal with promiscuity would be to kill the promiscuous.

Words like these have consequences. While the AFA would certainly deny it, it seems obvious that its regular demonizing of members of the LGBT community as child molesters and the like creates an atmosphere where violence is all but inevitable. And that violence is dramatic. A study by the Southern Poverty Law Center found, based on an analysis of 14 years of FBI hate crime data, that LGBT people were by far the American minority most victimized by such crimes. They were more than twice as likely to be attacked in a violent hate crime as Jews or black people, and four times as likely as Muslims. And that doesn’t take into account the anti-gay bullying that has resulted in so many recent teen suicides.

Based on the foregoing and other evidence, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) last year began listing the AFA as a hate group. The listing, as was said at the time, was based on the group’s use of known falsehoods to attack and demonize members of the LGBT community — not, as some have gratuitously claimed, because the organization is Christian, or because it opposes same-sex marriage, or because it believes that the Bible describes homosexual practice as a sin.

Many thoughtful Christian commentators have said as much. Warren Throckmorton, a respected professor and past president of the American Mental Health Counselors Association, wrote last year that the AFA and other “newly labeled hate groups” were seeking to “avoid addressing the issues the SPLC raised, instead preferring to attack the credibility of the SPLC.” Reviewing an SPLC list of myths propagated by anti-gay religious-right groups, he said many are “provably false” and “rooted in ignorance.” The criticisms, Throckmorton concluded, are “legitimate and have damaged the credibility of the groups on the list. Going forward, I hope Christians don’t rally around these groups but rather call them to accountability.”

We hope public figures will do the same.

The Naked Bigotry of the American Family Association

Venango County is headquarters for the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, the state affiliate of the Tupelo, Mississippi-based Hate Group known as the American Family Association (AFA).

People for the American Way says this about the AFA's national spokesperson, Bryan Fischer, whose program airs on Venango County's "Christian" Radio Station, WAWN Franklin:

“Bryan Fischer’s stunning record of public bigotry would make him a pariah in any sane political movement. But his long record of hate speech doesn’t seem to bother the supposed ‘mainstream’ GOP politicians."

When will Venango County's public leaders stand up and say enough is enough?

People for the American Way Urges GOP Candidates To Condemn Fischer

We reported [1] yesterday that American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer will not only be speaking at the upcoming Values Voter Summit but will immediately follow Mitt Romney. Today, People For the American Way released a statement [2] urging Romney and fellow Republican presidential candidates Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain and Rick Santorum to condemn Fischer’s unmitigated bigotry [3] rather than lending it legitimacy by appearing with him:

• Fischer, the chief spokesman for the AFA, has insisted that American Muslims have no First Amendment [4] rights, has said that Muslims should be banned from the U.S. military [5], and has called for a ban on the building of new mosques [6] in the U.S.

• Fischer has written that “gay sex is a form of domestic terrorism [7],” thinks gays and lesbians should be “disqualified from public office [8],” claims that gays are responsible for the Nazi Party [9] and that gay people today will “do the same thing to you that the Nazis did to their opponents in Nazi Germany [10].”

• Fischer has insisted that Native Americans are “morally disqualified [11]” from controlling American land and insists that American Indian communities are “mired in poverty and alcoholism” because not all have converted to Christianity [11].

• He has written that African American welfare recipients “rut like rabbits [12].”

• Last year, Fischer insulted Medal of Honor winner [13] Sal Giunta, who saved the lives of two fellow soldiers under heavy fire in Afghanistan, saying “we have feminized the Medal of Honor” because "we now award it only for preventing casualties, not for inflicting them."

People For the American Way president Michael Keegan urged Romney and his fellow presidential candidates to denounce Fischer’s bigotry before appearing with him at the event.

“Bryan Fischer’s stunning record of public bigotry would make him a pariah in any sane political movement,” Keegan said. “But his long record of hate speech doesn’t seem to bother the supposed ‘mainstream’ GOP politicians like Mitt Romney and Rick Perry who are sharing the stage with him at an event sponsored by his employer. Candidates don’t have to agree with the views of everyone they appear with – but they should be wary of lending legitimacy to those who peddle hate and fear of their fellow Americans.

“If Mitt Romney wants to appeal to mainstream audiences, he should publicly disassociate himself from Fischer’s bigotry before handing him the podium.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And, of course, this, from Venango County's own Diane Gramley, President of the American Family Association of Pennsylvania: