Teens — Gay or Straight — More Likely to Attempt Suicide in Conservative Towns

Major Study of Oregon High Schoolers Probes Teen Mental Health and Social Climates

By Lindsey Tanner - AP Medical Writer:

CHICAGO — Suicide attempts by gay teens — and even straight kids — are more common in politically conservative areas where schools don't have programs supporting gay rights, a study involving nearly 32,000 high school students found.


Those factors raised the odds and were a substantial influence on suicide attempts even when known risk contributors like depression and being bullied were considered, said study author Mark Hatzenbuehler, a Columbia University psychologist and researcher.

His study found a higher rate of suicide attempts even among kids who weren't bullied or depressed when they lived in counties less supportive of gays and with relatively few Democrats. A high proportion of Democrats was a measure used as a proxy for a more liberal environment.

The research focused only on the state of Oregon and created a social index to assess which outside factors might contribute to suicidal tendencies. Other teen health experts called it a powerful, novel way to evaluate a tragic social problem.

"Is it surprising? No. Is it important? Yes," said Dr. Robert Blum of Johns Hopkins' Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The study "takes our relatively superficial knowledge and provides a bit more depth. Clearly, we need lots more understanding, but this is very much a step in the right direction," he said.

Blum serves on an Institute of Medicine committee that recently released a report urging more research on gay health issues. Blum said the new study is the kind of research the institute believes has been lacking. The independent group advises the government on health matters.

The new study was published online Monday in the journal Pediatrics.

Previous research has found disproportionately high suicide rates in gay teens. One highly publicized case involved a Rutgers University freshman who jumped off a bridge last year after classmates recorded and broadcast the 18-year-old having sex with a man.

The study relied on teens' self-reporting suicide attempts within the previous year. Roughly 20 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual teens said they had made an attempt, versus 4 percent of straight kids.

The study's social index rated counties on five measures: prevalence of same-sex couples; registered Democratic voters; liberal views; schools with gay-straight alliances; schools with policies against bullying gay students; and schools with anti-discrimination policies that included sexual orientation.

Gay, lesbian and bisexual teens living in counties with the lowest social index scores were 20 percent more likely to have attempted suicide than gays in counties with the highest index scores. Overall, about 25 percent of gay teens in low-scoring counties had attempted suicide, versus 20 percent of gay teens in high-scoring counties.

Among straight teens, suicide attempts were 9 percent more common in low-scoring counties. There were 1,584 total suicide attempts — 304 of those among gays, lesbians and bisexuals.

Hatzenbuehler said the results show that "environments that are good for gay youth are also healthy for heterosexual youth."

The study is based on 2006-08 surveys of 11th-graders that state health officials conducted in Oregon classrooms; Oregon voter registration statistics; Census data on same-sex couples; and public school policies on gays and bullying.

The researchers assessed proportions of Democrats versus Republicans; there were relatively few Independents. Information on non-voters wasn't examined.

Zachary Toomay, a high school senior from Arroyo Grande, Calif., said the study "seems not only plausible, but it's true."


The star swimmer, 18, lives in a conservative, mostly Republican county. He's active in his school's gay-straight alliance, and said he'd never been depressed until last year when classmates "ostracized" him for being vocal about gay rights.

Toomay said signs of community intolerance, including bumper stickers opposing same-sex marriage, also made him feel down, and he sought guidance from a school counselor after contemplating suicide.

Funding for the study came from the National Institutes for Health and a center for gay research at the Fenway Institute, an independent Harvard-affiliated health care and research center.

Michael Resnick, a professor of adolescent mental health at the University of Minnesota's medical school, said the study "certainly affirms what we've come to understand about children and youth in general.

"They are both subtly and profoundly affected by what goes around them," he said, including the social climate and perceived support.

The Lies of Religious Extremists

from Truth Wins Out:

Marc Mutty, who ran Yes on 1 in Maine, will be featured in a documentary later this year on the campaign to repeal marriage in that state, and in the trailer, he’s on camera admitting what we all already know — they lied in their campaign. They always lie:

“We use a lot of hyperbole and I think that’s always dangerous,” says Mutty during a Yes on 1 strategy session, at the time on leave from his job as public affairs director for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maine.

“You know, we say things like ‘Teachers will be forced to (teach same-sex marriage in schools)!’ ” he continues. “Well, that’s not a completely accurate statement and we all know it isn’t, you know?”

“No,” interjects a woman off-camera. “We don’t say that.”

“Let’s look back at our ads and see what we say,” Mutty persists. “And I think we use hyperbole to the point where, you know, it’s like ‘Geez!’ “

Indeed! I would go so far as to say that not only Mutty, but the entire Religious Right, flat makes sh*t up, their hatred of gay people runs so deep. More than that, they seem to know that facts are not on their side:

“I know we need to do what we have to do — not only slam people over the head with a two-by-four, but a two-by-four with nails sticking out of it,” he says. “And it’s nuts … unfortunately, I think it’s a lousy approach. But it’s the only thing we’ve got — it’s the only way. That’s the way campaigns work.”

Well, like I said, we already know they’re liars, but it’s refreshing to see one of them admit it, and perhaps, it seems from the article, feel a little bit of remorse over it. Like any good Christian, though, Mutty’s biggest regret is that he was caught on camera saying potty words, because, as we all know, potty words are worse than lying about an entire class of people in order to deny them and their families constitutional rights.

Breaking Free from the American Family Association's Campaign of Hate

This powerful letter was posted on the web page of OUT IN THE SILENCE, a documentary film about the struggle for inclusion, fairness and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and all people. The film's stories take place in Venango County, which is also home to the American Family Association of Pennsylvania, a radical right extremist organization recently designated as a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.


by PM, a resident of a small Mississippi town:

I am writing to tell you a little about my story.

I was a conservative Christian. I was also an avid listener of American Family Radio, an operation of the American Family Association.

I responded to all the 'action alerts' they sent out. I believed everything they said.

I was in a very bad marriage. There was abuse towards me, then I found out he had been sexually abusing my daughters. Only then did I have the courage to leave him.

My girls are doing well now, and he is in prison.

After I was finally away from him, I began to think for myself. I began to question all my beliefs.

I am still a Christian, but I no longer judge.

To me, its about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Its not about organized religion.

I believe God created everyone, and loves everyone. No one is better then anyone else.

When I watched OUT IN THE SILENCE, I cried.

I knew that the LGBT community was being persecuted, but you really put a personal face to some of the people. That really touched me in a way I never expected.

I feel that even in whatever small way I can, I want to fight this.

My daughter is bisexual. She is such an amazing person and an inspiration to me.


Without my change of heart, she might never have came out to me. We wouldn't have the wonderful relationship that we do have.

I can't help but wonder how many kids have parents that they are afraid to come out to for fear of being rejected. I feel like maybe coming from the place I am, a former American Family Radio listener and conservative Christian that maybe I could reach people like this. I know their thinking. They are being brainwashed in my opinion.

I say all this to say that whatever way I might be able to help, big or small, you can count on me. Small town Mississippi is somewhere that is seriously needing to have the light of this documentary shined on it. It was made for such a place. You would not believe how judgmental the home of American Family Association is. I live about 20 miles from Tupelo. I thank you and look forward to helping in any way I can.

Sincerely,
PM

Oil City Man Charged In Sexual Assault On Girls

Police say Walter McCauley, 66, allegedly performed sexual acts on a 6- and 10-year-old.

from The Derrick:

A 66-year-old Oil City man was charged Monday with sexually assaulting 6- and 10-year-old girls at a downtown Oil City apartment complex.


Oil City police said Walter McCauley allegedly performed sexual acts on both girls and made them perform acts on him at his home in Seneca Court.

McCauley faces 13 felony charges — including counts of aggravated indecent assault, indecent assault and endangering the welfare of a child — and 10 misdemeanors, according to court documents.

Police said the charges stem from a month-long investigation into the case.

According to a criminal complaint filed before District Judge Douglas Dinberg, one of the girls described the assaults to Venango County Children and Youth Services (CYS) workers.

McCauley later admitted to police and CYS workers he performed sex acts on one of the girls about four times during the last year at his home in the apartment complex on Seneca Street, according to the complaint.

He also told officials he exposed himself to the second girl and made her expose herself to him on one occasion at the home, the papers said.

McCauley was charged with four felony counts of aggravated indecent assault and indecent assault and five felony counts of endangering the welfare of a child.

He was also charged with five misdemeanor counts of indecent exposure and corruption of minors, according to court papers.

McCauley was arraigned before Dinberg Monday morning and was placed in Venango County jail on $50,000 bail.

Police said anyone with information on the case or anyone whose children may have had contact with McCauley can contact the Oil City Police Department.

American 'Family' Association Misuses Religion to Infuse Politics with BIGOTRY

An Iowa Stop in a Broad Effort to Revitalize the Religious Right

By Eric Eckholm for The New York Times, April 2, 2011:

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — Hundreds of conservative pastors in Iowa received the enticing invitation. Signed by Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and 2008 presidential contender, it invited the pastors and their spouses to an expenses-paid, two-day Pastors’ Policy Briefing at a Sheraton hotel.

Nearly 400 Iowa ministers and many of their spouses accepted, filling a ballroom here on March 24 and 25. Through an evening banquet and long sessions, they heard speakers deplore a secular assault on evangelical Christian verities like the sanctity of male-female marriage, the humanity of the unborn and the divine right to limited government.

The program, sponsored by a temporary entity called the Iowa Renewal Project, featured several superstars of the Christian right as well as four possible Republican contenders for president. It was the latest of dozens of free, two-day conventions in at least 14 states over the past several years, usually with Mr. Huckabee listed as a co-sponsor, that have been attended by nearly 10,000 pastors who have spread the word in their churches and communities.

These meetings are part of a largely quiet drive to revitalize the religious right by drawing evangelical pastors and their flocks more deeply into politics — an effort given new energy by what conservative church leaders see as the ominous creep of laws allowing same-sex marriage and their sense that America is, literally, heading toward hell.

The Iowa pastors heard David Barton, a Christian historian, argue that the country was founded as explicitly Christian and lament that too few evangelicals get out and vote. They heard Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker and like Mr. Huckabee a possible 2012 presidential candidate, say that constitutional liberties like the right to bear arms were ordained by God. They heard how to promote “biblically informed” political advocacy by churchgoers within the confines of federal tax law.

The other possible candidates who spoke were Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota.


Support from many of the pastors in the audience here helped Mr. Huckabee, an evangelical minister, win the Iowa Republican caucuses in 2008. He had been the only candidate to appear at a pastors’ meeting before the Republican caucuses and went on to gain a surprise victory, with 60 percent of the caucus voters describing themselves in exit polls as evangelicals.

This year, many more would-be contenders are making plays for support.

Mr. Huckabee, of course, was warmly welcomed back at the event here as he declared: “We face a spiritual war in this country. Let this weekend be a time when you say, ‘We will not fail, and America will not fall.’ ”

He and the other Republican speakers were careful not to sound too much like candidates in this officially nonpartisan forum, instead emphasizing the threats to conservative Christian values and the need for churches to be engaged. Mr. Gingrich, for one, described the “Rediscovering God in America” films he has made with his wife, Callista, and said America is exceptional because its founding documents enshrine rights “endowed by our creator.”

He told the crowd that it was their Christian duty to fight for the “truth,” exposing threats like overreaching by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Obama health care law that may put the country “on the road to dictatorship.”

Mr. Barbour pledged relentless opposition to abortion and accused liberals of trying to remove religion from politics. Ms. Bachmann challenged the pastors to “be the voice of freedom.”

The organizer and, to many, the unsung hero of this effort to mobilize pastors is David Lane, a 56-year-old born-again Christian from California.

“What we’re doing with the pastor meetings is spiritual, but the end result is political,” Mr. Lane said in a rare interview, outside the doors of the Iowa meeting. “From my perspective, our country is going to hell because pastors won’t lead from the pulpits.”

Mr. Lane shuns publicity as he crosses the country forming local coalitions under names like Renewal Project and securing outside financing to put on the pastor conferences. Something of a stealth weapon for the right, he has also stepped in to assist in special-issue campaigns, like the successful effort in Iowa last year to unseat three State Supreme Court justices who had voted to allow same-sex marriage.


Mr. Lane first started arranging pastor conferences in Texas and California in the 1990s, but the effort has grown in the last five years. The meetings, which cost many tens of thousands of dollars, have been largely paid for by the Mississippi-based American Family Association, he said.

The association, founded by the Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, is known for its strident condemnation of same-sex marriage and considers homosexuality to be “immoral, unnatural and unhealthy,” said Bryan Fischer, its director of issue analysis. Mr. Fischer said the association was a co-sponsor of the pastor meetings and maintained e-mail contact with 40,000 to 60,000 pastors nationwide, a list that is expanding.

In 2010, Mr. Lane said, he organized pastor meetings in Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Carolina and Tennessee, as well as two in Iowa. He expects to revisit some of the same states this year, several of which are important battlegrounds in presidential politics.

Compared with the 1980s, when it was dominated by prominent leaders like the Revs. Jerry Falwell with his Moral Majority and Pat Robertson with the Christian Coalition, the religious right is now decentralized, said Mark DeMoss, who was a close aide to Mr. Falwell.

“But it’s not true to suggest that it’s dead and gone,” he said. Mobilizing pastors has remained important, with “people out there like David Lane, whose names we may not know, who are contributing to a large fabric of involvement,” said Mr. DeMoss, who runs a Georgia public relations company for Christian causes.

The event here was reminiscent of the Christian Coalition’s Road to Victory conventions, which were must-stops for Republican presidential candidates. But with the spread of megachurches emphasizing personal salvation, fewer evangelical pastors than in the 1980s, over all, are deeply involved in politics, said Ralph Reed, who ran the Christian Coalition and is chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition.

He said it was natural that a movement’s initial phase, with a few charismatic leaders, would give way to one dominated by political operatives.

Mr. Lane and his supporters are hoping to rekindle the force of the church. Addressing the Iowa meeting, Mr. Huckabee lavished praise on Mr. Lane for “bringing pastors together so they go back to their pulpits and light them on fire with enthusiasm, to make America once again the greatest country on earth under God.”

In perhaps no state has the mobilization of churches paid off more than in Iowa, where evangelical Christians now dominate the state Republican Party and presidential caucuses even though their share of the population, one in four, is at the national average.

Republican leaders and pastors call Mr. Lane the unheralded mastermind of the campaign last year to unseat the State Supreme Court justices. The Rev. Jeffrey Mullen, 47, the pastor of Point of Grace Church in Waukee, Iowa, had not been involved politically, he said. But he was jolted by the court’s 2009 decision permitting same-sex marriage, which he called not only morally wrong but also a usurpation of power.

“God used David Lane and his sphere of influence to bring together all the elements” of the campaign to oust the justices, Mr. Mullen said. Mr. Lane secured hundreds of thousands of dollars from the political action committees of Mr. Gingrich and the American Family Association and devised a broad strategy, bringing together the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, which provided voter guides to churches, and the Iowa Family Policy Center, which got 834 ministers to sign a letter stating that marriage was established by God as between a man and a woman.

Beyond presidential politics, the main focus of Iowa conservatives next year, many said, will be taking control of the State Senate, which has blocked their drives for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and stronger anti-abortion laws.

Like all the pastor meetings, the recent one in Iowa was not advertised and was closed to the news media. But the speeches were streamed on the Web site of the American Family Association, and highlights were broadcast online on March 26 to crowds gathered in 177 churches around the country by a California-based group called United in Purpose, which shares the goal of drawing pastors into politics.


Speakers at the conference described what they called the biblical roots of American government and a rich early history of political engagement by the clergy. They exhorted the pastors and their flocks not only to fight harder to have same-sex marriage and abortion banned but also to follow God’s word by opposing activist judges, high taxes, explicit sex education and assaults on private property rights.

A pastor from Louisiana described the political costs of sexual scandals in the church and recommended that pastors avoid temptation by never being alone in a room with women who are not their wives.

The audience heard how to push their flocks to register and vote along “biblical principles” without running afoul of tax laws against endorsing candidates from the pulpit.

The Rev. Michael Demastus, 40, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ, said he was energized: “I came out of there like Seabiscuit out of the gate, ready to do even more.”

An Urgent Message for the Franklin Area School District - Franklin, PA

Franklin High School Principal George Forster and the Franklin Area School District Board should be forced to watch this video every morning until they adequately address the bullying and discrimination that has plagued the area for far too long.

The Bullying of Seth Walsh: Requiem for a Small-Town Boy
By Bryan Alexander / Tehachapi

Time Magazine:

Eleven-year-old Shawn Walsh paid a poignant tribute to the brother, just two years older, he had lost. Gripping a microphone as he stood at the altar of the First Baptist Church in Tehachapi, Calif., Shawn joshed that his brother could be "a pain in the butt" at times but that Seth was "the best big brother in the world — no, the galaxy." Wearing a yellow (Seth's favorite color) plaid shirt, Shawn then, without mentioning the word, made a heartbreaking reference to bullying, the specter at the heart of his family's mourning for his openly gay brother. "I always wanted to protect him," said Shawn, as sobs broke out in the church. "I just wish people could have been nice to him like my mom taught me."


People were not always nice to 13-year-old Seth Walsh. Neither his valiant younger brother Shawn nor the rest of his family could protect him from what they insist was chronic teasing. Even before Seth came out as gay, family and friends say, he was perpetually picked on for his mannerisms and his style of dressing. The bullying turned Seth Walsh to suicide, one of a spate of such deaths across the U.S. in the past two weeks. (See what happens when bullying goes criminal.)

On Sept. 19, his single mother Wendy found him unconscious; he had tried to hang himself from a tree in his backyard after another apparent bullying incident. He lingered on life support for more than a week. His death has since shattered emotions in this rural community 120 miles (190 km) north of Los Angeles. Close to 600 townspeople crammed into First Baptist on Friday, Oct. 1, to remember the teen who loved Pokémon, adored french fries above all other food and had an obsession with disco music. The church was so crowded that Pastor Ron Barker had mourners sit on the floor along the entire length of the middle aisle so everyone could find room inside the church. Still, many mourners gave up trying to enter. "Seth had friends that even this building could not contain," Barker said, smiling even as he knew the crowds in the church were a clear building violation. "My prayer for today is that the fire people don't show up."

Seth's beautician mother Wendy, 44, did not speak at the service. ("It's hard," she told TIME afterward. "It's hard for everyone.") Wearing a black polka-dot dress, she occasionally wept into the shoulder of her father Jim, 65, who was seated next to Seth's two brothers (Shane, 17, and Shawn) and sister (Amanda, 18). But Wendy wrote a eulogy that the pastor read. It began with a story about Seth placing a freshly picked spring flower in offering to his late dog Kelly, whom the family had just buried. "After giving the flower to Kelly, he went back to the family of flowers and gave an offering to the flowers for sacrificing one of their own members," Barker read. "He was a blessing to us and all who knew him, a lesson to the world on how to treat one another." (See the case of Matthew Shepard.)

The pastor told TIME that the focus of the service was "going to be on Seth and his life, not on the bullying, and not on the homosexuality." But both subjects were clearly in evidence at the service. As part of a photo montage displayed on the white walls behind the altar, Seth was shown happily wearing a plastic tiara on his head. The next frame featured the word bullying with a red slash through it.

Seth's grandparents insist their grandson knew from an early age that he was gay. "Wendy did everything humanly possible to help him understand his world and to support him," Jim Walsh, a retired school principal, told TIME. "And so did his brothers and sister." But it was something young Seth had trouble accepting. "Initially he wanted to have a girlfriend," says grandmother Judy Walsh, a retired schoolteacher. "He wasn't happy with his orientation. He read the Bible a lot. This was not the way he wanted to live his life, but that's what he was dealt with."

Even before he came out, he was teased enough, his grandparents say, that he was homeschooled on two separate occasions. His best friend, Jamie Phillips, says Seth, who told friends he was gay last year, was harassed long before: "Since it was a rumor that went around, everyone thought he was gay." "He started getting teased by the fourth and fifth grade," says Judy Walsh. "By sixth grade, the kids were starting to get mean. By the seventh grade, he was afraid to walk home from school because he was afraid he would get harassed. As he was walking by a classroom, a kid yelled out, 'Queer.' Stuff like that."

The bullying took every form. "It was eye to eye, over the telephone, personal, over the Internet," says Judy. "He spent a lot of his life frightened." Seth's grandparents say the breaking point came after what they believe was a bullying incident in a local park on Sept. 19. After the incident, Seth appeared to be acting normally at home. He then showered and asked to borrow a pen from his mother to write. Then he said he was going to play with the dogs in the backyard. His horrified mother found him later at the tree and fought to save her child even though she suspected it was futile. "Wendy told me, when she put him on the ground, she knew his soul was gone," said Jim. The medical response teams did their best to revive him, heliporting Seth to the county's trauma center, where he remained on life support before dying Sept. 27.


Tehachapi police declined to discuss specifics of what they say is an ongoing investigation of the incident. Police Sergeant Kevin Paille did confirm that police were looking into possible instances of "bullying or hazing" centered on Walsh's sexuality. "We're trying to get a clear picture of the totality of the situation," he said.

The boy's death has left his grief-stricken family trying to find the positive in the tragedy. Jim Walsh points out that Seth's organs were donated following his death; a child in Los Angeles was saved after receiving Seth's heart. Meanwhile, the town has used the incident to preach understanding, this time with the nation as a stage. "We're just podunk Tehachapi," says Judy Walsh. "I don't expect to get calls from Ellen ... [she pauses to work on the name] ... DeGeneres or 60 Minutes. The biggest regret is that this didn't happen before Seth's death." As Wendy wrote in her eulogy: "Seth is doing what he always wanted to do — to promote love."

Stoning Gays - A "Bible-Believing Christian" Act?

STATEMENT OF EQUALITY PENNSYLVANIA:

The Murder of Murray Seidman and Hate Crimes

Harrisburg: This past January, a 70-year-old man was stoned to death by a younger friend who alleged the victim made unwanted sexual advances. According to authorities, 28-year-old John Thomas of Lansdowne said he killed Murray Seidman because the Old Testament refers to stoning gay people.


Equality Pennsylvania reaches out with condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Seidman. We offer our sincere support for your loss. The media has reported that he lived a dignified life as an independent man who overcame the challenges of being developmentally disabled, who worked long hours and offered his friendship and a good word to everyone he met. Like so many tragedies, this one is senseless; the loss of Mr. Seidman is one that will be felt by many and hopefully will be recognized for what it is by law enforcement and the LGBT community - a brutal and gruesome crime motivated by the real or perceived notion of the victim’s sexuality.

It is impossible for Equality Pennsylvania to let this moment pass by without once more calling attention to the absolute lack of hate crimes protections in Pennsylvania. Expanded hate crimes protections were passed in 2002 by the General Assembly and signed into law by Republican Governor Mark Schweiker. This law was successfully used by police officers, prosecutors and district attorneys to address a number of serious hate crimes which occurred in the Commonwealth. Unfortunately in May 2008, this law was overturned on a technicality unrelated to the substance of the law itself.

For those who would claim that all crimes are driven by hate, let them pay special attention to the killer's distinct and stated motivation in this heinous act. Surely, nothing could be clearer than the fact that this man was targeted because he was perceived to be both gay and an easy target due to his mental disability.

Certainly compassionate people - especially those with the power to change the law to protect all Pennsylvanians - can come to the honorable conclusion that Murray Seidman's death was not something that can be easily brushed aside as just another murder. Rather, it was a malicious act motivated by vicious anti-LGBT hatred.

Equality Pennsylvania calls for those in power to use the clarity of this tragic moment to produce a positive result and once again enact a strong hate crimes law that says no individual should be targeted in a violent way for who they are or who they love.


In Pennsylvania, we need a strong Hate Crimes law which adds back into the Ethnic Intimidation and Institutional Vandalism Act” the same protected classes that were signed into the amended law in 2002 (“actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, gender, mental or physical disability, and ancestry.”).

Equality Pennsylvania is committed to that goal. Our mission is to be the
preeminent LGBT advocacy organization for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and work collaboratively to establish a comprehensive network of individuals and organizations united in securing equal rights for the LGBT community (www.equalitypa.org).

Bigots & Bullies: The Unholy Alliance of Newt Gingrich & the American "Family" Association

Newt Gingrich Secretly Funneled $350,000 To Anti-Gay Hate Groups Last Year

from Think Progress:


Last year, former Speaker Newt Gingrich offered his vocal support for the ultimately successful campaign to oust three of the nine Iowa Supreme Court justices who had unanimously ruled in favor of marriage equality. As Gingrich courts social conservatives while exploring a possible presidential bid, new disclosures from his camp indicate that he and his associates bankrolled more than one-third of the $850,000 campaign to remove the Iowa justices.

ThinkProgress previously reported on $200,000 that Gingrich funneled from an anonymous donor to the anti-marriage equality group Iowa for Freedom, which was also being funded by AFA Action, the political arm of the virulently anti-gay American Family Association. The Associated Press revealed yesterday that one of the cogs in Gingrich’s vast network of business enterprises and front groups, ReAL Action, provided $125,000 to AFA Action. The Des Moines Register reported this morning that ReAL Action also contributed $25,000 to yet another Iowa anti-LGBT group, the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition.


AFA is not only of the nation’s most prominent anti-LGBT groups, it has been officially labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. As ThinkProgress has reported, the AFA is known for making incendiary comments about gays, including blaming gays for crop failure and various other biblical plagues, claiming that Hitler was gay, saying lesbians can’t be justices, equating gay sex with domestic terrorism, and equating gay sex to heroin, just to cite a few examples.

Gingrich’s tacit support for these radical views would not seem to be in question, as his spokesman went to great pains to explain that the grant to AFA Action was for “general support,” noting:

“We leave up to the groups receiving the money to determine how they would spend the money."

While those who fought to retain the Iowa justices question why Gingrich had previously kept his financial support for the anti-LGBT groups secret and is only now acknowledging it as his possible 2012 bid ramps up, Gingrich’s spokesman said that there was no connection between his support for the Iowa groups and his possible presidential ambitions. This assertion seems highly questionable considering the leader of last year’s anti-marriage equality campaign against the three justices, Bob Vander Plaats, is an Iowa political kingmaker who now heads the FAMiLY Leader, a radical anti-LGBT organization that is hosting an ongoing Presidential Lecture Series that ThinkProgress has been attending and reporting on. Gingrich himself is scheduled to appear before the group on July 11.

And while some have pointed out that Gingrich’s multiple patriotism-inspired adulterous affairs might present a problem for socially conservative GOP primary voters, Gingrich-funded Vander Plaats seems unconcerned. He told the Los Angeles Times that Gingrich “had won over pastors in [Iowa] with his ‘open and transparent’ approach” and that Christian conservatives “understand that we all fall short of the standards” they set for themselves.

It remains to be seen whether Gingrich’s funding of virulently anti-LGBT hate groups will pay political dividends outside the small group of overwhelmingly white, socially-conservative voters that determine the winner of the Iowa caucuses.

OUT IN THE SILENCE on Arizona Public Television

Interview by "Arizona Illustrated" host Kimberly Craft:


In 2006, human rights activist Joe Wilson published an announcement of his wedding to his same-sex partner in his small hometown of Oil City, Pennsylvania. That one act sparked a whirlwind of controversy, and it led Wilson back home in an effort to chronicle and understand his home's relationship to homosexuality, inclusion and equality.

Now a filmmaker, Wilson joins the studio to talk about Out in the Silence, the widely acclaimed documentary that grew from his experiences. He shares the story behind the movie, its impact on his hometown and his hopes that it will strengthen Arizona's efforts to heal community divides.



Arizona will host several screenings of the film, sponsored by the Pima County Public Library System, ACLU of Arizona, Wingspan Anti-Violence Project, The Amancio Project, and the Yuma High School GSA. Screenings are scheduled for:

Feb. 22, 7:30pm - The Loft Cinema - Tucson

Feb. 23, 6:30pm – Arivaca Old School - Arivaca

Feb. 24, 6:00pm - Yuma County Main Library - Yuma

Feb. 25, 1:00pm - Salazar-Ajo Library - Ajo

In addition to the film's hopeful and entertaining stories, and dynamic post-screening discussions with filmmaker Joe Wilson and local organizers, the Arizona events will feature performances by special guest Namoli Brennet, a Tucson-based transgender musician. (Brennet's music is a major feature of the film's soundtrack.)

Homophobia Starts At Home

by Dean Hamer & Joe Wilson for the Huffington Post:

Last month's horrific murder of Ugandan gay activist David Kato sparked outrage and a series of protests against the U.S.-based religious groups responsible for exporting American-style bigotry and homophobia to Africa, resulting most infamously in Uganda's pending "kill-the-gays" bill.

While such activism is sorely needed, the focus on foreign countries prompts the question: Why are we not equally outraged and rising up against the massive damage these same conservative religious groups cause right here at home?

Organizations such as the American Family Association, for example, are too clever to propose a law that would impose the death penalty on homosexuality in the U.S. -- that would be a bit obvious -- but they continue to use their well-funded propaganda machine to spew anti-LGBT lies and distortions that have a similar effect, creating an atmosphere so poisoned and repressive that many LGBT people, particularly in small towns and rural communities, live their entire life in the closet or possibly even take the ultimate step of suicide.

This video of small town "family values" mom Meribeth Glenn sadly demonstrates how these tactics play out. Many of her statements, including the presumed connection between marriage equality and bestiality, are taken straight from the AFA, which broadcasts a regular program on her local Christian radio station. In fact, Glenn consented to speak on camera only after consulting with her Venango County-based AFA chapter head, Diane Gramley.



When anti-gay bigotry and hatred is a commonplace and accepted feature of conservative and religious broadcasting -- as it is today in the U.S. -- and when its adherents incorporate these messages into the lexicon of their own daily lives -- as Glenn and millions of other people do -- is it any wonder that we continue to see LGBT lives ruined, families and communities in distress and a rash of gay teen suicides?

And when the President of the United States feels comfortable attending a National Prayer Breakfast event, as he did on Feb. 3, supported and attended by the AFA and other conservative religious groups -- including "The Family," the very group pushing for the anti-gay legislation in Uganda -- is it any wonder that the best response we can muster to the recent rash of gay teen bullying and suicides is to promise that "it gets better"?

Recently, Dan Savage -- creator of the 'It Gets Better' video campaign -- declared in a Newsweek interview that "the culture war is over" and later that the homophobes are "losing the battles [that] are taking place in living rooms all over the country." Obviously Savage hasn't spent much time in the living rooms of people like Meribeth Glenn or he would realize that there are still many battles to be fought to ensure that all people -- here in the U.S., as well as in Uganda and other countries around the world -- can live full lives, openly, with dignity, respect and equal treatment under the law.

The late David Kato knew that his activism put him at risk. When asked by a reporter why he gave up the comfortable life of an educated professional in relatively progressive South Africa to return home to Uganda, he said "My role is to fight and liberate."

As residents of the country from which much of the global anti-LGBT crusade emanates, we feel that we all have a similar obligation. Please join us in the OUT IN THE SILENCE Campaign for Fairness and Equality and learn what you can do to make our own country and the world a safer and more welcoming place for all.

Truth Wins Out Slams The American Family Association For Offensive Remarks Against Native Americans

Companies Should No Longer Pay Attention to Boycott Threats From Certified Hate Group

by Wayne Besen, Truth Wins Out:


BURLINGTON, Vt. – Truth Wins Out condemned the American Family Association (AFA) today for writing a remarkably bigoted article titled, “Native Americans Morally Disqualified Themselves From the Land.” The AFA is best known for its anti-gay activism and launch of boycotts against companies that it deems too gay-friendly. The latest op-ed by the organization’s spokesperson, Bryan Fischer, provides yet another reason why corporations should ignore pressure campaigns by the AFA.

“We are appalled by the American Family Association’s reprehensible remarks that distort history and demean Native Americans,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “Responsible companies should no longer give The American Family Association the time of day and their boycott threats should be ignored. This organization has shown itself unfit to be part of the adult conversation and it certainly does not represent the majority of families.”



The American Family Association was recently certified as an official hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Fischer’s latest column provides evidence that this was a wise decision by SPLC.

“In all the discussions about the European settlement of the New World, one feature has been conspicuously absent: the role that the superstition, savagery and sexual immorality of native Americans played in making them morally disqualified from sovereign control of American soil,” Bryan Fischer wrote on the website, “Rightly Concerned” a project of The American Family Association.

“This nauseating rhetoric is usually reserved for LGBT people, but apparently the American Family Association has more than one group it likes to dehumanize,” said Truth Wins Out’s Wayne Besen. “The true character of the AFA has been revealed and no corporation or politician can pretend that this group has even a shard of credibility. The only reasonable response to AFA threats is to not return their calls and pretend they don’t exist.”

The AFA is a Tupelo, Mississippi-based organization known for launching failed boycotts against companies such as The Walt Disney Company, Home Depot, Wal Mart, Ford Motor Company and McDonalds. The group’s once accused Mighty Mouse of snorting cocaine.

Writers for AFA’s website include Chuck Norris, Janet Porter, David Limbaugh and Rev. Rey Pritchard.

Truth Wins Out is a non-profit organization that fights anti-LGBT religious extremism. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.

Murder in Uganda -- Does The Religious Right Have Blood On Its Hands?

Documentary About Bullying & Homophobia in Venango County Opens Inaugural Human Rights Watch Film Festival in Washington, DC

(Washington, DC, January 19, 2011) – The first DC Human Rights Watch Film Festival will screen five works with distinctive human rights themes each Wednesday from February 2 to March 2, 2011, Human Rights Watch announced today.


The festival, a co-presentation of Human Rights Watch and The West End Cinema, is designed as a forum for courageous individuals on both sides of the lens to empower audiences with the knowledge that personal commitment can make a difference.

“The DC Festival brings a reflection of the condition of the world in which we live to one of the world's most important human rights stages: the capital of the nation that has long sought to promote human rights around the globe,” said John Biaggi, director of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

The opening night feature on February 2, is “Out in the Silence,” a documentary by Washington, DC-based filmmakers Joe Wilson and Dean Hamer that looks at an issue of urgent human rights concern: the need for full inclusion, justice and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the United States.

The documentary follows the story of a small American town (in Venango County) confronting a firestorm of controversy ignited by a same-sex wedding announcement in the local paper, and the subsequent brutal bullying of a gay teen. It challenges audiences to rethink their values and consider how they can help close the gaps that have divided families, friends, and communities on these issues.

“In light of the public debates over issues such as military service and marriage equality, not-to-mention anti-gay bullying, teen suicides, and safe schools, the screening of this film in Washington, DC could not be more timely,” said Boris Dittrich, acting Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender program director at Human Rights Watch.

Produced in association with the Sundance Institute and Penn State Public Broadcasting, “Out in the Silence” premiered at the 2010 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York. It won an Emmy Award for Achievement in Documentary from the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, and has received praise from critics and festivals worldwide.

The film's directors say they are most interested in using it as a vehicle for grass-roots outreach, education, and civic engagement, particularly in small towns and rural communities where there often isn't any visible or organized LGBT presence at all. Wilson and Hamer have conducted more than 300 town-hall-style screening events in libraries and other public venues across the country, reaching nearly every county in Pennsylvania, and doing rural tours of Oregon, South Carolina, and South Dakota.

“The characters in the film are just ordinary people – a kid and his mom, an Evangelical preacher and his wife, a lesbian couple who start a business – but their stories get at the heart of how anti-LGBT stigma and repression play out and continue to harm individuals in such communities,” Hamer said.

“We're hoping that this Human Rights Watch screening here in DC, from which so much of the harmful anti-LGBT rhetoric and activities emanate, will shine new light on these issues and help people, particularly our elected officials and other high-profile leaders, begin to find common ground to end the madness once and for all,” Wilson said

Wilson, Hamer, and Dittrich, will be at The West End Cinema, 2301 M Street NW, for a post-screening dialogue with the audience.

Visit www.westendcinema.com for more information.

For a press kit and to see a film trailer: http://OutintheSilence.com

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

Quotes About OUT IN THE SILENCE

“A stunning documentary” -Philadelphia Inquirer

“Film Critic's Pick-of-the-Week” -New York times

“Tough. Wrenching. Inspiring.” - OUT Magazine

“Most moving are the stories of heterosexuals who transform because of their relationships with GLBT people.” -American Library Association

“Though the film is made by two gay men, it doesn't seek to promote a “gay agenda” or to stereotype the “religious right.” It's simply a matter of trying to understand attitudes in small-town America.”
-Christianity Today

Ugandan Gay Rights Activist Is Beaten to Death - U.S. Evangelicals Have Blood On Their Hands

The "Christians" who terrorize LGBT people in the U.S. and now Africa and other parts of the world are one and the same. Enough Is Enough!


Ugandan Gay Rights Activist Is Beaten to Death

By Jeffrey Gettleman for The New York Times:

NAIROBI, Kenya — David Kato knew he was a marked man.


As the most outspoken gay rights advocate in Uganda, a country where homophobia is so severe that Parliament is considering a bill to execute gay people, Mr. Kato had received a stream of death threats, his friends said. A few months ago, a Ugandan newspaper ran an antigay diatribe with Mr. Kato’s picture on the front page under a banner urging, “Hang Them.”

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Kato was beaten to death with a hammer in his rough-and-tumble neighborhood. Police officials were quick to chalk up the motive to robbery, but members of the small and increasingly besieged gay community in Uganda suspect otherwise.

“David’s death is a result of the hatred planted in Uganda by U.S. evangelicals in 2009,” Val Kalende, the chairwoman of one of Uganda’s gay rights groups, said in a statement. “The Ugandan government and the so-called U.S. evangelicals must take responsibility for David’s blood.”

Ms. Kalende was referring to visits in March 2009 by a group of American evangelicals, who held rallies and workshops in Uganda discussing how to turn gay people straight, how gay men sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” intended to “defeat the marriage-based society.”


The Americans involved said they had no intention of stoking a violent reaction. But the antigay bill was drafted shortly thereafter. Some of the Ugandan politicians and preachers who wrote it had attended those sessions and said that they had discussed the legislation with the Americans.

After growing international pressure and threats from a few European countries to cut assistance — Uganda relies on hundreds of millions of dollars of aid — Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, indicated that the bill would be scrapped.

But more than a year later, that has not happened, and the legislation remains a simmering issue in Parliament. Some political analysts say the bill could be passed in the coming months, after a general election in February that is expected to return Mr. Museveni, who has been in office for 25 years, to power.

On Thursday, Don Schmierer, one of the American evangelicals who visited Uganda in 2009, said Mr. Kato’s death was “horrible.”

“Naturally, I don’t want anyone killed, but I don’t feel I had anything to do with that,” said Mr. Schmierer, who added that in Uganda he had focused on parenting skills. He also said that he had been a target of threats himself, recently receiving more than 600 messages of hate mail related to his visit.

“I spoke to help people,” he said, “and I’m getting bludgeoned from one end to the other.”

Many Africans view homosexuality as an immoral Western import, and the continent is full of harsh homophobic laws. In northern Nigeria, gay men can face death by stoning. In Kenya, which is considered one of the more Westernized nations in Africa, gay people can be sentenced to years in prison.

But Uganda seems to be on the front lines of this battle. Conservative Christian groups that espouse antigay beliefs have made great headway in this country and wield considerable influence. Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity, James Nsaba Buturo, who describes himself as a devout Christian, has said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

At the same time, American groups that defend gay rights have also poured money into Uganda to help the beleaguered gay community.

In October, a Ugandan newspaper called Rolling Stone (with a circulation of roughly 2,000 and no connection to the American magazine) published an article that included photos and the whereabouts of gay men and lesbians, including several well-known activists like Mr. Kato.


The paper said homosexuals were raiding schools and recruiting children, a belief that is quite widespread in Uganda and has helped drive the homophobia.

Mr. Kato and a few other activists sued the paper and won. This month, Uganda’s High Court ordered Rolling Stone to pay hundreds of dollars in damages and to cease publishing the names of people it said were gay.

But the danger remained.

“I had to move houses,” said Stosh Mugisha, a woman who is going through a transition to become a man. “People tried to stone me. It’s so scary. And it’s getting worse.”

On Thursday, Giles Muhame, Rolling Stone’s managing editor, said he did not think that Mr. Kato’s killing had anything to do with what his paper had published.

“There is no need for anxiety or for hype,” he said. “We should not overblow the death of one.”

But that one man was considered a founding father of Uganda’s nascent gay rights movement. In an interview in 2009, Mr. Kato shared his life story, how he was raised in a conservative family where “we grew up brainwashed that it was wrong to be in love with a man.”

He was a high school teacher who had graduated from some of Uganda’s best schools, and he moved to South Africa in the mid-1990s, where he came out. A few years ago, he organized what he claimed was Uganda’s first gay rights news conference in Kampala, the capital, and said he was punched in the face and cracked in the nose by police officers soon afterward.

Friends said that Mr. Kato had recently put an alarm system in his house and was killed by an acquaintance, someone who had been inside several times before and was seen by neighbors on Wednesday. Mr. Kato’s neighborhood on the outskirts of Kampala is known as a rough one, where several people have recently been beaten to death with iron bars.

Judith Nabakooba, a police spokeswoman, said Mr. Kato’s death did not appear to be a hate crime, though the investigation had just started. “It looks like theft, as some things were stolen,” Ms. Nabakooba said.

But Nikki Mawanda, a friend who was born female and lives as a man, said: “This is a clear signal. You don’t know who’s going to do it to you.”

Mr. Kato was in his mid-40s, his friends said. He was a fast talker, fidgety, bespectacled, slightly built and constantly checking over his shoulder, even in the envelope of darkness of an empty lot near a disco, where he was interviewed in 2009.

He said then that he wanted to be a “good human rights defender, not a dead one, but an alive one.”

"Traditional Family Values" - American Family Association of Pennsylvania-style

The American Family Association of Pennsylvania, a Venango County-based Hate Group, Regularly Smears LGBT People As Incapable of Upholding Traditional Family Values.

Is This What Is Meant By "Traditional Family Values," AFAofPA-style?

(Pictured at right is AFA of PA President, Diane Gramley)




"Amish Man Charged In Murder Case Now Dead"

from The Oil City Derrick:

An Amish man who brutally murdered and disemboweled his 29-yearold wife in front of their two children in 1993 was found dead Friday in a barn in Cambridge Springs, Crawford County.


Meadville state police said Edward Gingerich, 45, committed suicide by hanging himself in the lower level of a barn located on Miller Station Road, in Cambridge Springs.

Gingerich was pronounced dead at the scene by Crawford County Chief Deputy Coroner Scott Schell.

According to Schell, Gingerich had been staying with some friends, George and Stephanie Schroeck, at their residence on Miller Station Road.

Stephanie Schroeck told Schell that Gingerich had gone out to the barn around 10 a.m. to feed the horses. When she did not see Gingerich around the farm several hours later, she went searching for him, Schell said.

“She thought it was unusual that she hadn’t seen him around the farm all day,” Schell said.

Schell said Schroeck called 911 around 3:18 p.m. after finding Gingerich hanging in the barn.

In 1993, Gingerich became a household name throughout the region when he killed his wife, Katie Shetler Gingerich.

Gingerich confessed to pushing his wife down on the floor and crushing her skull. He then cut her stomach open with a kitchen knife and removed her organs. The couple’s 4-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter witnessed the entire incident, sources said.

In the highly publicized Meadville trial, Gingerich’s attorneys said Gingerich suffered from schizophrenia and thought he was possessed by the devil. Gingerich was on medication for schizophrenia but stopped taking it due to side effects. Reports also said that Gingerich sought treatment from a Cambridge Springs chiropractor named Merritt Terrell for six months prior to the incident, including just hours before the murder.

Gingerich was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter — the first Amish person in the U.S. to be found guilty of murder — but was deemed mentally ill, and sentenced to five years in prison under psychiatric watch.

Gingerich was released from a state regional correctional facility in Mercer on March 19, 1998, five years and one day after the murder.

Full details of the story leading up to the murder were detailed in the true-crime novel “Crimson Stain,” published in May 2000 by Edinboro University professor Jim Fisher.

Fisher and others said Gingerich struggled early on with the confines of the Brownhill Amish community in which he lived. Following prison, Gingerich spent the next 12-plus years struggling with life outside of the Amish community.

“Of course, he was shunned from the Amish community,” Schell said. “He was not allowed to live in that community any more.”

In 1998, Gingerich moved to a Mennonite halfway house in Michigan, where he worked for a sawmill. Sources said Gingerich was eventually kicked out of the Michigan enclave for undisclosed reasons and moved back to Pennsylvania in 2007.

Gingerich was back in the news shortly after his return to the area when he was arrested for concealing the whereabouts of his then 17-year-old daughter in April 2007. Both children lived with their grandparents, Daniel and Mary Gingerich, following the 1993 murder.

Gingerich pleaded guilty to charges and was sentenced to six months probation and ordered to pay $500 in fines. He was also ordered to cease contact with his daughter and other family.

In 2008, Gingerich was once again arrested, this time for illegally possessing and using a firearm while deer hunting. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge and served three months in Crawford County jail.

Is Rep. Barney Frank Now in the Cross Hairs of Venango County-based Hate Group, the American Family Association (of Pennsylvania)?

Is Diane Gramley of the Venango County-based American Family Association (of Pennsylvania), an official "hate group" as designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center, now putting openly-gay Congressman Barney Frank in the cross hairs of the right-wing 'culture war' by saying:

"Barney Frank and others in Washington have a goal of normalizing, through legislation, a lifestyle that has been considered abhorrent and unnatural throughout history. Hopefully new members of the 112th Congress will not view their job as simply a game in which to keep score, but a responsibility to preserve the American Way. America spoke on November 2nd and the returning members of Congress as well as the new ones need to listen to what America had to say.

"We'll put Barney Frank on notice. A Sleeping Giant has awakened and the majority of Americans do not share in your goal setting. Americans are tired of waking up to find an America that they hardly recognize. This is not a game to them, it is a war to get our country back."

Here is Gramley's "News Release," frighteningly titled "Let The Games Begin," in its entirety (pasted below before it is purged from her web site):

American Family Association of Pennsylvania
News Release

For Immediate Release: January 5, 2011
Contact: Diane Gramley 1.814.271.9078 or 1.814.437.5355

Congress is Sworn In: “Let the Games Begin!”

(Harrisburg) — Today the 112th Congress was sworn in. But apparently some view their job on “The Hill” as simply a means to further their own agenda of remaking the United States into something most Americans would not recognize, noted the American Family Association of Pennsylvania (AFA of PA), a statewide traditional values organization.

After President Obama signed repeal of the law banning homosexuals in the military, misnamed ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ after a convoluted Clinton policy, openly homosexual Congressman Barney Frank of Massachusetts was quite honest about his intention as well as those of others who want to normalize the homosexual lifestyle. He said, “For those who are worried about the radical homosexual agenda, let me put them on notice. Two down, two to go.” He was referencing the passage of hate crimes and repeal of ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell’ and he is simply waiting for the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (another misnamed bill) and the repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) before he has a complete victory.

“To Barney Frank and others this is simply a game, a means to further their personal agenda, and they are keeping score. Apparently they are not concerned about what is best for this nation, if they consider it in opposition to what they want, they will ignore the facts and vote to force all of Americans to accept homosexuality as normal. Some examples of ignoring the facts are the denial that there is a homosexual agenda and CDC statistics about the dangers of the homosexual lifestyle, “remarked Diane Gramley, president of the AFA of PA.

Barney Frank and others in Washington have a goal of normalizing, through legislation, a lifestyle that has been considered abhorrent and unnatural throughout history. Hopefully new members of the 112th Congress will not view their job as simply a game in which to keep score, but a responsibility to preserve the American Way. America spoke on November 2nd and the returning members of Congress as well as the new ones need to listen to what America had to say.

“We’ll put Barney Frank on notice. ‘A Sleeping Giant has awakened and the majority of Americans do not share in your goal setting.’ Americans are tired of waking up to find an America that they hardly recognize. This is not a game to them, it is a war to get our country back,” Gramley further stated.

# # #

For information about the OUT IN THE SILENCE Campaign for Fairness & Equality, see this link: OutintheSilence.com

Heated and Hateful Rhetoric Is A Threat To All, Not Just Elected-Officials

In the wake of the recent tragic events in Tucson, where a troubled young man went on a shooting rampage that killed six people, including a federal judge, and gravely wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords, what is likely to be a wrenching debate over anger, vitriolic rhetoric, and violence in American political culture has been set off.

We can not help but be reminded of the inflammatory language, threats and implicit instigations to violence that emanate from those who call themselves "Bible Believing Christians" in the hills of northwestern Pennsylvania and be concerned about the consequences for those that are in their crosshairs.

We reprise this article as a renewed call to conscience for us all.



"Bible Believing Response" to OUT IN THE SILENCE Promotes Anti-Transgender Violence

Dispatch from Coudersport, PA:

by Joe Wilson, August, 31, 2010:

Diane Gramley sat peacefully behind Robert Wagner in the Coudersport Public Library as the retired physician shared his views on transgender individuals with the assembled audience. “I'm gonna put a ball bat in my car,” he said, “and if I ever see a guy [Wagner refuses to use proper pronouns] coming out of a bathroom that my granddaughter's in, I'm gonna use the ball bat on him.” Moments later he added: “In the good old days, before 'she-males' existed, they just called such people perverts.”

Gramley is no stranger to such ideas. As President of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Family Association, a 'traditional family values' organization based in Mississippi, she spends much of her time planting similar seeds of suspicion about the dangers posed by “men who think they are women,” her disparaging term for transgender females. She also crusades relentlessly against what she and the AFA call the “homosexual agenda” and the type of legal protections that her and Dr. Wagner's threatening rhetoric suggests are needed for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people.

Gramley was in Coudersport, a small town of 2,600 residents in the sparsely populated north-central part of the state known as the Pennsylvania Wilds, as a special guest of Dr. Wagner for what he titled “A Bible Believing Christian's Response to OUT IN THE SILENCE,” my documentary film about the quest for inclusion, fairness and equality for LGBT people in the small town where I was born and raised, Oil City, PA, just a two-hour drive from Coudersport.

Gramley, who also happens to call the Oil City area home, plays a central role in OUT IN THE SILENCE as a result of the firestorm of controversy she helped to ignite in opposition to the publication of my same-sex marriage announcement in the local paper. It was that controversy that compelled my partner, Dean Hamer, and I to go back to my hometown with our cameras to document what life is like there for LGBT people, and to show hopeful and inspiring stories about the growing movement for equality.

The film was produced in partnership with Penn State Public Broadcasting, received support from the Sundance Institute, premiered at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, screened in Tribeca Cinemas Doc Series, and has been broadcast on PBS stations around the country. We're now using it as an educational tool in a grassroots campaign to help raise LGBT visibility and to bring people together in small towns like Oil City and Coudersport to begin building bridges across the gaps that have divided families, friends, and entire communities on these issues for far too long.

As part of this campaign, OUT IN THE SILENCE had screened just a month earlier for a standing-room-only crowd in the Coudersport Public Library despite vehement opposition from Dr. Wagner and the efforts of the local Tea Party and a small group of fundamentalist preachers to shut the event down and have the library 'de-funded' for making its space available for such a program.

Wagner's “Bible Believing Response,” he told the crowd of approximately 60 local church people, “was intended to expose the filmmakers’ real agenda and to question the directors’ assertion that the community should tolerate alternative lifestyles.”

During the two hour program, Wagner asked special guest Gramley a few questions about her experiences as a minor subject of the film, but he used her more as a prop, seated silently behind him, providing an odd sort of legitimacy as he put forth offensive theories and mischaracterizations about LGBT people, including that “AIDS is the gay plague” and “gays can't have families.”

Dean and I were in the library for the presentation. We made the six-hour drive to Coudersport from our home in Washington, DC because I wanted to bear witness to this event, to experience for myself, if only for a few hours, what it feels like to be so close to such willful ignorance and brazen cruelty.

As I sat there, listening to 'amens,' snickering laughter, and even a roar of approval from the people around me when asked if they agree with the AFA assertions that there “should be legal sanctions against homosexual behavior” and “homosexuals should be disqualified from public office,” I felt a sadness unlike any I have known before. A sadness for those who fall prey to such bigoted and hostile bombast, who carry the feelings these things stir into their homes and family relationships, and for the communities that suffer the sometimes-violent consequences of such mean-spirited divisiveness.

But as I looked at Gramley, unmoved next to Wagner, condoning the ugliness without a word of protest, I thought of all the courageous people who have attended OUT IN THE SILENCE Campaign events over the past many months in far flung places, including there in Coudersport, who refuse to be silent anymore, who are working for change in their communities against great odds, and I was inspired all over again.

It is in their spirit that we will continue our campaign to speak out in the silence and to help build the movement for fairness and equality in small towns and rural communities across America.

I hope you'll join us! Learn more at OutintheSilence.com

It Gets Better's Dan Savage Meets Western Pennsylvania 'Traditional Family Values' Believer

A fantasy virtual conversation between It Gets Better Project founder Dan Savage and a "traditional family values" adherent in a small western Pennsylvania town. Meribeth unfortunately ended up on the cutting-room floor in the OUT IN THE SILENCE editing room, but here she gets to have her say. For more, see OutintheSilence.com

Fox News: Vibrant Gay Communities In Every Small Town And The Truth About Gay-Haters and Conservative Moralists

from The Bilerico Project:

Even FOX News is starting to make fun of Peter LaBarbera, the head of "Americans for Truth About Homosexuality" (the meetings are shirtless!). Commonly known as Porno Pete in the LGBT blogosphere, he loves to attend leather conferences and gay baths to do "research."

"Traditional Family Values" - Pastor Who Backed Prop 8 Held On Multiple Child Molestation Charges

Pastor Tom Daniels of Rio Linda, California is being held on $6M bail after being charged with multiple felony counts of sexual assault on a child. Lavender Newswire reports that Daniels twice made donations to Protect Marriage, the backers of Proposition 8.