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10/30/2009
FRC says 'ban!'; Pastor Graves asks, "how hurtfully?'
Remember Ken Graves, the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church who filmed a "yes on one" spot in which he suggested that gay families are rejected by nature itself? Yea, well check out the following little nugget from the San Francisco Chronicle (which was brought to our attention by Right Wing Watch's Kyle Mantyla). It really shows you the kind of handle that Pastor Graves has on the whole situation:
In Orrington, population 3,526, Ken Graves worked as a lumberjack for nine years after he started Calvary Chapel near Bangor. Twenty-five years later, the 47-year-old still sports a woodsman's thick arms and tough hands as he towers over an evangelical congregation of 1,500, one of Maine's largest.
Last week, Graves stood on the bank of the nearby Penobscot River clad in a red flannel shirt, where he and a videographer filmed a 30-second ad in favor of Question 1. He'll pay "a few thousand dollars" to air it locally.
"What got me is how the homosexual community being portrayed in this campaign is a gross misrepresentation of how it really is," Graves said. "You see these commercials of two happy moms, or two happy dads and happy siblings - when in fact they are not happy families. They are depressed."
He acknowledged that he doesn't know any gay families, saying he relies on the Family Research Council, a conservative think tank that finds homosexuality "harmful to the persons who engage in it and to society at large," and Focus on the Family, a group that helps people "overcome" gay attractions.
Heated battle in Maine's same-sex marriage vote [SF Chronicle]
Wait, so he knows we gay folk depressed because Tony Perkins and his Family Research Council told him so? Why that's kind of like citing Elmer Fudd vis-à-vis the virtues of huntin' wabbit!
This just shows you the kind of mentality that fuels our opposition. Pastor Graves' church has been a huge force (and source of actors) for Stand For Marriage Maine. As soon as Graves created his ad, SFMM eagerly posted it to their Facebook page, where it was met with scores of laudatory comments (30 at last look, including one from Bob Emrich's wife). And yet here's its creator flat-out admitting that he's never broken bread with an LGBT family, and wholly admitting that his sole source of information comes from a professional network whose major mission is to stop teh gays at any and every cost. Forget about gay and anti-gay "culture wars": This sort of mindset should raise eyebrows just on the basis of its arrogant myopia!
Your thoughts
"a gross misrepresentation of how it really is," Graves said. "You see these commercials of two happy moms, or two happy dads and happy siblings - when in fact they are not happy families. They are depressed."
I want to his this man. Beyond the fact that this is such a horrendous, cruel and insensitive LIE, the fact that he stupidly then admits he has NEVER MET A GAY FAMILY, makes it all the more frustrating.
I hope a gay family in maine will offer dinner to this man just to prove how wrong he has been. He needs a slap of reality. It's frightening that a man who has so much influence over people, his congregation, is repeating these bold faces lies without any effort to figure out whether or not they are even factual.
"All gays and their children are depressed. I don't know any, but they're definitely all depressed". WHAT?!?!?
Ridiculous.
Posted by: Stef | Oct 30, 2009 4:42:04 PM
Well, it's no damn wonder a few gay folk are depressed from having to hear the hate from demented assholes like this guy.
grrr
Posted by: Karl Schneider | Oct 30, 2009 7:30:57 PM
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