Santorum stumps outside of FRC's bus; complacency throw gays under same

« Go back a post || Return to G-A-Y homepage || Haul tail to next post »

01/20/2012

by Jeremy Hooper

Sure, the social conservatives have been on a year-long campaign to discredit the Southern Poverty Law Center's work behalf on LGBT rights. Interestingly, they do this while noting the SPLC's fine work in other areas. Tellingly, it's just the gay thing they claim the SPLC got wrong, as they know they can still get away with that one.

But in the real world, some facts remain. FACT: The SPLC has been highly selective in their LGBT work, only including on its "hate groups" list those organizations that have met some sort of high (or low, as it were) bar. FACT: Groups like Focus on the Family, NOM, the Alliance Defense Fund, and any number of state groups have managed to stay off the list. FACT: SPLC has used silently documented data to make these distinctions. FACT: The Family Research Council more than met the SPLC's determined criteria.

FACT: SPLC-designated "hate group" FRC is an organization that positions gays as kid-threatening disasters in need of "ex-gay" therapy, churns out brochures that compare same-sex marriages to those bonds which might exist between a man and a horse (complete with horse photo), directly likens us to terrorists, calla LGBT rights a battle of "good versus evil," says DADT repeal proponents are "willing to jeopardize our nation’s security to advance the agenda of the radical homosexual lobby," claims gay teens kill themselves because they know that they're "abnormal," says the gay activists who challenge FRC are "held captive by the enemy," writes that same-sex marriage will be "opening the door to all manner of moral and social evil, tweets that gays don't need to "be a slave to feelings," fundraises around the idea that gay kids are immoral and telling them otherwise is "disgusting,"and calls on U.S. gays to be either "exported" or criminalized (to name just a few examples).

FACT: Despite these facts, leading GOP candidates still speak at the group's "Values" rallies and accept the group's endorsements:

FACT: This stuff keeps getting largely overlooked or pushed aside, as if LGBT Americans, their worth, and the constant denigration thereof simply doesn't matter.

FACT: We do matter. We deserve better than this.

space