This story goes to the point of the Bayard Rustin quote I’ve been known to highlight:

“[T]he job of the gay community is not to deal with extremists who would castigate us or put us on an island and drop an H-bomb on us. The fact of the matter is that there is a small percentage of people in America who understand the true nature of the homosexual community. There is another small percentage who will never understand us. Our job is not to get those people who dislike us to love us. Nor was our aim in the civil rights movement to get prejudiced white people to love us. Our aim was to try to create the kind of America, legislatively, morally, and psychologically, such that even though some whites continued to hate us, they could not openly manifest that hate. That’s our job today: to control the extent to which people can publicly manifest antigay sentiment.”

–Bayard Rustin; From Montgomery to Stonewall (1986)

Apparently, Pat Boone doesn’t appreciate being called “homophobic.” Check out his final paragraph his latest column in WingNutDaily:

Pat BooneMe, homophobic? Ridiculous. I love my homosexual friends, but I detest these irresponsible street tactics that can and do lead to violence. Violence breeds more violence. But love – and respect, even through disagreement – can accomplish miracles.

This was after Pat said in another column:

Are you unaware of the raging demonstrations in our streets, in front of our churches and synagogues, even spilling into these places of worship, and many of these riots turning defamatory and violent? Have you not seen the angry distorted faces of the rioters, seen their derogatory and threatening placards and signs, heard their vows to overturn the democratically expressed views of voters, no matter what it costs, no matter what was expressed at the polls? Twice?

I refer to California’s Proposition 8. You haven’t heard about the well-oiled campaign to find out the names of every voter and business that contributed as much as $1,000, or even much less, in support of Prop 8? You haven’t heard about the announced plans to boycott, demonstrate, intimidate and threaten each one – because they dared to vote to retain marriage as between one man and one woman? You haven’t seen, on the evening news, prominent entertainers and even California Gov. Schwarzenegger, urging the demonstrators on, telling them they should “never give up” until they get their way?

Assuming you have become aware of all this, let me ask you: Have you not seen the awful similarity between what happened in Mumbai and what’s happening right now in our cities?

My eyes are rolling. He loves gays? Puh-lease.

Pat apparently doesn’t recall, in his “love” for LGBT people, that he referred to “furious homosexual activists” as “twisted freaks.” And, he doesn’t seem to recall that he’s recorded a robo-call in favor of a Republcan candidate that seemed a just a bit homophobic (you really need to listen to this short piece to get the flavor of just how much Pat Boone loves gays):

Pat was worried, in the robo-call, about giving “special rights” to “even transgender individuals,” and asked Kentuckians if they’d “like Kentucky to be another San Francisco.” Apparently loving LGBT “individuals” doesn’t mean letting LGBT people enjoy freedom from discrimination in all aspects of their lives.

Pat Boone doesn’t like the term homophobic applied to him. Well, in my opinion, the term fits him like a glove — he’s been expressing his anti-LGBT sentiment for quite awhile now.