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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
When we talk about religious right groups , it's important that we don't allow that we don't allow them to whitewash their beliefs or activities.
A perfect example of someone trying to do this is Concerned Women for America founder Beverly LaHaye speaking at a recent event in Texas about the history of her group:
Beverly LaHaye remembers standing in her kitchen about 30 years ago when she heard a secular feminist declare on national television that they spoke for America's women.
The California preacher's wife shared virtually none of National Organization for Women founder Betty Friedan's beliefs, LaHaye told a crowd of at least 100 people Monday during a dinner at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center.
She realized Christian women were “in the majority, but we had no voice,” LaHaye said. “We were silenced.”
Three decades later, her nonprofit activist group, Concerned Women for America, included 500,000 members fighting for the return of conservative Christian values to American life, she said.
. . . LaHaye, the wife of the accomplished Christian leader the Rev. Tim LaHaye and the author of nine books about the importance of being an effective Christian wife and mother, urged the crowd attending the Southern Baptists of Texas annual convention to become more active in politics to defend those values.
Now I could go on a tear about how LaHaye's group, Concerned Women for America, is no different from all of the other religious right groups with its eagerness to demonize the lgbt community via Paul Cameron studies, junk science, and distorted science. I have in the past and most likely will do so in the future.
However, in this case, I think I will let something else do the talking.
This 1986 comic was created by a man named Dick Hafer and it is a vile representation of some of the most evil anti-gay lies out there.
This was the time when the AIDS crisis was in full bloom, ignorance was all around and Paul Cameron was a credible name.
If these images get you angry, then good.
They are supposed to:
You can click on the pictures to see them larger. If you want to see the entire comic (God help you) go here.
But what does Beverly LaHaye and Concerned Women for Americ have to do with this vile comic book that stigmatizes the lgbt community? Why they endorsed it (again click on the image to get a larger view of it):
America needs to wake up to the facts regarding the Homosexual movement. Dick Hafer exposes the depravity of their lives iin his book, Deathstyle. This is a book which needs to be read by all of those concerned about our society and our nation.
The comic was was printed over 20 years ago, but far as I know, LaHaye has never rescinded her or Concerned Women for America's endorsement of it.
And that's just one of the reasons why this comic must not be forgotten, particularly when one takes into account that Concerned Women for America continues to use some of the bad statistics housed in it (i.e. Paul Cameron's work).
Also, never mind what you may see on shows like Hannity and the O'Reilly Factor when CWA and other religious right spokespeople come aboard with their carefully versed, clipped speech about the so-called persecution of Christians.
This comic book is their true face. And we should bring it out for public viewing with as much vigor as LaHaye and company try to hide it.
Editor's note – The webpage featuring this comic is not anti-gay. It's a site that looks at “problem-based comics” from the past.
11 Comments
And please rememberthis woman has a gay son.
Comics TodayI’m a cartoonist and proud to say that this kind of bullshit absolutely will not fly within the comics community. The mainstream superhero fan is notoriously homophobic, but virtually all comics creators are our allies. This kind of stuff is absolutely relegated to the fringe.
Wow…I had no idea that heterosexuals didn’t kiss each other in 1986. I don’t really blame them. That nasty ol’ saliva can be deadly!
It really is sad that Dick Hafer wasted his life (and artist talent) spewing such hate and lies.
What’s most striking to meEspecially in the parts you quoted is that it is obviously anti-gay, it is obviously trying to dehumanize us, but in general, a lot of it has a “so what if it was true?” aspect to it.
Oh no, work and sex until death, isn’t that the life of like 95% of people when you get right down to it? Eat, sleep, work, and fuck has been the staple criticism of American culture’s captivity of the lower and middle classes and lack of inner life for awhile, if gays were just as captured in it, why should they care and need to highlight it. Same with the bar thing.
They go to bars, they have kinky sex. Oooh scary. Again, so?
This pamphlet is important in how it reveals the history, same with playing her old defenses of the ERA considering most people today wouldn’t see the scariness of the ERA and assume it to be a no-duh amendment, but it’s also important in that it reveals how much the right-wing is really terrified by sex and sexuality.
The idea that someone somewhere could be having sex without their personal permission drives them into an insane frenzy and I think that should definitely be highlighted when the right-wing starts on anything.
Straights who are “uncomfortable about queers”, they also want to take away YOUR condoms, sex toys, handcuffs, lube, and are just as disgusted by your “normal” sex life as by ours.
I wonder if she blames herself for itOr if her husband blames her.
That would explain so much of the abject bile coming out of her mouth.
WowLaHaye does, too? I’ll be damned; I thought that was just Schlafly.
Perhaps this is a (truly) loving God(dess)’ method of blowing a celestial raspberry at hatred. :-D
The AIDS hysterical cr*p is lousy qualityHere’s a queer comic of the same period which humanely discussed AIDS.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lwe…
pro-vomit fundamentalistsI know applying logic to this twisted, evil comic book is a lost cause, but I couldn’t help notice that on the one hand, it pretends to be very concerned about public health, but on the other hand, one of the supposed good guys in it is constantly vomiting into a mailbox. So public vomiting on mail is healthy, but two boys kissing is not. Good to know.
But yes, Beverly LaHaye should not be allowed to whitewash this piece of her sordid, bigoted history.
Kissing was actually invented in 1987.It was part of a ratings stunt for a very special episode of The Facts of Life.
I’d have to look backBut I can’t imagine lil’ Abner, Dick Tracey marrying Moongirl, or various Superman fantasies where he had twins with Lois Lane had no kissing.
It’s true, though.They skipped right to missionary.
Who could kiss, anyway, what with the sheet between them?