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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
These days, it's relatively easy to be a talking head on news programs.
Just find some sucker with a lot of money willing to fund you, created an organization with an important sounding name, give yourself an important sounding but meaningless title (senior fellow, research analyst, president, etc.), and they'll practically be beating at your door.
An incident yesterday on Fox News more than demonstrates that point. Not long after Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama Administration would no longer defend DOMA, Fox News personality (you really don't think I'm going to call her a journalist, do you) Megyn Kelly had National Organization for Marriage head Maggie Gallagher on her show to whine about how evil this decision is for families.
Of course Gallagher's definition of families never seems to include lgbt families, leaving a lot of people out.
Nevertheless, Kelly allowed Gallagher to push her usual silly talking points, including one about how gays are inaccurately being compared to black people in terms of civil rights.
I sincerely hope that in discussing the DOMA decision – and hopefully this piece – no one falls for the divide and conquer technique of this person – Gallagher – who cares as much about the black community as she does the lgbt community.
And that level of care is zero.
What Gallagher and Kelly did were evasive tactics, much like other tactics Gallagher seems to have mastered when talking about gay marriage. Give her five minutes and she will try to pivot the conversation from the same-sex households negatively affected by her activism to how she and others like her are supposedly unfairly called “bigots” for supposedly simply trying to “protect marriage.”
Okay, let go on that angle. Let's break down the acts of Gallagher and NOM and pose the question – are these the acts of a bigoted, homophobic organization or people simply trying to “defend marriage:”
November 20, 2009 – Signer of Manhattan Declaration wanted to jail gays and lesbians – By signing an anti-gay document, The Manhattan Declaration, Gallagher and NOM affiliates themselves with folks who want to jail lgbts.
February 1, 2010 – Maggie Gallagher commits 'sin of omission' to make case against marriage equality – Gallagher cites a study to bash gay marriage and gay parenting, even though the study had nothing to do with either concept.
March 8, 2010 – TinyU-R-Gay: @NOMupdates limits gay lives to less than 140 characters/years – A NOM tweet actually pushing the lie that gays have a short life span.
June 14, 2010 – National Organization for Marriage: Gays Were Never Hunted Down and Murdered Like 'Jews, Christians, and Blacks' – NOM is found to be affiliated with Louis J. Marinelli during its failed summer for marriage tour. Amongst other things, Marinelli claims that gays want to molest children. When Marinelli's words became public, NOM claimed that the organization had no affiliation with Marinelli. However certain links posted as an update to the story demonstrated that NOM did have an affiliation with Marinelli.
June 28, 2010 – Message to Maggie Gallagher: associating with bigots does make you a bigot - NOM associates itself with another bigoted group, The Traditional Value Coalition. Amongst other things, TVC head Lou Sheldon has said that gays should be referred to as “sodomites.”
July 27, 2010 – National Organization for Marriage needs to disavow its 'zany' followers - NOM not only has a problem with the homophobia of those in its ranks, but also those who support the group, particularly the guy with the poster of the hangman's nooses.
February 11, 2011 – PolitiFact catches anti-gay group NOM in a huge lie about gay marriage and children – Pultizer Prize-winning news site calls NOM out on a lie that gay marriage is being taught to kindergartners in Massachusetts.
February 17, 2011 – National Organization for Marriage called out AGAIN for distortive tactics – NOM commissions a misleading poll claiming that the majority of folks in Maryland oppose gay marriage. They are called out on it by a local columnist.
February 22, 2011 – National Organization for Marriage makes the case for being an anti-gay hate group – NOM pushes a piece written by syndicated columnist Mike McManus of the group Marriage Savers. The column has several distortions about gays, including the lie that gay men have a shorter life span than heterosexuals. NOM has not distanced itself from this piece.
Again, I ask does this sound like a Christian defender of “the family” or a homophobic bigot exploiting fear and ignorance for a paycheck?
6 Comments
Here’s the thing, Alvin1) Even if President Obama had made a direct comparison of gays to blacks, it’s really his place (as an individual black man) to make that comparison and Gallagher would be out of place in disagreeing with him…and that takes the utterly false and ludicrous notion of her condemnation of President into account.
2) She could have as easily said that “gays are the new Mormons or Jews or (insert religious affiliation)” since religion (as well as atheism) actually have the same level of judicial scrutiny as race, national origin, etc.
3) This is where I think that black LGBTs (and friendly black straights) do need to stand up and say that her race baiting is outrageous.
That is, if we can get the media time (white gay leadership are you listening?)
Now I’m going back to getting my Madonna on.
Mrs. Srivistav never fails to impresswith just how low she’ll stoop. Saying that a black man doesn’t know what it’s like to be black has to be some kind of record.
Thank you Alvin McEwen for your ongoing recording of significant events! A bright mind indeed!A few weeks ago I received a Second Letter(?) from Senator Lindsey Graham, in response to my communications to him in December asking him to repeal DADT. It stated (essentially) that while he was not able to vote for Gays, he still hoped that I would “support him”. I received a similar letter from Jim DeMint as well.
The point being that we, as Gays, HAVE NO Representation in our Elected Senators, and that this just goes to validate the authentic need for Governmental Protections assuring Equal Protections for ALL which are supposed to be extended under the US Constitution.
____________________________
Never the less, we must keep the pressure on!
Make SURE Senators know that we will remember them at election time.
Email your Congressmen and Senators:
Tell them to “Repeal DOMA”
Be polite and to the point
Senate:
http://www.senate.gov/general/…
Congress:
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
Call the Senate and Congress: (202)224-3121
*The Operator will direct you if you do not know your representative
So, Alvin, tell us why SPLC did not label them a level 1 hate group?That had better be coming this year!… But whatever by sending that one page letter from DOJ to Congress … Obama made any and every act of NOM and FRC and AFA, both in the past and in the future, just more proof that we face bigoted discrimination whatever excuse they give and the need for strict scrutiny increases.They have become their own worst nightmare, the ones to be making the day of full equality come SOONER!
Tell them you’ll support themWhen they change their “lifestyle choices” and turn gay.
There’s a more important lifestyle choice…Ah, let ‘em continue to be straight — the lifestyle choice I’m more interested in is if they could choose to not be assholes.