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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
This morning, Peter LaBarbera came out with what he called a “breaking story” on his Americans for Truth webpage:
A Facebook page affiliated with the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) — to support homosexual student clubs and GLSEN’s upcoming activist “Day of Silence” in schools nationwide (Friday, April 15) — was linked for several weeks to a pornographic “gay” hook-up website containing full-frontal nudity and personal ads expressing interest in dangerous homosexual practices including anal sodomy, “rimming” and various sadistic sex fetiishes popular in the homosexual male subculture.
The GLSEN ”Gay-Straight Alliances” Facebook page was also linked to a “Gay Trip Thailand” Facebook page with shirtless Thai males — luring men to that notorious sex-tourism destination — as well as a movie about two male lovers that is sponsored by a leading “gay” pornographic video distributor. When the salacious links were exposed April 11 by Mission America, a pro-family group, they were quickly removed from the GLSEN Facebook page.
There are so many things wrong with LaBarbera's assertion. First and most importantly, if you look at the page, you will that GLSEN has nothing to do with it. It has several banners advertising GLSEN events, such as the Day of Silence, but there is nothing on this page calling it an “affiiliate of GLSEN” or – as LaBarbera put it – The “GLSEN “Gay-Straight Alliance” page. The page, Gay-Straight Alliances, seems to be a generic page supporting gay/straight clubs.
Furthermore if you will notice – the pictures which allegedly appeared were in the photo section of this page. Anyone can join this page and place photos there. Also, notice how those alleged photos are grouped together, as if someone put there all there at the same time.
What I am saying is that the most, this was an ugly practical joke by someone with a nasty sense of humor. And at the very least, this was a nasty set-up created to harm GLSEN days before its annual Day of Silence event.
According to LaBarbera, the group Mission America discovered the photos. Mission America is a vicious anti-gay group led by one Linda Harvey. Mission America was one of the sponsors of LaBarbera's latest so-called Truth Academy. Furthermore, Harvey has said lgbts or anyone supporting lgbt equality shouldn't be around children because they would cause children to be molested. Recently she said the so-called “gay agenda” was responsible for the spate of lgbt teen suicides.
I am not saying definitely that LaBarbera and Harvey conspired here. But there is something fishy about the fact that Harvey's group – which has affiliated with LaBarbera in the past – just happened to find semi-pornographic pictures on this page.
The sick irony of the entire thing is that it allowed LaBarbera to return to his “roots,” so to speak. LaBarbera is known in lgbt circles as “Porno Pete” for his penchant of going to leather conventions and subcultural sex-events, taking pictures, and going into details about what supposedly the gays did there (while conveniently ignoring the heterosexuals in attendance).
This faux GLSEN controversy allowed LaBarbera to list all sorts of graphic details about gay sex – which I won't publish here – like he used to do in his olden days.
Furthermore, he also repeats several religious right lies about GLSEN, including:
the alleged Fistgate controversy, which the organization had nothing to do with,
and the false claim that GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings did not report an underage child having sex with an adult male. The young man – Brewster – was not underage at the time and in a later interview credited Jennings for being there for him at a time at which it was difficult for young lgbts to confide in anyone.
Here is the gist of this so-called controversy:
The alleged Facebook page is NOT affiliated with GLSEN other than giving support to some of its events.
Secondly, we don't know HOW those pictures got on that page (they have been scrapped off as of now, so my guess is that as soon as the page administrator saw them, he or she deleted them).
LaBarbera and Harvey have a lot of questions to answer. Just how did Mission America just happen find these pictures. And if these pictures were on the page for “several weeks” – like LaBarbera asserted – why are we just hearing about it now.
One thing is clear though – if this turns out to be a manufactured controversy (and I am not saying by whom), the parties behind it – and they know who they are – are pretty damned pathetic.
9 Comments
the pornmeister and 2nd gradeIn my early days of teaching (2nd grade) one kid who didn’t like another kid slipped a piece of chalk into that kid’s pocket and then came and told me: “Andy stole a piece of chalk, it’s in his pocket.” Has the pornmeister sunk this low? That was a 7 year old, he’s an adult (at least chronologically) Someone really has to find Porno Pete a real job and a real hobby.
Love,
Rick
If these losers didn’t get so much breathless free press herehow would the world know about them?
They got enough echo chamberstrust me om when I say don’t let them repeat a charge like this unanswered. They have their own echo chambers and people go online looking for information about their claims. If there is no pushback on our part, their allegations tend to be believed.
Please note that the photo in the “breaking story” is captioned as being a year oldI expect that Porno Pete “Liked” the group, posted images from his private collection, took the image and then kept the photo for… er… private contemplation. Now that he is getting ready to create a new fraud, he is willing to let this one go.
Don’t try to stop me, AlvinI’m just on a Debbie Downer kick today.
GLSEN must have grown a thick hide by now.At least I hope so. But why on earth haven’t they gone on the offensive against Peter and his friends? Why does no one in our community ever take a proactive stance against these villains? We always wait for them to attack first, then come out with responses. HRC is hopeless, needless to say, but they’re hardly the only group representing us. Even Wayne Besen’s group, whose rationale for existing is precisely to counter the religious right, takes a largely defensive posture instead of going on the charge against the liars and con artists who make very lucrative livings, thank you, attacking us. It’s time for us to take the lead and push lawmakers and prosecutors–and push HARD–to go after them.
Facebook should be able to help. If the administrators of the page made a request, Facebook could probably trace a forensic trail of the user/IP address of the person who posted the photos initially.
If it did turn out to be The Peter, that could be basis for a slander lawsuit. Slander involves knowing the information you are spreading is false.
Worth checking into. A gay org like Lambda Legal may well be interesting in pursuing it. ACLU is currently running a campaign on behalf of students’ rights as well. They might be interested.
GLSEN is strongGLSEN is a bit more pro-active. My guess is that they pre-plan for this stuff especially after the nonsense with ACORN and Planned Parenthood. But you do have a point. For once, I wish that there was a unified effort from members of the lgbt community to form some type of group dedicated to exposing religious right lies. This loose conglomerate of blogs is doing a good job but imagine what could happen with a little organization.
ok, I get it.Whats really telling is that on the right hand column there should be some friends of friends listed. But, there isn’t anyone. Not cut out, not deleted just no friends of friends. …and wow, now I undertand the whole ‘Porno Pete’ thing. He really loves the porn.
So, no friends and looks at Gay Porn a lot and is an attention whore. Meh… so what? Unless… omg! Is he running for congress?