Tweet
The National Organization for Marriage has began a new project which it calls Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance. This project will spotlight folks who are the supposed victims of imaginary gay intolerance:
“If you have been threatened, harassed, or made to feel afraid because you believe in the great, foundational truth of Genesis –we are born male and female and called to come together in love to give children mothers and fathers—Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is here to help you: you are not alone.
We want to hear your story, connect you with others who share your deepest beliefs, with legal and other practical help, and with other Americans of good will, who (regardless of their views on marriage) want to put a stop to the shaming and the fearmongering of our fellow citizens. The goal of the Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance is to create a supportive community for those who have been threatened for standing for marriage, to nip the climate of fear being created in the bud, to expose for fair-minded Americans on both sides of the debate the threats being made, to conduct high-quality qualitative and quantitative research documenting the extent of the harm, to develop legislative and community proposal to protect Americans right to engage in the core civil rights: to organize, to vote, to speak, to donate, and to write for marriage.
Isolated and alone, we can be suppressed and intimidated. Together we are too many to be treated as second-class citizens.“
In other words, this group will exploit controversies to create new religious right cause celebres who have been supposedly victimized because of their “morality” and push them hard on the American public before the truth comes out that these folks are not victims but individuals who think that their beliefs regarding homosexuality should shield them for normal consequences of acting like homophobic fools.
And first up in the MADA spotlight is a man called Frank Turek. Turek was consultant who lost several lucrative gigs because of his sidework of denigrating the gay community. Take the following video with a grain of salt:
Turek makes himself sound like a pitiful victim. I am of the belief that private companies – who employ gays – have every right to pick and choose who they have as consultants. Some may disagree.
But what we cannot disagree with is the simple fact that Turek is being highly misleading.
He makes it seem that his dismissals and inability to get gigs is due to his stance on gay marriage. But he omits the time when he:
said that gays and “radical Muslims are teaming up to destroy Western Civilization because they hate “Judeo-Christian natural law”
Or the time he compared homosexuality to alcoholism and pedophilia:
[B]eing born a certain way is irrelevant to what the law should be. Laws are concerned with behaviors not desires, and we all have desires we ought not act on. In fact, all of us were born with an “orientation” to bad behavior, but those desires don’t justify the behaviors. If you are born with a genetic predisposition to alcohol, does that mean you should be an alcoholic? If you have a genetic attraction to children does that mean you should be a pedophile? What homosexual activist would say that a genetic predisposition to anger justifies gay-bashing? (Don’t blame me—I was born with the anti-gay gene!) Certainly, those that oppose alcoholism, pedophilia and gay bashing are not “bigots”—they are wise.
Or the time he compared gays to sociopaths and gay bashers:
The question is why didn’t Turek – or NOM for that matter – mention his other comments on the video.
But the real fact of the matter is this – Turek has every right to speak his mind, but no company is bound to hire him, particularly if the company has lgbtq employees.
Furthermore, if Turek had said the same awful comments about African-Americans or people of the Jewish faith, we would not be having this conversation.
Is Turek a victim of “gay intolerance?” No. He is a liar who tries to make himself out to be a victim. And he is a man who seems to think that he should be shielded from the normal consequences of being a homophobic bigot – i.e. ostracization from the job market.
6 Comments
You’ll be hearing much, much more of this sort of argument over the coming months and years, and the bad guys (never mind their lies) will win more than a few battles by arguing, basically, that not letting them bash gays interferes with their free exercise of religion.
Remember that there are some workplace protections against discriminating on the basis of race, gender, religion, and several other factors (none of which are sexual orientation, of course). So a Christian, say, can say an employer interferes with his beliefs by not letting him speak against the lesbian in the next cubicle or by not letting him post a “God Hates Fags” poster on his office wall.
This sort of dreck could in the the courts in many states for many years. We might win, but I wouldn’t count on it, not the way Republican politicians (and the judges they appoint) cater to the religious right, and the way Democratic politicians run from confrontations with the religious right.
“MADA hell” and they’re not taking it any more? (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
It is disturbing, this attitude of “My religious beliefs, no matter how hateful or outright insane, trump reality, fairness and civil law, and give me an absolute right to force everyone on the planet to conform to my delusions.” Worse, they are being allowed to get away with it.
Allowing a spoiled child to have whatever she wants does does not teach her respect; allowing a psychopath to indulge in his fantasies unchallenged is not the road to treatment.
We have been hearing this argument for decades. Not allowing evangelism assemblies in public schools is persecution of Christianity. Allowing anyone other than a Talibangelical minister lead public prayer is persecution of Christianity. Racial integration is persecution of Christianity. Permitting divorce is persecution of Christianity. Firing someone who creates a hostile workplace is persecution of Christianity. Calling out an organization dedicated to stripping away civil rights from American citizens is persecution of Christianity.
Same shit, different day.
Well, not quite. Yeah, the christianists have been doing their “woe is me, them heathens are picking on me” since forever. But their claims that they should be allowed to bash gays because that’s in the bible is fairly new, at least at the increasingly sophisticated and organized level it’s become in recent years.
Maggie’s new gig is the latest manifestation of this effort, and she’ll have millions and the best PR and legal talent money can buy to help her persuade Americans that gay-bashing is a constitutionally protected duty for all.
For now.
I agree. But remember, there were times, not all that long ago, when essentially the same arguments were used to justify segregation and the denial of equal rights to women – including that people’s religious beliefs were being trampled by allowing women to vote or Negroes to eat at the same lunch counter. And, yes, in a lot of places, they won, for a long time.
All that means is that victory in the court and in the broader community won’t be the end of things, and we’ll have to stay vigilant.
But this won’t last for long. It’ll clear up far faster than the previous issues did.
If “you believe in the great, foundational truth of Genesis –we are born male and female”…
…then please explain hermaphroditism.
While God may have originally created only one man and one woman, clearly there have been some variations in His design since then. God obviously does not use the same cookie cutter on all of his creations, and for Christians to claim that He does is outright blasphemy… they’re attributing their own personal ignorance, beliefs, and opinions to Him.