Tweet
You gotta give the religious right credit for one thing – when they get a talking point, they hammer it to death.
To hell with truth. They seek to dominate the conversation by repetition.
With President Obama’s mention of gay equality in his inaugural address, several groups are hammering the point home that the mention was not needed because “gays already have civil rights.”
Of course this is a dumb point which is easily refutable – that is if lgbt groups such as GLAAD and HRC put out a press release in response (hint, hint, hint, guys)
But in pushing this talking point, several religious right figures can’t help but push forward their bigotry. Take former Family Research Council head and religious right journeyman Gary Bauer for example:
And then there is Peter Sprigg from the Family Research Council during an interview yesterday morning on CNN:
“We as social conservatives do not agree with the president’s attempt to link the modern homosexual movement with the women’s rights movement or the civil rights movement for African Americans,” Sprigg said. “The irony is that homosexuals already have all the same civil rights as anyone else.” Sprigg continued to say that “all sexual behavior” is not created equal, nor do “all personal relationships have an equal value to society at large, that serve the same public interests.”
Obama didn’t say a word about sexual intercourse in his speech. But it is important to notice something. While ordinary Americans see the family below, they think “how ordinary and loving.”
When people like Peter Sprigg and Gary Bauer look at the above photo, they see this:
Sprigg, Bauer, and those who support their madness can believe what they want, but it doesn’t make what they believe as fact. And it certainly doesn’t make what they believe a model this nation should remember when thinking about gay couples and families.
Related post – How They See Us: Unmasking The Religious Right War on Gay America
12 Comments
and why do cnn and msnbc keep inviting the likes of peter sprigg and tony perkins to speak on the air?
they don’t give airtime to racists, why are they giving it to homophobes?
(and perkins is a racist, btw, even though he doesn’t talk that way now…)
I was going to ask the same thing, Matt. When mainstream news outlets give these psychos airtime, it gives them a measure of legitimacy that they don’t deserve. It’s no different than inviting the Neo Nazis or KKK to a discussion about racism.
Don’t be so quick to write the comments of Bauer, Sprigg, etc. as merely “what they see,” although there’s undoubtedly a measure of truth in that. It’s a much more deliberate and pernicious strategy: the worst thing that can happen for their agenda (and their paychecks) is for people to see us as people. Thus, you won’t find any reference to sexual orientation as a component of identity or part of a whole human being — it’s always and only “behavior.” And behavior is a choice and can be changed and is a sin (if it’s a behavior they don’t approve of). (I’m reminded of a comment that Tony Perkins made when asked what he would do if one of his children were gay; he pooh-poohed the possibility because, as he said, “I teach them right behavior.”)
We do have all the civil rights that everyone else has, the difference is that we are barred from exercising them.
Dear Gary Bauer —
Yes, actually, our civil rights are the civil rights issue of the era.
Thanks for asking.
Sincerely,
The Gays
Behavior or lifestyle.
Don’t know about CNN, but MSNBC only recently rid itself of Pat Buchanan, racist and xenophobic as they come. (no pun intended). As a wild guess, I’d say he’s probably homophobic, too
MSNBC held onto him after years of complaints.
And he still appears on PBS weekly, as a member of the McLaughlin Group.
That said, no, they should not allow homophobes air time, unless they believe Klan spokesmen would make good guests, too.
I remember some guy who, when talking about teh gays, talked about how it was all about the sexual pleasure 24/7. It is because they are projecting. If THEY were gay they would be having sex with everyone and wouldn’t have to be tied down to one woman via marriage. Then of course later we found out that he was having gay sex with a masseuse while buying meth.
Ingrid Bergman once said, ” to be a good actor, one must have a very bad memory. ” To the Rev. Bauer and to Tony Perkins: the opposite is also true. These two remember a time , not too long ago , when people other than nutcases and Bible Humpers actually gave a shit about what these two bad actors had to say. About anything, whatsoever. And that other guy was named Rev. Ted of Hot Springs or Colorado Springs. Anyway, all I remember was that he tried to wear out some Bed Springs in Denver, I think.
Calling it a lifestyle is a means of further trivializing it.
“Already have civil rights” was the justification for separate-but-equal in the Jim Crow era.
Even the Catholoic church is piling on to the “behaviour” bandwagon, with their latest accusations of “selfishness, etc.”