(If being gay [same-sex attracted] is a sin and we’re all sinners all the time forever no matter what, wouldn’t the term “ex-gay” be tantamount to claiming that one is an “ex-sinner” and thus be blasphemous and a sin in and of itself? Which begs the question, How in the universe would God even take the victimhood complaints of blasphemers seriously?)
In August alone, the ex-gay community has been the victim of a number of injustices by high-ranking officials. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill into law that outlaws therapy for children who wish to overcome unwanted same-sex attractions, some of whom developed such attractions in the wake of sexual abuse at the hands of homosexual predators. Also, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld California’s law banning therapy for minors who wish to go from gay to straight, despitestatistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing an increase in HIV infections by MSM(men who have sex with men) aged 13-24.
I believe the hyperlink was placed and worded very carefully in the original article. It’s a CDC PDF and it is true, according to the GRAPH on page 7 you will find that the largest HIV increases are occurring in the 13-24 year old age range.
Read it on the original article and -- correct me if I’m wrong -- does it not read like they’re insinuating that the Court dismisses evidence of a connection between same-sex attraction -- in and of itself -- raping kids, turning them gay and giving them AIDS?
--
Titles? Tags? One-liners? … Anyone?
No, that's not the statement, but it tells you where this is going. -- I ran across this a few times lately and finally decided to Check it out.
MANHATTAN DECLARATION: A CALL OF CHRISTIAN CONSCIENCE Drafted October 20, 2009 & Released November 20, 2009
Founded by anti-gay hate monger, Chuck Colson, and drafted by himself, Robert George and Timothy George.
The Manhattan Declaration has a preamble, a declaration, and follows with articles on "life" "marriage" and "religious liberty," and boasts of nearly half a million signatories.
Naturally I was drawn to the section on marriage, to see what was being said about me homsexuality.
They begin with a couple of Bible verses, here's one of them:
The man said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man." For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. Genesis 2:23-24
They then soften us up with some “acknowledgement” of mistakes (without the anti-gay parts):
We confess with sadness that Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage ... we have too easily embraced the culture of divorce ... we repent, and call upon all Christians to do the same.
And then proceed to bash gay-marriage.
The impulse to redefine marriage in order to recognize same-sex [marriage] ... would lock into place the false and destructive belief that marriage is all about romance and other adult satisfactions, and not, in any intrinsic way, about procreation..."
Yes, I'm sure "romance" and "adult satisfactions" are the reasons why so many gay couples want to adopt.
We'll get back to that "procreation" song and dancee thing later.
We acknowledge that there are those who are disposed towards homosexual and polyamorous conduct and relationships, just as there are those who are disposed towards other forms of immoral conduct. We have compassion for those so disposed; we respect them as human beings possessing profound, inherent, and equal dignity
Yes, I felt more "dignified" by the syllable.
There's really nothing quite like having someone express their love and support for you than by characterizing the most precious moments of your life, shared with someone you love more than life itself, as a matter of good and evil.
Marriage is what one man and one woman establish when, forsaking all others and pledging lifelong commitment, they found a sharing of life at every level of being—the biological, the emotional, the dispositional, the rational, the spiritual— on a commitment that is sealed, completed and actualized by loving sexual intercourse in which the spouses become one flesh, not in some merely metaphorical sense, but by fulfilling together the behavioral conditions of procreation.
That is why in the Christian tradition, and historically in Western law, consummated marriages are not dissoluble or annullable on the ground of infertility, even though the nature of the marital relationship is shaped and structured by its intrinsic orientation to the great good of procreation.
So, in order to blunt the accusation of hypocrisy in regard to having no problem with non-procreative heterosexual-marriages, they now maintain that gays shouldn't be able to marry because LGBT-sex DOESN'T LOOK LIKE hetero-sex?
Anyone?
…the assumption that the legal status of one set of marriage relationships affects no other would not only argue for same sex partnerships;
it could be asserted with equal validity for polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships. Should these, as a matter of equality or civil rights, be recognized as lawful marriages, and would they have no effects on other relationships? No.
No. No it could not be asserted with equal validity.
This argument states that should one event occur, so will other harmful events. There is no proof made that the harmful events are caused by the first event.
The fallacy here is the assumption that something is wrong because it is right next to something that is wrong. Or, it is wrong because it could slide towards something that is wrong.
So there's that, plus all this stuff:
-Given that incest is Biblically-approved (see Genesis), why would you even have a problem with incestuous marriage?
-Unlike same-gender attraction, being attracted to one's siblings is NOT a sexual orientation.
-There are direct social consequences to the legalization of incestuous marriage.
If the family unit, as you say, is indeed the cornerstone of society, then the home should the safest place. Legalizing incestuous marriages could fundamentally undermine the perceived sincerity of familial affection.
-slippery slope fallacy -Polygamy, also God approved -The desire to marry ONE partner is not the same as the desire to marry additional partners -Also, there are directsocial consequences of legalizing polygamous marriages.
The wealthiest would marry up hundreds if not thousands of potential mates for other men. Marriage would become a highly coveted privilege. Now add an ocean of testosterone with no place to go. The incidences of rape and molestation would skyrocket. -- And while we’re at it, whenever they compare the “sin” of homosexuality with the “sin” of adultery, they’re comparing having a partner with cheating on one’s partner. --- I am left to conclude one of three things about the drafters and many, if not most of the signatories of this "Declaration."
1. They know these arguments are bogus and are fully aware that they are lying. 2. They just don't care about the truth. 3. They really are that stupid.
I've been mulling on this since I first read the article and I think I've finally come to a conclusion. -- From Truth Wins Out: February 12th, 2010 by Wayne Besen
Why I Loathe The Term ‘Same-Sex Attraction’(SSA)
Personally, I don’t like the bogus term “SSA”, which stands for “same-sex attraction.” There is no such thing (or diagnosis) as SSA and it is a manipulative attempt to separate LGBT people from their natural, inborn sexuality.
The term SSA is skillfully employed to make it appear as if fundamentalist bigots are not attacking the person, just their sexual feelings.
He then quotes from this article to show the power of words. Note, this is a different quote from the article that TWO uses:
New Poll Shows Support for Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ February 11, 2010 By DALIA SUSSMAN
As the Obama administration proposes repealing the policy known as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a new New York Times/CBS News poll finds that a majority of the public support allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the military.
There’s less support, however, for allowing homosexuals to serve openly.
As one commenter put it: "The reason the far right uses the term “homosexual” is that it implies that our community consists of nothing but unfettered sexual urges on a daily basis."
Agreed. By using the term homosexuality, they are essentially able to characterize our equality-agenda as being sexually motivated. The use of the term "same-sex marriage" is no different.
When we hear "same-sex marriage," we think of marriage equality.
When they hear the term, they hear "sex marriage," reducing our motive for marriage-equality as being nothing more than a selfish desire to earn governmental recognition of our relationships promiscuity with the same person. Ergo, "sex marriage."
Another commenter had this to say: "SAME-GENDER MARRIAGE (SGM): Now, there’s a term I can understand and believe in. It’s not ambiguous to me at all."
I try to be consistent when using opposing terms, like, gay/straight heterosexual/homosexual, etc. It depends on what I'm writing and how I'm using the words.
So that much I'll defend in regard to the use of SSA, SSM, homosexual, etc.--sometimes they just fit.
But I will say that I have been, and will continue to use the terms "same-gender attraction" and "same-gender marriage" to help ensure that they are being taken in the context they were meant to be. As opposed to the anti-gay industry's use of the terms to reduce us, and the intimacy we share with our partners, as being nothing more than recurring sex acts.
Antonyms: truth --------------- The ending line (before the preacher’s rant) of the movie gave it away:
“As long as abortion remains legal, the Maafa cannot end.”
In word, in deed and in timing, pitch perfect propaganda.
Yet the time it took for those words to come out of that man’s mouth, is the time it took to throw the entire two hour history lesson I had just received, out the window. --- You can argue the conspiratorial racist history and inception of Planned Parenthood all you like, but at this point, for some people, their services are vital. But exposing Planned Parenthood’s past was never the point of the movie, attempting to “secularize” the issue, was. A common political tack: Guilt by association (much of the anti-gay industry is built on this premise).
It was designed to appeal mostly to people of faith and those sympathetic to the cause, who may be on the fence about abortion. In this case, demonize Planned Parenthood’s sordid past in order to depict abortion and birth control as tools of genocide--and voilà, elective abortion = racial genocide.
The producers of this film, exploited the very history of the exploitation of blacks, in order to blur the line between genocidal intentions and abortion itself. It was never about eugenics, as the back cover of the DVD suggests:
Black Genocide in 21st Century America
They were stolen from their homes, locked in chains and taken across an ocean. And for more than 200 years, their blood and sweat would help to build the richest and most powerful nation the world has ever known.
But when slavery ended, their welcome was over. America's wealthy elite had decided it was time for them to disappear and they were not particular about how it might be done.
What you are about to see is that the plan these people set in motion 150 years ago is still being carried out today. So don't think that this is history. It is not. It is happening right here, and it's happening right now.
The back of the DVD cover also leads one to the Maafa website, where you can find that quote, as well as, after a little digging, this (PDF):
The claim is that the abortion issue is about privacy, and women’s rights, and reproductive freedom.
But that’s just marketing hype. In reality, it was EUGENICS that drove the legalization of abortion. And now, a stunning new movie lays it all out with incredible documentation. -- The film is called Maafa 21 and it exposes a plan to create “racial purity” that began 150 years ago and is still being carried out right now. It’s about the ties between the Nazis, the American eugenics movement and today’s “family planning” cartel. It’s about elitism, secret agendas, treachery and corruption at the highest levels of political and corporate America.
The rest of the Maafa 21 website seems a bit coy in revealing its anti-abortion agenda, unlike its producers, Life Dynamics Incorporated--who’s website was curiously NOT listed on the back of the DVD jacket. Even the LifeDynamics hyperlink on their YT trailer page only leads to their YT video library.
Something to hide, perhaps?
“This is the mindset that is behind everything that Life Dynamics does. We are fighting to return full legal protection for every unborn child, from the moment of conception. Because of this our motto is, "Pro-Life: without compromise, without exception, without apology."
As I said, that last line gives it all away:
“As long as abortion remains legal, the Maafa cannot end.”
A more productive and success oriented approach might be to suggest the end of unwanted pregnancies. It’s not a secret that abortions occur regardless of legality--and often with fatal consequences. But who cares about those lives, right?
That last line, and the rhetoric of every anti-abortionist that I’ve ever heard, is not at all interested in preventing the reason for abortion, but in controlling, via religiously influenced BIG government, what women do with their bodies. Misogyny at its best.
-The anti-abortion movement, as far as I have seen in my life, is intent on illegalizing not just abortion, but birth control of any kind, as well as comprehensive sex ed---all of which lead to more unwanted pregnancies, which then lead to more abortions. -- Again, from Life Dynamics, the producers of the video:
This is the mindset that is behind everything that Life Dynamics does. We are fighting to return full legal protection for every unborn child, from the moment of conception. Because of this our motto is, "Pro-Life: without compromise, without exception, without apology." -- I take it that that means “Life begins at conception,” which means that a new eternal soul is created upon conception?
Unfortunately, no anti-abortionist that I’ve seen interviewed has ever explained it like that. It would offer their “secular” audience the reason why anti-abortionists are so fervent about their opposition. Not that they would change that many minds, but it would plant some seeds of respect for their position/beliefs. Until, that is, that extra support finds out that they are also against all birth control and sexual education (sans ignorance only abstinence only education). Not to mention the resounding call for BIG government to implement this religious supremacist master plan.
“We are fighting to return full legal protection for every unborn child, from the moment of conception”
-Am I to understand that an eternal soul is created at the very moment that the lucky sperm fully penetrates the egg?
-Why would God need humans to create souls?
-How can a physical act create something non-physical?
-And if physical conception is required to create a new soul, how then did Adam and Eve come about?
What happens if the zygote (fertilized egg) fails to adhere to the uterine wall as it often does? Where do all those eternal souls go?
Why isn’t the anti-abortion industry doing all it can to ensure that these eternal souls make it to term? Funding research to preventing spontaneous abortions and miscarriages is something practical that can be done right now, but why aren’t the leaders of the anti-abortion movement doing this? Are they that unaware of reproductive facts? Or are they intentionally keeping the focus on late term abortions that people can emotionally identify with for the sake of fundraising purposes?
They must despise their fundraising audience.
Further, The Catholic Church abolished limbo a few years back, but to my knowledge, hasn’t replaced it with another place for these aborted souls to go. -- There is a reason some of us refer to the “pro-life” movement as “anti-abortion,” or “anti-choice.” In my opinion, they are actuality pro-death.
-Support of the unnecessary Iraq war, which has resulted in tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of deaths.
-Neglect of the 40, 000 already alive people that die of starvation and preventable diseases every day.
-Support for the Bush administration’s ravaging of funding for low income children. (It was a real “treat” to hear republicans on the House Floor decry funding to enforce “dead-beat dads” to pay their alimony to mom‘s with kids.) -- Again, why aren’t they funding research to prevent spontaneous abortions/miscarriages with the millions upon millions they rake in each year? Think of all the liberal$ who would actually support that cause?
It seems clear to me that credibility and solutions are at the bottom of their priority list.
Ask your abortion leaders those questions, I would LOVE to hear their answers.
Once again, the point, even if this eugenics conspiracy is as true as they say, we have a Planned Parenthood right here in Caucasian conservative central, should they too be shut down on the basis of unrelated genocidal intentions? -- I had an idea the other day that religion is mostly for the faithless. Only someone who doesn’t believe in God would need to be reminded of its existence, or need “His” book to remind them that there is life after death.
Anti-abortion, anti-euthanasia, anti-stem cell research, these are all symptoms of the same disease: Fear of Death--or more accurately, the suppression of the fear of death.
Terri Schiavo lived for 13 days after being cut off from all food and water. Essentially, she was tortured to death. Not because she was euthanized---as per her wishes---but because the anti-euthanasia rabble refuse to allow for any legal means of dying humanely.
Faith, eh?
It seems to me that they are against anyone being euthanized, et al, because they are afraid of being reminded of death.
In that context, those who proclaim the loudest of their belief in God, and life after death, are the most terrified of death...thus the need to scream about it.
Anti-Choice Doc[umentary] Aims to Link Reproductive Rights to ‘Black Genocide’ By Michelle Goldberg March 9, 2010
It digs into the misuses of what was presented to be factual history and makes it clear that Maafa 21 was designed as a piece of propaganda. Worse, inherent in its design is the exploitation of the exploitation of racism. ___________________________ Update: 4-6-10, 3ish AM
For the sake of disclosure, I’ve just been informed by a poster that Michelle Goldberg is biased.
One of the websites the poster lead me to included this video of Michelle talking about the importance of taking a more expansive and global look at reproductive health, and the unseen connections that exist.
Once again, from Focus on the Family's Citizenlink magazine:
AMA Opposes 'Don't Ask Don't Tell,' Says Gay Marriage Bans are Unhealthy
The country's largest professional organization for doctors takes a position on homosexual issues.
Gary Rose, a consultant with the conservative Medical Institute for Sexual Health, said the AMA should stick to medicine.
The AMA “should stick to medicine” eh? Here’s a Citizenlink quote from last July:
A third major finding of the study is that there is significantly greater medical, psychological and relational pathology in the homosexual population than the general population.
So there you have it. FOTF’s anti-gay Citizenlink knows more about medicine than the American Medical Association.
In short, the study design was so flawed that no mainstream, peer-reviewed, mental-health journal would publish it. And the study’s supposed success stories were gay celibate individuals who adopted false labels to direct attention away from frequently undiminished same-sex attraction.
Last week, Truth Wins Out released a video by ex-gay survivor Patrick McAlvey of Lansing, Michigan. He has spoken out on local radio and will join me on Culture Shocks radio with Barry Lynn TODAY at 4PM (ET). I hope you will tune in and listen to the live broadcast on the Internet.
Transcript as follows -- and as always, feel free to use:
Patrick McAlvey: It was devastating and it confused and isolated me, I didn’t know how to process what I was thinking and what I was feeling and how to still have any sort of self-esteem and feel good about who I was, with the knowledge that this desire, that is beyond my control, is somehow sinful and wrong.
I think it does a lot of damage to people’s mental health
[I] picked up the phone and called the founder and director of the ministry, in sixth grade, and he had just spoken at my middle school youth group that year.
When I found out I could change, I mean, it was the only hope I could hold onto, ’cause I was so scared and felt very alone, so.
No, I didn’t tell any family or friends, I grew up in a very conservative Christian home and school, and didn’t think it was a safe thing to tell anybody.
In middle school, after I called Mike, the guy who ran the ministry, we started emailing regularly and exchanging letters and talking on the phone occasionally.
Well I distanced myself from Mike sometime in early high school, and really had very minimal contact, he sent a couple letters, but I had very minimal contact until I was 19. And so when I was 19 I was kicked out of a missionary training school and forced to move back home with my family, and I was kicked out because of my attraction to men, and so in that time, I was sort of in a crisis mode and was very low, very depressed and just trying to make sense of my life and mostly of my attraction, so I contacted Mike again, and we started meeting regularly.
That night he suggested we go over to his friend’s house so that we could do “holding therapy.” So we drove together to his friend’s house and had an hour where I was instructed to lay in his arms, chest to chest, and not talk, it was just an hour of silent holding and he told me to feel the strength of another man, smell the smell of another man, feel the security of another man’s arms. And it was supposed to replace, or fill a void that I had from some unmet childhood need.
I thought the holding therapy was very strange, and it made me uncomfortable, but I was willing to try anything, and trusted Mike.
Afterwards, he wanted to know if it felt good, if I had felt safe, and he said the he enjoyed it.
He would initiate prolonged hugs.
I responded with nervous laughter to a lot of his questions, but, again, I was not as skeptical as I should have been, just because I was so desperate for an answer.
As part of the therapy, he asked how large my penis was. He asked if I shaved my pubic hair. He asked about the type of underwear that I wore. On one occasion he asked me to take my shirt off and show him how many push-ups I could do, which I did not do, and he wanted me to describe my sexual fantasies to him, and the type of men I’m attracted to. And one time he asked me to rate my own attractiveness, on a scale of 1-10, with separate scores for my face, my hair, my body, and then an overall score. And then after I scored myself, he assigned scores for my attractiveness, each category, and I remember that my hair got the best score and my face got the worst score.
As part of the therapy, he had me come over to his house, and he rented the movie of the play Equus, and he had us watch it together, in his home. In the movie there was full frontal male nudity, and it made me rather uncomfortable to be watching it with him, but it was his idea, and afterwards he wanted to talk about some the dynamics of the play and then also how I felt about seeing the naked actor.
Well, he thought it would be a good idea to learn about home repair and maintenance, those types of things, used tools a little more often. And one time we went to a play together, again, as part of the therapy, and he had me pay for the tickets for the play that we went to, as part of my payment for receiving therapy from him.
I never felt like I was changing, I never saw a change.
We had a discussion and I told him that I wasn’t going to be coming. He said that he was scared for me in that--he reiterated many of the myths he had told me earlier about being gay, that no one was happy who was gay, and that the gay lifestyle was all about drugs and alcohol and random sex and everyone who was gay had STD’s. So, he said that he was scared for me because I was moving toward acceptance of my orientation.
I think that I’ve been damaged in a lot of ways by what Mike did and what the people who support him, or the people who even just allow him to be around, and continues to do what he’s doing. They’ve had an enormous impact on me and, there were years through middle school and high school where I just really came to hate myself, to loathe myself. I didn’t trust anyone, and didn’t allow anyone to get close to me, because I was terrified they might find out secret and that they would think less of me, so I spent many years locked in my room, crying by myself and it just--for no reason, for no good reason. If I had had a fair representation, if someone had told me that it was possible to be gay and happy and have sustained healthy relationships and families and everything that straight people have, then I could have avoided a lot of suffering.
And so I chose to finally embrace the person I was, including my orientation.
And I know there are a lot of people are confused and scared and aren’t sure what to do, and in that situation it’s easy to be taken advantage of and it’s easy to fall for a lot of the false information…
I would like to tell the man who did my ex-gay therapy, that he was wrong, and that the happiest I’ve ever been in my life is when I finally accepted myself. And I would encourage him to consider doing the same thing, and I would tell him that he is doing a lot of damage, and I would want him to know how much damage he’s done in my life, and how much sadness and hurt he’s caused, that could have been completely avoided if he was honest with me, and with himself, about his orientation, my orientation, and the fact that neither of them were going to change.
Those goals include universal acceptance of the gay lifestyle, the discrediting of Scriptures that condemn homosexuality , muzzling of the clergy and Christian media, granting special privileges and rights in the law, overturning laws prohibiting pedophilia, indoctrination of children and future generations through public education, and securing all the legal benefits of marriage for any two or more people who claim to have homosexual tendencies.
It’s a perfect storm. (p19)
When Nazi Germany marched its troops into Austria and then “annexed” Czechoslovakia in the late 1930’s---signaling Adolf Hitler’s dangerous and frightening intentions---the response from the rest of Europe was startling: It did nothing. … Essentially their strategy was to ignore the threat, give Hitler what he wanted, and hope against hope that the trouble would soon pass. It didn’t. (p29)
Hitler … subjugated most of the people of Europe to tyranny and slavery. … Millions of men, women and children lost their lives
Today…we find ourselves in a terrible battle of a different sort, but one that also threatens the very existence of society. … The future of the nation is in crisis (p 29-30)
Like Adolf Hitler…those who would favor homosexual marriage are determined to make it legal, regardless of the democratic process that stands in their way. (p41)
The third reason marriage between homosexuals will destroy traditional marriage is that this is the ultimate goal of activists, and they will not stop until they achieve it. (p50)
The homosexual agenda is not marriage for gays, It is marriage for no one. (p53)
homosexuals are rarely monogamous, often having as many as three hundred or more partners in a lifetime---some studies say it is typically more than one thousand (p54)
The apostle Paul described such a society in the book of Romans, referring apparently to ancient Rome: “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (1:29-31). (p55-56)
[Re Matthew Shepard] In 1998...Katie Couric of NBC’s Today Show asked a guest one morning if he thought the leaders of Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition, and the Family Research Council were in directly responsible for Shepard’s murder because of the venom we espoused. …In twenty-seven years I have never said anything hateful about homosexuals on our broadcast, and I do not condone violence or disrespect for anyone. (p68)
~~~~
Now, compare all that with what was recently observed on the Rachel Maddow show:
The Rachel Maddow Show "Nazism is not a metaphor" Friday, August 7, 2009
But we begin with the convergence of two of the great sources of jaw-dropping, I can‘t believe that just happened-ness in modern American politics. We have the mob rule, shut it down, screaming, don‘t talk about health care mobs and we have Sarah Palin.
The now unemployed former vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor, who turned to her Facebook page today to add this to our national conversation about reforming our health care system. She said, quote, “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama‘s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide based on a subjective judgment of their level of productivity in society whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.”
I actually agree. Of course, such a system isn‘t actually being considered by anyone. But don‘t let that hold you back.
Last night, on this show, we hosted Tim Phillips, the president of Americans for Prosperity. It‘s a beltway organization with significant corporate funding. They‘re staffed by experienced Republican campaign strategists, like Mr. Phillips himself.
Americans for Prosperity has churned out a number of what appear to be grassroots organizations. They have names like Patients First and Patients United Now. And these groups are formed to oppose health care reform and to get people to pack these town hall meetings about health care.
These groups direct people to town halls. They give them talking points to use there. And they try to get them fired up.
Here for example is the fire ‘em up message from a speaker on Mr. Phillips‘ Patients First bus tour, which yesterday held an event in Pueblo, Colorado.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If this new Obama-care program comes to fruition, when you reach 65 and every five years thereafter, you‘re going to have a counseling session with some federal airhead. Part of this process is called end-of-life counseling and part of the end-of-life counseling can be an end-of-life order.
Adolf Hitler issued 6 million end-of-life orders. He called his program the final solution.
I kind of wonder what we‘re going to call ours.
If you find all this stuff is as repugnant as I do, you need to take it to the next step. You need to notify your congressman. How do you that? How do you notify these people?
You can call them. You can write them. You can e-mail them. Or you can go to their office and put the fear of God in ‘em.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Put the fear of God in them—because what Obama is doing with killing all these people like Sarah Palin said, that‘s like what Hitler did and you know what Hitler deserved.
This is the rhetoric that corporate-funded, GOP-allied groups like Americans for Prosperity are funneling through which they set up to look like grassroots organizations to get people to go “put the fear of God” into elected officials.
“Politico” is reporting that an event planned by Congresswoman Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona was overrun by protestors who showed up after receiving robocalls encouraging them to show up and demonstrate. And, of course, the nice thing about robocalls is it‘s never easy to know exactly where they came from, but it is known that Conservatives for Patients‘ Rights—another one of the fake grassroots organizations, a 20 organization—a $20 million operation run by former hospital CEO Rick Scott—that group posted the time and location of these events on its Web site.
And what has started as rowdy and rude and mean-spirited disruptions has turned, in some cases, into actual violence, with several hospitalizations for minor injuries and some arrests being reported at health care town halls last night. What‘s also evident is that the antireform rhetoric increasingly is invoking specific references to Nazis and specific comparison of President Obama to Adolf Hitler.
Here for example is a 16-year-old wearing a -- 16-year-old at a Denver town hall event wearing a t-shirt with a picture of the president and the words on it, “Hitler gave good speeches, too.” Here‘s a toddler in a stroller at the same event carrying a sign with a swastika that reads, “No to Fascism.” Here‘s a protestor at a Michigan event held by Congressman John Dingell carrying a sign that depicts the president with a Hitler mustache.
Yesterday, talk show host Rush Limbaugh compared the president, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the proposed health care reform, and the president‘s health care logo to Nazism and/or Hitler. And despite criticism from, among others, the conservative “National Review Online,” the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Congress, and Rabbi Marvin Hier whose founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Rush Limbaugh actually retrenched with the whole Hitler/Nazism thing today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: By the way, his health care logo looks damn like the Nazi logo. I‘m sorry but it does. I didn‘t create either logo, but I have two eyes and I can see. Infuriating Democrats—good. Is Obama not got a Web site where he‘s asking supporters to provide the names of people providing disinformation about the health care system? What did I say yesterday that is not true?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: You know, there are people alive today who barely survived the Holocaust. And there are many people alive today whose whole families were killed in the Holocaust. Nazism is not a metaphor for a political policy you disagree with. Used deliberately as a strategy to characterize a political opponent, it has a very specific resonance with people looking to justify violence. The implication of conjuring up the Third Reich is that, in the case of someone who‘s identified as a Nazi, as a modern day Hitler, violence against that person, even murder, would not only be seen as justified, it might be celebrated.
This rhetorical strategy sets the stage for political violence that the perpetrator could hope would be praised. As such the idea of assassination, other kinds of political violence are always in the subtext. And you know, sometimes assassination isn‘t even in the subtext. Sometimes it just bubbles right up to the surface.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: I wonder what it would be like seriously. I mean, if I could go, you know, to the speaker‘s shindig. Speaker Pelosi, I just wanted to—are you going to drink your wine? Are you blind? Do those eyes not work? There you go. I want you to drink it now. Drink it. Drink it. Drink it.
I really just wanted to thank you for having me over to wine country, you know? To be invited, I thought I had to be a major Democratic donor or long-time friend of yours which I‘m not. By the way, I put poison in your—no!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Yesterday, we played a tape of a Republican congressman joking about lynching Democratic members of Congress. Now, it‘s conservative national radio hosts calling the President Hitler and conservative national television hosts joking about assassinating the speaker of the House of Representatives.
Right wing media deliberately and systematically invoking both Nazism and political assassination; hostile crowds consistently displaying Nazi symbolism at these demonstrations; the corporate-funded anti-reform movement using Hitler as a rhetorical weapon against the president and against Democrats in Congress—it‘s scary, of course, if they don‘t understand the implications of their actions. And it‘s much, much scarier, still, if they do.
Joining us now is Frank Schaeffer. He‘s the author of “Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All or Almost All of It Back.”
Mr. Schaefer, thank you so much for coming back on the show tonight.
FRANK SCHAEFFER, AUTHOR, “CRAZY FOR GOD”: Thanks for having me on, Rachel.
MADDOW: Do you think that calling the president a Nazi, calling the president Hitler is an implicit call for politically motivated violence?
SCHAEFFER: Yes, I do. In fact, this rings a big bell with me because my dad, who was a right-wing evangelical leader, wrote a book called “A Christian Manifesto” that sold over a million copies. And in that book, he compared anybody who was pro-abortion to the Nazi Germans and he said that using violence or force to overthrow Nazi Germany would have been appropriate for Christians, including the assassination of Hitler. He compared the Supreme Court‘s actions on abortion to that and that has ban note that has been following the right-wing movement that my father and I helped start in evangelical context all the way.
So, what‘s really being said here is two messages. There is the message to the predominantly white, middle-aged crowd, the people screaming at these meetings, trying to shut them down. But there‘s also a coded message to what I would call the “looneytunes,” the “fruitloops” on the side.
It‘s really like playing Russian roulette. You put a cartridge in the chamber, you spin, and once in a while it goes off. And we saw that happen with Dr. Tiller. We‘ve seen it happen numerous times in this country with the violence against political leaders whether it‘s Martin Luther King or whoever it might be. We have a history of being a well-armed, violent country.
And so, really, I think that these calls are incredibly irresponsible. The good news is that it shows a desperation. The far-right knows they have lost. They‘ve lost the hearts and minds of most American people, for instance, who want health care.
But they also know they have a large group of people who are not well-informed, who listen to only their own sources, who buy the lies, for instance, all this nonsense about euthanasia being mandatory and all the rest of it, and these people can be energized to go out and do really dreadful things. And we‘ve seen it in front of abortion clinics. I‘m afraid we‘re going to see it with some of our political leaders.
And the Glenn Becks of this world literally are responsible for unleashing what I regard as an anti-democratic, anti-American movement in this country that is trying to shut down legitimate debate and replace it with straight out intimidation. It is ironic they‘re drawing a parallel to Hitler.
I wouldn‘t draw such a parallel, but I would draw a parallel to the Brown Church (ph) of 1930s who got into a habit of shutting down dissent and making it look as if they had a majority by spreading out in groups just as these folks do, screaming the loudest and making debate impossible.
So, these are very, very bad signs and I‘m not at all optimistic about how this is going to end in terms of violence, although I do think Obama is going to win the day in terms of most Americans.
The problem is, we‘re not talking about most Americans, we‘re talking about a small, angry group of white people who to—you know, to paraphrase Bart Simpson, the election broke their brains. They‘re angry. And they are ready to do just about anything to stop the process at this point because they‘d rather see us all lose than admit defeat.
MADDOW: Mr. Schaeffer.
SCHAEFFER: That‘s where they‘re at.
MADDOW: . one of the reasons that I wanted to talk to you about this tonight is because what you describe as the potential that this could be a coded message. What we‘re seeing here is vituperative language like this from some members of Congress, from some people who are considered to be relatively mainstream, within conservative politics.
But we‘re also seeing it from movement organizers, from people who are organized, like this Americans for Prosperity group. It‘s a very well-connected group. We have the president of that organization on the show last night. He‘s a former political strategist partner of Ralph Reed. He‘s up in the Jack Abramoff scandal. I mean, these people who are—he was the campaign strategist for George Bush‘s primary campaign for president in 2000 -- these are people who are very much linked into the conservative movement.
And so, what I‘m trying to get down to is the question of whether or not this is a deliberate coded message, whether this is sort of a dog whistle that‘s going out on the right by using specific language about Nazism, it is a specific call for violence?
SCHAEFFER: Yes, I would like to just say this and I know this may come off as a little harsh to people, but I honestly think that there is a type of white middle-aged American male, I‘m a white-middle aged—well, I wish I was middle-aged, I‘m over middle age—but a white male about my age who has had a kind of mental collapse. I mean, you look at the way they went after Sotomayor and called her a racist. You look at them now using all these foundations and these groups, lobbyists and others pouring millions of dollars from the insurance industry and stirring up misinformed, right-wing white people, not terribly bright people, the sort of people who are yelling at these meetings.
There is a coded message here. And that is that you have a group of people who like Rush Limbaugh would rather see the president and the country fail, and their coded message to their own lunatic fringe is very simple—and that is go for broke.
When you start comparing a democratically-elected president, who is not only our first black president but a moderate progressive, to Adolf Hitler, you have arrived at a point where you are literally leading—leaving a loaded gun on the table, saying the first person who wants to come along and use this, go ahead. Be our guest.
Now, all these people, when something bad happens, will raise their holy hands in horror and say, of course, we didn‘t mean that. We were just talking about being Americans. It‘s American to protest.
B.S. They know exactly what‘s out there. There is a whole public there who went out and stopped up on ammunition and guns thinking Obama would take away their weapons. One such person shot down three policemen in Pittsburgh. I‘d like to know exactly what Glenn Beck and FOX News will say the morning after someone takes a shot at our president or kills a senator or congressman.
And if it‘s one of the people who we find a little note in their car or the literature or their television watching habits whose tied to these people who are stirring the pot, or tied to these foundations that people, like Dick Armey, are running, trying to use insurance company money to make look this fake grassroots movement then—then we‘ll see what happens. But at that point we‘ll be in a new zone and it‘ll be too late.
So, my warning to my old friends on the right and those who read my book, “Crazy for God,” knows that without the work of my father, Dr. C. Everett Koop and myself, there would have been no pro-life movement, no religious right to be fomenting these things from, it‘s the same cast of characters. I came to a place in my life when I realized I had made a big mistake.
Now, we‘ve crossed a line into which hate and vitriol have gone to a point where it is anti-democratic and anti-American. These people do not want America to succeed. They would rather see our system go down than have a black president, someone with different political views, someone appointing people like Sotomayor, Hispanic people, women and others. And we have arrived at a point where enough is enough.
So, these people are hatemongers, and they are distributing a kind of information on two levels. One the lies about the health care system requiring euthanasia and all this nonsense, but on another level, as I say leaving a loaded gun on the table, they‘re calling our president Hitler, they‘re spreading this rhetoric, they‘re spreading these lies.
It isn‘t just a question of being bad journalists anymore. These are bad Americans, and they are putting all of us at risk.
MADDOW: Frank Schaeffer, author of “Crazy for God”—thank you very much for coming on the show. Mr. Schaeffer, we really appreciate your insight. Thanks.
SCHAEFFER: Thanks. _________________
James Dobson's book Marriage on Trial, et al, are those loaded guns "left" on the table.
They were designed as weapons of violence, to rip and tear lives apart.
"With the increasing influence of Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace and YouTube, Exodus is hoping that its presence on such outlets will expose a wider audience to the message that there is help available to those wanting to life a live (sic) that reflects the Christian faith.
"Social networking trends are universally appealing, but especially to young people," said Scott Davis who overseas (sic) Exodus International's outreach to youth as well as the ministry's innovations in technology and development."
Clearly, Exodus International isn’t satisfied with the inadequate amount of LGBT youth who get kicked out of their homes and / or commit suicide every day.
I also think that the grammatical Faux pas above are indicative of their lack of scrutiny when it comes to so much of what they say and do. They don't seem to care when they are caught in a lie, or come across as hypocritical. That article was two paragraphs long, and they didn’t even take the time to proofread it, yet they want the world to conform to their supposedly superior standards.
The areas which they are utilizing to spread their poisonous message are all hyperlinked on the Exodus web page:
Exodus International on Twitter Exodus Youth on Twitter Exodus on FaceBook Exodus Freedom Conference on FaceBook Exodus Youth on My Space Exodus on You Tube Exodus Student Channel on You Tube Exodus podcasts
I’m not twitter literate, and their FaceBook page is a blurb, so I’m just going to explore a couple of their newfound avenues of approach.
"Through Jesus Christ, freedom from homosexuality is possible."
Alan Chambers: "How many of you are in need of some hope tonight? How many of you feel like you are just absolutely at the end of your rope? How many people came just absolutely ready for an encounter with the Lord? We serve a God who loves us. Who died for us. Who wants to have a relationship with us. Who’s crazy about us. He can sustain you. You can find freedom. It is possible, and freedom can come amidst a life of struggle. God created us to be in relationship, first and foremost with Him. That was broken in the Garden---through a relationship with one another. He did not create us to do this by ourselves."
Underlying this promotion of false hope and freedom from reality is an inspirational song with lyrics that include: ♪ Oh Lord make us one...May the world finally see, that you made us one ♪.
An understanding that I agree with, but would re-word. However, juxtaposed with the lies, deception, and violence-encouraging hatred that Exodus wholeheartedly endorses by default, the song becomes a true and revolting bastardization of the very concept of oneness.
Love = unity = oneness, a concept that is apparently lost on Exodus employees and their affiliates, proven by their continual dehumanization of us in the public sphere.
The sad part is that there are people who will never accept their same-sex attractions, but cannot turn to Exodus because they have integrity. --- And now onto all things Exodus Youth, AKA Scott Davis:
"Social networking trends are universally appealing, but especially to young people," said Scott Davis who overseas Exodus International's outreach to youth as well as the ministry's innovations in technology and development.
One of the propaganda DVD’s Exodus and Exodus Youth promotes, is called “Truth and Tolerance.” Which, of course, is anything but truthful or tolerant. (You can find the Scott Davis portion of the DVD transcribed here.)
It’s a litany of hypocrisy, delusion, and easily knocked down arguments. The problem is that it’s not intended for those with “unwanted same-sex attractions,” it’s a training manual for adults to rape the minds of GLBT youth. And yes, there are actual follow up manuals you can download.
So, If you or a same-sex attracted loved one is feeling a bit too emotionally and psychologically healthy, and would like to do irreparable harm to yourself or that same-sex attracted loved one, remember, now more than ever, Exodus International is here to help...
_________ Edit: Tuesday June 2, 2009 @ 6:45 AM: See second "(sic)" at top, and corrective grammar to reflect this.
