LGBTQ news and entertainment
Some news stories you might have missed:
• Washington Post: Virginia voters have approved a referendum to draw new congressional districts that could add as many as four Democratic seats to the House of Representatives, awarding Democrats an advantage in the national redistricting war begun by Republicans. Continue reading “Virginia Approves Congressional Redistricting + Mark Ballas On Bway + More”
Some news items you might have missed: • HuffPost: The FDA says it is working “as quickly as possible” to grant full approval for the COVID-19 vaccines. Full approval will hinge on several months of additional data. Continue reading “News Round-Up: July 30, 2021”
Yesterday, I posted about the “firing” of Bryan Fischer by the SPLC-certified hate group, American Family Association.
It seems the “firing” was more a transparent strategy to distance itself from the hateful rhetoric of Mr. Fischer; however, while he is stripped of his former title, he continues to host the organizations daily radio show and write for the AFA blog.
Ergo, he is still part of the organization.
Today, in a letter to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the AFA presented a laundry list of claims by their radio host Bryan Fischer and demanded that such bile-bearing hate speech not be attributed to their organization in the future.
The American Family Association’s list:
• AFA rejects the idea expressed by Bryan Fischer that “Free exercise of religion” only applies to Christians. Consequently, AFA rejects Bryan’s assertions that Muslims should not be granted permits to build mosques in the United States;
• AFA rejects the ideas expressed by Bryan Fischer that the violent expulsion of Native Americans was divinely ordained and that, “Superstition, savagery and sexual immorality” morally disqualified Native Americans from “sovereign control of American soil.”
• AFA rejects the ideas expressed by Bryan Fischer that “we” need to clamp down on immigration because Hispanics are socialist by nature and vote Democratic because it allows them to “benefit from the plunder of the wealth of the United States.”
• AFA rejects Bryan Fischer’s characterization of minorities as “people who rut like rabbits.”
• AFA rejects the statement by Bryan Fischer that, “Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.”
• AFA rejects the policy advocated by Bryan Fischer that homosexual conduct should be illegal.
• AFA rejects the notion advocated by Bryan Fischer that, “We need an underground railroad to protect innocent children from same-sex households.”
• AFA rejects Bryan Fischer’s statement that, “If Hillary Clinton becomes president In 2016, she will not only be our first female president, she could be our first lesbian president.”
In light of this notice, do not continue to charge AFA with the statements by Bryan Fischer that we have repudiated. When identifying “hate groups” in the context of training military or law enforcement personnel, do not put AFA in a false light by quoting Mr. Fischer’s statements that we have repudiated.
The SPLC responded in this manner:
Without ending Mr. Fischer’s talk show, without apologizing for the bigoted statements that he, Mr. Wildmon, and others associated with the AFA have made, and without making it crystal clear that the AFA will not tolerate any such statements in the future, the AFA’s 11th-hour disavowal of Mr. Fischer appears to serve only one purpose: to give the AFA a degree of plausible deniability while it continues to spew hateful rhetoric. It’s a shell game and a transparent one at that.
However, after the years of hate speech by Fischer, I’m more inclined to think along the lines of my friend Joe Jervis at JoeMyGod:
To the AFA’s request we say FUCK THAT. Bryan Fischer is paid by the AFA, his office is staffed by the AFA, and his vile words are broadcast nationwide every motherfucking day by the AFA. As long at that continues to be the case, the American Family Association OWNS every fucking word that Bryan Fisher spews.
SRSLY? “Further research suggests that their reports should be taken with a grain of salt.”
If you’ve ever received an email from any of the organizations mentioned in this segment (that try to strip LGBT Americans of their rights) you know who the Southern Poverty Law Center is and what they do, and how useful they are.
Lord. Could this segment be any more biased?
Now, let me get this straight – last year, after Sarah Palin, the former half-term governor of Alaska, put cross-hairs on Democratic politicians in a graphic that included Rep. Gabby Giffords, and a connection to the Giffords shooting was discussed in the media, the right wing nuts screamed how she COULD NOT be in any way be involved. Am I remembering this right?
But now, a nut with a gun heads over to FRC and shoots someone, and now it’s the Southern Poverty Law Center’s fault? The SPLC who did not send out a memo or graphic with cross-hairs suggesting anyone go shoot anyone.
Get a grip and stop politicizing a terrible incident. The man who was the shooter at FRC was deranged and wrong. Period. But that doesn’t make SPLC responsible just because the SPLC has called FRC on their own hate speech.
Give me a break. As everyone said last year during the terrible Gabby Giffords shooting, it’s despicable to politicize such a horrible incident.
Stop it Tony Perkins. Stop right now.
The American “radical right” grew in 2011, a third consecutive year of extraordinary growth that has swelled the ranks of extremist groups to record levels, contributing to a significant increase in the number of anti-gay hate groups, according to a report issued today by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Overall, the number of hate groups counted by the SPLC last year reached a total of 1,018, up slightly from the year before but continuing a trend of significant growth that is now more than a decade old.
The report adds 11 groups to the organization’s list of designated anti-gay hate groups.
Those groups are:
From the Southern Poverty Law Center’s report:
The SPLC report details the growth of hate groups to a record 1,018 in 2011, up from 1,002 the year before and the latest in a series of increases going back more than a decade. But the dramatic growth came in the Patriot movement, which is composed of armed militias and other conspiracy-minded organizations that see the federal government as their primary enemy. These groups saw their numbers skyrocket for the third straight year in 2011, this time by 55 percent – from 824 in 2010 to 1,274 groups last year. In 2008, just before the Patriot movement took off, there were 149 Patriot groups, a number that metastasized to 512 in 2009.
In all, Patriot groups have increased by 755 percent during the first three years of the Obama administration. Their number has now surpassed – by more than 400 groups – the previous all-time high set in 1996, when the first wave of the militia movement peaked shortly after the Oklahoma City bombing that left 168 people dead.
…The hate groups listed in this report include neo-Nazis, white nationalists, neo-Confederates, racist skinheads, Klansmen and black separatists. Other hate groups on the list target LGBT people, Muslims or immigrants, and some specialize in producing racist music or propaganda denying the Holocaust.