Today's Cultural Warfare Update (1 of 2)

Focus on the Family Canada is ratcheting up their anti-marriage-rights efforts, and has sent out a very large Today's Family News with all kinds of propaganda and alerts; see starred items below for details. Also, sorry for the lack of the mid-week CWU; I had a midterm to study for on Friday morning and I'm not sorry I did that instead. Plus, my wrists have been acting up a bit. Stupid RSI.

Also, Washington State residents should note that the Faith and Freedom Network has a target list in judicial elections. See item two.

But now, today's news. This is part one of two:

This is almost a comic book; Memphis church makes a 75 foot tall Christianist version of the Statue of Liberty. Harmless, but at the same time, kind of revealing;

Faith and Freedom Network sends out a paper letter talking about a potential initiative to overturn GBLT civil rights law next year, but, more importantly, is going to push a bunch of new judges running to challenge various incumbents. They're also asking for money again;

Andrew Sullivan summarises the New York Supreme Court ruling saying that it's okay to deny marriage rights to queers - the summary is that since straights have kids irresponsibly, it's important to encourage them to get married and add responsibility. Lesbian and gay couples, on the other hand, have to actively plan to have kids, so clearly don't need the help;

Focus on the Family happy with Georgia and New York State Supreme Court rulings; it's kind of cute to see the misspell "amendment" repeatedly in their graphics; includes ACTION ITEM to demand a vote on the anti-marriage "Marriage Protection Amendment" in the Federal House of Representatives;

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to support a new bill against gambling at the Federal level that merged two previous bills;

NEA votes to urge states not screw lesbian and gay married teachers; specifically supporting "the legal rights and obligations of the partners in a legally recognized domestic partnership, civil union, or marriage"; Focus on the Family is, of course, outraged;

Oregon to have a parental-notification abortion law on the ballot this fall;

***** Focus on the Family Canada starts their big anti-marriage campaign; the first is a long story and ACTION ITEM to contact your MPs over the summer, preferably in person, to overturn marriage rights;

***** Remember when I sent out that warning note about the new Focus on the Family think-tank "Institute for Marriage and Family Canada"? One of the key elements of action by the fundamentalist movement is to set up a series of "think tanks" which churn out bogus studies with predetermined conclusions. They're starting to use these now; this new one out states marriage equality for GBLT people is a "tragedy for children";

***** Today's Family News runs the story of the fundamentalist who had a gay father and who hates him very very much; she was brought before Congress to testify earlier; the lie here is, as always, that they take a very bad case - and her childhood was no fun at all, tho' quite frankly, I know lots of people who had lots worse with straight parents - and present it as the standard case for all children raised by LGBT people; this is a standard tool of the fundamentalist movement: take the worst example you can find, and declare it to be the norm;

***** FotF Canada promotes their "Protect Marriage 2006" ACTION ITEM sub-website;

Focus on the Family USA pushes the anti-marriage "Marriage Protection Amendment" House of Representatives vote, scheduled for the week of July 17th; they have an ACTION ITEM to demand support for it, even though it's already failed in the Senate;

Focus on the Family USA reports on a new anti-abortion-rights group demanding "amnesty for the unborn"; I'm surprised they're not using the newer "preborn" language;

FotF: Catholic Church to excommunicate anyone who supports embryonic stem-cell research in any way whatsoever; it's another attempt to put pressure on Catholic lawmakers;

Pennsylvania anti-marriage state amendment dies in state legislature over fight between the theocons who want all forms of civil unions and domestic partnerships banned as well as marriage;

Faith and Freedom Network celebrate the Georgia and New York State Supreme Court rulings;

Focus on the Family ACTION ITEM to oppose a Missouri research initiative supporting embryonic stem-cell research; as always, they continue to call it "cloning";

President Fire Thunder forced out of office by Oglala tribal council;

Michigan anti-abortion group believes they'll make their signature goal for a comprehensive abortion ban ballot measure; it would stay itself pending the overturn of Roe v. Wade;

FotF pushes their IVoteVales.org website again;

FotF condemns GBLT-friendly corporations, calls even private company policies promoting equality for GBLT employees within the workplace "special rights" and a danger to Christians; AFA urges boycotts, like they do, and are doing now against Ford Motor;

FotF promotes theoconservative action group Alaska Family Council;

FotF pushes three Senate bills; two would ban "life-destroying embryonic stem-cell research" and "fetal farming," the last would fund "methods of creating embryonic stem-cell lines without destroying human embryos";

Arkansas Supreme Court rules that a board move to ban lesbian and gay foster parents is outside their authority and that further there is no actual evidence that being raised by GBLT parents hurts children (this is, by the way, true); Focus on the Family is, of course, outraged;

Focus on the Family Canada promotes a one-day training session at the Christian Legal Intervention Academy; their motto, no kidding, is "Integrating Christian Faith and law Since 1978";

( Articles and excerpts below )

Today's Cultural Warfare Update (2 of 2)

The fundamentalist right has its new Paul Cameron, now that he's mostly been shown up as the fraud he is; the new guy is John R. Diggs, who is an actual medical doctor, and his replacement for Cameron's "The Medical Consequences of What Gay Men Do" is called "The Health Risks of Gay Sex," and I link to it below. Searching on his name yields a cavalcade of anti-gay sites and organisations. Be aware of him, recognise the rhetoric, know where he gets it.

CANADIANS: The Canada Family Action Coalition is pulling out all the old USA-derived "fags and dykes are all psychotic diseased sickos" propaganda stops. I mean I haven't seen this much red meat since Concerned Women for America stopped explicitly defending gaybashing as a "normal reaction to the perversion of homosexuality." The theoconservative movement in your country is importing American theoconservative tricks and rhetoric. I'm sorry. You need to be aware and ready for it, because it will get remarkably brutal, if history is any indication.

Anyway, here's part two of today's news roundup:

Concerned Women for America celebrates New York State Supreme Court ruling against marriage rights for GBLT couples;

Concerned Women for America's Mike Mears reports on "pro-family victories" missed in the July 4th holiday rush at state legislature levels;

Concerned Women for America: gay rights mean destroying religious freedom via such things as anti-discrimination law;

CWA blasts Michelle Goldberg's book, Kingdom Coming, which I have gotten from the library and intend to read;

CWA's Robert Knight pushes the anti-marriage "Marriage Protection Amendment" again, says they're needed to ban civil union laws passed by "rogue legislators" and overturn marriage rights in Massachusetts;

LiveNews.com article on stem cell research bills - some of which are pointed to also by the Focus on the Family action item posted before;

Family Research Council press release happy about anti-marriage rulings;

American Family Association ACTION ITEM against Ford Motor Corporation - again;

Agape Press/AFA "news article" pleased with the Georgia and New York State rulings;

Don Wildmon, president of the AFA, claims credit for Ford Motor's financial problems;

AFA update on the California lawsuit where state universities are not accepting creationist "science" courses from private schools as transfer credit; they're claiming religious discrimination; I say fuck that noise, I don't want a doctor whose first-year biology came from Bob Jones University School of 6,000 Year Old Earth;

Fundamentalists sue Michigan State University to block domestic-partner employee benefits, call it "recognition of same-sex 'marriages'";

AFA article pushing "ex-gay" ministries;

Traditional Values Coalition report happy about Georgia, New York State marriage rulings;

TVC ACTION ITEM to support the Line Item Veto Act, which I have to say is still blatently unconstitutional, you cannot fucking amend the constitution through legislative action alone>, and that's what this is;

TVC happy with the "American Values Agenda" announced by House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), which is mostly a shopping list of fundamentalist pleasures but has a few tax items as well;

TVC attacks California courts for allowing anti-discrimination case to go forward against a private school that expelled two allegedly lesbian students;

TVC pushes more creationist bullshit, and points readers at the Discovery Institute;

TVC attacks a new Canadian study showing that the more older biological brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay; the correlation is actually pretty strong; they're making the usual rounds of meaningless condemnations that are actually based on the fact that they don't like it theologically; in six paragraphs they lie about study contents three times, ignore study controls, and specifically raise an objection that was not only anticipated by the study but specifically controlled against in it. (TVC quotes NARTH as saying that the correlation could be caused by social factors, such as bullying from older brothers; the study included a significant population where the younger and more-likely-to-be-gay men were not with their biological parents, in multiple matrix combinations, making this assertion by NARTH a clearly deliberate lie, which is standard procedure for them anyway so I don't know why I get upset about it again every time they just make shit up like this);

House Majority Leader John Boehner's website listing for the "American Values Agenda";

Canada Family Action Coalition article against marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples, claiming marriage rights for queers makes children "second or third class citizens";

Canada Family Action Coalition reports... what looks like a New York State theoconservative group's mailing on marriage, celebrating the New York State anti-marriage decision; there's no Canadian content at all that I can see, so I'm not sure why they're running it - they usually make some attempt to tie American theoconservative news blurbs to Canadian concerns but in this case I guess it's just schadenfreude;

CFAC reprints James Dobson's CNN commentary/attack on the media "provid[ing] cover" for "assault on traditional marriage";

CFAC links to "Medical conditions and sodomy" and "The Health Risks of Gay Sex,"

CFAC prints an article saying HIV does not cause AIDS, and that much of AIDS is a myth; it has dozens of howlers in it, but unfortunately, I suspect they believe this stuff, so, um, yeah;

CFAC keeps up the "Diseased Fags" drumbeat, pulling out all kinds of juicy mid-90s attacks, mostly against gay men; this is really red-meat stuff here;

CFAC head Brian Rushfeldt complains about being called intolerant, pulls up the "diseased fags" arguments again;

CFAC is pointing again to its old anti-marriage-rights website, Sanctity Of Marriage Canada;

ETA: I forgot these two articles - sorry! Jewish family flees Delaware town over religious pressure;

New tactic from StopTheACLU: digging up anonymous claimants and publishing everything they can about them - particularly their children's photographs, schools, and locations.

( Articles and excerpts below )