Gay Marriage Watch

Our semi-regular round-up of the crazy (and often unintentionally hilarious) things that anti-gay folks are saying about marriage equality and the LGBT community.

First off, Tony Perkins tries to make the link between gays, DADT, and sexual assaults in the US military. Joe.My.God reports:

“President Obama is finally admitting that sexual assault is a serious problem in the military, but what he hasn’t conceded is that his policy on homosexuality helped create it. According to a new Pentagon survey, most of the victims were not female (12,000 incidents), but male (14,000), highlighting a growing trend of same-sex assault in our ranks. How could this happen? Well, for starters, the Obama administration ordered military leaders to embrace homosexuality–completely dismissing the concerns that it could be a problem to have people attracted to the same sex, living in close quarters. Groups like FRC were right to be concerned about the overturning of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’”

Regular Elaine Donnelly picks up the same charge, with the headline at World Net Daily “Military Suffers Wave of “Gay” Sex Assaults, as Joe.My.God reports:

She told WND when factoring in civilians working for or around the military, the increase in that time is 98 percent. Women are identified as the attacker in just two percent of all assaults, meaning most men who suffer assault are targeted by other men. “So we’ve got a male-on-male problem here. The Department of Defense doesn’t want to comment on this. They know that the numbers are there. They say that they care, but all the attention is usually given to the female members of the military who are subjected to sexual assault,” Donnelly said.

As Joe notes:

WND fails to mention that the military recently launched a campaign that encourages the victims of sexual assault to come forward, hence the rise in reported incidents. And even their own article fails to live up to their bombastic headline.

Another regular, Scott Lively, who regularly travels to third world countries to rile them up against the gays, is complaining about being intimidated by the homofascists. O-blog-dee-o-blog-da reports:

“While traditional liberalism values the First Amendment freedoms of speech, thought and religion as the highest ideals of civilization, homo-fascists seek to criminalize any exercise of these ideals that are deemed to be a threat to “gay” culture. Present day examples of homo-fascist policies include speech codes in schools and colleges, anti-discrimination regulations in government agencies and private corporations, and de-facto anti-family censorship policies in the news media. Where pro-family speech and other activities are not yet constrained by law, homo-fascists employ bullying and other intimidation tactics to silence opponents and manipulate policy makers, all while posing as victims.”

He’s free to say what he wants. We’re free to criticize it. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean a free pass to speak without consequences.

And also at WND, “christian” Les Kinsolving came up with a truly offensive comparison of gays and bestiality. On Top Magazine reports:

“If lesbians, male homosexuals, bisexuals and transsexuals should have the right to marriage licenses – as a few states, including Maryland, now provide – why should the real animal lovers (whose orientation is bestiality) not be allowed to marry?” Kinsolving wrote. “The argument that animals are incapable of making a choice is surely invalid in that some animals choose to run away when fondled by humans, while others do not – which certainly indicates their ability to choose. Have there ever been any reports that apprehended practitioners of bestiality have as high a rate of AIDS and syphilis as do homosexuals?” he added.

Finally, maybe he’s an opponent, maybe not… we;ll let Donald Rumsfeld explain. On Top Magazine reports:

“You know, I’m, I guess, of a generation that I don’t … I listened to some of the Supreme Court justices. And one of them said, ‘Well what’s next after that? Is it two people, three people?’” he said.

“But you were a strong supporter of civil rights in Congress …”

“You bet I was,” Rumsfeld said. “And I was proud of the work that the Congress did in the 1964 legislation and the 1965 legislation.”

“I guess I just don’t equate the two. It’s not a subject I’m knowledgeable about. I guess the Rumsfeld rule here is: I don’t know.”

At least he admits it, instead of papering over his ignorance with bigotry.

Our semi-regular round-up of the crazy (and often unintentionally hilarious) things that anti-gay folks are saying about marriage equality and the LGBT community.

First off, an entry from Down Under. The Australian Christian Lobby is making an offensive comparison between marriage equality and the country’s “Lost Generation”. Gay Star News explains:

Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has offended aboriginal rights groups and marriage equality advocates by saying gay marriage will create another ‘stolen generation’. In Australia, the ‘stolen generations’ were aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their families to be brought-up under white ‘Christian’ values, where many were physically and sexually abused. ‘The Prime Minister who rightly gave an apology to the stolen generation has sadly not thought through the fact that his new position on redefining marriage will create another,’ said the ACL in a statement in response to former Labor prime minister Kevin Rudd’s pro-gay-marriage announcement yesterday.

Here in the US, “historian” David Barton had his own lovely things to say about the gays. Joe.My.God reports:

“I’ve gone on record before, and I’ll say it again: I think Romans 1:27 is one of the reasons that we’ll never find a complete cure for AIDS; and if we do there will be another disease pop up like this bacterial meningitis because the Bible says this, Romans 1:27 says ‘men committed shameful acts with other men, sexual acts, and received in themselves the due penalty for the error.’ God says there is a penalty in your own body when you do this kind of sexual acts – the Bible calls them shameful sexual acts – and so we as Christians have to have that same position, regardless of what the culture says.”

In Iowa, Bob Vander Plaats is sounding like a broken record: KSFY reports:

Vander Plaats says he isn’t personally judging anyone…that he doesn’t hate gay people…but says there must be a standard clearly defining what marriage is. That without a clear definition…marriage loses its meaning. “If you take away the fences regarding marriage, you have undefined marriage. all of sudden in means anything to anybody.” In 2009, all seven Iowa Supreme Court justices ruled gay marriage legal. Three of those justices faced retention elections in 2010. All three…David Baker, Michael Streit and Marsha Ternus….were removed from office. Bob Vander Plaats led the effort to remove those justices from office and he tells me, he’s not done. “I believe the governor should issue an executive order …the executive order would be…call time out…and lets let the process play out the right way.”

Over in the UK, the newly elected UK Independence Party Councillor was caught making homophobic comments. Pink News reports:

Alan Jesson the UKIP County Councillor for Spalding South, made postings on his Facebook page, over several months, between November 2012 and March this year, reports Hope Not Hate. He wrote: “No Mosques should be entertained in this country. Islam is anti Gay [sic] and anti women [sic] . It can never be part of English culture.” Despite the appearance of concern for the gay community, in February, the newly elected Councillor also posted homophobic comments, saying that “most gays are indeed Heterophobic”, and that gay and lesbian people have no right to church marriages.