Open Letter to President Obama from People For the American Way re: LGBT Equality

by: Pam Spaulding

Tue Jun 23, 2009 at 11:26:28 AM EDT

June 23, 2009

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Obama:

I am writing to respectfully urge you to bring the energetic moral vision that you championed as a presidential candidate to the cause of equality for gay and lesbian Americans.

Among the reasons that millions of people were inspired by your candidacy was your eloquence on behalf of an America in which everyone is offered respect and equality under the law. At People For the American Way, we disagreed with your decision to stop short of supporting marriage equality, but we welcomed the clarity with which you articulated the constitutional principle of equality in so many other areas. That vision energized not only gays and lesbians, but many other fair-minded Americans who recognize discrimination as a national moral failing, who view equality under the law as a defining part of the American Way, and who believe the country is ready to discard discrimination based on bigotries that should be left in our past. That vision would be even more powerful coming from you as president, but since your election we have heard very little.

Any reasonable person is aware of the extraordinary challenges that faced the nation as you took office, including a dire financial crisis that has cost millions of Americans their jobs, homes, and access to health care. You have not shied from these most daunting of challenges. But it seems that you have shied from promoting the vision of equality that you articulated during your campaign.

Legislative change is needed, and we will continue to push Members of Congress and the Democratic leadership to move forward to end discrimination against LGBT Americans even as they grapple with other urgent national priorities. We are counting on you to call for and help win passage of legislation that you pledged to support.

As importantly, Mr. President, you are uniquely capable of communicating to the American public the moral and constitutional values at stake in ending discrimination against gay Americans. Beyond the clear harm to gay and lesbian Americans, the lack of your leadership on these issues damages both America’s sense of fairness and the credibility of your administration.

Your recent action to extend some benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees, and your statement from the Oval Office committing yourself to work tirelessly toward equality, could have been the kind of moment that was celebrated as a milestone on the march toward equality. But instead it had the feel of, and was reported as, an incremental half-measure rushed onto the stage to placate a discontented political constituency.

While your comments in opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act at the recent signing ceremony were welcome, they would have carried more weight as part of a larger ongoing effort to educate the American public about the moral need for LGBT equality. Moreover, the impact of your words was blunted coming so soon after your administration’s brief in support of DOMA using arguments that degraded gay and lesbian couples. You may have felt it was your duty to defend the law, but your argument that discrimination against same-sex couples doesn't count as discrimination and citation of case law on incest to claim that marriages of gay couples are unworthy of legal recognition was beyond the pale. Americans who support equality would not have been at all surprised if that brief had been filed by the Bush Administration. Coming from you, particularly without a broader public affirmation of your commitment to equality, it had the force of a hard slap in the face by someone we trusted.

Moreover, in the absence of a stronger statement about the importance of equality for all Americans, it has been equally difficult for your supporters to understand the continued discharges under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell of service members devoting their lives to our country. Congress should vote to repeal the destructive law that destroys military careers and robs the armed forces of highly trained soldiers, but until that happens, you should use your authority as commander-in-chief to suspend discharges of these personnel until that law is changed.

We have seen you change a nation’s conversation with an extraordinarily compelling speech on the issue of race in America. We have seen you change the perceptions of the world with a historic speech on history, pluralism, respect, and democracy to the world’s Muslims. We have seen you bring grace and conviction to the debate with your speech at Notre Dame about preserving a woman’s right to choose.

On the question of LGBT equality, it’s time to make that speech.

Mr. President, you have the opportunity to be on the right side of history. Every day, LGBT Americans face discrimination and are being denied their constitutional rights. There is no one in public life who could, and based on your stated principles and promises should, do more to move America forward toward becoming a country in which LGBT people are respected and treated as fully equal under our Constitution and laws.

We ask for your leadership and voice. When you lead, we will back you with every bit of heart and determination we can muster.

Sincerely,

Michael B. Keegan
President
People For the American Way

Bishop Harry Jackson: Point Man for the Wedge Strategy of the Religious Right

by: Pam Spaulding

Tue Apr 28, 2009 at 09:00:00 AM EDT

I do know that one of the fundies attending is Bishop Harry Jackson, who ironically, caused a bit of a stir among the hardcore base because of a shift toward support of civil unions last year, a nod to the fact that his side is losing the culture war.

"My concern about John McCain stepping up and being articulate about the marriage amendments is more about protecting the definition of marriage as one man and one woman as cultural guardrails...The reason I say I will work with civil unions, etc. -- that may not have been my original position, but I think it's a reality. We have had laws in New Jersey, all over the country. The reality is gay civil unions are going to be the law of the land all over the country...You may call it movement [on my part.] I call myself a realist...I think this would be a split issue [on the Christian right], a lot of people would disagree with me. But I think we're embroiled in a battle that's unfolding."

Jackson's above statements don't square with he has said as recently as this month. From PFAW's profile of Jackson:

Jackson insists that he's not anti-gay, and often works hard to sound reasonable.  He repeatedly told reporters last year that his effort to pass anti-marriage initiatives last year was not an attack on gays but based on his concern that "redefining" marriage could make it extinct in the African American community. But it's awfully hard to square Jackson's assertions that he's not anti-gay with his repeated accusations that gays are Satan-inspired enemies of religious freedom who have "hijacked" the civil rights movement and are out to shut down the church in America.

Gays as satanic:  Shortly before the 2004 election, Jackson outlined a strategy for defeating the "gay agenda," writing, "Gays have been at the helm of a fourfold strategy for years, but the wisdom behind their spiritual, cultural, political, and generational tactics is clearly satanic."  In 2007, he blamed the advance of hate crimes legislation on the fact that "the authority of the evil one in the nation has continued to ascend and get stronger and bolder."  And at the Jamestown celebration that year, he said, "And so what we are dealing with is an insidious intrusion of the Devil to try to cut off the voice of the church, and I for one am not going to let that happen."

Gays as enemies of religious liberty:  Jackson is a tireless proponent of the falsehood that gay-rights advocates are eager to shut down churches' and pastors' freedom to preach against homosexuality. He argues that most items on gay rights supporters' policy agenda - including anti-discrimination legislation, hate crimes laws, and marriage equality - are all dire threats to that freedom.  One of his columns, in fact, was titled, "Why Do Gays Hate Religious Freedom?"

In 2007, Jackson also organized a group of African American pastors to sign a false and misleading newspaper ad that called the hate crimes bill a threat to free speech, freedom of conscience, and freedom of religion, and urged Senators, "Don't Muzzle our Pulpits!"

...[O]n the April 21, 2009 broadcast of Janet Porter's radio show, Jackson portrayed federal hate crimes legislation and marriage equality as "an assault on the gospel" and "one unified battle that is being brought to us by the radical gays."  It started, he said, with the repeal of sodomy laws, and "ultimately they want the ability, at the end of the day, is to stop the preaching of the gospel."

Right Wing Watch report takes on the lies and distortions of the anti-marriage equality crowd

by: Pam Spaulding

Tue Mar 17, 2009 at 12:00:00 PM EDT

"Marriage Equality Opponents Blur Distinction Between Civil And Religious Marriage" is a must-read because it addresses all the old saws we see here daily on the Blend -- claims that religious freedom is under attack, and the ridiculous assumption by these Christianists that their biblical view of the institution is the "correct" and only way to view marriage. This is the kind of document people need to print out and give to less-informed allies, family members and others who aren't clued in to the deception going on.  I'm excerpting some choice bits:

More than one definition of marriage

There are many different definitions of marriage. For most Americans, marriage is a couple's public commitment to love, care for and take responsibility for one another and for their families. As a legal matter, marriage is a civil institution regulated by state governments, an institution accorded recognition and protection in a variety of ways. Marriage is also a religious institution, defined differently by different faiths and congregations. In America, the distinction can get blurry because states permit clergy to carry out both religious and civil marriage in a single ceremony. Religious Right leaders have exploited that confusion by claiming that granting same-sex couples equal access to civil marriage would somehow also redefine the religious institution of marriage.

Like many other Religious Right political strategies, this is grounded in falsehood and deception.

The civil marriages available to same-sex couples in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and until recently in California, have had no effect on individual churches' or religious denominations' ability to define religious marriage in their own way. Thanks to the religious liberty protections of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, no church or clergyperson can be forced to marry or bless same-sex couples, just as no church or other religious congregation is legally required to marry interfaith couples, divorced couples, or any couple that does not meet their religious community's requirements. But those requirements are not imposed on others by law: all couples' civil marriages - at least all opposite-sex couples' civil marriages -- are legal in the eyes of the law. This can and should be the case for same-sex couples without any governmental definition or redefinition of religious marriage.

It is important to note that there are denominations and congregations whose religious views embrace marriage for loving and committed same-sex couples. In the absence of civil marriage equality, clergy from those denominations and congregations are essentially made unwilling enforcers of inequality, because they cannot offer all the couples who come before them the same services. Some equality-affirming clergy have responded to that inherent inequity by performing only religious marriages for all couples and requiring couples to have a government official perform their civil marriage.

This memo focuses on the Right's persistent, purposeful blurring of the distinction between religious and civil marriage. This blurring serves several of the Right's purposes: it falsely frames marriage equality as a threat to churches' freedom, independence, and integrity, and it encourages voters to think they must choose between religious liberty and the constitutional principle of equality under the law.

...While it is certainly true that the proponents of anti-equality initiatives have employed pseudo-scientific theories and "secular" scare tactics -- like stirring fears about marriage equality's supposed threat to children, families, and civilization itself -- there is no question that those campaigns have rallied support among religious voters by insisting, falsely, that civil marriage equality would redefine religious marriage and forces churches and pastors to marry same-sex couples against their will.

The Right-Wing Facebook - GOP social networking at its best

by: Pam Spaulding

Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 22:30:00 PM EDT

You know how the bible-beaters and wingnuts have their version of Wikipedia called the Conservapedia. What if they decided to set up a Right-Wing Facebook social network?

No need to imagine -- surf over and check out People For the American Way / Right Wing Watch's handiwork (not associated or affiliated with Facebook in any way, of course).

Here's a taste of it in a screenshot:

All the links at the site are live and go to profiles with the candidate's network of "friends"; it's brilliant.

At the Voters Value Summit this weekend the five frontrunners for the Republican nomination will be cozying up to the right wing’s most powerful leaders. Right Wing Facebook will give you an inside look at who’s friends, who’s enemies, and who’s leaving nasty messages on Rudy Giuliani’s wall.