Anti-LGBT Roundup of events and activities 4/16/18
The following is a list of activities and events of anti-LGBT organizations. Organizations listed as anti-LGBT hate groups are designated with an asterisk.
Family Research Council*
The Family Research Council* (FRC) will be on a (April 17 through 27), in which attendees will join FRC president Tony Perkins and other FRC representatives to 鈥渨alk the ancient paths鈥� and meet Israeli leaders.
Other guests of the tour include former congresswoman Michele Bachmann; Avi Melamed, the Salisbury Fellow of Intelligence and Middle East Affairs for the Eisenhower Institute; Rabbi Yehuda Glick, a member of the Knesset; and Ambassador David Friedman, who is serving as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the State of Israel.
An FRC comments that attendees will hear from Israeli religious and 鈥減olitical defense鈥� leaders, while an email FRC sent out January 5 notes that 鈥渞ocket scientist鈥� Ari Sacher will be joining the tour and will brief attendees on the so-called 鈥�,鈥� a missile defense system developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. Sacher, according to his bio at the tour site, is an Iron Dome Systems Engineer.
FRC also hosted its in California March 28, an annual gathering that this year included conservative pundit, author, and former Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro as the keynote speaker.
On April 17, FRC will host 听the panel event 鈥淟osing Our Voices: Who Owns Free Speech on the Internet鈥�:
In an era when 69% of American adults use social media platforms to express themselves, the free market powers of digital giants like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have collided with the free speech rights of citizen internet users. In the wake of a consistent pattern of censorship by tech companies of lawful but politically incorrect viewpoints 鈥斕齪articularly those of conservatives and Christians 鈥斕齱hat is the legal status of digital free expression?
Panelists included Representative Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), attorney Craig Parshall and Brent Skorup (Mercatus Center, George Mason University). Parshall is special counsel for government affairs at the American Center for Law and Justice, the organization that Trump attorney Jay Sekulow directs.
FRC president Tony Perkins hosts a daily radio show, 鈥淲ashington Watch.鈥� Guests from March 23 through April 13 include Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX); Frank Smith (Phantom Rescue [human trafficking]); Jon Erwin (filmmaker); Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD); Pat Trueman (President/CEO of National Center on Sexual Exploitation); Rep. Steve Russell (R-OK); Chris Wilson (CEO, WPA Intelligence); Louisiana state representative Rick Edmonds (R); Tennessee state representative Susan Lynn (R); Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ); William Imboden (exec. dir., Clements Center for National Security); Pastor Trevin Wax (Third Baptist Church, Tennessee); Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC); Ken Klukowski (American Civil Rights Union); Dan Gainor (Media Research Center); Ambassador (ret.) Yoram Ettinger; Louisiana attorney general Jeff Landry; Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA); Texas attorney general Ken Paxton; Elizabeth Johnston (鈥淎ctivist Mommy鈥�); Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC); Rep. Tom Garrett (R-VA); Mayor Troy Edgar (Los Alamitos, CA); David Curry (pres./CEO, Open Doors USA); Kristi Hamrick (spokesperson, Students For Life); Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC); author Gordon Chang; Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO); Nebraska state senator Mike Hilgers (R)
Family Policy Institute of Washington
The Family Policy Institute of Washington (FPIW; located in Bellevue, Washington) is May 4 with guest speaker Robert George, Princeton professor of law and longtime anti-LGBT activist.
George is chairman emeritus听of anti-LGBT group the National Organization for Marriage and is also one of the three drafters of the anti-choice and anti-LGBT 鈥淢anhattan Declaration,鈥� a theocratic manifesto that calls for Christians to disobey laws they disagree with, seeks to ban same-sex marriage and disallows recognition of any kind of civil union between same-sex couples.
George, who听served听as chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, is a senior fellow at the Witherspoon Institute, which听provided nearly $700,000听to anti-LGBT sociology professor Mark Regnerus for his听debunked 2012 study. In addition, George launched the American Principles Project (APP) in 2009, a group that had been working hard to derail the Common Core educational standards, including using conspiratorial turns such as听warning about 鈥渄ark forces鈥�听behind the standards. He 听to transgender identity as 鈥渁bsurd鈥� and 鈥渟uperstitious.鈥�
FPIW is extremely active in anti-choice and anti-LGBT state and local politics. It has battled domestic partnerships, access to birth control for poor women and a telemedicine bill, claiming that it would allow 鈥渨ebcam abortions.鈥� FPIW president听Joseph Backholm听has compared same-sex marriage to two siblings re-defining their bond and said that 鈥渢olerance is not something to be pursued.鈥�
FPIW听is also behind the anti-trans听鈥淛ust Want Privacy鈥� campaign, which was gathering signatures in 2016 for Initiative 1515. The initiative would have repealed a state human rights commission law and made it legal for businesses to discriminate against trans people by allowing them to refuse to allow trans people to use the restrooms and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity. The measure didn鈥檛 make the ballot.
Focus on the Family
Focus on the Family (FOTF) has apparently quietly ended its annual Day of Dialogue, an event that was specifically formed to combat the annual , a student-led national event in April in which people take a vow of silence to bring attention to silencing and erasure of LGBTQ people at school.
Blogger Hemant Mehta noticed the end of the Day of Dialogue and . The Day of Dialogue was designed for Christian students to proselytize to their LGBTQ classmates about why homosexuality/being transgender is against God鈥檚 will (and is thus 鈥渂ad鈥�).
With regard to the end of the annual event, the FOTF website claims that
[I]n an effort to better serve and empower participants鈥攁nd continue the initiative鈥檚 growth鈥攚e will be leaving it open for individual students to choose the date that works best for them for organizing a Day of Dialogue in their individual schools. The free speech tools and guides remain available on the Day of Dialogue website, but students will have flexibility on determining which specific day during the school year to use them and to lead activities.
The Day of Dialogue was by Alliance Defending Freedom* (ADF; then known as Alliance Defense Fund) as 鈥淒ay of Truth,鈥� a 鈥渃ounter, or Christian perspective鈥� to the Day of Silence. ADF has worked domestically to state-level religious exemption laws that allow people to legally discriminate against LGBT people in accordance with religious beliefs. The organization has also worked to implement public school policies that further marginalize LGBT students, . ADF has also sex between people of the same sex.
Janet Boynes Ministries
of the ex-gay Janet Boynes Ministries (JBM), will be headed to Nigeria April 27 through May 8, according to an email JBM sent out March 20. Boynes will be visiting the David Christian Centre, located in Lagos. The email requested prayers as Boynes 鈥渃ontinues to minister for the Glory of God in Nigeria.鈥�
Boynes claims to be an 鈥渆x-lesbian鈥� and is touted by anti-LGBT people as 鈥減roof鈥� that LGBT people can 鈥渂e straight.鈥� Boynes homosexuality to drug addiction and pointed to a variety of causes for it, from domineering mothers to having too many gay friends. She has that acceptance of same-sex marriage is a sign of the end times and recommended that parents not allow same-sex partners of their LGBT adult children into their houses.
MassResistance*
MassResistance (or Mass Resistance; MR) announced on its website April 8 that longtime anti-LGBT activist Peter LaBarbera has joined the MR staff. According to MR鈥檚 president, Brian Camenker,
Pete truly understands this larger battle in a fundamental way that 95% of today鈥檚 pro-family leaders and activists simply haven鈥檛 grasped. The power of truth and not backing down 鈥� fearlessness 鈥� is so fundamental. I can鈥檛 overstate how important that is when confronting the vicious and militant LGBT movement infiltrating our schools and society.
听
LaBarbera is president of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality* (AFTAH), but has served as an editor and reporter for several right-wing outlets prior to that, including Human Events, Accuracy in Media and the Washington Times during the 1980s and early 1990s.
He then served a stint with Concerned Women for America before launching his own anti-LGBT quarterly paper in 1993, the deceptively named Lambda Report, in which he documented what MR calls the 鈥済rowing homosexual activist movement across the country.鈥� LaBarbera linked homosexuality to pedophilia in the paper, which ran for five years.
LaBarbera launched AFTAH in 1996, and has garnered a reputation among LGBT communities as a voyeur of sorts, with some applying the moniker 鈥溾�� because he attends LGBT events and other and takes lurid photographs that he then posts on the AFTAH website as 鈥減roof鈥� of the dangers LGBT people present to society.
In the late 鈥�90s, LaBarbera ended up at FRC for a while, working with fellow anti-LGBT activist Robert Knight, and also started writing for the conspiracy-laden WND (formerly World Net Daily), something he still does.
In the early 2000s, LaBarbera moved back to Chicago where he was executive director of the Illinois Family Institute* until 2006. Since then, he has focused on AFTAH, where he continues to push the conspiracy theory of a 鈥渉omosexual agenda.鈥� He also links homosexuality to pedophilia and other ills, something Camenker and MR do, as well, made most obvious in a book the group published last year called The Health Hazards of Homosexuality, which also links homosexuality to violence and disease.
According to the MR post, AFTAH will 鈥渃ontinue to post high-quality material on the LGBT issue, while working more closely with MassResistance.鈥�
Judicial, legislative, federal
Anti-trans ballot initiative in Anchorage defeated
Voters in Anchorage, Alaska, that would have repealed protections for transgender people, including allowing them access to public restrooms and other facilities in accordance with their gender identities. Opposition to the measure garnered 52.7 percent of the vote while support for it finished at 47.3 percent.
Proposition 1 would have required people to use such facilities based on the sex they were assigned at birth, and it was heavily promoted and supported by the anti-LGBT Alaska Family Council.
The election, which will be officially certified April 17, marks the first time an American jurisdiction has upheld protections for transgender people as part of a standalone ballot measure. There are just under 300,000 people in Anchorage, which makes it one of the largest jurisdictions in the country to approve such measures.
Anti-LGBT adoption bill passes committee in Oklahoma
S.B. 1140, that would allow private adoption agencies to turn families away on religious or moral grounds, April 11 and will now head to the Oklahoma House for a vote.
Republican legislator Leslie Osborn added an amendment to the bill that stipulates if an agency is not receiving federal or state funds, it can do whatever it wants, but if the agency discriminates, it will lose that funding.
The amendment passed the committee, too, and will also be voted on in the Oklahoma House.
Maine House passes conversion therapy ban
The Maine House (also known as ex-gay or reparative therapy) April 12 amid heated debate. The bill would ban state-licensed therapists from engaging in efforts to change the gender identity or dissuade same-sex orientation in clients under the age of 18.
Conversion, or reparative therapy, is the discredited and pseudoscientific belief that gay people can be made heterosexual or that trans people can be counseled or treated out of being trans.
Detractors argued that the ban would compromise 鈥減arental rights鈥� and the work of faith-based counselors, though the bill from the ban. Maine state representative Roger Reed (R) that the bill 鈥渋s an attempt by the LGBT community to legitimize the unnatural inclinations.鈥�
Nine states have similar bans and at least 19 states are considering conversion therapy legislation.
Anti-LGBT activists compare conversion therapy bans to Jim Crow, other ills
ThinkProgress that new language is circulating on the anti-LGBT right regarding the latest wave of conversion therapy bans working their way through state legislatures. Now, anti-LGBT activists are referring to the bans as 鈥渕ust stay gay鈥� bills and thus must be opposed.
In an April 11 press release, Regina Griggs, director of 鈥渆x-gay鈥� group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX), called on legislators to oppose 鈥淢ust Stay Gay鈥� bills that, 鈥淭his compulsory homosexuality and transgenderism [sic] is the worst infringement on people鈥檚 rights since Jim Crow.鈥� She went on to cite pseudoscientific statistics from the fringe medical organization American College of Pediatricians*.
Griggs does not explain in the press release how banning a harmful practice is comparable to society-wide segregation on the basis of race.
ThinkProgress also noted that the 鈥淢ust Stay Gay鈥� framing appears to have originated with prominent anti-LGBT writer and commentator听Michael Brown, of the Fire School of Ministry in North Carolina, who began garnering media attention a few years ago because of . Since then, he has written several books that include his belief that a 鈥済ay agenda鈥� is taking over America.
On April 5, Brown posted an essay lambasting a current conversion therapy bill in California, titled 鈥淐alifornia鈥檚 Shocking 鈥榊ou Must Stay Gay鈥� Bill.鈥� In the essay, he claimed
鈥his California assault on our most fundamental freedoms is simply the latest manifestation of LGBT activism. As I and others have warned incessantly for many years, those who came out of the closet want to put us in the closet. Do you believe me now?
He also spoke about 鈥渢housands鈥� of people who have 鈥渓eft鈥� homosexuality, including anti-LGBT ex-gay activist Anne Paulk, who appeared on Brown鈥檚 radio show. Brown did not mention that Paulk was formerly married to fellow ex-gay activist John Paulk, who in 2013 , noting that it did not change his sexual orientation. In 2014, he as a gay man.
