I fear that this will prove to be premature given the looming election season, but has anyone else been taken aback by the number of big, honking lies told by local anti-gay activists so far this year?
In just the past four months, we have seen:
Patrick Henry College
April: The administration of PHC distributed a falsified version of Equality Loudoun’s commenting policy, in order to make the specious claim that we don’t welcome disagreement and debate on this blog. The occasion was the Soulforce Equality Ride visit to campus, and the objective was to justify PHC’s own unwillingness to engage in honest dialogue. The misrepresentation appeared in a flyer prepared for the media by the “Office of Communications, Patrick Henry College.”
When students and alumni (who had been reading and commenting on our blog) confronted their administration, the president implied that we had altered our policy after they produced the flyer. According to the Tuesday, April 24, 2007 minutes of the Student Senate, President Graham Walker told them
I don’t rem[em]ber that, and hope I have a copy of their posting policy on the day we quoted it. I’ll look into it.
The students, although they “do not agree with Equality Loudoun’s beliefs or political activities,” do care about truthfulness. They looked into it themselves, and produced proof that this later claim is also false. After pointing out that this kind of misrepresentation is a violation of the school’s honor code and that a student would be punished severely for the same behavior, this group of dissident students asks:
Why hasn’t the College explained the truth of the situation to us – whether this was a mistake or a deliberate misquotation – nor, identified those responsible for drafting and approving this flier for an appropriate discipline, nor extended an apology to Equality Loudoun, the citizens of this community, and the students of this school?
There has been no response yet that we know of.
Patricia Phillips
May: In order to smear her primary opponent, state Senate candidate Patricia Phillips falsely attributed to Equality Loudoun a statement made by a local editor two years ago, and misrepresented her own role in the School Board’s adoption of a policy restricting the content of student plays.
Her demand then was the censorship of student voices that acknowledge the existence of GLBT people, and she had this to say of the resulting policy in June of 2005:
“I was very pleased with how it turned out,” said Patricia Phillips of Sterling. Phillips said the policy addressed her main concern, which was for “the normalization of homosexuality to be prevented.”
On the other hand, this is what the Phillips campaign published widely in May of this year, under the heading “Equality Loudoun article in praise of Andrews”:
Fact: As Chairman of the School Board, John [Andrews] crafting (sic) a school policy on school activities that ignored community standards, limited parental control and was praised by Equality Loudoun. Check the facts out for yourself at:
http://archive.equalityloudoun.org/2005/06/22/good-and-ugly
That page links to a Loudoun Times-Mirror editorial, part of our archived material on the play policy. After being confronted by reporters, Phillips started backpedaling, and finally claimed that because the LTM editorial was posted on our website, but not on our “Know the Foe” page, this proves that Equality Loudoun “endorses” its content. Point for creativity, but still wrong.
For instance, this anti-equality letter was posted on our website in exactly the same manner – as a point of information. One would find it difficult, I think, to argue that our posting of this letter indicates our endorsement of it. The Phillips campaign has yet to correct these factual errors or to apologize.
Church of the Valley
June: A new quasi-church/political organization published a full page ad that blatantly lied about the pending Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Matthew Shepard Act), claiming that if it becomes law
[I]n the near future, pastors will be subject to huge fines and prison terms if they say anything negative about homosexuality. THE PROPOSED LAW WOULD MAKE IT A CRIME TO PREACH FROM THE PULPIT FROM ROMANS, CHAPTER 1 OR CORINTHIANS, CHAPTER 6.
In fact, the bill is only an extension of existing law, pertains only to acts of physical violence, and contains this passage:
Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution.
The pastor responsible for the ad has been challenged by reporters, editors and members of the public, but no retraction, or even qualification, has been forthcoming.
Barbara Curtis
July: A local blogger who works for Focus on the Family lied about this organization and then refused to publish comments that would correct the record.
She claims to administer her blog this way because she isn’t here to give us a “soapbox,” but it appears to be more that she wants to be able to make things up without any consequences. When I wrote to her in a personal email exchange and asked that she honor my request to correct the record, she got really abusive, really fast.
The sad thing that these incidents all have in common is that the players all aggressively identify themselves as Christians who are speaking from and advocating for a Christian world view. How is it that they justify to themselves the commission of this major sin, seemingly without a trace of shame?
It really does seem to me that they all think there is an unspoken exception in the Ten Commandments: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor (unless thy neighbor is gay).
Consider this exchange in our comments, starting here. We are discussing the “Ex-gay movement.”
…The problem with the agenda we are discussing, that of advocacy organizations like PFOX, Love Won Out, etc., is that it does not confine itself to advocacy on behalf of its purported constituents. One doesn’t need an agenda to support the right of individuals to choose to have sexual relationships with persons of the opposite sex, whether those individuals are “really” gay or not.
No, this agenda is focused on bullying, lying about, haranguing, punishing, coercing, demonizing, demeaning, and otherwise pressuring other people to also make that choice…
To which Jack replies,
Certainly such actions, if true, are deplorable. It is even more deplorable to lead others into sin [by which he means, I think, accepting or telling them that it’s ok to be GLBT].
This appears to me to be a clear articulation of belief in this exception. What do you think?
What to do with rude people
Well, it turns out that the Family Research Council video (“Censoring the Church”) promoted by Jay Ahlemann in his last ad (apparently meant to be taken as “evidence” in support of his misrepresentations about the hate crimes bill?) is pretty bad. As one might expect, it’s composed of half-truths, gross omissions, innuendo, and yellow journalism-type associations, all delivered in a tone of grave, you-won’t-believe-this tabloid. You really have to see for yourself the shockingly poor quality of this. It’s insulting to their audience.
It would be impossible (and boring) to list all instances of these propaganda techniques, but here’s one typical example. In describing the current bill that would expand federal hate crimes legislation, the editors introduce the language “…motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim…” without mentioning that the latter three categories are being added to already existing law. They try very hard to make it sound as if “hate crime” is a brand new concept, invented nearly exclusively, as they tell it, for the GLBT community to use to “silence Christians [sic].”
They even go so far as to showcase an African-American minister railing about “these hate-crime people” trying to stop him from preaching, completely erasing from the picture the reason that hate crimes legislation exists. The original 1969 law permitted federal prosecution of offenders who engage in violence or intimidation toward “any person because of his race, color, religion or national origin” because such violence was being used to interfere with federally protected activities like voting and attending school. Hate crimes legislation was instituted to address racist backlash to the Civil Rights Movement – but you would never learn this from FRC.
In order to set up their fallacious premise that hate crimes legislation is designed to “censor the church,” the editors must first make the terms “hate crime” and “hate speech” interchangeable. Then they present “shocking” cases of people who were were supposedly charged with a “hate crime” for merely exercising their first amendment rights. One of these cases is that of David Ott. As he tells his story on camera, one day he happened to see a pro-gay bumper sticker on a car at a service station. Naturally, he therefore decided to approach the driver and “ask him a few questions” and share his views with the man about his “lifestyle.” (Mr. Ott adds that he had just come from a church service where the pastor was “talking about homosexuality, so I was pretty fired up.”) Apparently, Mr. Ott’s attention was unwanted, but he was persistent. He was later charged with harassment.
Another widely reported case is the one in which activists from a group called “Repent America” tried to invade a gay pride festival in Philadelphia. As they tell it, they were facing 47 years in prison for “publicly reading Bible verses.” In actuality, their behavior involved a bit more than this. They berated the crowd using bullhorns, singled out festival attendees for personal insult, disrupted the program, and blocked access to some of the vendors who had paid for their spaces. When ordered by police to move to another area where they could express their viewpoint lawfully, they refused and were arrested. It’s fairly clear that in this case the perpetrators were trying their best to be arrested, in order to generate a legal case that could then be used in exactly the way we see it used here. Some of the charges – specifically, the ones pertaining to their speech – were later dropped (but you would never learn that from FRC, either).
Neither of these cases – and in fact, nothing in this video – has any bearing on the hate crimes bill. But they do raise an interesting question. What stands out about these incidents is their extreme rudeness, a rudeness born of the idea that the perpetrators have special rights. The thinking seems to be this: “Because I have a belief about sexuality, specifically your sexuality, I have the right to say anything I want to you. If you don’t accept that, you’re censoring me.”
Because David Ott has this belief, he felt entitled to accost a complete stranger in public, questioning and lecturing him in the most personal and insulting way imaginable. What sort of self-delusion would allow a person to believe this behavior is acceptable? Ott’s delusion extends to his apparent belief that he did nothing wrong and that he is actually the victim.
Being rude, of course, is not illegal in and of itself. People say rude, inappropriate things to each other all the time, which is why we have Miss Manners. At what point, though, does rudeness such as that displayed by Mr. Ott cross the line into unlawful harassment? I think that’s a legitimate question. Freedom of speech can’t be used as an unlimited shield for people who feel that their beliefs are so special that no boundaries apply to them.
So, what should be done to correct the behavior of people who are this rude without violating their constitutional rights?