Update: A comment that was posted here pseudonymously accused candidate for Loudoun County Sheriff Greg Ahlemann (Pastor Jay Ahlemann’s son) of being anti-gay and racist, and of having a tattoo that he won’t show to anyone. He asked us to correct the record, since he has in fact shown us his tattoo. Equality Loudoun president David Weintraub sat down with Greg Ahlemann recently and talked about the rumors, the meaning of the tattoo, and some other issues in the race for Sheriff. We will post that interview as soon as time allows, and add the link to it here.
Update 2: Here’s the link to the interview.
Somebody thinks that the gullible class is alive and well in Loudoun County.
Readers who live here may have noticed, in recent weeks, the appearance of full color, full page ads for an organization called “The Church of the Valley” in some local newspapers. In one of the latest ones, they announce their intent to present awards to (posthumously, obviously) Jerry Falwell, Dick Black, and Patricia Phillips, as well as a new arrival named Richard Enrico, the director of an Ashburn outfit called the “Foundation For Moral Restoration” (also of “Operation Save America”)
This week’s ad includes a reprint of an American Family Association “action alert” about the Hate Crimes Bill, and opens with the banner headline:
“Will you ask your Pastor to take a stand against the sinful practice of homosexuality?”
The action alert is a textbook example of the jaw-dropping lie being disseminated by the AGI noise machine:
If pastors and other traditional moral and family value people of all religious backgrounds don’t aggressively oppose a bill now in Congress, in 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. If churches and individuals want to keep the government from telling us what we can and cannot teach and preach about homosexuality, we better get involved NOW!!
Even commenter Jack, who opposes hate crimes laws and is not exactly a fan of the GLBT community or of this organization, agrees with our assessment of this deceitful behavior. Frankly, it’s so over the top that you would have to be a wild-eyed joke with absolutely no regard for your own credibility to maintain otherwise. Read the actual bill. Also note that the “church” has altered the original AFA action alert that appears on their website to be even more histrionic and ridiculous, changing the conditional word could to would and will in several places.
So what are the leaders of “The Church of the Valley” revealing about what they think of Loudoun residents? Do they assume that we are uneducated or gullible, or are unable to locate the text of a bill? Do they believe that we cannot differentiate between a faith community, and a political organization that openly promotes candidates and party platforms? Where did they come from, and where do they get the funding to run several expensive full page ads each week, week after week? They sure don’t get it from the handful of folks who show up in Lovettsville on a Sunday.
And most importantly, why would any newspaper editor find this sort of lurid ad, one that is not only composed of a well-documented lie, but one that attacks the existence of some of their own neighbors, in any way acceptable for print? If this were an ad for another special prejudice, demanding that pastors “take a stand” against interracial marriage, or school desegregation, or made the claim that Christian children must be protected from “the Jews,” would these same editors have accepted it? What if the copy had read: “Will you ask your Pastor to take a stand against the sinful practice of Negroes riding on public transportation right next to our White Christian Women?”
Not all speech that is constitutionally protected deserves to be in print. Newspapers reject ads all the time because their content is inappropriate or offensive or obscene. This should have been one of those times.
Check your paper.
As you can see, Phillips continues to erroneously refer to a 2005 Loudoun Times-Mirror editorial as an “Equality Loudoun article in praise of Andrews”, suggesting that it was our statement. For some reason, she thinks that a screen shot of our page before we added an update exposing her false attribution provides some sort of defense of her behavior. I have no idea why. When her dishonesty was brought to our attention, of course we
What to do with bullies
Today at 6:30 pm, Kenton Ngo and Johnny Camacho will host a podcast with Kansas freakshow Shirley Phelps-Roper (yep, Westboro Baptist “Church,” God Hates America, the embarrassing step-children that even the hardcore Anti-Gay Industry holds at arm’s length). The call-in number for those who want to participate is (646) 478-5825.
The podcast announcement was met with the criticism that “giving these people a forum for spewing their hate” only encourages them, a version of “if you ignore them, they’ll go away.” The problem is, they won’t. That advice for dealing with bullies doesn’t work in the middle school setting, either.
This is a perennial conversation that occurs when obviously disturbed anti-gay people express themselves in some public venue. Some people argue that the hate speaks for itself, and that engaging the speaker validates it in some way. I disagree, and will just share my comment here:
What I mean by framing it is otherwise known as moral leadership. It’s not acceptable to single out a group of people in a community on the basis of a personal characteristic, and attack them. Period. Our Constitution guarantees the legal right to engage in such speech, but that doesn’t make the underlying idea valid or acceptable in civil discourse. There is great power in calling it what it is.