Tag Archives: Hate groups

Eat more cookies, teach liars a lesson

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We may have found a new standard for effortless advocacy.

It isn’t really news that people sometimes lie to get their way, but is it my imagination that there has been a sharp uptick in the sheer brazenness of the lying? I’m not talking here about the weaselly, defensive type of lying that public figures often engage in when caught in compromising positions (yawn). I’m talking about utterly making things up with the intention of compromising other people, wholly fabricated things that the liar knows are demonstrably false, but doesn’t care. Things that the liar wishes were true, but are not. So the liar just goes ahead and says they are anyway.

Things like stating as fact (click ‘See more’ under the first block of text) that a kind of rape scenario has occurred in a community when no such thing has ever happened.

Things like claiming that the Girl Scouts of America “promote abortion”, or have a “partnership” with Planned Parenthood, or encourage girls to have promiscuous sex. People dedicated to promoting these and other lies about the Girl Scouts have produced a media campaign that has the fingerprints of hate groups like American Family Association all over it, and are going after, of all things, Girl Scout Cookie sales.

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Benefit for Ugandan LGBT rights in Sterling

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Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

Benefit Celebration for GLBT Rights in Uganda
with Rev. Mark Kiyimba
Music by Tom Teasley
Friday January 13th, 7:00 – 10:00 pm
Unitarian Universalists of Sterling
22135 Davis Drive, Sterling (map)

It’s illegal to be gay in Uganda, and has been since colonial times. But that wasn’t enough to satisfy the anti-gay fringe in America. Following a 2009 conference arranged by three American extremists, a bill was introduced in the Ugandan Parliament that would institute the death penalty for gay people under some circumstances, prohibit any form of advocacy or human rights work on behalf of gay people, eliminate confidentiality for health care providers and clergy, and even make it a crime to fail to turn in one’s own family members. Along with the bill a vicious pogrom has been unleashed against the gay community, leading to many Ugandans living in constant fear. The developing situation has been extensively covered by Box Turtle Bulletin.

LGBT activists in Uganda point to a virulently anti-gay March 2009 conference put on by three American Evangelical activists for inciting the latest round of violence and intimidation against the local LGBT community. Among the three were Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, Exodus International board member Don Schmierer, and International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge, who is a protege of ex-gay advocate Richard Cohen. Lively, who blamed gay men for the rise of Nazism and the Rwandan genocide, proudly declared his talk as being a “nuclear bomb” against LGBT advocacy in Africa.

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How to ruin a ‘positive statement of belief’

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You know, I pretty much agree with a sentiment expressed by the many people who wish the perennial courthouse unpleasantness would just go away. That sentiment is commonly expressed something like this: I uphold the right of anyone to express any belief, no matter how offensive, because that’s what the Constitution guarantees – but it would be more effective and neighborly if the way people chose to express their beliefs was limited to inoffensive ‘positive statements’.

Consider the campaign, spearheaded every year by the American Family Association*, to get store clerks and others dealing with the public to say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.” I personally don’t care what people say to me; if someone says “Happy Holidays” I don’t have any trouble understanding what they mean, and if they say “Merry Christmas” I don’t jump to the conclusion that they’ve intentionally dissed some other holiday. However, this detail is important to the supporters of this group, and they have every right to advocate via legal means for the changes they want. Their campaign involves (in part) distributing buttons and stickers that say “It’s okay to say Merry Christmas.” So far, so good; that sounds like a positive message expressing their belief.

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This is what hate speech encourages.

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Photo credit: John Wright at The Dallas Voice

This is what hate speech gives people with violent inclinations license to do. When they are erroneously told, by someone like hate group leader Eugene Delgaudio, that gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender people are threatening to something they value, such as their children or their right to worship freely, such people feel justified in resorting to violence. They are fearful, and feel that they are acting to protect something of great value.

Engaging in hate speech is not illegal. Lying is (usually) not illegal. But when hate speech is used to motivate people to make donations or to vote in a particular way, there are unintended (or perhaps intended) consequences. Anyone who engages in such behavior is unfit for public office, by definition. Such a person does not serve the public, by definition.

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A “new, dark legacy” that should be decisively rejected

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The following letter is online at Leesburg Today. It presents even more troubling information about the threatening political climate that came spectacularly into public view with the exposure of two violent images sent by Loudoun Republican leaders.

This is the first I’ve heard about the threatening phone calls to League of Women Voters members, or the harassment of the Electoral Board.

Where are our investigative reporters?

Like Sarah Palin’s bull’s eye on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’s congressional district, the Loudoun County Republican Committee’s image of President Barak Obama with a bullet hole in his head adds to the violent imagery that has increasingly taken over public discourse in this nation.

This is not a single, anomalous event in recent Loudoun politics. A significant factor behind the Loudoun League of Women Voters cancellation of a candidate forum for this election was threats made to LLWV members by phone at their homes by advocates of concealed weapons, and the League’s concern about the cost and adequacy of security for what has been a regular voter education event.

Sterling District Supervisor Eugene Delgaudio’s bloody handprint in literature denouncing homosexuality is another item to add to the pile.

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Unfit for office, unfit for endorsement

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I could never, had I been asked to imagine the most ridiculous and easily verifiable lie that Eugene Delgaudio might invent, have imagined something as ridiculous and easily verifiable as this:

When contacted by the Loudoun Times-Mirror for comment about the exposure of his “Blood Door” email, Mr. Delgaudio told the reporter that the Photoshopped image he had sent to his mailing list was the original and that his image had actually been Photoshopped, by the very people who caught him in this behavior, to make it “look like blood.”

Side by side image comparison by the Loudoun Times-Mirror

When the reporter told me this, I said I thought that was interesting, and suggested that she search on Google images for “blood door.” She did.

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Is this acceptable to you, LTM?

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A second update (the first one appears at the bottom of the post): This is the original image that was photoshopped by Loudoun Republican Eugene Delgaudio to turn the blood “rainbow,” which he then lied about to the Loudoun Times-Mirror. This was found by a commenter via google using the search terms “blood door.”

Image included in the header of an October 25 fundraising letter sent by Eugene Delgaudio

Editor: Please direct the following to all individuals with input into political endorsements at the Loudoun Times-Mirror.

Is this what the Loudoun Times-Mirror editorial staff had in mind when you said of Eugene Delgaudio “his view on social issues is unsettlingly conservative and his antics distracting”? The attached image of the GLBT rainbow symbol in the shape of a pool of blood, complete with a gruesome bloody handprint, was sent to the presumed supporters of an elected official to whom you just gave your endorsement for reelection. While it could be described as unsettling, especially if one has been witness to such a crime scene, I don’t think that “conservative,” “distracting” or “antics” would apply.

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Stay away from this man in the potty

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[<i>Promoted by Liz</i>]

If you happen to see David LaRock, Director/President/Treasurer of The 1789 Project, in the restroom, stay away.

David LaRock - Director/President/Treasurer The1789Project.com

LaRock wrote a letter to the editor of the Leesburg today where he ponders.

But once you erase commonly-accepted boundaries that define normal behavior, we may face bizarre circumstances such as our children encountering cross-dressing county employees in public restrooms.

Really, David? Is that what you think about all day? When I’m in the restroom, I just want to do my business and get out. The last thing I want is to be in there with some pervert who’s obsessed with thinking about my body parts.

So folks, if you see David LaRock in the potty, hold it a little longer. Wait for him to get out. You really don’t want to be in there with him.

By the way, the 1789 project yanked the photos of their staff, making it very difficult to find the above photo.  I guess they don’t want us to know what they look like so that we can protect ourselves.

Neo-nazi group names PHC “next best choice”

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(Promoted by Epluribusunum)

The neo-nazi group Stormfront.org has honored Patrick Henry College. “Since there are no more pro-white colleges, the next best choice are conservative colleges.”  Stormfront has moved on from pure unadulterated racism to the kinder gentler worship of Kinder, Küche, Kirche, or in their their own words “If you are going to spend money on your kid’s college at least pick a place that does not have Feminist Studies.”  FYI, the phrase Kinder, Küche, Kirche, was invented in the U.S.A.  Hitler never used it.  He did argue that a woman’s “world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home,”.

Stormfront found a photo of armed and booted state troopers, lined up against a small Soulforce prayer group to their liking.  The caption reads “Protest against Patrick Henry College for “bigotry.” The college permits nonwhite students, I do not know what they are complaining about.”

It’s good to know that modern day bigots no longer need to be pro-white.  As long as they are anti-woman and anti-gay, they are ok.  Good to know.  It’s also good to know that even in the most conservative of “Christian colleges”, they have to use force against their own student body to keep them from talking to people outside the cocoon.

The new “normal”

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Repeat after me: Our Rs are kinder and gentler than this R

I was initially heartened at the near-unanimous condemnation of the pathetic little Pamela Geller-inspired protest we saw last Thursday night outside the LCRC meeting (photos below the fold). As I noted in comments, there was only one LCRC member (or at least a frequent attendee of meetings and events) who affirmatively joined the protest, plus a few others who appeared friendly with the protesters, while most just walked by or chose a different entrance.

As the incident has developed though, I now have to ask: Is it the assault on religious freedom itself to which these seemingly anti-religious bigotry Republicans object, or is their objection only to what they perceive as a misdirected assault on religious freedom?

One LCRC leader, by way of explaining what was wrong with the protest, informed me that target David Ramadan “isn’t even a practicing Muslim.” This may or may not be true – but that’s hardly the point, is it? Continue reading →