The Family Research Council

I ought not to be posting this--I am dead serious about going on hiatus. But everyone in my state and especially at my school is talking about this gay marriage debate today, and I see a huge story being missed.

Of all the anti-gay marriage lobbyists who have come to Massachusetts, the Family Research Council (FRC), and its President, Tony Perkins, may be the most quoted--I've seen him in the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the NY Times, the Grauniad, MSNBCm all over the place. In these articles, the FRC is almost always described simply as "a conservative group" or "a conservative organization" or "the conservative Family Research Council."

If journalists would do some background research on the FRC, they would see that this description is an insult to both gay people and conservatives.

Not all conservatives oppose gay marriage. Not all people who oppose gay marriage are homophobic. Not all homophobic people are bigots. The Family Research Council are bigots--and I do not use emotionally loaded terms like "bigot" lightly. Here are some quotations from FRC publications:

--"...one of the primary goals of the homosexual rights movement is to abolish all age of consent laws and to eventually recognize pedophiles as the 'prophets' of a new sexual order." "Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex With Boys," FRC publication, July 1999.

--""There is a strong undercurrent of pedophilia in the homosexual subculture. Homosexual activists want to promote the flouting of traditional sexual prohibitions at the earliest possible age....they want to encourage a promiscuous society - and the best place to start is with a young and credulous captive audience in the public schools." - Robert Knight, Family Research Council

--"homosexuals are included in a list of sinners, who, if unrepentant, will not inherit the kingdom of God." - Family Research Council press release about Matt Shepard's funeral, on the day of the funeral, October 16, 1998

--After Matthew Shepard's death, Frank Rich wrote an article saying that anti-gay groups like the FRC--I think he singled them out because they had a press conference about converting away from homosexuality around the time Shepard was found--saying they bore some responsibilty for what happened. "[FRC Spokesperson Heather] Farish vehemently rejects such allegations. 'Don't blame AA because a drunk was beat up,' she said." (Dallas Morning News article, "Why now? Other gays have been victims of brutal attacks, but the slaying of a Wyoming student has caused a national outcry," by Brooks Egerton, October 17, 1998.)

--If you think the above quotations take their words out of context, you can read this 32 page "study" of "Homosexual Behavior and Pedophilia" by Robert Knight and Frank York. Learn all about homosexual activists' "long term goal" of "gaining access to children", despite the fact that they "publicly disassociate themselves from pedophiles as part of a public relations strategy"; learn how the American Psychiatric Association is in on it, etc.
(Knight is now with Concerned Women for America, but was with the FRC when this came out and they are still quite happy to quote him on their website. They also say he is one of the draftsmen of DOMA--I just hope to God that's not true.)

--In case you think that was the "bad old days" but now they've changed--the FRC still offers talking points (their phrase, not mine) on the connection between homosexuality and pedophelia on their website.

--As I noted in this post, the Family Research Council helped convince President Bush to launch "Marriage Protection Week" last October. It just so happened to begin on the five year anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death.

--Tony Perkins, the current President of the FRC, seems more telegenic and politically savvy than his predecessors but I don't see any evidence that he's less homophobic. In this newsletter he states, "Nor is it "loving" to suppress evidence that homosexual behavior is a "death-style" that is sending young people to an early grave."

I could go on. I think you get the idea. I don't expect newspapers to refer to them as "the lunatic homophobe Family Research Council," but there's got to be some middle ground between that and "a conservative group", which at once hurts gay people by giving these guys credibility they don't deserve, and insults most conservatives I know.

So, to liberal bloggers and/or people who support gay marriage: keep a close eye on the FRC, related groups like Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America, and their ties to politicians supporting the marriage amendment.

To conservative bloggers and/or gay marriage opponents: these guys could be your ANSWER. Don't let them speak for you, and don't let the press pretend they represent you.

And to any reporters reading this: For God's sake, people, do your homework. This doesn't require crackerjack investigative skills; it requires a half hour or less on Google.

Comments

[Jesurgislac]

Not all conservatives oppose gay marriage.

No, but enough of them do that Bush finds it worthwhile to court them by endorsing an anti-marriage amendment to the Constitution.

When the sodomy laws were repealed, at the time I was a member of the Conservatives livejournal (back when they let lib'ruls join!) and I posted to ask why it was that conservatives had acquired the reputation of being anti-gay, and was it justified?

Roughly speaking, about half the responses were from libertarians, all saying that they didn't support the sodomy laws, because they were an unwarranted intrusion of the state into people's private lives - that people should feel free to be gay or straight or whatever. The other half were from anti-gay bigots.

Not all people who oppose gay marriage are homophobic.

No: some people oppose gay marriage for stupid reasons, rather than bigoted ones. All reasons for opposing gay marriage come down to the religious right's reasoning "It's just WRONG!" (meaning: it says so in the Bible, so it must be) or to the secular homophobe's reason "Gays are icky!" But probably the majority of people oppose gay marriage because it's different and strange and they're not sure what to think about it... and none of those are good reasons for opposition: they're good reasons for education.

Not all homophobic people are bigots.

True. You can feel an irrational distaste for gay people, and be aware that it's irrational, and keep quiet about it because it's nothing to do with anyone else how you feel about gay people, and it's not polite to give voice to your irrational distastes. But those kind of homophobes won't be against gay marriage.

[Michael N.]

All reasons for opposing gay marriage come down to the religious right's reasoning "It's just WRONG!" (meaning: it says so in the Bible, so it must be)...[snippage]... none of those are good reasons for opposition: they're good reasons for education.

I'm hoping that you mean "education" in the sense that "there should be a discussion about why the dictates of one's faith shouldn't form a basis for making laws" rather than the sense of "your faith is leading you into wrong things and is therefore wrong". You're setting a dangerous precedent if you are arguing for the second case there.

I think most people opposed to gay marriage have little exposure to actual gay people, and are would benefit from a chance to actually know some gay folks. They'd get to see that the stereotypes are way too limited and don't give anything like the actual picture of what the lives of gay people are really like, and what the policies they're talking about actually mean when they're executed.

It's an opportunity for them to learn to appreciate the shared humanity. It's also an opportunity to appreciate the side of their faith that talks about loving your neighbor, and doing things that spread kindness in the world.

[Edward]

'Don't blame AA because a drunk was beat up,' she said." (Dallas Morning News article, "Why now? Other gays have been victims of brutal attacks, but the slaying of a Wyoming student has caused a national outcry," by Brooks Egerton, October 17, 1998.)

And yet they feel gays are a danger to polite society.

Matthew Shephard touched a nerve because we was photogenic, it's true, but his MURDER (he wasn't simply "beaten up"; he was murdered) represented a breaking point in the debate on gays. The quote here is a good indication of what that breaking point was really exposing...ambivalence about the violence because of who it was aimed at.

I attended the Matthew Shephard march in New York that turned into a riot. I recall a motorist who was so nervous about the violent anger the crowd who stopped traffic was filling the air with he jumped out of his car with a tire iron, waving it about...he didn't know why he felt threatened...no one was singling his car or him out in the chaos, but you could see fear and frustration in his face.

I suspect he didn't even know what the march was about...he got caught in it on his way home.

Not to make light of his fear, but I thought there was something poignant about the randomness of his being a "victim" of the riot and the crowd's ambivalence to his plight (people just kept marching around him), something parallel to the randomness of the violence against gays who are simply caught being themselves in society that is too often ambivalent about violence against them.

Homophobia does come down to one of two reactions ("it's a sin" or "it's just icky") but they both stem from the latter (the "sin" argument is so lame it's laughable). Homophobia exists because people are disgusted by the idea of gay sex. Disgust, however, as Sartre noted, is nothing more than an incipient vomitting...and what you vomit must have been inside you.

I believe there's a scale, with 100% heterosexual people at one end and 100% homosexual people at the other...and lot's and lot's of people somewhere in between. I've noticed that 100% heterosexual men and women are not disgusted by gay sex...they understand it, even if they don't want it. It's those hovering somewhere in the middle, who can't understand why they might sometimes have a dream about someone of the same sex, who freak out about it.

[JKC]

I don't care what any particular faith has to say about the issue. Not that I don't respect their right to have a position and enforce it amongst their believers. I just don't want civil law based on someone else's interpretaion of Scripture. (Or the Quran, or the Baghavad Gita). Nobody's proposed forcing any church to bless same-sex unions if they don't want to.*

It never ceases to amaze me how some (not all) conservatives can be so fervently libertarian when it comes to economic matters, and so intrusive over the private life of consenting adults.

*Which leads to another point: if moonbats like the FRC get their way, how will they justify interfering with the religious practices of churches that do choose to perform ceremonies for gay couples?

[Jesurgislac]

I'm hoping that you mean "education" in the sense that "there should be a discussion about why the dictates of one's faith shouldn't form a basis for making laws"

I do, but re-reading what I wrote I realize I wasn't clear. Thanks for asking the clarifying question.

[Michael N.]

I was pretty sure that was your position, Jesurgislac (if I ever spell that incorrectly, I'm sorry) but I thought it was worth the time to make sure.

Something I've noted at my church is an unfortunate tendency of some liberal religious folk to assume that all Christians are made in the mold of the more extreme ones. This may have to do with the unpleasant experiences that many of them have had with Christianity in the past, but it's hard to both let them know that their concerns are being listened to and tell them that they are overgeneralizing.

I don't consider myself a Christian any more, although I was raised Southern Baptist. My wife does consider herself a Christian, though, and many people that I love dearly also do. I think it's critical that we make sure to include people of faith -- even the more extreme faiths -- in our public discourses as best we can. We can become exclusionary without ever realizing it, and we only notice when we look around to find that those around us have a suspiciously uniform point of view.

[Jesurgislac]

I was raised a Quaker: my parents and my sister are still Quakers, and my brother and I are "atheists who attend Meeting occasionally".

I have friends who are Catholic, Jewish, Episcopalian, Pagan, Buddhist... many varieties of religion, enough to know that there is really no such thing as a monolithic faith in any religion. Christianity, Islam, Judaism: all stem from the same root, are clearly more similar than different when compared to other non-Abrahamic religions, and vary widely, among themselves, among their different branches.

I mistrust anyone who uses their religion as a reason to hate others. I suspect that in reality their hatred finds reasons in their religion, not the other way about, and that seems to me a bastard way to treat any faith.