Saturday, November 27, 2010

"Hate Group" Designation Angers Hate Groups

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Tony Perkins-- Good actor/bad actor

-by Noah

Earlier this week, I happened across an article from The Washington Post titled "Hate Group Designation Angers Same-Sex Marriage Opponents." It seems that some hate groups aren’t comfortable with their recent designation as hate groups by The Southern Poverty Law Center. Gee. Ain’t that just a whole lot of too damn bad.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a major Civil Rights organization based in Montgomery, Alabama defines itself as a non-profit civil rights organization that is dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry towards the vulnerable in our society. It monitors and tracks hate groups, militias, white supremacists, and other extremists. The SPLC started up in 1971 and they define hate groups as those who have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people. The SPLC issued its newest report on the haters just in time for Thanksgiving.

Chief among the included and affronted was The Family Research Council. The SPLC accuses the council of putting out “demonizing propaganda aimed at homosexuals and other sexual minorities.” Peter Sprigg, who calls himself a “senior fellow for policy studies” at the FRC, recently went so far as to state, proudly no doubt, that he thinks “homosexual behavior” should be outlawed. Council President Tony Perkins (no blood relation to the guy from Psycho), clearly resenting the designation called the designation a political attack by “a liberal organization.” There it is again. Imagine what the flies on the walls heard: Damn liberals! Always fighting for peoples’ rights! Next thing ya know, they’ll be allowing gay people to vote! Oh, wait! They do! This is terrible! The sky is falling! My marriage is being threatened!

Perkins’ hissy fit statement droned on:
“The left’s smear campaign of conservatives is… being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state… that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so.”

These guys are soooo touchy; like schoolyard bullies. Every sign of human decency is “radical” to them, but, when you stand up to them, they start to whine and cry. Gee Tony. Sorry to ruin your holiday weekend as you and your faux Christian group of mental misfits would do to others. You dedicate your whole life, your whole being to causing misery for others and then you whine when someone calls you on it. How dare they! Burn in your Crypto-Christian Hell, Tony.

I wish President Obama and the rest of the Democrats would learn this: It’s time to call these Republican nutbags out loudly and reveal them for what they are once and for all. For instance, I think the about-to-be House Speaker, John Boehner, is so tightly wrapped that he could be reduced to a sobbing, wailing, puddle quite easily. We’ve seen the evidence. He’d have to be carried away to a padded cell where he belongs. Put him in a cell next to one that says Bachmann on the door, just down the hall from one that says Jabba the Limbaugh. Throw it right back in their faces like the editor of Motor Trend Magazine did earlier this week when Limbaugh went all wackadoodle over their calling GM’s Chevy Volt the Car Of The Year; seeing something good as a threat. "Just remember: driving and Oxycontin don't mix."

Tony Perkins, like the rest of the Repugs, keeps referring to the midterm election results as if they were some sort of mandate for their various and sundry perversions. They will continue to do so until they are called out. The Dems need to do some research on these hideous gasbags and find out what pushes their buttons. Then, push away, with extreme prejudice. Most Republicans are so far gone down the road to blithering nutbagville why not speed them on their way to their final destination and be done with them? Give them the treatment that matches what they dole out. Smack ‘em upside the mind and make ‘em cry for mommy. The Post’s article goes on to quote gay rights advocate Dan Savage as saying on CNN:
“… [W]e need a cultural reckoning around gay and lesbian issues. There was once two sides to the race debate. There was once a side you could go on television and argue for segregation, you could argue against interracial marriage, against the Civil Rights Act, against extending voting rights to African Americans, and that used to be treated as one side… of a pressing national debate, and it isn’t anymore. And we really need to reach that point with gay and lesbian issues. There are no ‘two sides’ to the issues about gay and lesbian rights."

Savage is right, of course, and just as good people stood up to pro-segregation bullies decades ago when the SPLC was just getting started, good people need to stand up now. Tolerating the incessant hate of Neanderthal groups like the Family Research Council only serves to impede social progress, and, yes, social justice. If Republicans don’t like it, make them eat it.

Brian Brown, President of another merry band of homophobes, the ironically named National Organization For Marriage, also griped about the inclusion of his group in the SPLC’s new report:
“This is about protecting marriage… The whole idea that somehow those folks who stand up for traditional marriage, like the Family Research Council, are hateful is wrong. [The Law Center is] trying to marginalize and intimidate folks for standing up for marriage and also trying to equate them somehow to the KKK is wrong.”

Yeah Brownie. Heckuva job. And your point is? You see, I’ve been married to the same woman for 28 years and I know you’ll be appalled to learn that we lived together without a piece of paper for many years before that. In that time, I have known and worked with and for some very fine gay people. I even know some who are married to other gay people, great gay people. At no time in all that time, have I ever felt that my marriage was threatened by what you fear and what most of us would call the real world. Get over it. What is it about YOUR marriage that makes you feel threatened?

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6 Comments:

At 11:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

A good article. I don't think Savage is right about one thing. He is not old enough, I wouldn't think, to remember it. But in the '60s, the networks never put segregationists on the air to argue against the civil rights of Blacks. It just was not done. I am sure the local southern stations had them on, but nary a one in Chicago, where I lived. I think they recognized there weren't two sides to the issue then...just as they should recognize there are not two sides of merit on the gay rights issue.

 
At 12:02 PM, Anonymous Noah said...

Hi Anon,
Thank you for your comment. I myself do have a very clear memory of George Wallace screaming "Segregation then. Segregation now. Segregation forever" on my family's TV in New Jersey back in 1963. That was on CBS. There were folks in our rich, stuck-up, lilly-white conservative town who agreed with him and might have even called in to complain had CBS not run the clip. Then, about a year or maybe two, later, I went down to Chapel Hill, NC. with my cousins, aunt, and uncle for a weekend so that one of my cousins could check out Duke University. We had one of the local network affiliate's news shows on before we all headed out to dinner. One of the news features that night was what amounted to a promotional spot for that evening's local KKK rally. We sure were impressed by our little trip south (not), but it got worse. We went and had a nice meal with all the other white folks at a big steak place, and then came out to the parking lot to find KKK rally flyers on every windshield. My cousin went to Duke anyway but I didn't go back to NC for 30 years.

 
At 12:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Noah--
When you say that Wallace was on CBS, do you mean as a subject of a news program or as a "talking head"? I agree that they had coverage of the riots and the angry politicians of the South. My memory is, though, that they never gave the racists the Sunday morning talk show opportunities, and never allowed them the opportunity to "debate" racism on national TV. And when the racists were shown on the air, it struck me that they were always depicted in a negative light.

Again, I have no doubt in the South, the local programming was very different. And memories a flawed things, but that was how I remember it.

 
At 3:18 PM, Anonymous Noah said...

Hello again, Anon,
Regarding George Wallace appearances on CBS Television, I refer you to page 68 of Bob Schieffer's book "Face The Nation". Wallace was on the "Face The Nation" program several times, most famously in March of 1965 when CBS made a special trip down to Montgomery, AL to interview him for the show. The CBS team, being fine journalists in the old cut and dried style, was known for just letting the guests talk and Wallace loved to talk, and talk and talk. In fact, Wallace virtually took over the show on that day, but, CBS had given him the platform. Neither Schieffer or any of the other CBS reporters ever needed to say anything negative about Wallace since Wallace did a fine job of painting a negative picture of himself, at least to maybe half of the audience. The "Face The Nation" program also often featured the likes of Sen. Strom Thurmond, Sen. George Russell and other southern segregationists, although, it may be that no one appeared on "Face The Nation" more than Wallace during the 1960s.
Wallace also appeared on NBC's "Meet The Press", most notably in October, 1964, when he moaned at length, sounding uncannily like a modern teabagger, about the damn U.S. government forcing integration upon his state and interfering in everything else as well. It can be argued that Wallace appeared on these programs so much simply because he guaranteed a big audience. He was an attraction. In the present day, I have no doubt that he would be given a show on FOX or CNN. He combined the dark evil of Hannity with the insanity of Beck. And, he would eat Bill-O and Limbaugh for lunch and simply dismissively wave off Palin with the back of his hand.
One last thought: Even if Wallace had never appeared on the Sunday talk shows, he would have been happy with having his Segregation Forever speech played over and over. I doubt that the how of his message getting out bothered him all that much just as long as it got out, and it certainly got out.

 
At 6:36 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tony Perkins is a worthless little weasel who found a way to make money off of a bunch of ignorant bigots.

Anyone notice how Sarah Palin Has taken over the Huffington Post. More articles about her relentless bull shit than about Obama.

 
At 12:43 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Modern Republicans would rather destroy America than let a Democrat succeed; jumping on everything without thinking – that's no way to govern.. This is deplorable and un-American.
Look at something simple: America's kids are fat. A wave of Diabetes amongst Americans is coming, and when someone observes this and tries for remedies, the Republicans bleat and bray about the nanny state, foaming about the government stepping in between the parents and their children. Hey, the parents are in charge NOW; and it's not working.

Just as we have the so-called jobs creating tax cuts NOW, and have had them for 10 years. That is the NOW, and it ain't working.

Remember Helen Chenoweth of the pre-Tea Party Sagebrush Rebellion? You know, the group bumming on government leases protesting when the government tried to save the land they're destroying? Another bunch of free-loading “free-market” hypocrites thinking they're fierce independents. Helen died in a one-car accident, thrown threw the windshield. No nanny-states gonna' make her wear a safety belt! She was holding her grandson, who also went through the windshield, but babies bounce. Helen should've been scraped up and posthumously arrested for child endangerment.

A perfect metaphor for Republicans and America.

 

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