This crazy notion that the Family Research Council is NOT a hate group -- it's some kind of nutty joke, right?
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by Ken
I started writing a diatribe about the perversion of truth by the American Right, and especially the American Christian Right, and then abandoned it. I suppose I can always come back to it.
I'm concerned at the moment at the prospect that one of the nation's vilest hate-mongers, Tony Perkins, commandant of the Family "Research" Council (FRC), may succeed in damaging the reputation of one of the country's most indispensable forces for decency and humanity, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which has certified the FRC as a hate group based on careful research into a mountain of evidence that comes right out of the FRC.
And when I say "research," I mean actual research, where you go out and actively search for the truth, not the kind practiced by the lying phonies of the Right, like the FRC, which has the temerity to use the word "research" in its name when it has never for the tiniest microsecond engaged in any such activity. The FRC's "researchers" troll the swamps of their imaginations for any factoid that can be twisted into incendiary accusations against its enemies, which is to say people who are concerned with the truth. FRC hates the truth, and indeed there is by now a mountain of evidence that most of what it does is the knowing fabrication of lies to be used for hate-mongering propaganda purposes.
Yesterday America Blog's John Aravosis put up a desperately important post, "Why the Family Research Council is a hate group." He answers the question directly:
Because they lie.
And they know they lie.
And they don't care.
And they've been doing it for twenty years.
And when I say "lie," I don't mean the standard Washington, DC version of a "lie," which is basically calling a lie anything you disagree with (aka, your facts hurt me so I'm simply going to call you a liar). I mean, an organization that decided early on that "the gay menace" was such a threat to American life that if it had to deceive the American people in order to convince them that gays were the anti-Christ, then so be it.
John was driven into action by the assertion of the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, whom he insists he respects and likes, that the FRC is simply a "mainstream conservative" group. "I happen to like Dana Milbank," he says, "but I suspect he hasn't done what I've done," which is to say actual "research on the anti-gay literature that the Family Research Council publishes, and the anti-gay pseudo-science that FRC 'cites' on TV."
At one point, I had the Congressional Research Service send me a copy of every single document the Family Research Council had written about gays, and then I had CRS get me every single document listed in the FRC doc's footnotes. I.e., all the "original sources" for the Family Research Council's anti-gay claims.
And there were a lot of them. At the time, FRC's list of footnotes could be nearly as long as the written part of the document itself.
What did I find when I went through the original sources cited in the footnotes? I found that nearly every single footnote was a lie. Not a lie in the conventional sense - meaning, they didn't make up a source that didn't exist. Rather, they did things like quoting a damning opinion from a judge in a court case without mention that the judge was in the minority, that the gays had actually won the case they were citing.
Or they'd quote a study with a hideous conclusion about gays and lesbians, only for you to realize later that the actual quote in the study was rather benign - instead, FRC "forgot" to put and end-quotation mark on the quote, added an ellipse, and then put their own damning conclusion. Let me give you a made-up example of a quote about gays to who you how the family research council did this."This study looked at 45 gay men, and 35 lesbians. It was clear from the subjects that gay men and lesbians face greater societal pressures in their day to day lives... which makes gays and lesbians much more likely to rip the heads off small bunnies.
Wow, rip the heads off small bunnies - that's pretty bad. But hey, it's a real study in a real journal, so it has to be true. Except of course that the real quote from the actual study ends at the ellipse, while the FRC added its own opinion after the ellipse, while "forgetting" to put the end quote, so it looks like the FRC's opinion is part of the official quote from the reputable study.
Gosh, I wonder how that happened?
It went on and on like this, through hundreds of footnotes. I went through the original research of the various studies they cited and found that the study reached no such conclusion like the FRC claimed it did. And on and on and on.
These are not honest people simply expressing a contrarian view of politics, like Democrats and Republicans do every day in Washington.
I can't begin to do justice to John's post here, and won't even try. The quantity and range of damning information he has gathered is, well, damning. It spans the history of the FRC, and allows for no possibility that the history of incendiary falsification has been accidental. Its cadre of professional liars has had their lies pointed out to them repeatedly, with no effect, since after all they're the ones who made up the lies -- why would they have any problem with those lies' naked and vicious dishonesty.
Anyone who doesn't understand who and what the FRC is -- and apparently that number includes most of our infotainment noozers -- needs to read John's post and check out his links, which unlike FRC's patented reams of phony footnotes, actually bring you to information.
I'd just like to quote John's conclusion:
Look, I'm sorry that some nut tried to go on a shooting rampage at FRC's headquarters - violence is never the answer, even if you are an officially designated hate group that routinely defames millions of Americans in order to further the discrimination and suffering they face daily. But one shooter's insanity doesn't change who you are, what you've said, and what you've done for over two decades.
Contrary to what FRC likes to claim, we don't think they're a hate group because they're Christians. We think they're a hate group because of how un-Christian they really are.
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Labels: Family Research Council, Hatewatch, homophobia, John Aravosis
posted by KenInNY @ 6:00 PM
3 comments
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3 Comments:
the Washington Post's Dana Milbank, whom he insists he respects and likes... "I happen to like Dana Milbank,"...
There's his problem. He does not recognize the enemy.
I'm glad you raised the point, me. I decided not to go there because the case John A makes about FRC's hate-based agenda applies so well to all infotainment noozers who don't know (or care) about the reality of it. But it's certainly fair to ask, what more would a sensible person expect from dear Dana?
Cheers,
K
Mr. Milbank:
You wrote your column – Hateful Speech on Hate Groups – in apparent ignorance of the National Organization for Marriage’s incitements to anti-gay violence.
NOM sponsors anti-gay hate rallies where its chosen speakers yell through megaphones that homosexuals are “worthy to death.”
The NOM-sponsored anti-gay hate rally in that video took place on May, 2011 in New York City.
Since that date, there have been umpteen crimes of anti-LGBT violence in New York City, across American and beyond.
I’ll give you just one example for now, though.
Kardin Ulysse as an eighth grade student in 2012 was subject to a pattern of anti-gay criminal harassment and attacks in his public NYC school, attacks which school administration did not do enough to stop.
On the last anti-gay attack he suffered, Kardin was blinded in one eye by an attacker who yelled “Fucking faggot!” at him.
Mr. Milbank — I challenge you to look Kardin Ulysse in his one remaining eye, and to tell him that the National Organization for Marriage — whose speakers say that homosexuals are “worthy to death” — is correct when it says that “labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end.”
When are you going to do that Mr. Milbank?
WHEN?
When are you going to look Kardin Ulysse in his one remaining eye, and tell him that even though his attackers yelled “Fucking faggot!” at him when they blinded him in one eye, you think that the National Organization for Marriage — (which sponsors anti-gay hate rallies where its speakers say that homosexuals are “worthy to death“) — is correct when it says that “labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end”?
On the off chance that you would ever renounce your arrogance and ignorance in publishing the column you did, I want to propose a television show scenario during which you will be able to look Kardin Ulysse in his one remaining eye.
I’m sure that Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper and/or some other well-known figure would agree to broadcasting this scenario.
First, viewers will see the video of the National Organization for Marriage anti-gay hate rally where a NOM speaker yelled through a megaphone that homosexuals are “worthy to death.”
Then, the program host will ask NOM founder and mastermind Robert George — who also is on the board of the Family Research Council, and who wrote the anti-gay-rights NOM pledge signed by Mitt Romney — why nobody from NOM every apologized for NOM’s anti-gay “worthy to death” rally, despite all the calls for an apology.
Next, both Robert George and Tony Perkins can explain why they campaign so hard against the inclusion of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity and expression” as protected classes in school anti-bullying policies.
After those two anti-gay hate group leaders explain why LGBT students shouldn’t be properly protected in schools, you will look Kardin Uylsse in his one remaining eye, and tell him that you think NOM is correct when it says that ”labeling pro-marriage groups as ‘hateful’ must end” — even though NOM sponsors anti-gay hate rallies where its speakers yell through megaphones that homosexuals are “worthy to death.”
How about it Mr. Milbank?
Scott Rose
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