Religious Right & Ex-Gay Movement Inspired By Hate Crimes Bill to Lie More, Be Hateful

EX-GAY: Is there any way to exorcise the Ex-Gay demons from the ex-gays? Because really all the hateful offensive bigotry aside, what a bunch of whiners! They’re all like “mememememee” and won’t even let us have our MOMENT!

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is concerned that emotionally & physically abusing young people who ALREADY want to leave the gay lifestyle (seriously though how much gay lifestyle can a guy have in a small town without a fake ID? Don’t get mad, he just got started) will be considered a hate crime rather than what they see it as — a big ‘ol hug from Jesus : Where is the tolerance for a church who tried to help a young man who freely asked for help to overcome homosexual temptations? No church deserves to be maligned for trying to help a troubled teen who asked for prayer.

Also, Freud called bullshit on conversion therapy like 75 years ago. (@queerty)

Meanwhile, Pat Robertson is telling his people: “You know, there’s a law – what about a law that says it’s a federal crime to attack somebody because of his religious beliefs? Not a chance!” — yeah, THAT’S A LIE. (@crooks and liars)

I can’t wait ’til fifteen years from now when in addition to appreciating the beauty of Adam Lambert’s album cover, we’ll also be able to look at the craziest people in the world, who for some reason feel comfortable exorcising their mother’s emotional molestation (you know, the root of all gayness) by slamming a hammer into a kitchen counter on CNN and satisfying safe male bonding affection by cradling a (seemingly dead) man on your lap without getting a boner. As displayed here, when Current TV’s THAT’S GAY does conversion therapy:

WANDA SYKES: Wanda Sykes says pressuring Obama on gay rights is like complaining that the guy who gave you CPR has bad breath – Wanda Sykes: Obama Is ‘Failing’ On Gay Rights, But ‘He’s Doing a Great Job. (@queerty)

MATRIMONIO: Argentine Congress considers same-sex marriage:“We can’t expect social equality if the state is legitimizing inequality,” said Maria Rachid, president of Argentina’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Federation. “We now have the social and political context necessary to change the law.” Fun fact: Argentina would be the first Latin American country to fully recognize same sex marriage.

HATERS: Americans for Truth’ Too Homophobic Even for Maine Marriage Equality OpponentsAt a press conference, the Maine Grassroots Coalition’s leader, Paul Madore, who a local newscast said “brought” AFTAH and Camenker to Maine, repeated the claims that marriage equality would lead to a campaign to silence critics of gay families, made the claim that a “national campaign” to bring out-of-staters into Maine and defraud voters on election day. However, as the newscast also reports, the official Yes on 1 campaign, which seeks to rescind marriage rights for Maine’s gay and lesbian families via a Proposition 8-like voter initiative, “disavows” Madore and AFTAH.”

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Riese

Riese is the 43-year-old Co-Founder of Autostraddle.com as well as an award-winning writer, video-maker, LGBTQ+ Marketing consultant and aspiring cyber-performance artist who grew up in Michigan, lost her mind in New York and now lives in Los Angeles. Her work has appeared in nine books, magazines including Marie Claire and Curve, and all over the web including Nylon, Queerty, Nerve, Bitch, Emily Books and Jezebel. She had a very popular personal blog once upon a time, and then she recapped The L Word, and then she had the idea to make this place, and now here we all are! In 2016, she was nominated for a GLAAD Award for Outstanding Digital Journalism. She's Jewish and has a cute dog named Carol. Follow her on twitter and instagram.

Riese has written 3271 articles for us.

13 Comments

  1. I’m not sure if “don’t get mad, he just got started” was a Tegan and Sara reference but I interpreted it as such.

    p.s. judging by the amount of fun I have being gay, people who hate the gays must have negative fun levels.

  2. More propaganda about the Matthew Shepard “Hate Crime” Killing in Wyoming in 1998 and Barack Obama making self righteous speeches how America needs special “Hate Crime” laws to ensure that gay people and other “victim” groups should not have to live in fear in America for who they are.

    The reality is that the Matthew Shepard murder happened over 10 years ago, the criminals were caught, prosecuted, convicted and received life in prison – no real need for special “hate crime” laws, as Wyoming tends to prosecute the very few murders in that state as “murder” a very serious, and “hateful” crime.

    I live in Chicago, less than a mile from Barack and Michele Obama’s heavily fortified block of mansions in Kenwood. Chicago led all cities last year and this year in total murders – but few or any of these murders fall in to the narrow definition of “hate crimes” – mostly gang bangers doing murder and mayhem to anyone who isn’t in their gang. Are Barack Obama, the ADL, SPLC, National Gay and Lesbian task force, La Raza or NPR rallying the nation to empower special Federal laws, task forces to target Chicago’s very hateful, murderous gang members? Haven’t heard anything on PBS, NPR. That’s life.

    • Wait, I’m confused. Are you concerned that there aren’t enough laws allowing harsher punishment for gang violence as opposed to “regular” “hateful” violence? And that we’re somehow “wasting” all our ability to prosecute criminals on the homophobic ones, and won’t have any left over? Hate crime laws are created in order to prosecute people who might not be prosecuted fairly or at all if the intent of their actions were ignored. For instance, graffitti-ing someone’s house might be a misdemeanor, but if you take into account that a white supremacist group did it because the homeowner is Jewish, it gets a lot more malicious/serious and should be treated as such. And in the case of Matthew Sheperd, his murderers tried to be acquitted entirely because of his sexual orientation exactly – they said that his being gay frightened them so much that their killing him was understandable. In this case, a hate crime law serves to negate that argument. Matthew Sheperd was murdered over 10 years ago, and the problem is that in those ten years hundreds more murders just like his have happened, and many of those murderers couldn’t be sentenced appropriately. I am not really sure what La Raza has to do with this? They have no legislative authority? I’m sure that if a concerned citizen like you wanted to create a “Gang Violence Is Bad” bill, though, they’d be totally supportive of it!

    • It’s not a new law, it’s just adding sexual orientation and gender identity and gender to the list of things considered a “hate crime.”:
      +
      Ten years ago this month, Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard was brutally attacked and murdered because he was gay. A year before Matthew’s murder, James Byrd. Jr. was kidnapped, beaten, and stripped naked by three white supremacists, who chained him by the ankles to a pickup truck and dragged his body for three miles. These tragedies reawakened American consciousness about hate crime and sparked debate far beyond U.S. borders.

      Today, President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crime Prevention Act, critical legislation that strengthens existing U.S. laws by extending federal hate crime protection in cases where the victim was targeted because of their sexual orientation, gender, disability, or gender identity.

      Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-legendre/obama-signs-the-hate-crim_b_337198.html
      +
      I’ve started a lot of sentences to rebut this statement, but ultimately I am just not sure how including sexual orientation to race and other factors as a Hate Crimes Bill directly impacts the forces or lawmakers available to deal with increasing levels of gang violence in Chicago.

      The Hate Crimes Bill doesn’t do anything in terms of protecting homosexuals, it doesn’t deploy police cars or extra forces to gay areas, it’s about what we can do to prosecute & investigate those crimes.

      Also consider that gays are all over, not just in Wyoming — they’re in Kenwood, too!

      Just generally, as clearly the violence in Kenwood is incredibly frightening, and as methods of dealing with it vary in intensity or success, something needs to be done but I feel like you’re barking up the wrong tree here. I understand what you’re saying, it always sucks to feel like important issues are being ignored in favor of others, but I don’t think this is the right place to focus that sense of neglect. Something needs to change, but attacking the Hate Crimes Bill or acting as if violence motivated by sexuality no longer happens won’t get us any closer to a solution for Chicago, since it’s a totally different area of policy and enforcement.

      Both of these articles about the Albert beating do discuss some work being done to change the situation … so yeah, to answer your question, I have heard about it. Not enough, but some:
      Gang Violence in Chicago.
      4 Teens Charged In Boy’s Brutal Beating Death.

  3. I still don’t understand all of this conversion crap. I mean, if sexual orientation were a choice, wouldn’t everyone choose to be gay?

  4. Actually The Right WILL be deemed hate crime violators just for speaking their opinion. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=66247
    It’s already happening in Canada and you know the militant Nazi-like gay groups want the same to happen here in the USA. I guess it’s ok to deny 98% of the population their right to have an opinion opposing a minority groups lifestyle. Plus no one ever answers doubt straight people turning gay because it is for their side but for them to claim no one can change from gay to straight (just one way one only conversions) you can tell that everything gay is tainted with denial and lies. Don’t trip while sniffing your poppers on your way to a PnP BB party at the gay bar’s back room during the beer bust! This site is all for that behavior since it advocates everything gay all day yet could care less that gay men are getting STD’s today at far greater rates than any other time in history. Nope BB porn has nothing to do with that. All gays have their head in the sphincter.

    • David Wells… that sounds like a fake name… anywho, I was just wondering how someone so opposed to all things gay became such an expert on the everyday life of gay men. It sounds to me like you have quite a bit of experience in this area Mr. Wells. You seem to be very familiar with gay bars, gay parties, and gay porn. You even know what goes on in the back room? It sounds to me like someone is a repressed self-loathing homosexual. Don’t be so anal Dave. This situation can be easily rectified. Just go to your local gay bar, make a formal apology, and show off your assets. I’m sure they will forgive you. I will get the ball rolling.

      Dear Ms. Behave Dave (I’ve dubbed this your new drag name),
      I forgive you for being so hateful since clearly you were a closet case with years and years of misguided sexual energy and traumatic inner homophobia. I recommend you go out and by an Adam Lambert poster and some new hair product and you will be well on your way to the path of homosexiness.

      Goodbye and you’re welcome.

    • You have your facts wrong, David, don’t believe the religious right’s media. They’re brainwashing you and it’s working.

      Homosexuality isn’t a lifestyle. It’s sad that you think it’s actually acceptable to hold opinions like yours, in fifty years we’ll look back on comments like yours the way we look back on racist bigotry now. I’m not comparing the two movements, but you’re lucky you live in a country where your bigotry is, thanks to the biased media you absorb, still socially acceptable in some areas.

      Also BB porn is an issue in straight porn and in gay porn. This isn’t a site for gay men, so no, we don’t spend time talking about their STDs. Besides, it’s a bit out of context for this article. Gay women have SUPER LOW rates of STD transmission, actually, but I guess that doesn’t go with your point. The people most at risk for STDs are people in poor rural or urban areas who don’t get proper sex education. The number of men involved in the porn industry is inconsequential compared to the millions of children who are never taught about condoms because the religious right has had their way with school sex ed.

      G-d loves everyone. You start from there and then work your way out. I don’t hate you. You could still see the light.

  5. I’m so glad that ex-gay therapist gave a visual demonstration of the hindrances of gay sex. I knew I was doing it wrong!

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