As the Dallas Voice cover story, “Responding to ‘The Response,” points out, there are a lot of people around the state — and around the country — who are angry over Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s decision to partner with The American Family Association to present his day of prayer and fasting Saturday at Houston’s Reliant Stadium. The list of people supporting and endorsing the event — like Pastor John Hagee — also has some people upset.
But what is it about the American Family Association and people like Hagee that has people so angry? As the Southern Poverty Law Center points out, it’s not because they believe homosexuality is a sin. It’s because of the hateful, discriminatory and outright false things they say to stir up fear and anger against LGBT people, Jews, Muslims, Catholics — in short, against anybody who isn’t just like them.
What kind of things? Well, here are a few examples.
This is an actual trailer for a video called They’re Coming To Your Town. The video, produced by the American Family Association, warns that gays and lesbians are trying to take over city governments across the country, using Eureka Springs, Ark., as an example.
Here’s one where AFA’s Buddy Smith reports to Bryan Fischer, AFA’s director of issues analysis, on a gay Pride parade in which Home Depot participated and why Home Depot is wrong to promote diversity. In this clip, Smith says that “homosexuals are in Satan’s grasp.”
Here’s Fischer again, explaining how the Nazis — including Hitler — were all gay and how Hitler chose to surround himself with gay soldiers because the straight soldiers were not “savage and brutal and vicious enough” to carry out Hitler’s orders, whereas the gay Brown Shirt soldiers were happy to do so:
In this one Fischer explains that tribal reservations are “mired” in poverty and alcoholism today because the Native American won’t convert to Christianity.
One more quick one from Fischer. In this clip, taped in the aftermath of the shooting at Fort Hood, he says Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to serve in the U.S. military and that they probably shouldn’t even be allowed to immigrate to the U.S. at all.
Here’s one with Pastor John Hagee explaining that the Anti-Christ is coming and that he is partially Jewish (“as was Adolph Hitler”??) and he is gay AND he is fierce! Oh yeah, and the Anti-Christ will come from Germany.
Pastor Hagee, by the way, has also called the Catholic Church “a great whore” that “thirsts for the blood of the Jews.” And after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Hagee said in 2006 it was because New Orleans was a sinful place that was planning a gay parade (the annual Southern Decadence party over Labor Day Weekend) and, basically, that the hurricane was God’s punishment on the city. He later recanted.
We tried to find other videotapes of Hagee making these stories, but many of the videos containing some of his more controversial comments have been removed due to claims of “copyright infringement” according to notices posted on websites where the videos previously were displayed.
Want more evidence? Go to YouTube and do a search for American Family Association, specifically Bryan Fischer. Pastor Hagee might have had second thoughts about some of his more vitriolic statements and removed those videos, but Fischer’s videos are there for everyone to see.
Of course, Hagee, Fischer and the Wildmons aren’t the only ones on the list of those endorsing “The Response.” Go here to read an earlier Dallas Voice post that includes videos of “Response” supporter Mike Bickle who claims that Oprah Winfrey is a harbinger of the Anti-Christ, and of “Response” supporter C. Peter Wagner who teaches that Japan is cursed because the emperor of Japan had sex with a demon.
Then there’s David Barton, president and founder of “WallBuilders,” who said opposes anti-bullying legislation, claiming that laws and policies to prevent bullying actually indoctrinate children into homosexuality. And he uses info from the American College of Pediatricians — a right-wing group that broke away from the American Academy of Pediatricians because the AAP supports gay and lesbian parents — to back up his claims. Read about that here at RightWingWatch.org.
WOW! What sad uneducated minds. I bet they also think only gay men get HIV/AIDS while we’re busy molesting children and destroying the sanctity of heterosexual marriage which has a divorce rate of over 50% currently. Such ignorance and bigotry can only be cured with education and a few reality slaps to the face. Speaking of HIV & AIDS, by the way, 61,595 had HIV and 35,628 had AIDS as of 2009 just in Texas alone and that number has continued to grow! What has Rick Perry attempted to do for those people??? …and as for those people putting on this ” The Response”… Bless their tired, cold, hearts!
A coalition of organizations be at the Dallas Town Hall protesting between 10:am and 5pm making sure Texans are aware of Rick Perry’s day of Hate with the AFA. You can find a link to the Facebook on the Dallas Transgender Advocates and Allies.
https://dallastaa.ning.com/events/protest-gov-rick-perry-s-inappropriate-and-hateful-prayer-rally-t
Considering that the SPLC’s “definition” of a “hate group” is solely its own, (there is no legal definition for the term, which is why even the FBI doesn’t track “hate groups”), it seems a little disingenuous to deem them as experts.
Also, the SPLC tends to be somewhat selective in its righteous outrage. The Boy Scouts of America have stated publicly for decades that gay men “are not moral enough” to be Scoutmasters and refuses to hire openly gay men as such.
Despite this blatant discrimination by a group that receives public funds AND whose sole purpose is to mold the minds and characters of millions of American boys, the SPLC has yet to deem the BSA an “official hate group.” Why?
The BSA further states that “…duty to God is not a mere ideal for those choosing to associate with the Boy Scouts of America; it is an obligation.”
So when is an “anti-gay Christian hate group” NOT an “anti-gay Christian hate group”? The answer is $imple:
Many of the SPLC’s mostly elderly donors were Scouts or the parents/grandparents of Scouts.
In short, linking the almighty donors to a “hate group” is bad for business. “Fighting hate” is all well and good until it cuts into the bottom line.
https://wp.me/pCLYZ-1c
The most ironic (read: “hypocritical”) thing about the Southern Poverty Law Center is that NOT ONE of its top ten, highest paid executives is a minority.
https://wp.me/pCLYZ-7m
In fact, according to the SPLC’s hometown newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, despite being located LITERALLY in the back yard of Dr. Martin Luther King’s home church, the SPLC has NEVER hired a person of color to a highly paid position of power in its entire 40 year history.
Some “experts”