Towleroad has learned that a religious group called the Becket Fund may be
planning a second-round editorial assault on gays and the fight for marriage equality, condemning
what they see as a "campaign of violence" following the passage of Proposition 8. What I've
heard, from a fairly reliable source, is that they're calling around trying to get organizations
to sign on to a full-page newspaper ad to run in major papers (more specifically, the New
York Times, citing disruptions of worship and the singular isolated incident of white
powder sent to churches (see last item) (the source of which has never been proven - it could
have been the Mormons themselves). In any case, this type of slanderous attack has been known in
the past to sway both our allies and folks undecided on the issue, so it's something to be wary
of, and prepared for.
***
Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg writes a column
in the L.A. Times today that bears many of the hallmarks of this kind of attack,
meant to make the victim look like the aggressor. He writes:
"At a pro-gay-marriage rally in Los Angeles after the vote, chants of 'Mormon scum!' were
reported. Envelopes containing white powder have been sent to Mormon temples in California and
Utah; vandals hit other temples. Lists of businesses to boycott -- essentially Mormon blacklists
-- have sprung up on the Internet. The artistic director of the California Musical Theatre
resigned because of pressure after it was revealed he gave $1,000 to a pro-Proposition 8 group.
"It's amazing. Hollywood liberals, who shout 'McCarthyism!' as a first resort, see nothing wrong
with this. If Jews were attacked in this way for giving too much money to a political cause,
Barbra Streisand would already have a French passport.
"Never mind that Proposition 8 carried nearly every demographic slice of voters. Put aside the
fact that the Catholic Church and scores of other Christian churches supported it too. Discount
the inconvenient truth that bans on gay marriage have now passed in 30 states. It's all the
Mormons' fault.
"The argument is that Mormons used illegitimate power, in this case money, beyond their numerical
standing in the population to secure victory for the measure. Golly, wealthy gay liberals would
never do anything like that! I bet they're not giving a dime to the legal effort to overturn
Proposition 8.
"No, it's just that Mormons are the most vulnerable of the culturally conservative religious
denominations and therefore the easiest targets for an organized campaign against religious
freedom of conscience."
***
Goldberg calls the gays 'the aggressors in the cultural war' while the Mormons funded Proposition
8 to the tune of more than $20 million. Millions of Californians lost their civil rights.
Those are the spoils of a cultural war and the religious right fought tooth and nail to
rip them from Americans, severing families and hurting children in the process.
Dan Savage, in a column
published just before Thanksgiving, wrote, regarding the resignation of L.A. Film fest director
Richard Raddon:
"Bill Condon, the gay guy who directed
Dreamgirls, attempted to get Raddon's back: 'Someone has lost his job and possibly his
livelihood because of privately held religious beliefs.' No. No. No. Raddon lost his job due to
criticism of his public political actions, not his private religious beliefs, and his
public political actions were a part of the public record. If Raddon wanted to go to church and
pray his little heart out against same-sex marriage, or proselytize on street corners against gay
marriage, or counsel gay men to leave their husbands and marry nice Mormon girls instead, that
could be viewed as an expression of his 'privately held religious beliefs.' Instead he helped
fund a political campaign to strip a vulnerable minority group of its civil rights."
And that is the real aggression in the cultural war. If the whispers I am hearing about the
mounting campaign to smear gays publicly in major newspapers is true, we should be ready to
defend it.
Recommandations
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
