…but that’s just what I need to do. It’s a good thing too, because I learned something about them in the process, something that we might be able to use to finally defeat them.

Remember last week when I told you about Elaine Donnelly’s insipid article declaring that it was Lt. Col. Fehrenbach being falsely accused of rape was his own fault? Remember how I linked you to her original article and quoted from that?

It seems that the folks at American Family Association (AFA) propaganda site OneNewsNow have much lower standards. Last week, ONN reporter Chad Groening decided to try to pass their spin of Ms. Donnelly’s words off as her words sans spin. Apparently her prose just wasn’t biting enough. (Screencap of Donnelly article and AFA distortion)

Here is a comparison between the two. First, from AFA, in red:

“The third party was a criminal justice student. He had actually been contacted or contacted Victor Fehrenbach on a gay website,” Donnelly explains. “They got together to engage in activities unbecoming an officer — and later on in the evening there was a report of sexual assault.”

I’ll piece together as much from Ms. Donnelly as possible, in yellow:

Now we know that the “third party” was Cameron Shaner, a criminal justice student claiming Air Force authorization to investigate alleged “HIV parties” involving military personnel. (The Air Force Office of Special Investigations denied Shaner’s claims.) Shaner told the Boise police that he met Victor Fehrenbach through a gay website, and he had gone to the aviator’s home on May 12, 2008, after Fehrenbach sent him a text-message invitation and “stud” photographs.
…. At 3 a.m. Shaner called Boise police to report a sexual assault. Fehrenbach asserted that the encounter was consensual and was cleared of the rape charge, but his admission of homosexual conduct triggered discharge proceedings.

You’ll notice that I skipped AFA’s “activities unbecoming an officer”. That’s because Ms. Donnelly never uses that phrase. The closest she gets is this:

The fact remains that despite provisions of the UCMJ (Article 131), which impose higher standards for “officers and gentlemen,” Fehrenbach showed very poor judgment.

Though I vehemently disagree with Ms. Donnelly’s assertion that sex is necessarily poor judgment, she doesn’t make the leap that AFA attributes to her. Ms. Donnelly’s “poor judgment” comment seems to refer to sex in general. AFA’s “conduct unbecoming” seems more strictly tied specifically to gay sex.

That distinction is made clearer in the second passage from AFA, again falsely attributed to Ms. Donnelly:

“As we saw with the Tailhook scandal, any kind of conduct unbecoming an officer would pretty much end someone’s career,” she points out. “Lt. Col. Fehrenbach was a victim of nothing else but his own poor judgment. But certainly the circumstances of his case should not be used to justify repeal of the law.”

And here are the actual quotes from Ms. Donnelly:

SLDN lawyer Emily Hecht told the Idaho Statesman, “Because of the criminal allegation, Victor confirmed the fact he was gay. That’s all the Air Force needed. Had his accuser been a woman, he’d have gone back to work with no further issue.” (Dozens of former naval aviators whose careers were ruined by the 1991 Tailhook scandal, even without evidence of misconduct, certainly would disagree.)
…Lt. Col. Fehrenbach is not a “victim” of anything but his own poor judgment. His admitted misconduct supports retention of current law, not its repeal.

Again, to Ms. Donnelly, any sort of sexual encounter, whether gay or straight, is “poor judgment”, and therefore homosexuality, which she defines solely through the sexual component, is necessarily bad.

AFA’s definition is different. To them, sex is bad, but if it’s two dudes it’s extra special bad.

I strongly disagree with both Ms. Donnelly and the AFA, but there’s a greater point here. This sometimes subtle distinction might be useful in addressing each of their attacks. By learning what’s behind the rhetoric, we can learn to attack each of their arguments with greater precision.

Oh, and you should never trust one word published by AFA or OneNewsNow. That too.