Asterisk

I wasn’t quite sure how I could top Bryan Fischer’s “interesting” take on the First Amendment from last weekend’s Values Voter Summit. Thanks to Rachel Maddow, we have a double dip: shades of racism followed by overt homophobia, with a dash of Bill O’Reilly (about whom I won’t be commenting).

The video of Michael Schwartz’s entire speech is below.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYdyFRHizTg[/youtube]

By the way, the word he’s searching for at 3:22 is “hate”. Kudos to him for realizing that someone might be taping his speech. It’s interesting that Mr. Schwartz wanted to talk about hatred of homosexuality by preteen boys.

We’ve learned quite a bit about that this year. Too much, really. I would suggest that Mr. Schwartz focus on teaching those boys not to hate rather than telling them that porno will turn them into One Of Them.

Here’s some background on the speakers.

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO):

• Acting Majority Leader in the House of Representatives in 2008
• Majority Whip from January 2003 – January 2007
• Minority Whip from January 2007 – January 2009
• Announced in February 2009 his candidacy for the 2010 Senatorial election
• Revealed as a Birther in July 2009.

At opensecrets.org you’ll find that his donor list is heavy with oil/electric and financial services companies. Rep. Blunt, by the way, sits on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Michael Schwartz:

• Chief of Staff for Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) since November 2004
• Looks to be making about $132,000 this year in that capacity
• Vice President for “Government Relations” for Religious Right lobbyist firm Concerned Women for America from 2000 – 2004
• Before that, was then-House Rep. Coburn’s Administrative Director

I list Rep. Blunt’s and Mr. Schwartz’s accomplishments to illustrate again what I said yesterday. These aren’t random people on the internet saying something stupid. These are men in powerful leadership positions who effect policy.

We don’t have the luxury of just ignoring them.

* * *

Transcription of Michael Schwartz speech, via ThinkProgress:

You know, if you don’t have love in your life, it’s not a very complete life. And yet, we don’t want to talk about it. And we especially fail to talk about it to our sons and to our friends. They’re the ones who need to hear it the most because they’re still making up their minds about what do I want to be when the time comes. And believe me, the temptations are out there. One of the temptations that your sons are going to run into is pornography.

Pornography is a blight. It is a disaster. It is, it is one of those silent diseases in our society that we haven’t been able to overcome very well. Now, I may be getting politically incorrect here. But one — It’s been a few years, not that many, since I was closely associated with pre-adolescent boys, boys who are like 10 to 12 years of age. But it is my observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people.

They… [long pause]… speak badly about homosexuality. And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to fall into it. And that’s a good instinct. After all, homosexuality, we know, studies have been done by the National Institute of Health to try to prove that its genetic and all those studies have proved its not genetic. Homosexuality is inflicted on people.

I had a very good friend who was in the homosexual lifestyle for a long time and then he had a religious conversion in the eighties. And he bought a old motel and turned it into a hospice for some of his former associates who were dying of AIDS. He helped, he helped almost 300 men die. This man was a real hero.

But he knew that he wasn’t as healed as he thought he was. He was able to resist temptation. He was able to resist sin. But he wasn’t healed enough to take on the responsibilities of marriage. And he was a brilliant man in the sense that he knew himself. And he knew his limits. And he and I had good conversations about, about the malady that he suffered.

And one of the things that he said to me, that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark. He said, “all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants.” You know, that’s a, that’s a good comment. It’s a good point and it’s a good thing to teach young people.

[Someone asks about Schwartz's friend]

His name is Jim Johnson. He’s a friend of mine. He ran an organization called Beyond Rejection Ministries. And I consider him one of the most heroic men I’ve ever met. But all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. And that in fact is what it does.

I know couples now who are struggling with the husband’s addiction to pornography. It’s a terrible thing. And that’s what happens. And, you know, if it doesn’t turn you homosexual, it at least renders you less capable of loving your wife. And it’s something you need to be healed of.

This week I wanted to bring you a few pieces of video from last weekend’s Values Voter Summit, the big ultra-conservative hoe-down when all the leader Religious Right groups get together with Religious Right followers and dignitaries to lay out the Religious Right philosophy in a room of cheering supporters.

The first is from a speech by Bryan Fischer, Executive Director of American Family Association (AFA) Affiliate Idaho Values Alliance. Even I was surprised by Mr. Fischer’s misinterpretation of the US First Amendment.

I found this video at the fantastic Right Wing Watch, and Peter quite correctly pointed out the obvious problem with Mr. Fischer’s self-serving, oh-so-convenient interpretation.

Today Fischer went a good bit further than televangelist Pat Robertson, who notably called church-state separation a “lie of the left.” According to Fischer’s interpretation of the First Amendment, here’s what religious liberty means: Congress has the liberty to promote religion in any way, as long as it does not single out one Christian sect or denomination and make it the nation’s official religion. That’s it.

So by his definition, a state legislature could declare itself an officially Christian state. Or an officially Baptist or Mormon state. Presumably any public school, city council or state government could require students to attend Christian worship or profess certain religious belief. [...] So to these prominent Religious Right leaders, preventing a state from demanding that its employees swear to certain religious beliefs is an attack on Christianity. And any court that tries to stop a state from imposing religious beliefs on its citizens is judicial activism.

Before you wave this off as just another extremist with a microphone, remember that the audience cheering for Mr. Fischer’s views included not just self-appointed Religious Right leaders and their salivating followers, but important high-ranking elected leaders in Congress.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH), House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), former House Majority Leader Roy Blunt (R-MO), and former Governor/future Presidential nominee Mike Huckabee (R-AR) all gave their own speeches last weekend, and they all clapped along with the rest of the crowd.

Next time they’re up for election, remember that these congressmen view the Constitution differently than the rest of the nation; indeed, differently than the founders. To them, it is distinctly Conservative-Christian with a decided theocratic streak. Are you comfortable with that?

Several months ago, I told you about Tony Randolph Hunter, a gay man murdered last September in Washington DC by Robert Lee Hannah. Hannah had just decided to use the Gay Panic defense, claiming that Hunter had groped him before the assault, which is disputed but obviously makes murder okay.

Yesterday, exactly one year after Hunter’s death, D.C. Superior Court Judge Rafael Diaz accepted the prosecutor’s plea agreement, reducing the charge to misdemeanor assault. From the Washington Blade:

[Chris Farris, co-chair of Gays & Lesbians Opposing Violence] said the Hunter case is one of several recent assault cases involving crimes against LGBT people where the U.S. Attorney’s office has appeared reluctant to bring the case to trial and instead sought plea bargains or dropped charges against defendants.

“There seems to be a reluctance within the [the U.S. Attorney’s office] to pursue assault prosecutions involving the LGBT community because of a sense that they may have difficulty with juries in those cases,” Farris said.

“And I would simply remind [them] that we are on those juries too. They need to trust the juries. The juries are made up from the community and we are a part of that community.”

And from Metro Weekly:

At the Thursday hearing, [U.S. Attorney Kevin ] Flynn asked Diaz to hold Hannah in jail until sentencing.

Defense attorney Joseph Caleb countered that Hannah is ”extremely reliable,” and that his attendance record with this case is evidence of that. Caleb also argued that Hannah would not pose a threat if free until sentencing in that, according to the defense, Hunter provoked Hannah: ”He was offended by the way [Hunter] touched him. … He had a knee-jerk reaction.”

That’s right, it’s not his fault. The fuckin’ faggot touched him.

The maximum sentence Robert Lee Hannah will face? 180 days.

That’s how much our lives are worth to the U.S. government. Six months. Half a year. Maybe. He’ll probably get less than that.

The National Equality March is scheduled for October 10-11 in Washington D.C. Let this be a reminder to all those attending to come prepared to defend yourself, because the U.S. government sure won’t.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go vomit and try to stop shaking.

Nearly a week ago, gay bar Atlanta Eagle was raided. The Atlanta Police Department seem to have taken notes from June’s Ft. Worth gay bar raid. Since it’s been almost a week since the clearly discriminatory raid, here are some details to bring you up to date.

• September 10, 2009, 11:30pm: Atlanta police arrived at the Atlanta Eagle with ten police cars, three paddy wagons, fifteen officers, and five to ten plain clothes officers. Police ordered all patrons to lay on the ground, regardless of suspicion. Patrons were handcuffed indiscriminately seemingly for no reason before being searched, most of them at least twice.
• Yesterday the Southern Voice published the anonymous tips from May and July that led to this September raid. (Local copies available here and here.) The complaints allege nude dancers, sex parties, sex outside the Eagle, speakers pointed to neighboring buildings blasting sounds of sex (I’m not kidding), drug use, drug sales, and bags with drug residue strewn around the neighborhood. The online complaint is listed as a prostitution complaint.
• Witness Allan Vives had this to say: “Of the officers present, there was one female who was running searches on the IDs of those whose licenses were collected. She was not only rude but seemed to be enjoying the event. At one point, she stopped what she was doing and walked over to the television and asked her colleagues what the score to the game playing on the television was…..at this point there were still innocent patrons laying face down on the floor.”
• Background checks were performed on patrons were allowed to leave. No patrons were arrested.
• Du-Wayne Ray, store manager of Rawhide Leather, which operates below the Eagle, said that he and one of his employees heard one white uniformed officer say to another, “This is a lot more fun than raiding niggers with crack.”
• By 1:00am, eight Eagle employees were arrested for “providing adult entertainment without a city permit.” As Dan Savage noted, that sounds a lot like homophobic police speak for “those homos don’t have thar shirts on.”
• All eight arrestees were kept in jail overnight, with two remaining until the following afternoon when two city council candidates coerced a judge into finally setting bail.
• In an article published by the Southern Voice Monday, Richard Ramey, Eagle co-owner, spoke about the charges.

Ramey said he didn’t understand the need for the raid, saying they have a good relationship with the police and their neighbors. He said that while he doesn’t have a permit for paid dancers, the dancers the Eagle employs are covered under their nightclub permit because they are not nude. Also, nothing illegal was found in the raid, he said.

“No drugs found in my bar or on any patron, and that says a lot about my bar and my patrons. I have wonderful customers,” Ramey said. “We don’t have drugs at Eagle, we don’t allow it. The only drug we have is the alcohol.”

• Steven Gower, volunteer for a local neighborhood watchdog group had this to say:

I can assure you that the raid was not initiated by MPSA or its patrol, and we have never received any complaints, reports, or observations about criminal activity in any way associated with the Eagle. Further, I have spent much time on the streets of Midtown, and look under every rock to identify problem spots. Eagle is not one of those problem spots, and we have always considered the Eagle to be a good neighbor.

• Police later claimed that the raid took place because undercover officers had twice seen sex taking place in the bar on previous visits. No arrests were made during those alleged instances.
• The Atlanta police LGBT Liaison, Officer Dani Lynn Harris, was kept completely in the dark about the raid, only finding out about it when members of the press started calling her.
• (Thursdays are “underwear night”, with bar employees and some patrons in their underwear. Not dancing, not stripping, just in their underwear, which is more than you would see at the beach or swimming pool.)
• In an interview after being released from jail, one of the arrested employees had this to say:

Tadareius Johnson, 24, was dancing in the the bar’s cage when police came into the club Thursday and was one of the men arrested and charged with providing adult entertainment without a permit. He said those charges are unjust.

“I’m dancing [in underwear] and what I think is a SWAT team comes in. Some are telling me to stand still, some are telling me to get down. It was big confusion,” he said Friday at the bar.

“The police were really tough, especially on our older customers. I understand police have to be safe, but there was no reason for them to treat people the way they did — especially when someone is 60-65. They weren’t even helping them up after making them lay on the ground.”

Johnson said he was accused of exposing his penis and pulling his underwear down while dancing. He denied those charges.

“You can’t do that. There’s cameras in here. I’m very conscious of the laws. I know men can’t grope, you can’t be naked. That’s why we were in our underwear,” he said.

• We learn in the same article that Eagle co-owner Robby Kelley was made to spend the night sitting in a plastic chair and the arrestees weren’t permitted to use a telephone for 14 hours.

Repeating, the raid supposedly happened because of public sex and/or prostitution, but the only reason for the eight arrests was a code violation. Patrons and employees were thoroughly searched multiple times and NO drugs were found. NO public sex arrests were made. NO prostitution arrests were made.

But that’s not all! Yesterday at least nine complaints against the Atlanta Police Department were filed. Among the charges:

• One man said officers grabbed patrons who didn’t immediately lie down by the neck and forced them to the ground. The man said he was kicked in the ribs while lying down. “Then I heard laughing and giggling and saying this is more fun than raiding niggers with crack. They also told us to shut the fuck up unless we were spoken too [sic].” The man said he heard one person told that if he spoke again he would be hit by a chair. He also reported that one officer “said to everyone in general that all you all do is flash your asses and show your cocks.”
• An Eagle employee said he did not know what he was charged with until he got to jail. “A lot of officers were laughing and high-fiving each other, and I heard one officer say I thought this was a sex club.”
• Another patron described listening to officers chat about their cell phone plans as he lay on the ground. “I was forced down by physical force. They grabbed my neck and pushed me down. They put their boot on my back and told me to stay down. … If anyone asked anything they were told to ‘shut the fuck up.’”
• Another patron said he saw officers forcing people to the ground by officers pushing their shoulders or the backs of their heads. He said he asked to move because there was broken glass on the floor where he was lying, and he was told to “shut the fuck up.” The customer recounted hearing anti-gay slurs: “I heard several slurs such as ‘I hate homosexuals.’ I also heard ‘I don’t like fags.’ One officer asked me if I was married and had any children, and he told me I should be ashamed for being there.” The customer recounted having his diabetes medication, which was in an unmarked container, taken and not returned. He recounted hearing another customer told that if he didn’t be quiet, an officer would hit him over the head with one of the barstools. “There were several officers standing over me that started joking about this is a lot of fun, we ought to come back and do this every week.” The customer said he heard an officer say pictures of men on the walls made him sick, and make comments about people’s appearance, including calling him “big boy.” He also said officers were watching the football game on TV during the raid.
• A customer said he at first thought the bar was being robbed because the first police officer to yell “get the fuck on the floor” was dressed in civilian clothes and did not display a badge.
• An employee who was arrested said that after the customers were allowed to leave, “the officers started high fiving and jumping up in the air bumping into each other like they were at a football game.”
• An employee who lives in an apartment over the Eagle, who said he was not working that night, said someone started pounding on his door. He opened the door to two cops who asked if anyone was having sex there. They asked why there was a bed and he said it was because he lives there. He was made to come downstairs and was arrested with the other employees. He recalled hearing comments like “You people are despicable.”

I’m sure someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but generally speaking, do the police show up with ten cars and 20-25 officers when a straight bar is raided for sex charges? Would a straight bar be raided or would somebody just call them up and talk about the problem before gassing up the fleet? If a straight bar were raided, would officers run background checks and search everyone for drugs? Is that even legal on a code violation raid? And when an officer makes an arrest, is it generally accepted to high five your partner?

Come to think of it, do you usually call three paddy wagons and make arrests for simple non-violent code violations? And if you allegedly spend MONTHS investigating public sex complaints at a prominent gay bar, what possible reason (other than to get them faggots) would you have for excluding your LGBT Liaison, or at least informing her that she might hear some complaints?

One last question: WHY AREN’T WE BEYOND THIS KIND OF BULLSHIT IN 2009?

Details are still sketchy and obtained through Twitter, but minutes ago the Ohio House of Representatives passed the Equal Housing and Employment Act (EHEA) with a final vote of 56-38 with six Republicans voting for the measure.

I last mentioned EHEA back in June, when testimony was underway. The bill adds LGBT employment and housing protections to Ohio anti-discrimination laws. Basically, it’s a state-version of the national Employment and Non-Discrimination Act.

The bill now moves to the Ohio Senate. All analysis I’ve seen suggests that the Senate is unlikely to pass the legislation.

Still, this is a cause for celebration. For the very first time, an Ohio legislative body has passed a pro-LGBT bill. While I don’t feel any safer than I did last night when that one guy started using the word “Homo” (true story!), it’s good to know that progress is slowly being made.