Reprinted with permission from The Letter

by Rev. James W. Hensley

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“God Hates Fags”gets all the press but Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps are not the only anti-gay hate groups out there. The Southern Poverty Law Center (http://www.splcenter.org/index.jsp) has compiled a list of eleven groups, including Westboro, who excel at slander, fabrication and hysterical homophobia. Here’s the list.

Traditional Values Coalition http://www.traditionalvalues.org/

Abiding Truth Ministries http://www.abidingtruth.com/

Chalcedon Foundation http://www.chalcedon.edu/

Family Research Institute http://www.familyresearchinst.org/

American Vision http://www.americanvision.org/

Illinois Family Institute http://www.illinoisfamily.org/

Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment http://www.home60515.com/

Westboro Baptist Church http://www.godhatesfags.com/

The School of Christian Activism http://ngteam.org/index.htm (in Russian)

Mass Resistance http://www.massresistance.org/

Watchmen on the Walls http://www.watchmenonthewalls.com/

Why should you care? It’s not like venom, spleen and rumblings from bigots is new news. I’ll tell you. You should care because other groups, groups that don’t make the hate groups list, use publications and information from the Hateful 11.

Right here in Kentucky we have C.R.A.V.E. (Christians Reviving America’s Values http://www.christians4america.com/index.htm) and their Pastor Don Swarthout in Lexington. They work with Abiding Truth Ministries. And then there’s my personal favorite, Answers in Genesis (http://www.answersingenesis.org/), the creationism museum in Boone County. Evidently staff trades between Answers in Genesis and American Vision are routine.

You should also care because groups like the American Family Association of Kentucky, that’s the notorious Frank Simon MD’s group (http://www.afaky.com/ ) and the Family Foundation of Kentucky (Kent Ostrander, Martin Cothran, David Edmunds, et al. http://www.kentuckyfamily.org/ ) routinely spout the lies and distortions of the Hateful 11, often without attribution, in order to sell their bill of goods. It’s all snake oil mixed with a little bait and switch.

What can you do?

First, when you hear these groups cited point out that they’re extremist hate groups. No one considers the KKK “just another opinion” when issues of race, ethnicity or religion are being discussed. Yet lobbyists for anti-gay legislation such as the amendment to the Kentucky consitution defining marriage and the recently defeated No Gay Foster Parents bill will use Scott Lively (Watchmen on the Walls and the Center for Christian Activism) and his truly excrebable tome Seven Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child: A Parent’s Guide to Protecting Children from Homosexuality and the “Gay” Movement as well as Paul Cameron’s (Family Research Institute) discredited and mostly fabricated “research” to give lobbyists and legislators cover when they spout hair-raising bigotry.

Second, don’t get trapped into trying to rebutt arguments rooted in hate. You can’t discuss creationism rationally with the Answers in Genesis or the Flat Earth Society (http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/). NARTH (National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality, http://www.narth.com/index.html) doesn’t care that “gender disorientation pathology” is a fiction that has never appeared in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association. It’s useful when there’s gay bashing to be done.

Third, if NAMBLA is mentioned it’s already to late. There is nothing that can be done or said that will derail a bigot once they land in pedophilia territory. The fact that the vast majority of abusers are heterosexual makes no difference. Smile stiffly and walk away.

—
Rev. James W. Hensley
Progressive Pathways Fellowship
http://www.progressivepathways.org/
http://clamourunderbridge.typepad.com/