Salt Lake Tribune readers who opened their newspapers today got a message straight from the gay community. Truth Wins Out, responding to ad that ran Friday in the New York Times headlined, “No Mob Violence” that accused the LGBT protesters of attacking religious communities unfairly, ran its own full page ad in the city most closely associated with the Mormon Church.
The ad, titled “Lies in the Name of the Lord”, includes defamatory remarks made by Christian leaders James Dobson, Chuck Colson and Rick Cizik. Most of the remarks are made against Mormons and the ad concludes saying, “It appears the only thing these men have in common with the Mormon Church is an uncommon zeal for promoting anti-gay legislation.”
View the full-size ad after the jump.
Nick
Wow…ballsy. I like it.
Kid A
I don’t think pitting religious groups against one another is going to further our cause.
Sure, hypocrisy should be pointed out, but this seems less about gays than rival factions. Am I reading this wrongly?
Dawster
@Kid A:
no… it’s not going to further OUR cause specifically… but maybe humanity’s cause as a whole.
plus… it’s fucking hilarious to watch.
love the ad, love everything about it!
walt zipprian
I think pitting religous groups against each other is a great idea.
I also think feeding them to lions is a great idea.
Seriously. Lions.
Cam
Kid A Said “No. 2 Ă¡ Kid A
I don’t think pitting religious groups against one another is going to further our cause.”
________________________________________________
can you come off of Kum Ba Ya mountain for a minute and look at this realistically? Of course it helps our cause. It is the same thing as telling somebody in a day care center…”Hey, just thought you’d like to know that the person you hired as a teacher is the same guy who mugged your sister a year ago”
You are letting the rank and file Mormons know just who their church is working with, people who hate them. the average Mormon on the street is not going to like that their curch is cozing up to people who have called them a cult and non-christians. This is exactly what they need to have pointed out to them. you can’t expect them to make the right decision if they don’t have all the facts.
osocubano
I’d rather throw religious groups in a bottomless pit.
mark
I love this was shoved right in the belly of the beast in Utah.
BRAVO!
Kid A
@Cam: You didn’t point out how that helps our cause as much as create conflict between groups. This seems like a roundabout way to get what we deserve. I’m not calling for “Kum Bay Ya,” and I’m with Oscocubano and Walt, but I was disappointed to read the limpness of the ad. There are so many more hard-hitting points we could make FOR ourselves.
Kid A
@Cam: “This is exactly what they need to have pointed out to them. you can’t expect them to make the right decision if they don’t have all the facts.” So the fact is others call them a cult and cozy up only to make a point. So what? They get pissed off because they “have the facts” and they’ve been used. Where does that leave us? Still just as hated and misunderstood with no progress for us. Exposing hypocrisy is not the same as opening minds.
Charles J. Mueller
@Kid A:
> “Am I reading this wrongly?
You bet your sweet bippie, you are!
Would you prefer that the LGBT community just roll over and play dead?
How can you possibly take issue with simply setting the record straight? Is that TOO “confrontational” for you or would you prefer to wait for these people to vote some more of your civil-rights away from you before you speak up?
Thse people have a mindset that is never going to be changed in a gazillion years. When will “turn the other cheek” patronizers like ever get it?
Charles J. Mueller
Correction: “patronizers like you ever get it?”
Steff
Everyone’s so quick to attack lately, Kid A simply put forth his opinion and welcomed others.
If you can’t even treat people from your own community with respect, how do you expect others to?
Bruno
I think it helps our cause. It shows that the people who accuse us of religious intolerance have been much more guilty of it in the past than most of our community. It does negate their lies as well, pointing out that our protests were peaceful. I don’t think it’s meant to divide Mormons & other Christians, so much as to point out the hypocrisy of the few who ran the ad in the NYT.
Charles J. Mueller
“…there is a real, unbroken line between the jihadist savagery in Mumbai and the hedonistic, irresponsible, blindly selfish goals and tactics of our homegrown sexual jihadists.”
– Pat Boone, December 6, 2008
The Gay Numbers
@Kid A: Agree with others- what’s wrong with telling the truth? It seems a bit odd that even this little bit of effort (they aren’t lying but letting the Mormons know with whom they are allied) is met by you with “it’s unfair” or won’t be sucessful. a) It’s fair so long as its true. b) You can not possibly know the impact. The point is to start to shed light on who these people are. Let reader of the ad decide for him or herself. In other words, let the truth win out over the lies. Not sure why you have a problem with that.
Charles J. Mueller
@Steff:
Steff, if Kid A is man enough to attack gay activists for standing up for themselves, then he should be man enough to defend himself when he is counter-attacked. See letter published in today’s issue of the SLT.
Are you listening, you members of the Mormon Church and Yes on Prop. 8 supporters?
The Gay Numbers
@Steff: That’s because his opinion has not basis in reality. Putting for a view just to put forth one to be contrary serves little value to the reader. If he put forth a view that he could back up, that’s one thing. but he is essentially arguing here that its not a good tactic tell the truth. I am at lost to understand why not? Respect does not mean not questioning what Kid A or you say. That’s blind acceptance.
Steff
@The Gay Numbers: That’s because his opinion has not basis in reality. Putting for a view just to put forth one to be contrary serves little value to the reader.
Oh I agree. I’m merely pointing out that there’s a lot of in-fighting going on, which is only detrimental to any cause.
Also I wasn’t saying you shouldn’t question Kid A in favour of ‘blind acceptance’, that’s just an obtuse interpretation of what I was saying.
Charles J. Mueller
Barely three weeks have passed since the horrendous miscarriage of justice in California and HRC is back to what it has always done best. Asking for more money.
Fund-raising is their number one activity. Getting anything accomplished, however, is on the bottom rung of the ladder. They exist purely for their own celebration.
https://mail.google.com/mail/?zx=38e8v1ndwk1z&shva=1#trash/11e2816d334e3f1a
Why is it that top-down organisations like HRC and their ilk are ALWAYS, ALWAYS, on the defensive…
and never on the offensive?
Oh, silly me. I already know the answer. Resolving none of the issue, is how they make sure that they stay “in business”.
Like the government, a bureaucracy once created, continues to exist long after the need for it has passed.
DistinguĂŠ Traces
The ad is great.
It needs to run in a nationally distributed newspaper. There should be a fund specifically for that purpose.
chuck
@Steff:
You said: “Oh I agree. I’m merely pointing out that there’s a lot of in-fighting going on, which is only detrimental to any cause.”
I totally disagree with your conclusion. And that statement is not “in-fighting”, just my democratic right to disagree with you.
You say it like it is a bad thing? Debate is the basis upon which our entire system of Democratic governance was built on. It’s called freedom of speech. A government of the people, for the people and by the people, all of whom in theory at least, should all be allowed to be heard.
When we are no longer allowed to disagree or respond to unfounded comments or outright lies, then we will either be a complete dictatorship, a Monarchy or under Communist rule.
I have a terrible problem understanding people who are always going on about people debating others points of view? Should we all swallow our pride and bite our tongue while others spew their unfounded rhetoric at us, as the Mormon Church is presently wailing about?
Why should the shitters be allowed to shit on the shat upon, while the shat are not allowed speak up in their own self defense?
That’s just plain idiotic.
chuck
coreection: “while the shat upon are not allowed to speak…”
chuck
@DistinguĂŠ Traces:
I fully agree with you. And why hasn’t HRC picked up on that as well?
As usual, they are off fighting another “Banana Republic War” with Pat Boone, while millions of Christians and Mormons are storming the castle walls. (See my post above)
Heads. Asses.
chuck
This is a copy and paste of a letter I have just written to Mr. Joe Salmonese at HRC. Feel free to to quote, extract or use any part of it to send your own wake-up call to Mr. Salmonese.
December 11, 2008
Mr. Joe Salmonese
President
Human Rights Campaign
1640 Rhode Island Avenue, NW
Washington DC, 20036-3278
Dear Mr. Salmonese,
The email that arrived in my inbox today, a call-to-arms (read send more money) to yet another ââŹĹBanana Republic WarââŹÂ against one lone, white shoe-shod, has-been gospel singer, Mr. Pat Boone, while millions of homophobic Christians and Mormons storm the castle walls is but one of the many reasons I chose not to renew my membership with HRC this year.
After the heinous miscarriage of Constitutional Justice that occurred at the polls in California last month, aided in large part by HRCââŹâ˘s top-down management of No to Proposition 8, one would think that HRC would be dedicating itself to taking a good, hard look at where it failed the LGBT community, instead of looking to put a band-aid on a wound inflicted by an old man who could not warble God Bless America if he tried.
Hello. Mr. Boon is NOT our biggest problem at the moment. Fighting the people who took our rights away from us is. This latest hustle for yet more money, is just one more in a long string of ââŹĹtouchesââŹâ˘ HRC has put on the GLBT Community over the years. You people are so out of touch with reality, that it boggles the imagination. No doubt, yââŹâ˘all have another black tux affair in the planning and need more money to finance that instead of looking a good hard look at the issues that are staring you in the face and addressing yourselves to them.
Head. Asses.
In case you havenââŹâ˘t gotten wind of it yet, a rival organization, Truth Wins Out, composed, paid for and sent a letter to the Salt Lake Tribune, responding to the ad that ran Friday in the New York Times headlined, ââŹĹNo Mob ViolenceââŹÂ that accused the LGBT protesters of attacking religious communities unfairly. Here is a link to Queerty with the full story. I suggest you take a look-see at it to bring yourself up to speed on current gay issues.
http://www.queerty.com/the-gay-rights-ad-salt-lake-woke-up-to-this-morning-20081211/#comment-104932
One of the posters on the blog that follows raised a very interesting question and I quote him verbatim:
ââŹĹThe ad is great.
It needs to run in a nationally distributed newspaper. There should be a fund specifically for that purpose.ââŹÂ
And all the time, I labored under the impression that HRC had such a fund, created by the dues-paying, card-carrying membership with whom you seem to have lost touch.
How silly of me.
Sincerely,
Charles J. Mueller
Tampa, Florida
PJ
@chuck:
No. 2 Ă¡ Kid A
I don’t think pitting religious groups against one another is going to further our cause.
Sure, hypocrisy should be pointed out, but this seems less about gays than rival factions. Am I reading this wrongly?
No. 5 Ă¡ Cam (To Kid A)
can you come off of Kum Ba Ya mountain for a minute and look at this realistically?
No. 10 Ă¡ Charles J. Mueller (to Kid A)
… Thse people have a mindset that is never going to be changed in a gazillion years. When will “turn the other cheek” patronizers like ever get it?
OK! Kid A made an opinionated statement. It was simply an opinion. For that opinion, he was blatantly and directly attacked.
I agree that debate is great discourse but name calling is not debate. It is puerile and unattractive.
I, personally, feel that the ad could have been a little stronger. I like the idea that we are pointing out to the Mormon’s that they are sleeping with the enemy. I hope this is the beginning to a wake up call for the LDS. I am not optimistic about it actually happening but I can hope.
I don’t agree with Kid A’s position but I do agree with Steff’s. Infighting and name calling is not going to get us anywhere. When we fight against ourselves, the bad guys have no option but to win against us. Name calling is letting the bad guys win. They are fractionating and already fractionated group of people. We need to begin looking for unity as a group. We need to find ways of working together. Since we can not count on the organizations that we have created to fight our battles for us, we need to take our own battles to the street.
We have begun taking our battles to the streets. With peaceful protests all over the Nation in protest of the Proposition 8 decision, we have unified. Day Without Gays failed because not enough people called in “gay.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081211/ap_on_re_us/calling_in_gay
Chuck, your letter to Joe Salomnese is pure genius but it is better for us to focus our attentions on what matters than focusing on HRC. But you can’t fight this battle alone and HRC is a useless money-whore but it isn’t the enemy.
Everyone, let’s stop the name calling because someone disagrees with us. If you need clarification of a point or if you need validation of a point, ask for it. Don’t call that person names. It doesn’t look good for the name caller and only makes the name callee more sympathetic.
chuck
@PJ:
You say tomatoe and I say tomahato.
You say potatoe and I say potahto.
Umm…I looked back over the exchange of dialogue and I did not find one instance of name-calling. Differences of opinion yes. but no epithets or names hurled, unless, of course, I missed something….
Thank you for the compliment on my letter to Joe Salmonese. Sadly, you saw fit to take it back, however.
I agree with you fully that HRC is a useless money-whore, but castigating my efforts to do a little consciousness-raising that might just get the Truth Wins Out letter published in the NY Times and other major publications around the country and thus benefit the LGBT community in some way, manner or form, is better than just sitting behind one’s computer screen and berating the efforts of others.
Besides reprimanding and sermonizing, perhaps you would be so good as to share with me and the rest of us who regularly post on these threads, some of the things that you are actively doing to help get back the civil-rights that were so flagrantly ripped away from the GLBT community a few weeks ago instead instead telling the rest of us how we should be doing it?
chuck
Correction: Tomahato should read tomahto.
Chapeau
Way to Go Wayne Besen !!
Ignore the naysayers — afterall, it’s the naysayers that have HRC by the balls apparently — and why our largest LGBT organization is as useless as tits on a boar hog.
I’m just sayin’ !!
WTG. Everyone should give Wayne a few bucks!
Kid A
I don’t mind people having a different opinion than I do, but most of you here have been assuming a lot more about me than you have cause for.
I am not playing dead or singing Kum Bay Ya. Some of you making ad hominem attacks against me are the same people who were upset that No on 8 commercials didn’t feature gay people. In the same vein, a full-page ad could be used to DIRECTLY advocate our cause, instead of back-door, reactive “fuck up people who messed with us” approaches. That’s my opinion on what could have been, does that mean I don’t think the hypocrisy it points out needs to be? Not at all, it does a good job at what it sets out to do. I simply would have run a harder-hitting GAY-centric ad. That’s all.
I understand that emotions are running high during this time, mine are too. However, to call my modest angle an “attack” or “unfounded” is an exaggeration ridiculous to the point of being laughable. We are all on the same side. What’s especially disappointing is that Charles Muller’s and Gay Numbers’ opinions were those with which I agreed with often, admired, and looked forward to most as I browsed Queerty. Christ, people.
Dick Mills
@Kid A: I think you may not know the context of this ad. The ad is a direct response to another ad placed by the Becket Fund which seeks to build on the coalition of religious groups that worked to effectively pass Proposition 8.
The ad, “No Mob Veto” http://www.towleroad.com/2008/12/becket-fund-lau.html is an attempt by the lying liars to ensure that their coalition of strange bedfellows continues to band together in order to ensure that Proposition 8 isn’t overturned. At least enough “banding together” to ensure that the Morons are willing to again fund the next $40 million initiative.
This response is an attempt to highlight just who those bastards have gotten into bed with, and just how much they are despised by them – which is almost as much as they despise us.
Kid A
@Dick Mills: Thank you, I very much appreciate it. All I asked for in the first place.
chuck
@Kid A:
Thank you for the kind words directed at Gay Numbers and I. It’s most kind of you. We are not out to get you, please know that. More than ever before in our gay history, we all need to stand together and fight the good fight.
Together we stand. Divided we fall. And that’s the truth. Pffffft! as Lillie Tomlin used to say. đ
While I posted my letter to Mr. Bessen in another blog, I am also posting it on this blog. I hope that you will get to read it and maybe even slip a few bucks to Mr. Bessen so he can carry on his great work which benefits us all.
Peace.
December 11, 2008
Mr. Wayne Bessen
Two Executive Director
Truth Wins Out
Post Office Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
Dear Mr. Bessen,
I read about the letter you sent to the Salt Lake Times on Queerty today.
Bravo. Job well done. Mr. Bessen. Your ad was a stroke of genius. Those of us who read and post on Queerty daily, are delighted to know that we have an ally like you who is willing to speak up and counter the rhetoric and lies that have been flung in the face of the LGBT community over the course of the Constitutional rape in California called Proposition 8.
I am enclosing a copy of a letter that I just mailed to Mr. Joe Salmonese of the Human Rights Campaign. As a bitterly disappointed ex-member of HRC, I will admit that it is sharply critical of HRCââŹâ˘s top-down, clumsy handling of No on Proposition 8. I make no apologies for it, however.
If nothing else, it might just serve as a wake-up call from the many thousands of LGBT people who have given their generous financial support to HRC over the years and are now angry that HRC dropped the ball on such an important issue. Had they not been so elitist and smugly wrapped-up in their ââŹĹStep backââŹÂŚweââŹâ˘ve got it handledââŹÂ attitude, we might still be enjoying the right to get married in California.
Who knows? It might even prompt them to contact you and throw a little money your way to get the letter published in the New York Times and a few other major newspapers across America. Now that would really make some waves.
Many posters on the Queerty blog have suggested making donations to Truth Wins Out. Please accept my meager check enclosed, which I hope, will help to make some smaller waves. I am posting this letter on Queerty with your snail mail address in the hope that others will also send in whatever donations they can afford so that you can continue the good fight.
With all best wishes,
Charles J. Mueller
Tampa, Florida
Kid A
@chuck: Thanks for the info, I have lately seldom heard of HRC doing something truly useful, and have stopped giving money for a while now. I attended a Truth Wins Out rally here in Orlando, and their attitude is much more proactive, encouraging people to act, which is more than can be said for a “=” bumper sticker! Appreciate it.
HYHYBT
“I also think feeding them to lions is a great idea.
Seriously. Lions.”
I believe that’s been tried a time or two. It doesn’t work đ
Jaroslaw
Kid A – I’m arriving late to this discussion, but I went back to the top of this post and read your first statement.
Based on your very detailed, intelligent replies to others “am I reading this wrongly…” seems deliberately naive to provoke the kind of responses you got and then you complain you were attacked.
I agree with all those who say “telling the truth” should be not a problem especially when those it is directed against have LIED their butts off about Prop 8 and Gays in general.
The idea here, which should be obvious, is that by letting the public know that Chuck Colson et al are duplicitous and liars, the next time they speak the public SHOULD be very wary about believing what they say on ANY topic.
Jaroslaw
One more thing – the ad above is very mild, balanced, truthful and fair. Period. I can’t imagine why, in response to Beckham religious fund or not, why anyone would have a problem with it.