What’s more exciting than being at Ground Zero during the fight for LBGT equality? Being at Ground Zero while all hell breaks loose! Hello, Ft. Worth!
While last night ultimately saw the adding of transgender/gender identity protections to Ft. Worth’s non-discrimination ordinance, it didn’t come without a showdown between anti-queer protesters and everybody’s favorite radical troupe at Queer LiberAction.
Just days after a screaming match showdown with the National Equality March’s Mark Reed, QLA’s Rick Vanderslice was back on the scene in front of Ft. Worth City Hall, where “the drama unfolded shortly after 5 p.m. with TV news cameras rolling,” relays John Wright. “Fort Worth police officers looked on from a distance but did nothing to separate the two factions, which each appeared to number about a dozen.”
Indeed, there was Vanderslice and an unidentified anti-gay protester getting all up in each other’s shit. “At one point, Vanderslice attempted to kiss the man.” Yeah, boyyyy, show ’em who’s boss.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Brian
This type of behavior continues to hurt legitimate efforts to obtain LGBT Equality. There is nothing helpful about the QL publicity stunts that simply antagonize people.
Fort Worth has made a lot of progress and has worked with LGBT leaders to effect real change. All the “angry” misfits do is mirror the opposition – by acting just like them.
Josh
The Fort Worth Star Telegram reported that 200 people “packed the council chamber” while 20 “protesters” were outside fighting.
Those inside spoke about the LGBT community and the need for protections, while the small group outside insulted the opposition. ALL the progress was made INSIDE the building.
These angry stuck-in-the-60s publicity seekers are hurting the LGBT movement.
Mark-DFW
The media (and the FBI) have investigated threats from “LGBT activists.”
Reported on WND: In the fallout after Maine’s voters recently rejected homosexual marriage, Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality has documented the increasing violent threats against Christians. Below is an exchange on a homosexual activist website reported by World Net Daily.
“All it will take is a small group of radical zealots who are willing to kill for their cause,” “Fritz” wrote. “This happens in all cases where people are oppressed and lack representation. Our president must wake up and prevent this from happening. Otherwise, we will end up like Israel and Palestine. We will have gay and lesbian people strapping bombs to their chests and blowing up churches.” “Tex” responded, “You say this like it’s a bad thing? Maybe a bit of well organized terrorism is just what we need, er, I mean ‘civil disobedience.'”
“Tex” sounds a lot like Rick Vanderslice.
These tactics, from the 60s and 70s, are setting us back that far. Adults know how to talk and have conversations.
To the fools that join Queer Liberaction: Please stop.
Fitz
No one should be critical of these efforts unless they
have been doing something better. The old ways of writing letters
and going to HRC cocktail parties are a failure– so SOMETHING new needs working— this might not be it, it might be an experiment. But major kudos to anyone who can stay engaged in this process and think of new ways to make noise.
Mark-DFW
@ Fitz:
This isn’t new” or an “experiment.” Rick Vanderslice has been doing these stupid publicity stunts for decades. They don’t help – they just embarrass us.
These guys are just stuck in the past. They get off by yelling and demanding, not realizing that people aren’t listening – instead, they’re laughing.
Andrew
Rick Vanderslice is our “Fred Phelps.”
Queer Liberaction is our “Westboro Baptist.”
ironman
Actually, once the festivities were over, the small group of about 5 or 6 christians remaining outside discussed biblical issues and finished up with prayer. The sodomites left earlier after the meeting began and the only thing left of them, was a memory. the star telegram was wrong or YOU are! I was there and know this. Perhaps the sodomites were convicted and left early to pray and repent!
Keith Kimmel
I still think its funny. Glad to hear that Ft. Worth got it passed.
holla
Trying to kiss someone who one knows is not interested strikes me as a kind of sexual assault.
Scott NYC
In the old days – we used to protest to get attention for our struggle. These guys just go where the attention already is. They just want to become famous activists.
Wake up angry activists – we live in a new world. People know about us. They aren’t going to support us because you demonstrate that you are as ignorant as the other side.
Try thinking instead of shouting.
Steve&You
How insane. I really hope these idiots stay in Dallas.
Joe Moore
Acting like sex crazed children will get us nowhere. And yelling and screaming without a point or a common voice will get us nowhere as well. So why are people still letting these guys go out there and do this? Because we have no leader at the moment. No MLK, or Milk, or anyone to really bring the cause together and point it in a specific direction. We need one person who can talk to every faction of the gay movement, and bring them all together.
Until then, we’re just a bunch of screaming queens trying to kiss bigots out of frustration for our lack of words.
jason
The right-wing assaults us every day when they harness the power of government to remove our rights. A kiss is just a kiss.
Brian
In Texas, we have idiots on both sides. Queer Liberaction has a simple strategy: offend everyone. They make LGBT look bad.
Jacqui Smith
You have to admit though. The guy he was trying to kiss? Pretty freaking hot.
Ken S
For everyone denouncing these guys as loud-mouths and trouble-makers and “bad for us”– try taking a look at the opposition, the ones whose faces these ‘queer extremists’ are getting into, and honestly tell the rest of us how strongly you think the ‘mainstream’ social conservatives are rebuking their own radicals. You love to say “these homos are being just as bad as the straight haters,” but have you noticed how those hetero extremists are actually kind of.. well.. effective? Isn’t that part of *why* we despise them so much, because for all of their rhetoric and hyperbole and ‘ignorant shouting,’ they keep swaying people?
A good strategist learns from his enemy. Especially when he keeps losing fights to that enemy (see 8 in California, 1 in Maine, etc). Our opponents don’t just tolerate their lunatic fringe, they accept them because they get things done. They yield results, usually to our detriment. So learn from them! They sic their attack dogs on us without shame and without embarrassment, it pays off for them over and over, we groan and bitch about how they keep winning fight after fight, and then… what? We hold back? We go on fighting with one hand tied behind our backs? We’re on the *just* side, the side of fairness, we’re in the right against a vicious pack of selfish, ignorant, chauvinistic bullies; we already deserve to win the fight, so let’s fight like we *want* to win.
Do you want perfectly spotless hands, or do you want to win? If you’re on the side that’s right and you hold back for the sake of appearances– of all things– and you fail because of it, then you’re worse than a failure. You fail not only yourself but who-knows how many more who are waiting in the future for your victory, and the longer it takes the more of them you disappoint.