It is time to expose the hypocrisy and intolerance of GLAAD, which is really the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Disagreement (not Defamation), as I have pointed out many times before. Not only does GLAAD seek to silence or discredit opposing voices, but it also praises those who attack those voices, even in the most vulgar and crass ways.
This sums up the duplicity of GLAAD: It urges the media to beware of conservative Christian leaders like Chuck Colson, Maggie Gallagher, and Tony Perkins, even calling on CNN to ban some of them from appearing on their shows, and then gives its first Outstanding Blog award to the JoeMyGod website, famous for entries like this one (from March 5, 2012), which mockingly tells readers that if they follow the directions of a particular, outspoken Christian leader “and squint and clench and pray SUPER hard for Super Tuesday, then maybe He'll make sure that a true earthly spokesmodel for the Holy Dead Zombie gets into office. But please be brief. God is SUPER busy killing babies and giving people cancer.” And this earns praise from GLAAD.
Last week, GLAAD launched its Commentator Accountability Project (CAP), which “aims to put critical information about frequent anti-gay interviewees into the hands of newsrooms, editors, hosts and reporters. . . . Have you seen these anti-LGBT voices in your local media? Let GLAAD know today.”
GLAAD singled out 36 “anti-gay interviewees,” stating in a follow-up article that, “‘accountability’ does not necessarily mean keeping these people out of the media. But if a reporter is interviewing someone who insinuates that his or her political opponent is controlled by the devil, it’s the reporter’s journalistic responsibility to put that person’s opinion in perspective.”
(As an aside, I had to smile at GLAAD’s selection of 36 commentators, since according to Jewish tradition, there are always 36 righteous people in the world, because of whose merit the world is not destroyed. How ironic!)
Among the 36 “anti-gay interviewees” were Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler, Catholic leader Bill Donohue, Brian Brown and Maggie Gallagher (the National Organization of Marriage), Jim Daly, Candi Cushman, and Glenn Stanton (Focus on the Family), Chuck Colson (Breakpoint), Don Wildmon and Tim Wildmon (the American Family Association), political pundit Gary Bauer, Bishop Harry Jackson, World Net Daily’s Joseph Farah, Mat Staver and Matt Barber (Liberty Counsel and Liberty University), Peter Sprigg and Tony Perkins (the Family Research Council), Princeton Professor Robert George, and yours truly.
Each name was linked to a personalized page, citing quotes which allegedly demonstrated our bigoted anti-gay views, like Chuck Colson’s statement that homosexual behavior was more dangerous to one’s health than smoking or Robert George’s questioning of New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s commitment to Catholicism in light of his ardent support for same-sex marriage. Yes, according to GLAAD, the media needs to be aware of such dangerous, extremist viewpoints.
At the same time, GLAAD honors men like Joe Jervis, whose JoeMyGod website contains tags describing Christian leaders as “con men, evil, frauds, liars, scam artists, and douchenozzels,” among those tags that can even be listed here.
The JoeMyGod website is also used as a rallying point to target others in the most vulgar and profane ways. I know this firsthand, since it was Joe Jervis’s website that helped launch a short-lived (and ultimately unsuccessful) campaign against my book A Queer Thing Happened to America. Commenters joined the attack with posts like these: “Boys and girls, it's time to tag-spam. Have at it: [with a link to the listing on Amazon]”; and, “Tag bomb it like Sally Kern's book,” and “Make sure you leave appropriate tags on the Amazon book review. My favorites ‘author loves rimming’ and ‘guide to fisting.’” (Note that these comments were never removed from the website.)
So, in the upside-down world of GLAAD, blogs like this are praiseworthy while men like Chuck Colson and Robert George are not worthy to share their views on the air. This is nothing less than a hypocritical witch hunting campaign by GLAAD, and a poorly executed one at that.
And for those who claim that GLAAD is not trying to engage in censorship, note well that at the end of 2010, GLAAD launched a petition drive urging “CNN to Make a New Year's Resolution: Keep Away From the Anti-Gay Industry.” Yes, said GLAAD, “It's time for outlets to finally drop several hundred pounds of unhealthy weight, which they've been carrying around for years, in the form of anti-gay activists. . . . CNN and the rest of the media are doing nothing but exposing their viewers to dangerous anti-gay rhetoric when they invite members of these anti-gay groups onto their programming. Starting in 2011, this needs to stop.”
This must be labeled for what it is, namely, bigotry, intolerance, and attempted censorship, which is why – to repeat yet again – I say that we recognize GLAAD for what it is: the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Disagreement.
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