Increased Visibility Comes With Increased Defamation

In a moment when our right to love was upheld by the California Constitution and then dashed by a narrow vote, the LGBT community has a right -- even a responsibility -- to make our voices heard. Since Election Day, there has been a tremendous outpouring of frustration and determination from the LGBT community and allies who have united across the nation to increase our visibility and spark new national conversations about equality.

Across the country since Election Day, demonstrations occurred without mass arrests or reports of violent altercations with authorities. Straight allies, local churches, elected officials including NYC Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Washington State senator Ed Murray and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and celebrities such as Wanda Sykes, Alec Mapa, and Pink were all on hand on November 15, 2008 to have their voices heard during nationwide protests. Instead of demanding action against supporters of Proposition 8, the speakers and demonstrators called for equality.

This is why GLAAD issued a call to action in response to an advertisement that ran in the December 5, 2008 issue of the New York Times from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The full page Becket Fund advertisement makes inaccurate and unsubstantiated claims about supposed "violence and intimidation" against religious groups by "mobs" since the passage of Proposition 8. Organizers and participants did not promote hate or violence. We did promote equality, come together as a community and bring awareness to how discriminatory laws like Proposition 8 impact our lives, which sounds more like the freedom of assembly than the "mob violence" that the Becket Fund references.

When GLAAD learned about the ad earlier this week, we contacted the New York Times, and after repeated back and forth, staff at the New York Times said that while they recognized GLAAD's strong concerns about publishing misleading assertions, "we do not require opinion advertisers to document them unless we believe they are potentially libelous or otherwise legally actionable." The standard should be based on the potential for a lawsuit, rather on truth examining if what is being published is accurate. While the ad will not have legal implications for the New York Times, it certainly impacts their integrity.

The factual inaccuracies made by the Becket Fund in this grossly misleading ad are the latest example of anti-gay activists' use of fear and misinformation to try and strip LGBT Americans of constitutional freedoms. Just as we saw during the Yes on Prop 8 campaign, anti-gay activists are trying to reframe the debate by focusing on lies. During the campaign, it was their false claims that marriage for gay and lesbian couples would be taught in schools, and now it's labeling peaceful demonstrations as "mob violence." The publicity that Becket Fund achieved from this ad has already resulted in a resurgence of anti-gay dialogue. Most recently, singer Pat Boone compared those who oppose Proposition 8 with terrorists responsible for horrific acts of violence in Mumbai in a column for the anti-gay Web site WorldNetDaily, using an act of international tragedy to elicit homophobia, similar to how Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed gay and lesbian people for the September 11 attacks.

Rather than serving as platforms for lies and inaccuracies, media outlets should be calling out anti-gay activists when they resort to defamation, lies, and rhetoric that promote homophobia. Anti-gay activists have succeeded in taking the right to marry away from loving and committed gay and lesbian couples in California, and are now looking to silence us and gain publicity to spark new waves of anti-gay rhetoric.

We must not let their scare tactics work and must continue to respond to their defamation and raise the visibility of our community and our message of equality.

Comments

[Thad]

"Most recently, singer Pat Boone compared those who oppose Proposition 8 with terrorists responsible for horrific acts of violence in Mumbai in a column for the anti-gay Web site WorldNetDaily, using an act of international tragedy to elicit homophobia, similar to how Rev. Jerry Falwell blamed gay and lesbian people for the September 11 attacks."

A friend of mine jokingly commented that the recent California wildfires must be God's punishment for the passage of Prop 8. Hey, why should bigots be the only ones who get to blame natural disasters on recent political stories?

Incidentally, I'm a Tempe native and am curious to know, have you been keeping tabs on the light rail? It opens next month. I'm excited about it and I think your support of it really showed foresight.

[Smith808]

Marriage has already been deemed a "fundamental right." Per the CA constitution, the state cannot deny its citizens access to the benefits of this fundamental right.
Gays and lesbians are a "suspect class" under the CA constitution. Because no compelling evidence was presented that would disqualify gays and lesbians from participating in this right, they were thus granted the right to marry in CA. Subsequently, 18,000 gay couples tied the knot.
Unhappy with this outcome, opponents tried to "amend" the constitution with a ballot measure that would discriminate against an entire class of citizens protected under the state. Under both the state constitution AND the 14th Amendment, this represents a violation of the civil rights of an entire group of citizens by its own state.
14th Amendment: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

[Smith808]

I'm not surprised that church organizations pooled their money together for the ad, making it appear as though it were a "public service announcement" on behalf of Jesus. This was just a clever way to promote membership -- discrimination is a far more successful PR tactic than charity.

Peaceful protests were held in CA and nationwide for weeks after the vote, but gays and lesbians will only be remembered for: 1) grabbing a woman's styrofoam cross from her hands, and stomping on it. 2) for the tragically cute stunt pulled by a few teenaged girls who "infiltrated" a church, chanted a slogan, threw some leaflets into the air and scurried out. That gay marriage supporters were assaulted and needed immediate medical treatment was never brought up as a counterpoint. Here's a link to just a few of these abuses that happened in LA.

http://laist.com/2008/11/07/2_protesters_sent_to_hospital_after.php

VIDEO from KTLA: Get a glimpse of this girl"s bloody face. http://www.ktla.com/pages/video/?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=3112230

[LewDan]

Media policing content based on accuracy would've prevented publishing your post. Prop 8 didn't restricted your "right to love," that's a lie. CA doesn't regulate who may marry. No State does. Prop 8 doesn't prevent anyone from marrying, what it does is punish gays who do marry.

Millions voted to pass Prop 8 to stop gay marriage. If Prop 8 opponents had honestly informed people Prop 8 doesn't stop gay marriage, but discriminates against them, it likely wouldn't have passed. But gays are more interested in promoting their "right to marry" than in defeating Prop 8. In fact, the LGBT community's eagerness for martyrdom and sense of entitlement is appalling.

Everything is about your "civil rights." Any law that interferes with what you want is a "civil rights" violation, since you have a "civil right" to whatever you want. CA refuses to recognize your marriages and your "civil rights" are violated? You have a "civil right" to expect something from CA? Civil rights are about what YOU have a right to do, they are not obligations on others. You are not entitled to the support of Blacks. You are not entitled to the support of the media.

I'm against discrimination against you or anyone else, but you make support difficult.
Like the Nazi march through Skokie I have to support you rights on principle but your behavior is so odious I take no joy in doing so.

You need to get over yourself.

[joy316]

The truth of the situation is that in California gay people have all the rights of heterosexual people when they create a Civil Union. So why is getting married so important? As you stated, it does not change love (if it exists) and the legal rights are available through Civil Unions"so what is the real issue? Could it be that gays no longer want the stigma of living in sin? I can"t blame them for wanting to make things right with God, but it may take a little more than a marriage license.

[LewDan]

Any marriage recognized by the State, ANY State, is by definition a "civil union." The attempts to distinguish "civil unions" from"marriages" is because they are not equal. Black people have already been down the "separate but equal" road.

Maybe gays just want their constitutional right to equal protection under the law and have no fear that God might not love them just as they are. After all He created them.

[StevenKeirstead]

Civil unions are not equivalent to marriage in the US. Vermont does not recognize California Domestic Partnerships as being the same as a Vermont Civil union, and vice versa, so if a couple from one state moves to another they have to pay more fees and get their union done all over again.

[StevenKeirstead]

It's appalling to see you compare gay rights advocates to the Nazis. Ar you not aware the Third Reich actively targeted homosexual men for elimination in the same way they did Jews, Gypsies and Communists? It's estimated that 15,000 or more gay men were put to death in concentration camps in WW2.

Equality under the law is guaranteed by the US 14th Amendment. You don't seem to understand civil rights at all. Rights have to be recognized by the state or they don't have any legal weight. And Marriage Equality is not damaging to society, as we have seen over the past 4 & 1/2 years in Massachusetts. Here the divorce rate has dropped and the majority of citizens now support same sex marriage.

Prop 8 destroyed Californian families, prevents future same sex marriages in that state, and will do real damage to real people if it stands. Prop 8 was an example of Tyranny of the Majority, just like the anti-miscegenation laws overturned by Loving v. Virginia. It should never have gone before the voters either, as it was a major revision to the California Constitution, and should have had to pass the legislature before going before the people as a referendum.