Even though the idea of equal rights for all Americans is a hallmark of the United States Constitution and why this country was once considered exceptional, Republicans have always opposed equality. ‘Conservative Christian’ Republicans are worse, and besides their long-standing opposition to equal rights for women, they have made treating the gay community like lepers their raison d’être despite a majority of Americans’ belief that persecuting citizens based on who they love is an abomination and not representative of a society allegedly founded on equal rights for all Americans. At least Republicans have not yet been successful in following Russia’s state-sponsored assault on gays, but Speaker John Boehner is doing his best to help the anti-gay movement increase their power in America and learn how to emulate Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assault on homosexuals.
Earlier in the week, the World Congress of Families (WCF), a toxic anti-gay organization was slated to hold a symposium, “The Family in America” in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, but after outrage from LGBT groups, the “loving invitation” to spread gay hatred in an official Senate building was rescinded. To make sure that the World Congress of Families and Center for Family, Religion, and Society could hold their gay hate fest in a taxpayer-funded government building, Boehner stepped up and used the auspices of his position as Speaker to give the group a forum in a House office building to teach “pro-family legislators” about how best to implement laws such as Russia’s ban on “promoting non-traditional sexual relationships.”
The WCF president, Allan Carlson, praised Boehner’s intervention and said, “At least in the House of Representatives people have not succumbed to the great fear of LGBT activists” like the Senate where he asserted that gay hatred is “being suppressed, debate is being shut off, and minds are being closed.” Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel said “providing space for the event did not suggest the speaker is necessarily in support of their views,” and that as an administrative task “we routinely provide a forum for discussion of public policy issues from across the political spectrum, but it does not imply endorsement of any particular point of view.” Steel is a liar. Boehner has been outspoken in his anti-gay support for DOMA and the National Organization for Marriage, so it is likely he jumped at the opportunity to give a worldwide organization a forum to teach conservatives how to legislate their deep-seated hatred of equal rights for the LGBT community.
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The World Congress of Families will discuss “what can our pro-family legislators learn by studying our colleagues’ actions abroad,” and how can they combat the “current U.S. administration’s efforts to redefine marriage and family” by following nations like Russia and Uganda “who are seeking a reaffirmation of the natural family.” The WFC’s goal is convincing Republicans to craft and implement legislation, and national policy, based on Russian laws that criminalize being gay or promoting homosexuality that translated means punishing people who do not actively persecute gays. The WFC and conservative Christians in America pant for an American law like Russian president Putin signed making discussing homosexuality a crime, as well as confiscating children of LGBT parents and same-sex couples.
There has been an increase in support among conservative Christians for the Russian president who they anointed the “defender of Christian civilization” for his assault on gays and for designating “Christianity” as Russia’s state religion. One American preacher who assisted the anti-gay movement in Uganda that led to the killing of openly gay Ugandans praised Putin and argued that Russian officials should punish gay activists who planned to “rainbow-bomb the Olympics” by flying their own rainbow banner over the games to remind homosexuals that “the rainbow belongs to God!” By granting the WFC a forum to spread their gay hate, John Boehner is giving his approval to help them “import the Russian and Ugandan way of dealing with,” as WFC’s spokesman put it, “the policies of decline, death and disease promoted by the Sexual Radicals.” There is little doubt that if given the opportunity, Republicans would help anti-gay groups pass and implement laws to give free-rein to persecute, imprison, and likely kill American citizens based on their sexual orientation.
A sampling of the Russian anti-gay laws the WFC, and likely Boehner, supports are laws that throw people in jail for being openly gay, or saying, doing, or writing anything that is perceived as pro-gay, forcibly remove children from their gay parents, and condoning violence against gays. In fact, there have been well-publicized reports of gangs apprehending gay men and boys to terrorize them with violence, including rape, to cure the gay away that the Russian government approves of whole-heartedly. The WFC and NOM have been quietly influencing and supporting the Russian crackdown on gays and it is no secret they yearn for a similar environment to persecute gays in America. John Boehner gave them the forum they yearned for to teach “pro-family legislators” how Russia implemented its laws criminalizing homosexuality that has as its foundation the Christian bible.
Boehner needs to be held to account for acquiescing to a hate group like the World Congress of Families. If the criminal arsonist and car thief Darrell Issa (R-CA) were not so enamored with fabricating phony scandals targeting the Obama Administration, he would investigate Boehner for wasting taxpayer dollars by supplying a government building to spread gay hate. The extremist “family-oriented” religious right is emboldened to see the unadulterated hatred condoned by the Russian government, and if Boehner had even an ounce of decency, he would have followed the Senate’s lead and resisted giving the WFC a forum to inculcate their gay hate to any other Americans, especially “pro-family legislators.”
It is a travesty that as Americans are finally embracing the Founding Fathers’ assertion that “all men are created equal,” the Speaker of the House of Representatives opened a House office building to a group whose mission is predicated on persecuting human beings based on ancient religious mythos and their sexual orientation. Americans should not be deluded to think that the vicious anti-gay hatred in countries such as Uganda and Russia could never happen in America, because there are a substantial number of Americans that endorse criminalizing homosexuality and persecuting gays.
That a growing number of so-called American Christians and extremist conservatives are looking to Russian president Putin as the defender of Christian civilization, and yearning to implement laws criminalizing homosexuality is a portent that America is one election away from theocratic-based open season on gays. Americans should keep in mind that these so-called pro-family types will not be satisfied targeting just gays, and like any religious frenzy will ensnare any American who does not fit the religious rights’ standard of a “pro-family Christian Conservative.”
Audio engineer and instructor for SAE. Writes op/ed commentary supporting Secular Humanist causes, and exposing suppression of women, the poor, and minorities. An advocate for freedom of religion and particularly, freedom of NO religion.
Born in the South, raised in the Mid-West and California for a well-rounded view of America; it doesn’t look good.
Former minister, lifelong musician, Mahayana Zen-Buddhist.
