Tuesday, July 19, 2011

BVP's Big Blunder!

Think Progressive broke the story, today, that Bob Vander Platts - CEO of the Family Leader (FL), a federally funded Iowa-based anti-Gay group (formerly the Iowa Family Policy Center) which is a local branch of the SPLC-designated anti-Gay Hate Group, the Family Research Council (FRC) - was caught on tape putting his foot in his mouth by erupting in peels of laughter over a "faggot" joke, thus cementing his utter disdain for Gay people:


So much for his disingenuous attempt at showering Gay people with cookies as a token symbol of his allegedly "Christian love" when he and his fellow Theofascists lobbied for the passage of an anti-Gay so-called "Marriage Amendment", writing in  Newsletter to his group's supporters:
Several of us plan to bring a token of Christian love (like a small bag of cookies or other treats) to share with homosexual activists who we'll be encountering Monday...  It's time we dispel lies about Christians by tangibly showing love to people who struggle with homosexuality.
Aside from the fact that this was an utterly offensive gesture which amounted to the Family Leader asking the Gay community to trade their Civil Rights as free-born Iowans for a mere cookie (does the FL value the civil rights of others so poorly?), but the belief that this is an example of "Christian love" is appalling!  His pretense to "showing Christian love" is an utter farce that has earned him and his group that label of bigotry and he was hoping to "dispel".  When Vander Plaats arrived at the Capital Building in Des Moines, IA. in January he was the only one in attendance who appeared to have brought a single "token of Christian love" and - according to my fellow One Iowa lobbyists who were mobilized throughout those gracious halls - he didn't bother to hand out his two bags of Chips Ahoy-brand cookies, which he was photographed praying over:


This more recent scandal, however (observe the video footage above), falls only a couple of weeks after Vander Plaats had the audacity to endorse slavery [courtesy SPLC Hatewatch] as a preferable societal (family) institution for the rearing children in a 14-point pledge his group has called The Marriage Vow: A Declaration of Dependence upon MARRIAGE and FAMILY (PDF) which declared:
...a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African American baby born after the election of the USA's first African American president.
The blatant ignorance of this statement is galling in light of the historical documentation that children born of slaves were considered property and, once weened, were usually ripped from the arms of their parents - who were not allowed to marry each other - and sold into slavery to various plantation owners.  Perhaps a key, albeit shallow, to determining the exploitation of Civil Gay Rights by the Republican Party as a "wedge issue" has been the general lack of efficacious venom which the party has been finding to be more and more futile.  Indeed, five of the current GOP 2010 Presidential Candidates - including openly Gay Rep. Fred Karger, who is presently being politically extirpated by the media which has gone to extreme lengths in order to ignore his bid for candidacy - have already declined to sign this "pledge" which identifies Civil Marriage Equality for Gay couples with polygamy, bigamy, adultery, incest, and polyandry; furthermore, the Vow also declares that homosexuality is "a public health risk" and that it is a choice: Mitt Romney released a statement characterizing the principles of the oath as "undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign", Tim Pawlenty deftly crafted a statement politically dodging this offensive "vow" by affirming that "rather than sign onto words chosen by others, I prefer to choose my own words...", Herman Cain, similarly, suggested that his "stated position encompasses their [the FL's] values without the need to sign the pledge", and Gary Johnson (who boasts a "tolerance is American" television ad), characterized the pledge as "offensive to the principles of liberty and freedom on which this country was founded", continuing that the Vow is "the type of rhetoric [that] gives Republicans a bad name"!

This is only the latest in a stream of vitriolic bigotry on behalf of Vander Plaats and his homophobic hate-group the FL.  Unfortunately, don't be surprised when you do not observe your local televised news devoting any attention to his scathing reactions at a derogatory term for Gay men!  I remember earlier in the year how the local news from Des Moines insisted on characterizing the Republican party of Iowa as merely "defending the Constitution and their oath of office" by insisting that they put to a vote of the people the Civil Rights of Gay Iowans to acquire a Civil Marriage license.  No central Iowa televised news outlet gave any comparable time to our Democratic allies, such as Mike Gronstall, who went on record to immediately censure House and Senate Republicans in The Des Moines Register for wanting to impose second class citizenship onto a minority of their fellow Iowans:
I'm not going to put to a vote of the people anybody's constitutional rights.  Because, if I can do that to gay people, I can do that to Catholics, I can do it do Methodists, I can do it to Baptists, I can do it to blacks, I can do it to Hispanics.  If I can put to a vote of the people, people's constitutional rights, then you may be popular today - old white guys like us might be popular today and our rights will be fine - but someday the baby boom will be gone and there wont be enough old white guys left to protect us from the tyranny of the majority.

1 comment:

  1. "I'm not going to put to a vote of the people anybody's constitutional rights. Because, if I can do that to gay people, I can do that to Catholics, I can do it do Methodists, I can do it to Baptists, I can do it to blacks, I can do it to Hispanics. If I can put to a vote of the people, people's constitutional rights, then you may be popular today - old white guys like us might be popular today and our rights will be fine - but someday the baby boom will be gone and there wont be enough old white guys left to protect us from the tyranny of the majority." ~Me and Adam definitely agree.

    ReplyDelete