Post by decadence on Dec 26, 2005 9:36:44 GMT -5
Despite Their Low Numbers, Gay Militants Have Enormous Political "Clout"
Combining economic and educational advantage with high-pressure lobbying tactics, gay activists have ridden waves of tolerance emanating from the sexual revolution to a position of almost irresistible influence in today's America. They have:
Secured, as mentioned previously, "normality" status from the American Psychological Association. Captured the AIDS research establishment and molded policy so as to make AIDS history's first "politically protected" plague.
Secured passage of legislation granting gays protected class status in eight States and scores of communities across America. Secured passage of the Federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, as a means to monitor so-called "gay bashing," and prepare for launching nationwide special gay advantage legislation. Secured Executive Orders in several States barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in State employment, etc. Secured political office both in the U.S. Congress and on numerous major U.S. city councils.
Secured privileges and benefits for live-in lovers and "domestic partners" identical to those of married couples, and other kinds of preferential treatment and lifestyle promotion in several major U.S. corporations.
Secured implementation of gay-created curricula promoting homosexuality as a "valid, healthy alternative" to heterosexuality.
Gained ordination in mainline church denominations. Case in point: On December 12, 1991, the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph reported:
"A prominent Marin County, Calif., lesbian minister has been named the first openly homosexual pastor of a member church of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. The Rev. Jane Adams Spahr... will become a co-pastor of the Downtown United Presbyterian Church of Rochester, N.Y., on April 1.
"The Rochester church is part of a network of 45 Presbyterian churches in the nation that have declared themselves `More Light Churches,' open to anyone `without regard to sexual orientation or affectational preference.'"
In vivid contrast to the dignified non-violence which characterized the African American civil rights movement as led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, gay extremist attempts to ride the civil rights bandwagon have been anything but civil.
Recently, gay activists vandalized California State office buildings. Burned State flags and California's governor in effigy after his veto of a special gay advantage bill. And pelted the governor himself with garbage at a speaking engagement following his veto.
In 1989, gay "AIDS activists" invaded a Roman Catholic mass at New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral, shouting obscenities and defiling Communion elements. A few participants in this blatant desecration incurred slight legal penalties.
On Saturday, November 16, 1991, "A group of AIDS demonstrators dressed in suits and ties infiltrated the Family Concerns Conference brunch Saturday at First Baptist Church of Atlanta, then peppered the diners with hundreds of condoms while chanting `Safer sex saves lives.' The demonstrators were removed by church security guards and police. Outside, 90 placard-waving protesters marched in front of the church at Peachtree and Fifth streets, chanting and waving at automobiles as drivers honked and waved. There were no arrests.
"The action was staged by the National Organization for Women, Atlanta Pro-Choice Action Committee, and ACTUP/Atlanta . The groups oppose the conservative Christian group's stands against both abortion and high school sex education courses that provide information about the use of condoms to prevent AIDS transmission" ("AIDS activists crash church brunch," Atlanta Journal Constitution, Sun., Nov. 17, 1991, emphasis added).
"A catalogue to an AIDS art show, partly funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, reflects the general tone [of gay "arts" attacks against the Roman Catholic Church]: [New York's] Cardinal O'Connor is a `fat cannibal in skirts' and his cathedral is a `house of walking swastikas'... Savage mockery of Christianity is now a conventional part of the public gay culture. A ridiculous looking Jesus figure carrying a cross is always featured in the gay Halloween parade in New York..." ("The gay tide of Catholic-bashing," U.S. News and World Report, April, 1991, p. 15.)
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has given generous grants to homophile "works of art" which blatantly blaspheme traditional religious and family values -- to the applause of liberal gay advantage supporters who would doubtless fight any suggestion of federal funding for religious art "tooth and claw."
Gay activists' behavior at non-violent, pro-life Operation Rescue protests has been notoriously violent and even obscene. The Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1991, reported:
"Members of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, spit on, kiss and stick needles into Operation Rescue members and then shout `Welcome to the world of AIDS,' claims Bill Soucie, a Glendale abortion foe. Some ACT UP members push and shove Operation Rescue members, while others drop their trousers and moon their opponents or lift T-shirts to expose their breasts, he said...
About the nudity, ACT UP member David Barton is quoted: "`Sure, it's militant behavior,' he said. `These people are so offensive to us, we do whatever we can to offend them.' Nudity is sometimes just a spontaneous action, said [ACT UP member Judy] Kristel, who exposed her breasts at June 29 demonstration. Her action and that of three others who exposed themselves was videotaped and the tape given to El Monte police for possible prosecution."
It is surely a measure of gay activists' political power that no arrests were made and no charges were filed. Nor were charges filed or arrests made at San Francisco's 1990 and 1991 Gay and Lesbian Pride Parades, of which we have video footage depicting:
Public nudity, both male and female. Lewd and lascivious acts, including public fondling of genitalia and several acts of what appears to be public anal sex between homosexuals. Transvestism, "leather culture," sadomasochistic paraphernalia, open promotion of pedophilia and savage ridicule of religious objects and symbols. Clear evidence of police presence, plus footage of San Francisco's mayor, who rode in and endorsed these parades. San Francisco police authorities were contacted and asked why no arrests were made. Their explanations were as follows:
1. Police officers present "may not have seen indecent behavior or received formal complaints." 2. Police "may have seen such behavior," but primary responsibility on that date was to "reflect community standards and maintain crowd control." 3. Mayor Art Agnos endorsed and participated in the parade, and the police department had to assume that his sanction was on anything that took place. 4. "These people [gays present] have shown they will riot at the drop of a hat, and it was the primary responsibility of police officers to keep the peace, even at the possible cost of tolerating public indecencies." In Madison, Wisconsin, on Sunday, September 8, 1991: "About 100 ACT Up protesters charged the Capitol... defacing the hallway leading to the governor's office with food and stickers and staging a `die-in' in the rotunda. They were protesting what they call `criminal' state policies against prison inmates with AIDS... The protesters were met by Capitol police and security officers, who closed the governor's office and blocked the group's entry. The protesters then tossed sandwiches and towels toward the door, and left numerous ACT Up stickers on the walls that portray [Wisconsin's governor Tommy] Thompson as a public health menace because of the prison policies. Other protesters used some type of black marker to write on the marble floor..." ("AIDS protesters deface Capitol," The Capital Times, September 9, 1991).
No arrests were reported in relation to this incident.
Obviously, that gay extremists can indulge in this kind of license, while ordinary rules of law are suspended, reflects considerable political power -- power gay activists themselves boast of having achieved. As recently as 1987, a report issued by the Federal Elections Commission stated that "The Human Rights Campaign Fund" [HRCF], the national homosexual PAC, was at that time the "16th largest independent political action committee (PAC) in the nation" and "the 39th largest PAC overall." Considering that at the time, more than 4,500 PACS had registered with the FEC, this represents enormous political power. The HRCF's Executive Director, Robert Basile commented on this news: "We have clearly become a big-league PAC, which means the gay and lesbian community has increasing power in American politics... This means we have recognizable clout in the election and in the legislative process of this country... For better or for worse, politics in this country responds to money, and politicians now know they had better respond to our community" (The Dallas Voice, June 19, 1987).
During the 1986 elections, HRCF raised more than $1.4 million. This put it in the top 1% of PACS nationwide. HRCF funded candidates in 112 political races -- "an incredible political achievement," according to political experts. By fiscal year 1991-1992, the HRCF's budget had grown to nearly $4 million. Recently, the HRCF announced a 1992-1993 projected budget of over $5 million (The Washington Blade, May 8, 1992, "Activists from around the country descend on the Hill"). The HRCF and affiliated gay PACs spent nearly $3 million in just six months of 1993, in attempts to see the ban on gays in the military lifted ("No Quick Fix," Out, Dec./Jan. 1994, p. 90).
In addition to the HRCF, gay militants have established the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund (GLVF), a Washington, D.C.-based PAC aimed at funding local, openly gay candidates, with an eye to changing public perception of gays, especially in mid-to-small-size cities and towns. GLVF boasts current national membership support in excess of $550,000 (The Washington Post, "Gays Are Gaining Ground in Local Politics," May 23, 1993, p. A22).
Political scientist J. David Woodward comments:
"Gay, lesbian and bisexual interest groups are among the fastest-growing and best-financed lobbies in the country. In 1993 the top six gay groups raised more than $12.5 million for operating and political purposes. In 1987 the same six groups had combined budgets of only $3.2 million [though, as observed above, this sum already qualified gay militant political power as `big league']. The Human Rights Campaign Fund, the leading homosexual political action group, ranked in the top 50 of more than 4,700 Political Action committees on the 1992 Federal Election Commission report. Contributions to HRCF were up 136 percent over donations in the previous reporting cycle. This one group is said to have given $3.5 million to the Clinton campaign in the last presidential election, and HRCF contributed to 190 Senate and House candidates with an 85 percent success ratio. In close contests where the homosexual lobby chose to concentrate its efforts by contributing between $7,000 to $10,000, HRCF candidates won 21 out of 28 times.
"The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force boasts of having won `countless victories' for homosexuals. The homosexual groups draw on over 150,000 regular donors and have a combined mailing list of about half a million. There are over 90 nationally based homosexual organizations, including professional subunits in the academic disciplines of sociology, psychology, and political science. On college campuses gay and lesbian studies programs are expanding, and `Gay Pride' events are a regular part of the academic calendar."(World Magazine, Oct. 30, 1993, reported in The Journal, Jan. 1994, pp. 6,7.)
10 Percent, a gay magazine, quotes current HRCF Executive Director Tim McFeeley as follows: "`By conservative estimates, the [gay] people who went to [Washington] D.C. [for the 1993 March on Washington] spent $100 million. That's the kind of money our community spends and [our political] organizations so desperately need'" ("Capital Gains," Fall 1993, p. 76). The Washington, D.C., Convention and Visitors Association's official estimate was "that the event brought more money to the capital -- $177 million -- than any other single event they'd tracked. Bill Clinton's inauguration, by contrast, brought in just $65 million" (Out, op. cit., p. 91, emphasis added).
Time magazine has commented: "Because [homosexuals] are highly mobilized and tend to have more discretionary income, gays have an impact on elections that is disproportionate to their number." Highlighting gay militants' sizeable donation to the Clinton presidential campaign, Time adds: "This power has even greater effect on the congressional level" ("The Shrinking Ten Percent," April 26, 1993, p. 29).
All this bespeaks anything but political powerlessness.
www.leaderu.com/marco/special/spc12.html
Combining economic and educational advantage with high-pressure lobbying tactics, gay activists have ridden waves of tolerance emanating from the sexual revolution to a position of almost irresistible influence in today's America. They have:
Secured, as mentioned previously, "normality" status from the American Psychological Association. Captured the AIDS research establishment and molded policy so as to make AIDS history's first "politically protected" plague.
Secured passage of legislation granting gays protected class status in eight States and scores of communities across America. Secured passage of the Federal Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, as a means to monitor so-called "gay bashing," and prepare for launching nationwide special gay advantage legislation. Secured Executive Orders in several States barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in State employment, etc. Secured political office both in the U.S. Congress and on numerous major U.S. city councils.
Secured privileges and benefits for live-in lovers and "domestic partners" identical to those of married couples, and other kinds of preferential treatment and lifestyle promotion in several major U.S. corporations.
Secured implementation of gay-created curricula promoting homosexuality as a "valid, healthy alternative" to heterosexuality.
Gained ordination in mainline church denominations. Case in point: On December 12, 1991, the Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph reported:
"A prominent Marin County, Calif., lesbian minister has been named the first openly homosexual pastor of a member church of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. The Rev. Jane Adams Spahr... will become a co-pastor of the Downtown United Presbyterian Church of Rochester, N.Y., on April 1.
"The Rochester church is part of a network of 45 Presbyterian churches in the nation that have declared themselves `More Light Churches,' open to anyone `without regard to sexual orientation or affectational preference.'"
In vivid contrast to the dignified non-violence which characterized the African American civil rights movement as led by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, gay extremist attempts to ride the civil rights bandwagon have been anything but civil.
Recently, gay activists vandalized California State office buildings. Burned State flags and California's governor in effigy after his veto of a special gay advantage bill. And pelted the governor himself with garbage at a speaking engagement following his veto.
In 1989, gay "AIDS activists" invaded a Roman Catholic mass at New York City's St. Patrick's Cathedral, shouting obscenities and defiling Communion elements. A few participants in this blatant desecration incurred slight legal penalties.
On Saturday, November 16, 1991, "A group of AIDS demonstrators dressed in suits and ties infiltrated the Family Concerns Conference brunch Saturday at First Baptist Church of Atlanta, then peppered the diners with hundreds of condoms while chanting `Safer sex saves lives.' The demonstrators were removed by church security guards and police. Outside, 90 placard-waving protesters marched in front of the church at Peachtree and Fifth streets, chanting and waving at automobiles as drivers honked and waved. There were no arrests.
"The action was staged by the National Organization for Women, Atlanta Pro-Choice Action Committee, and ACTUP/Atlanta . The groups oppose the conservative Christian group's stands against both abortion and high school sex education courses that provide information about the use of condoms to prevent AIDS transmission" ("AIDS activists crash church brunch," Atlanta Journal Constitution, Sun., Nov. 17, 1991, emphasis added).
"A catalogue to an AIDS art show, partly funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, reflects the general tone [of gay "arts" attacks against the Roman Catholic Church]: [New York's] Cardinal O'Connor is a `fat cannibal in skirts' and his cathedral is a `house of walking swastikas'... Savage mockery of Christianity is now a conventional part of the public gay culture. A ridiculous looking Jesus figure carrying a cross is always featured in the gay Halloween parade in New York..." ("The gay tide of Catholic-bashing," U.S. News and World Report, April, 1991, p. 15.)
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has given generous grants to homophile "works of art" which blatantly blaspheme traditional religious and family values -- to the applause of liberal gay advantage supporters who would doubtless fight any suggestion of federal funding for religious art "tooth and claw."
Gay activists' behavior at non-violent, pro-life Operation Rescue protests has been notoriously violent and even obscene. The Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1991, reported:
"Members of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, spit on, kiss and stick needles into Operation Rescue members and then shout `Welcome to the world of AIDS,' claims Bill Soucie, a Glendale abortion foe. Some ACT UP members push and shove Operation Rescue members, while others drop their trousers and moon their opponents or lift T-shirts to expose their breasts, he said...
About the nudity, ACT UP member David Barton is quoted: "`Sure, it's militant behavior,' he said. `These people are so offensive to us, we do whatever we can to offend them.' Nudity is sometimes just a spontaneous action, said [ACT UP member Judy] Kristel, who exposed her breasts at June 29 demonstration. Her action and that of three others who exposed themselves was videotaped and the tape given to El Monte police for possible prosecution."
It is surely a measure of gay activists' political power that no arrests were made and no charges were filed. Nor were charges filed or arrests made at San Francisco's 1990 and 1991 Gay and Lesbian Pride Parades, of which we have video footage depicting:
Public nudity, both male and female. Lewd and lascivious acts, including public fondling of genitalia and several acts of what appears to be public anal sex between homosexuals. Transvestism, "leather culture," sadomasochistic paraphernalia, open promotion of pedophilia and savage ridicule of religious objects and symbols. Clear evidence of police presence, plus footage of San Francisco's mayor, who rode in and endorsed these parades. San Francisco police authorities were contacted and asked why no arrests were made. Their explanations were as follows:
1. Police officers present "may not have seen indecent behavior or received formal complaints." 2. Police "may have seen such behavior," but primary responsibility on that date was to "reflect community standards and maintain crowd control." 3. Mayor Art Agnos endorsed and participated in the parade, and the police department had to assume that his sanction was on anything that took place. 4. "These people [gays present] have shown they will riot at the drop of a hat, and it was the primary responsibility of police officers to keep the peace, even at the possible cost of tolerating public indecencies." In Madison, Wisconsin, on Sunday, September 8, 1991: "About 100 ACT Up protesters charged the Capitol... defacing the hallway leading to the governor's office with food and stickers and staging a `die-in' in the rotunda. They were protesting what they call `criminal' state policies against prison inmates with AIDS... The protesters were met by Capitol police and security officers, who closed the governor's office and blocked the group's entry. The protesters then tossed sandwiches and towels toward the door, and left numerous ACT Up stickers on the walls that portray [Wisconsin's governor Tommy] Thompson as a public health menace because of the prison policies. Other protesters used some type of black marker to write on the marble floor..." ("AIDS protesters deface Capitol," The Capital Times, September 9, 1991).
No arrests were reported in relation to this incident.
Obviously, that gay extremists can indulge in this kind of license, while ordinary rules of law are suspended, reflects considerable political power -- power gay activists themselves boast of having achieved. As recently as 1987, a report issued by the Federal Elections Commission stated that "The Human Rights Campaign Fund" [HRCF], the national homosexual PAC, was at that time the "16th largest independent political action committee (PAC) in the nation" and "the 39th largest PAC overall." Considering that at the time, more than 4,500 PACS had registered with the FEC, this represents enormous political power. The HRCF's Executive Director, Robert Basile commented on this news: "We have clearly become a big-league PAC, which means the gay and lesbian community has increasing power in American politics... This means we have recognizable clout in the election and in the legislative process of this country... For better or for worse, politics in this country responds to money, and politicians now know they had better respond to our community" (The Dallas Voice, June 19, 1987).
During the 1986 elections, HRCF raised more than $1.4 million. This put it in the top 1% of PACS nationwide. HRCF funded candidates in 112 political races -- "an incredible political achievement," according to political experts. By fiscal year 1991-1992, the HRCF's budget had grown to nearly $4 million. Recently, the HRCF announced a 1992-1993 projected budget of over $5 million (The Washington Blade, May 8, 1992, "Activists from around the country descend on the Hill"). The HRCF and affiliated gay PACs spent nearly $3 million in just six months of 1993, in attempts to see the ban on gays in the military lifted ("No Quick Fix," Out, Dec./Jan. 1994, p. 90).
In addition to the HRCF, gay militants have established the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund (GLVF), a Washington, D.C.-based PAC aimed at funding local, openly gay candidates, with an eye to changing public perception of gays, especially in mid-to-small-size cities and towns. GLVF boasts current national membership support in excess of $550,000 (The Washington Post, "Gays Are Gaining Ground in Local Politics," May 23, 1993, p. A22).
Political scientist J. David Woodward comments:
"Gay, lesbian and bisexual interest groups are among the fastest-growing and best-financed lobbies in the country. In 1993 the top six gay groups raised more than $12.5 million for operating and political purposes. In 1987 the same six groups had combined budgets of only $3.2 million [though, as observed above, this sum already qualified gay militant political power as `big league']. The Human Rights Campaign Fund, the leading homosexual political action group, ranked in the top 50 of more than 4,700 Political Action committees on the 1992 Federal Election Commission report. Contributions to HRCF were up 136 percent over donations in the previous reporting cycle. This one group is said to have given $3.5 million to the Clinton campaign in the last presidential election, and HRCF contributed to 190 Senate and House candidates with an 85 percent success ratio. In close contests where the homosexual lobby chose to concentrate its efforts by contributing between $7,000 to $10,000, HRCF candidates won 21 out of 28 times.
"The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force boasts of having won `countless victories' for homosexuals. The homosexual groups draw on over 150,000 regular donors and have a combined mailing list of about half a million. There are over 90 nationally based homosexual organizations, including professional subunits in the academic disciplines of sociology, psychology, and political science. On college campuses gay and lesbian studies programs are expanding, and `Gay Pride' events are a regular part of the academic calendar."(World Magazine, Oct. 30, 1993, reported in The Journal, Jan. 1994, pp. 6,7.)
10 Percent, a gay magazine, quotes current HRCF Executive Director Tim McFeeley as follows: "`By conservative estimates, the [gay] people who went to [Washington] D.C. [for the 1993 March on Washington] spent $100 million. That's the kind of money our community spends and [our political] organizations so desperately need'" ("Capital Gains," Fall 1993, p. 76). The Washington, D.C., Convention and Visitors Association's official estimate was "that the event brought more money to the capital -- $177 million -- than any other single event they'd tracked. Bill Clinton's inauguration, by contrast, brought in just $65 million" (Out, op. cit., p. 91, emphasis added).
Time magazine has commented: "Because [homosexuals] are highly mobilized and tend to have more discretionary income, gays have an impact on elections that is disproportionate to their number." Highlighting gay militants' sizeable donation to the Clinton presidential campaign, Time adds: "This power has even greater effect on the congressional level" ("The Shrinking Ten Percent," April 26, 1993, p. 29).
All this bespeaks anything but political powerlessness.
www.leaderu.com/marco/special/spc12.html