When QueerToday.com and Stonewall Warriors protest the Focus on the Family's "Love Won Out" conference in Boston on Oct. 29 we will be doing so in concert with the massive regional Anti-War March happening at the same time on Boston Common. For us, Focus on the Family and the Bush war machine march in lockstep every day against the LGBT community and all oppressed people of the world.
We are committed to shutting down both of these twin evils, and we call on all of our brothers and sisters to join us.
Bush and the far right depend on the ideology of "God, Family, and Country" to shore up support for the war at home - at the same time those "family values" are used to dehumanize our community and separate us from those that should be our natural allies. Pat Robertson and Donald Rumsfeld drink from the same poisoned well of war, racism and poverty.
Three-hundred billion dollars for the war in Iraq steals desperately needed resources from HIV services for LGBT youth, school-based youth programs, victims of Katrina and social programs for us all. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has slammed thousands of us with dishonorable discharges, while trying to degrade our very humanity at the same time. We oppose the recruitment of gay youth - and all youth - into the military to fight and die for this immoral war!
We as a community cannot afford to be silent on this war. We certainly weren't silent during the Vietnam War. Our movement's history with the Gay Liberation Front and the Stonewall Riots sprang out of counter-cultural opposition to that war. Thirty-five years later the Iraq war is very much our issue too, and we cannot give it a pass. We must unite with other movements and forsake the divide and conquer disaster of single-issue politics.
Nothing makes Bush and Romney happier than seeing 16 social justice movements each separately working on just its own issue. Nothing worries them so much than to see all of our communities marching together. Look for our contingent on Boston Common at noon on Saturday, Oct. 29 and march with us past the Tremont Temple where the Love Won Out conference will take place. Join us to oppose the Ex-Gay Movement. We must build a movement that fights for all the issues!
Gerry Scoppettuolo
Stonewall Warriors,
www.iacboston.org
Mark Snyder
QueerToday.com
10 comments:
This protest is going to be amazing! I cannot wait to rally and rise up!
Radical Queers!!!
I attended the Love Won Out Conference. I am not a biggot or a homophobic. I came because I want to learn. What is the purpose of protesting something that is helpful to you? Why don't you go in and listen for yourself instead of getting pieces of your pro-gay propoganda? We love you! Really, it was not so necessary to be nasty to us...no one said anything to you. Just as you have your freedom of speech, we have our freedom to learn about homosexuality.
James Dobson Is A Biggot. Learning psuedo-science from Focus On The Family is not "learning about homosexuality." Try the American Psychological Association, or try a real gay person instead of an "ex-gay"
How is an ex-gay's testimony any less valid than a current gay? That makes NO sense!!!!
You need to stop throwing around the word biggot and homophobe like we need to stop throwing around the word "fag". It's not ok!!! I am neither a biggot nor a homophobe. In fact, I have several homosexual friends....but I still agree with the conference. Not everyone who disagrees with homosexuality is a homophobe.
We don't throw around the word bigot and homophobe. These words accurately describe the anti-gay conference that took place in downtown Boston. They certainly accurately describe James Dobson. When you have people presenting the image of LGBT people as sick and unhappy it is bigotry. When they put ads in major metropolitan newspapers saying things to that effect, it is bigotry.
And how dare you compare the (accurate) use of the word, "bigot" to "fag?" Conservative Christians are NOT twice as likely to have faced assault by a weapon in schools, openly gay and lesbian people are. It is NOT the same thing.
This has nothing to do with first amendment rights. We will never ask the State to silence anyone. It has to do with people who are responding to your homophobic speech with opposing speech.
You know, heterophobic hypocrites! John Kerry was against same-sex "marriage"! Is he a "homophobe"? Is Bill Clinton one for supporting the Defense of Marriage Act and "Don't Ask, Don't Tell"?
< never claimed to be a huge fan of kerry or clinton.
Yep, we are not going away. We will continue to rise up. thousands upon thousands of men and women are continuing every day to heed the word and voice of God. I am thankful for Exodus and focus on the family for the values that they send forth in this world of "what ever feels good do it".
I am an extrememely happy ex gay. Let me live my life without being protested against. Because as you protest me, you are spreading injustice and prejudice. You are just like those you are protesting against. Think about it. You want to be loved and accepted into society. You want to be the part of the norm. Well okay...be part of the norm. Live with your partner, marry, have children, work, be a positive member of society. Don't sleep around, stay monogumous, work on world peace. Love your partner and your children. Work hard. Help to ward off poverty and oppression, but do not oppress those who want to change, work on yourself and how you can be a role model in the community that you live.
this is just frustrating.
"Live with your partner, marry," umm isn't that what you and your focus on the family friends are fighting against? Yes.
Post a Comment