NEWS FLASH

Anti-Gay Pastor Plays Victim, Complains That He’s Being Targeted By LGBT Groups | Rev. Keith Ogden of Hill Street Baptist Church in North Carolina — who supported the state’s effort to pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage and has accused gay people of “imposing a radical agenda on our society” — is playing up the conservatives’ victimization meme and has gone to the press to complain about “hateful” voice messages from the LGBT community. But the content of those messages pale in comparison to the kind of rhetoric conservatives regularly deploy to deny any legal recognition or benefits to gay people and same-sex relationships. For instance, Ogbden found a sign taped to his church’s marquee, urging him to “Focus on loving your own family” and four other voice messages accused him of hypocrisy and hating gay people. That is enough for a story in Asheville’s Citizen-Times, which only serves to perpetuate the the false argument that religious activists who seek to deny basic civil rights to minorities are somehow the real victims of intolerance.