Conservative groups that claim to support families are outraged today that Target has begun selling a series of t-shirts supporting National Pride Month, featuring rainbow designs and messages like, “Love is love,” “Pride,” and “Harmony.” Target has pledged that 100 percent of sales (up to $120,000) will go to benefit the Family Equality Council, which advocates for same-sex couples and their families. But Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council conveniently missed the memo about who Target is supporting, despite the fact it’s on the store’s website and in all other news reports about the special offer:

PERKINS: Target’s slogan is “expect more.” And when it comes to their politics, Americans do. Hello, I’m Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. One of America’s biggest companies isn’t just named Target–it’s becoming one. Starting May 20, the mega-chain’s introducing a new line of same-sex “marriage” merchandise that says, “Love is love.” Target promises to donate 100% of the profits to a national homosexual group–but they don’t specify which one. Retail analyst Britt Beemer says that Target’s strategy isn’t “very smart,” especially in conservative states, where it does the biggest business. “Anytime a retailer gets away from doing what they should be doing by being involved in a social cause, [they] lose.” The company said it wanted to “resonate beyond fashion.” But if they’re looking to resonate with Americans, they ought to try defending marriage. According to voters, the country’s still very opposed to redefining it. Let Target know that its agenda isn’t your style. Log on to target.com, scroll down, and click “Contact Us.”

It seems odd that Perkins is the only person who doesn’t know what organization Target is supporting, but perhaps he simply doesn’t wish to explain why the Family Research Council is at odds with the Family Equality Council. It’s also probably not “very smart” to attack a store for making a business decision in which they are not actually trying to make money. Besides, despite whatever Perkins might spin about state ballot initiatives, polling continues to show that a majority of Americans support marriage equality.

The American Family Association is also angry at Target, but at least Tim Wildmon acknowledged that the store “purposely” chose to “offend” him by “donating cash to support the Family Equality Council’s push for legalizing homosexual marriage.” Given that AFA claims there is a “War on Christmas” because department stores do not feature enough Christmas messaging in December, this new campaign of theirs is arguably a “War on Gays.”

Target faced a large backlash in 2010 when it gave $150,000 to support anti-gay Republican Tom Emmer for governor of Minnesota. Last year, court documents revealed that Target executives have previously expressed concern that they might be perceive as supporting same-sex marriage. The Minnesota-based company has remained neutral on a proposed marriage inequality amendment on the ballot in November.

Last week, Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) told ThinkProgress that he opposes LGBT nondiscrimination protections, like those that would be afforded by the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, because he believes it should be legal to fire people for their sexual orientation. He explained that he believes being gay is a choice that is simply “behavior-related and preference-related.” Since then, Lankford has embarked on a press tour attacking ThinkProgress for misrepresenting him, choosing to ignore video that confirms his position was quoted and described accurately.

He continued that effort today in two radio interviews with anti-gay hate group leaders, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins and American Family Association’s Tim Wildmon. Perkins described provisions like ENDA as “special protections” and Lankford maintained that employers should have the legal right to fire someone for their “sexual behavior”:

PERKINS: The idea there is they’re looking for special protections; your point is that everybody should be treated equally. No one should be fired or denied employment based upon their sexual orientation — in the ideal world we won’t even know about it, why would we even ask that question?

LANKFORD: Right. But neither should you have a situation where no one can fire you because of your behavior outside of the workplace. We also should not be in a situation where there are special protections extended to say ‘if I have a certain sexual behavior then you can no longer fire me, I’m a protected class and I can do whatever I want in the workplace.’ That’s not true either. So we are trying to be able to keep that balance. When you say you create special rights you also create special privileges and protections to say that they are untouchable in the workplace and they can have any kind of work conduct they choose to on that, that’s not correct.

Listen to it (via RightWingWatch):

Lankford seems to believe that policies like ENDA would create an invulnerability, preventing people who are gay or trans from ever being fired for any reason, as opposed to merely protecting them from anti-gay and anti-trans discrimination in the same way race, sex, and other dimensions of identity are already protected. But it’s also clear that despite Perkins’ claim that “everybody should be treated equally,” both he and Lankford are building a misleading pro-gay narrative around their distorted understanding of sexual orientation.

Lankford and Perkins both believe that sexual orientation is a choice, but more precisely, that it’s defined only by behavioral choices. Neither comprehends (or acknowledges) that sexual orientation is an innate identity that individuals experience regardless of how or if they act upon it. From this discussion, they make clear that they don’t have any problem with somebody saying they’re gay, but if they “act” on their identity — whether it’s starting a family with a same-sex partner, campaigning for marriage equality, or even attending a drag show at a gay club — then they’re in violation of moral principles and shouldn’t be protected. What they are essentially promoting is a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” mentality for the workplace, which they believe would be the same as being “treated equally,” not unlike what Rep. Steve King (R-IA) recently proposed.

Groups like FRC and AFA defend ex-gay therapy for a reason: it’s part of the foundation for all their anti-gay positions. Only if sexual orientation is voluntary can they justify the discrimination they promote, and they ignore over 35 years of science to believe just that.

NOM's Brian Brown

Opponents of marriage equality are not happy that Vice President Joe Biden expressed his support for marriage equality yesterday. They’ve taken to Twitter and other outlets today to mock the White House, accusing Biden of being off-message and reiterating their standard anti-gay talking points. Here’s a selection:

BRYAN FISCHER: President Obama is a homophobic bigot: won’t endorse gay marriage like the enlightened Joe Biden. http://ow.ly/aJYqJ

TONY PERKINS: Ok, Mr. Vice President, how about 3′s Company? Two Guys & a Girl? Sitcoms are the inspiration for this admin’s policies? I’m not laughing!

BRIAN BROWN: It’s always hard to know what Vice President Biden is doing whenever he speaks. He could be launching a trial balloon, or he could just be being Biden with his foot in his mouth again. Whether he realizes it or not, Biden is declaring war on  those 30 states in America that have adopted constitutional amendments defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman… What Joe Biden wants—genderless marriage that kowtows to the demands of gay couples—cannot exist alongside traditional marriage.

Such aggrandizing rhetoric unsurprisingly distorts the entire conversation on the freedom to marry. For simply wanting all couples to have the “same exact rights,” Biden is “declaring war” and promoting polygamy? Hardly.

The American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer took his crusade against Richard Grenell — an openly gay man who is now Mitt Romney’s chief spokesperson for foreign policy — to CNN this morning, denouncing the former spokesperson for U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as a “homosexual activist who is actively working on behalf of homosexual marriage” to undermine religious liberties.

“The real issue here is for Governor Romney and what he thinks about homosexual behavior,” Fischer insisted. “My complaint about Governor Romney all the way along is not that he’s Mormon, but he’s not Mormon enough….The Mormon Church believes homosexual behavior is sinful and that homosexual acts are offensive to God. So the question that needs to be asked of Governor Romney, do you agree with the teaching of your Church? If you do — that homosexual acts are offensive to God — then why have you made the face of your campaign someone who engages in conduct that your own Church says is offensive to God?”

But when CNN host Kyra Phillips pointed out that Grenell served at the pleasure of conservative Bolton, Fischer found himself in the awkward position of defending Bolton’s tenure while condemning his chief spokesperson:

PHILLIPS: Did you think John Bolton did a good job when he was U.S. ambassador to the U.N.? [...]

FISCHER: He did a great job.

PHILLIPS: Okay. Grenell was his spokesperson….Bryan, I just thought that was interesting, you thought Bolton did a great job, and Grenell was his spokesperson.

FISCHER: Well, the point here is that personnel is policy. Everybody in D.C. says that. Personnel is policy. When Governor Romney picks somebody who is an activist homosexual and puts him in a prominent position, he’s sending a shout out, it seems to me, to the homosexual lobby.

Watch it:

The Log Cabin Republicans’ R. Clarke Cooper, who appeared in the segment with Fischer, stressed that “Governor Romney didn’t hire Ric because he’s a Protestant. He hired him because he’s qualified as a national security, foreign policy technocrat….Ric’s orientation had nothing to do with the hiring process.” “Bryan, ya’ll gotta be careful, because you are starting to sounding like George Wallace, ‘segregation today, segregation tomorrow,’” Cooper warned. “Be careful because you’re going to be left in the dust bin of history, buddy.”

Bryan Fischer, voice of the AFA

The American Family Association’s chief spokesperson, Bryan Fischer, is outraged that Mitt Romney hired Richard Grenell as his campaign’s national security spokesman. It’s not because of Grenell’s various offensive tweets, but simply because he is gay. Describing Romney’s choice as a “poke in the eye to the pro-family community,” Fischer chides the presumptive candidate for suggesting that homosexual behavior is healthy, not harmful as the AFA regularly claims. To compensate for this misstep, Fischer offers six anti-LGBT steps to help Romney “start pandering in a big, fat hurry”:

1. Publicly support the North Carolina marriage amendment.
2. Commit to a vigorous defense and implementation of DOMA.
3. Revoke federal spousal benefits for domestic partners of homosexuals.
4. Support reinstatement of the ban on homosexual conduct in the military.
5. Support right of chaplains to teach biblical view of homosexuality.
6. Publicly pledge to veto ENDA.

This encapsulated anti-gay, anti-trans agenda is particularly revealing. Fischer wants the odds to be stacked as much as possible against LGBT people in terms of their relationships, their right to serve their country, and their rights to employment. It’s a naked admission that social conservatives intend to discriminate. It seems doubtful Romney will walk back his support of maintaining the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, or draw focus to any other social issues as he seeks to pick up moderates in his general election campaign. Nevertheless, Fischer has drawn a line in the sand for social conservatives’ expectations, which could create a challenging balancing act for Romney.

On Friday, LGBT students and their allies will participate in the GLSEN-organized Day of Silence as a form of protest for the anti-gay and anti-trans bullying abuse that takes place in schools every day. Tomorrow, however, is the conservative Christian response, Focus on the Family’s ironically-named Day of Dialogue (formerly “Day of Truth”), which encourages students to express God’s condemnation of homosexuality to their gay peers. Over the past week, various anti-gay groups have promoted the Day of Dialogue’s harmful message while decrying the Day of Silence as anti-Christian intolerance that children shouldn’t be exposed to. Here are some examples:

• A coalition of anti-gay groups promote a Day of Silence Walk Out because “homosexuality and cross-dressing are immoral.”
• The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins said the Day of Silence should be banned because it’s a “cover for the promotion of homosexuality.”
• The Liberty Counsel encourages parents to remove their students from school on the Day of Silence, and the group’s chairman, Mathew Staver, described the day as “a radical and forced agenda of homosexuality.”
• The American Family Association sent out an alert to its subscribers, encouraging parents to pull their students from school because GLSEN promotes “controversial, unproven, and destructive theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality.”
• Truth in Action Ministries described GLSEN’s efforts as using bullying to “promote and essentially indoctrinate children” into the “deadly lifestyle” of homosexuality.
• Barb Anderson (Minnesota Family Council), Peter LaBarbera (Americans for Truth About Homosexuality), and Laurie Higgins (Illinois Family Institute) condemned the Day of Silence as”evil propaganda,” “brainwashing,” and “child abuse” comparable to the Nazi Party and slavery.
• The Manhattan Declaration, a document committed to anti-gay values even if it means violating laws, promoted the Day of Dialogue as a mean for students to “express a Biblical viewpoint in a loving and Christ-centered way.”
• The Alliance Defense Fund hopes the Day of Dialogue “shatters the silence,” countering messages that homosexuality is unchangeable.
• Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) is encouraging students to hand out fliers encouraging students to believe their homosexuality can —and should — change.

Indeed, all of Focus on the Family’s materials on the Day of Dialogue encourage students to use the Bible to condemn homosexuality as “broken” and promote ex-gay therapy that is known to be traumatic and ineffective. Given the overt antipathy encouraged against any LGBT-inclusive information, the day is perhaps better described as a Day of Monologue. This is a concerted effort to paint blatant in-school evangelism as welcome free speech and the stark silence of LGBT awareness as indoctrination, intolerance, and an unprotected disruption to school activities.

The Day of Dialogue is nothing short of encouragement to bully. Even if DoD participants do not attack or harass their targets, the stigma they encourage through condemning homosexuality helps maintain an unsafe climate for students with consequences that can last a lifetime. Students who have experienced prejudice-motivated bullying and victimization are more likely to attempt suicide, become clinical depression, or contract a sexually transmitted disease by early adulthood. In fact, simple exposure to stigma can increase the chances that LGBT teens experience suicidal thinking throughout the rest of their lives. Even living in a community that generally has socially conservative anti-gay attitudes can increase the suicide risk not just for gay, lesbian, and bi teens, but their straight peers as well. Minority stress also contributes to higher rates of substance abuse in the LGBT community, one of many negative consequences that can be mitigated by having gay-straight alliances in schools.

The Day of Dialogue is a direct attack on our nation’s youth, a campaign to impose not just religion in schools, but harassment, shame, and a lifetime of consequences. Not only do social conservatives oppose visible day of silence, they don’t want there to be a place in our schools for LGBT students at all.

The conservative group One Million Moms — a project of the American Family Association that has nowhere near a million moms — has found some more gay content that it wants to boycott. Having given up on their boycott of JC Penney over its use of Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson, the group is now outraged that the Urban Outfitters catalog features two women kissing:

Trash Your Teen’s New Urban Outfitters Catalog Today!

WARNING! The April 2012 catalog from Urban Outfitters has begun arriving in home mailboxes the last couple of days. On page two of this catalog is a picture of two women kissing in a face holding embrace! The ad and catalog are clearly geared toward teenagers.[...]

TAKE ACTION
Please send an email letter urging Urban Outfitters to discontinue this ad and immediately stop the circulation of the catalog with the two women kissing or you will make a conscious effort to shop elsewhere. Also, suggest they refrain from using this type of advertising in the future. An apology statement from the company for sending an offensive catalog to people’s homes would be appropriate and appreciated by customers and families as well.

One Million Moms didn’t seem to mind that the catalog also shows heterosexual couples being physically intimate. Obviously, teenagers kiss. In fact, the “first kiss” is a common narrative in almost every teenage drama ever written. The group’s shock is clearly targeting the kiss for being between two women, as if girls who even question their sexuality are not allowed to buy clothes and Urban Outfitters is not allowed to market to them.

Conservative boycotts over LGBT support have shown to be complete failures, often seeming to lead to improved sales at the very companies they are targeting. The National Organization for Marriage’s Starbucks boycott has corresponded with Starbucks stock hitting an all-time high. When One Million Moms called for a boycott of Toys ‘R’ Us for selling the same-sex wedding issue of Archie Comics, the comic sold out. The American Family Association has long boycotted Home Depot for its participation in LGBT pride parades, a concern the company’s board has easily brushed off.

GLAAD’s new Commentator Accountability Project (CAP) has one goal: ensure that the dastardly anti-gay comments social conservatives have made in the past are not ignored or forgiven when they make mainstream media appearances. Blogger Jeremy Hooper, a significant contributor to CAP, has pointed out that many of these individuals have been allowed to play “split roles,” railing against the LGBT community on conservative talk radio, then playing the part of “buttoned-up conservative” pundit on cable or local news. And in the day since the project launched, many of its targets have proven exactly why this accountability is necessary:

• The Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber called CAP an “Orwellian blacklist” established by “homo-fascists” trying to “silence Christian warriors.”
• Focus on the Family claimed that GLAAD was trying to “intimidate the media into forfeiting their constitutional right to freedom of the press.”
• Kevin McCullough railed against CAP as a guest host on American Family Association radio and told Politico that GLAAD is trying to “shut people’s voices down.”
• The Alliance Defense Fund claimed that CAP “targets free speech.”
• Ex-gay activist Randy Thomas defended the several individuals on the list, claiming they “would never say anything offensive for the sake of simply being offensive.”

In every case, these anti-gay voices are claiming to be victims, but they are only victims of their own quotes. In a way, the Commentator Accountability Project represents a culmination of the work LGBT bloggers have been doing for years, capturing the vitriolic rhetoric of equality opponents for all to see. The mere fact that they feel the need to respond by condemning GLAAD’s effort validates the value of this project. Now there is an accessible hub for these quotes — albeit not a full archive (by design) — to ensure that pundits don’t get away with being conservative standard-bearers without taking responsibility for the many dangerous lies and offensive values that define them. The jig is up.

The genius of CAP is that it creates a lose-lose situation for these would-be pundits. They can try to compensate by doubling down on their most offensive talking points and how loudly and widely they share them. Or, they can proceed with their typical media appearances and attempt to use the victim mentality to obfuscate responsibility for their own views. Either way, they stand to lose public favor, and no matter how they condemn GLAAD, that’s surely why they’re so perturbed.