Frigide Barjot promised 'blood' in response to marriage equality passing.

As the French National Assembly prepares to vote on final approval of marriage equality, anti-gay violence has severely escalated. Multiple guerrilla rallies by opponents of the law have taken place over the past few days, resulting in vandalized cars, assaulted journalists, and even death threats to lawmakers. A 24-year-old gay man was brutally beaten Saturday night after leaving a club with his boyfriend in the latest example of how the opposition is directly targeting gay people.Police have already made over 100 arrests over the past week.

Now, the president of the National Assembly has received a death threat:

Claude Bartolone, the Socialist president of France’s Assemblée Nationale (lower house of parliament) on Monday received a threatening letter containing gunpowder and demanding he defer a parliamentary vote, expected to definitively legalize gay marriage on Tuesday.

The one-page letter, signed by “an intermediary of law enforcement,” warns Bartolone that “our methods are more radical and more swift than protests”, according to French magazine L’Express.

The document concludes with the statement “You wanted war, and you’ve got it.” [...]

“Allowing marriage for all would be the same as destroying all marriage,” the letter says, before making the chilling threat: “If you were to carry on regardless, your political family will have to suffer physically.“

The National Organization for Marriage, which has direct ties to the French opposition through a newly (and somewhat secretly) launched International Organization for Marriage, has tried to downplay the level of violence. In an email last week, NOM’s Brian Brown claimed that “peaceful demonstrations” were taking place and blamed the violence on supporters of marriage equality — without much evidence to support it. Indeed, French President François Hollande has spoken out to condemn the homophobic violence specifically, which NOM has yet to acknowledge.

Given both chambers of Parliament have already approved the legislation and this week’s final vote is merely a technicality to resolve some amendments, marriage equality is coming to France. But thanks to groups like NOM stirring up conservatives, equality could come accompanied by uncontrolled anti-gay violence.

Watch a EuroNews clip highlighting the past week’s anti-equality protests:

On Wednesday night’s Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert addressed the new song from Brad Paisley and LL Cool J, “Accidental Racist,” which happens to be, apparently, accidentally racist. Colbert described the song as “uniting all of us… to join our voices as one and declare, ‘This song sucks!’” He was so inspired by it that he wrote his own “awful” song to bridge the gay marriage divide. Joined by openly bisexual actor Alan Cumming, Colbert borrows Paisley’s tactic of playing dumb to avoid responsibility for homophobia. Cumming retorted, “If you don’t judge my parades, I’ll forget what you said about monkeys and AIDS,” a reference to the beliefs of Tennessee Sen. Stacey Campfield (R), sponsor of the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” bill. Watch it:

This post has been updated to correct that Alan Cumming identifies as bisexual.

Police clash with violent anti-equality protesters Wednesday night. (Photo credit: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP)

The French Parliament prepares for its final vote on marriage equality next week, and opponents of marriage equality have promised violence and homophobic attacks have begun to increase. French President François Hollande has denounced these reactions:

HOLLANDE: Homophobic acts, violent acts have been committed. The right to protest is recognized by our constitution and accepted by the French. But no protest must degenerate.

On Wednesday, several thousand protesters took to the streets of Paris, leading to cars and public property being damaged, as well as police officers and journalists being attacked. Wednesday night, four people carried out an attack at a gay bar, punching the bar manager, throwing chairs through windows, and causing other material damage. On Monday, 70 anti-gay protesters were arrested for attempting to set up a campsite outside the National Assembly.

Marriage equality has already passed in both chambers of Parliament — next week’s vote in the National Assembly is merely a final technicality to address minor amendments made in the Senate. Opponents are planning to nevertheless proceed with their march on May 26th, demanding the law be withdrawn.

Wilfred de Bruijn, France's 'Face of Homophobia'

The vote to finalize France’s marriage equality bill has been expedited to next week, but opponents are going to fight it — literally. Frigide Barjot, leader of the anti-same-sex marriage group Manif pour tous, promised violence in response to its expected passage:

BARJOT: This is a disgrace. The French people don’t want this law, and what do they do? They speed up its passage. [President François] Hollande wants blood, and he will get it. We live in a dictatorship. The President of the Republic has guillotined us.

Members of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), France’s current minority conservative party, similarly suggested such a reaction. UMP deputies Christian Jacob and Hervé Mariton did not mince their words:

JACOB: The President of the Republic is risking a violent confrontation with the French people.

MARITON: [Passing the same-sex marriage bill is] an incitement to civil war.

Violence has already been an issue in France due to the same-sex marriage bill. When opponents held their most recent march, a group attempted to challenge police barricades and violate the march’s route and were met with tear gas. In general, gay rights groups have expressed concern about increasing levels of violence against the LGBT community, including one man, Wilfred de Bruijn, whose severe injuries have led to him being nicknamed “the face of homophobia.”

Interestingly, new details suggest a significant relationship between France’s anti-equality movement and the National Organization for Marriage, as was previously suspected. NOM has yet to condemn these promises of violence.

Dr. Ben Carson, the latest apple of the Tea Party’s eye, made yet another appearance on the friendly airwaves of Fox News on Tuesday to gripe about the Obama administration, denounce the liberal media, and equate gay couples with pedophiles and proponents of bestiality.

Carson, who stumbled onto the national stage and into the Republican Party’s heart almost two months ago after he gave a speech in front of President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast in which he called for a regressive tax system that punishes the poorest Americans, was a guest on Sean Hannity’s show yesterday, and ended the interview on the most hateful of notes:

CARSON: My thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman, it’s a well-established uh, fundamental pillar of society. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA [the North American Man/Boy Love Association], be they people who believe in beastiality, it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition. So it’s not something that’s against gays, it’s against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of pillars of society. It has signifcant ramifications.

The segment ended shorty afterward, leaving Hannity with no time to clarify whether Carson, himself a black man, would have also been opposed to the 1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia, a decision that redefined the same “fundamental pillar of society” as something that could not be inhibited by race.

Carson’s comments also puts him at odds with every major medical association in the country. Both the American Medical Association’s code of conduct and the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual contain strong and unambiguous language on homosexuality as neither a medical nor psychological condition but rather a perfectly healthy and biologically-rooted lifestyle, and remain critical of anyone who suggests otherwise.

He is also far from the first Republican to equate homosexuality to things like pedophilia. Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, state lawmakers and conservatives everywhere have all sought to paint the LGBT community and pedophiles with the same brush, even as their own party is pulled in the direction of equality.

The First Chamber of the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice ruled Wednesday that homophobic epithets are not protected under the nation’s “freedom of expression” laws. The case dealt with two rival journalists who publicly criticized each other’s work using such words as “maricones” (“faggots”) and “puñal” (“faggot rapist/predator”). According to a press release from the Court (translated by Andrés Duque), such language is discriminatory even if it is used jokingly:

The First Chamber determined that homophobic expressions or — in other words the frequent allegations that homosexuality is not a valid option but an inferior condition — constitute discriminatory statements even if they are expressed jokingly, since they can be used to encourage, promote and justify intolerance against gays.

For this reason, the Chamber determined that the terms used in this specific case — made up of the words “maricones” and “puñal” — were offensive. These are expressions which are certainly deeply rooted in the language of Mexican society but the truth is that the practices of a majority of participants of a society cannot trump violations of basic rights.

In addition, the First Chamber determined that these expressions were irrelevant since their usage was not needed in resolving the dispute taking place as related to the mutual criticism between two journalists from Puebla. Therefore it was determined that the expressions “maricones” and “puñal”, just as they were used in this specific case, were not protected by the Constitution.

The Supreme Court of Canada similarly ruled last month that anti-gay rhetoric is a violation of the country’s hate speech laws.

These landmark rulings by the America’s North American neighbors come as the United States Supreme Court prepares to hear two cases related to same-sex marriage.

Today, Congress finally voted to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, or VAWA, a traditionally bipartisan bill which provides assistance to victims of domestic violence.  For the first time since the bill was first introduced in 1994, Congress allowed the Violence Against Women Act to expire at the end of 2012 because House Republicans opposed new provisions which would improve care and access to services for LGBT people and Native American women.

Their resistance is especially ironic, given that the whole purpose of the Violence Against Women Act is to ensure that no victim of sexual assault or domestic violence be denied access to the support, assistance, and protection that they need, especially among underserved communities. It has also become increasingly clear that LGBT people fall into the category of “underserved.”

LGBT Americans face the roughly the same rate of domestic violence as their straight counterparts — one out of four to one out of three same-sex relationships has experienced domestic violence compared to one in every four heterosexual woman who will experience sexual violence  in her lifetime. Moreover,  nearly 62 percent of LGBT and HIV-positive victims were denied access to shelters in 2011, due in part to the unwillingness to accept gay men in these facilities. Additionally, authorities often lack the knowledge of how to handle domestic violence cases involving two people of the same gender. The current system fails to adequately address domestic violence in the LGBT community.

Here is how the progressive, newly improved Violence Against Women Act better protects LGBT people:

• VAWA now contains a nondiscrimination clause that prohibits LGBT victims from being turned away from services like traditional shelters on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
• VAWA now explicitly names LGBT people as an underserved population, which allows organizations serving LGBT victims of domestic violence to receive funding from a grant program that focuses specifically on underserved populations.
• VAWA now allows states, at their discretion, to use certain grant funds to improve responses to incidents of domestic violence among LGBT people. This bolsters law enforcement, prosecution, and victim service efforts within states.

Our guest bloggers are Christopher Frost, Intern, and Katie Miller, Special Assistant, with the LGBT Research and Communications Project at the Center for American Progress.

Several fringe conservative groups have filed amicus briefs in the case challenging California’s ban on ex-gay therapy for minors. These groups rely solely on their own subjective research to defend individual’s right to try to change their sexual orientation if they wish to, conveniently disregarding that the anti-gay stigma they promote is the only reason anybody has negative feelings about their sexual orientation in the first place. Among the amici is the so-called American College of Pediatricians (ACP), an impostor organization of social conservatives that won’t even admit how few members it has. Unlike the LGBT-supporting 60,000-member American Academy of Pediatricians they hope to be mistaken for, the College peddles junk science to defend ex-gay therapy, including that homosexuality is caused directly by trauma. Here’s how they explain it in their brief:

These children need therapy for the trauma, not affirmation of a “gay identity.” Trauma (as an objective, measurable external event) lends itself to quantitative research and has been studied relative to homosexuality. One example of this is the disproportionate extent of sexual abuse during the childhoods of adult homosexuals. Another example is the increased association of homosexuality and gender identity disorder with parental separation at critical developmental stages.

There are also two forms of psychological trauma commonly associated with homosexuality. The first is the trauma caused by the child’s subjective experience of the same-sex parent’s lack of availability, rejection, or even harsh verbal, physical, or sexual attack. This may lead to an intense longing for love from the same-sex parent that is eventually sexualized by the child. Similarly, psychological trauma may also be caused by the child’s subjective experience of the opposite-sex parent’s lack of availability, rejection, or even harsh verbal, physical, or sexual attack. This may lead to an intense fear of and aversion toward opposite-sex relationships. In both situations, by objective standards, the parent may or may not be described in these terms.

While these traumas are unusually common in the childhoods of same-sex attracted persons, they are not universal, and in many cases, other, less typical traumas may be present. This reflects the inherent complexity of the interaction between one’s biologically influenced temperament, various environmental factors and the free-will choices individuals make.

The primary citation for most of these bogus claims is not even a scientific research paper, but a book called Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, which was written by Orthodox Jewish psychiatrist Jeffrey Satinover and published by evangelical Christian publisher Baker Books. Satinover compares homosexuality to alcoholism and pedophilia, describing it as a compulsion instead of an identity.

Another impostor group, Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays And Gays (PFOX), also filed a brief that primarily highlighted four testimonials from people who claimed to be ex-gay. One of them isn’t even alive anymore, but unsurprisingly, all four of them started organizations that profit off of promoting and offering ex-gay therapy. This includes the infamous ex-gay therapist Richard Cohen, who was expelled from the American Counseling Association for six violations of its ethics code.

Though these groups represent a fringe mentality on sexuality, many still believe their ideas have merit. Not only do they not, but these ideas are harmful, which is specifically what the law banning ex-gay therapy was meant to address. Their objection to it does not change this reality. (HT: Kathleen Perrin.)

William Whatcott

The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that the nation’s laws against hate speech do, in fact, restrict anti-gay rhetoric, regardless of whether it reflects religious beliefs or not. The case dealt with William Whatcott of Saskatchewan, who regularly protests in public spaces with signs that say things like “Keep Homosexuality out of Saskatoon’s Public Schools!” and “Sodomites in our Public Schools.” According to the Court’s unanimous decision, Whatcott’s religious beliefs do not entitle him to spread messages that are harmful and marginalizing to a whole group of people:

Framing speech as arising in a moral context or within a public policy debate does not cleanse it of its harmful effect.  Finding that certain expression falls within political speech does not close off the enquiry into whether the expression constitutes hate speech.  Hate speech may often arise as a part of a larger public discourse but it is speech of a restrictive and exclusionary kind.  Political expression contributes to our democracy by encouraging the exchange of opposing views.  Hate speech is antithetical to this objective in that it shuts down dialogue by making it difficult or impossible for members of the vulnerable group to respond, thereby stifling discourse.  Speech that has the effect of shutting down public debate cannot dodge prohibition on the basis that it promotes debate.  Section 14 of the Code provides an appropriate means by which to protect almost the entirety of political discourse as a vital part of freedom of expression.  It extricates only an extreme and marginal type of expression which contributes little to the values underlying freedom of expression and whose restriction is therefore easier to justify.

A prohibition is not overbroad for capturing expression targeting sexual behaviour.  Courts have recognized a strong connection between sexual orientation and sexual conduct and where the conduct targeted by speech is a crucial aspect of the identity of a vulnerable group, attacks on this conduct stand as proxy for attacks on the group itself.  If expression targeting certain sexual behaviour is framed in such a way as to expose persons of an identifiable sexual orientation to what is objectively viewed as detestation and vilification, it cannot be said that such speech only targets the behaviour.  It quite clearly targets the vulnerable group.

Canada’s laws differ from the U.S.’s in terms of what limitations can be placed on free speech, so a similar law would not likely be upheld back in the States. But the Court’s ruling is notable for the sensible way it addresses sexual orientation, ensuring that attacking the behavior unique to a group of people is the same as attacking the people themselves.

Conservatives regularly try to discount the very existence of gay people by reducing their identities to merely their sexual behavior. This distinction is artificial and specifically designed to negate the full life experiences of LGBT people and their families.