Robert Gagnon is a close ally of the National Organization for Marriage, including being a regularly featured speaker at its national conference for college students; he’ll be there again this year. But Gagnon is also an outspoken advocate of harmful ex-gay therapy, and has helped to found the new ex-gay splinter group called the Restored Hope Network. Restore Hope broke away from Exodus International when that group’s president, Alan Chambers, admitted that there is no “cure” for homosexuality.

Equality Matters follows Gagnon closely, and noticed this week some outrageous comments he made on Facebook about gay-straight alliances (GSA). Chambers suggested in a recent video that if Christian young people attend a school that has a GSA, they should attend its meetings to learn and listen from those who utilize such a resource. Gagnon thinks they might as well attend a “Klu Klux Klan” [sic] or Nazi Skinhead group or one that advocates for “women abusers”:

GAGNON: More ridiculousness by Alan Chambers of Exodus (will it ever end?): Christian young people should respond to a “gay-straight alliance” in public school by going to such meetings “not to speak but to serve and listen and to offer to help, finding common ground.” There is no “speaking the truth in love” here (Eph 4:15). So if there is a “polyamory appreciation” group or “prostitutes for Christ” group or Ku Klux Klan / Nazi Skinhead group of “women abusers advocacy society” at a public school, Christian students should go to such meetings, not speak, but serve and find common ground? How can sane evangelical Christians support any longer any organization led by Alan Chambers? The man has become as “useful” to homosexualist advocacy as naive Western leftists of the 1920s to 1950s who extolled the virtues of Leninist and Stalinist Russia were useful to these dictatorial regimes.

Gay-straight alliances make schools safer for LGBT students and even help improve their academic performance, but Gagnon probably isn’t interested in such data.

No doubt, this is a man with fierce animus against gay people that extends well beyond just the question of same-sex marriage. It’s no stretch to conclude from these comments that he actually believes homosexuality will destroy modern society. NOM’s pride in highlighting him annually at its conference for young people is further proof of the organization’s clear anti-gay motives.

Various anti-gay conservative groups have been exploiting Wednesday’s shooting at the Family Research Council to push back on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate group” labeling. The event was indisputably a tragedy that has been roundly condemned, but it is now being used a political cover for anti-gay rhetoric. Unfortunately, various journalists are catering to the argument, as exemplified by two Washington Post columnists.

Dana Milbank engaged in some impressive double talk over the issue of the “hate group” label.  He called out FRC’s Tony Perkins for suggesting that the SPLC provided the gunman with “license” to shoot, but in the same piece suggested that “hate group” labeling is “reckless,” arguing it could “stir up the crazies”:

Human Rights Campaign isn’t responsible for the shooting. Neither should the organization that deemed the FRC a “hate group,” the Southern Poverty Law Center, be blamed for a madman’s act. But both are reckless in labeling as a “hate group” a policy shop that advocates for a full range of conservative Christian positions, on issues from stem cells to euthanasia.

I disagree with the Family Research Council’s views on gays and lesbians. But it’s absurd to put the group, as the law center does, in the same category as Aryan Nations, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Stormfront and the Westboro Baptist Church. The center says the FRC “often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science.” Exhibit A in its dossier is a quote by an FRC official from 1999 (!) saying that “gaining access to children has been a long-term goal of the homosexual movement.”

The violent history of the KKK and Aryan Nations are obviously quite different from that of anti-gay groups, though it’s worth noting that Tony Perkins has happily spoken in front of white supremacy groups before and even once rented a KKK Grand Wizard’s phone bank. Milbank seems content to focus on these differences, but in doing so he fails to notice the obvious similarities. Groups like the KKK, or even the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, might not function as a “policy shop” per se, but the effect of their efforts is no different. Groups that promote white supremacy and heterosexual-supremacy both publish and promote rhetorical fuel designed to foster hate, disdain, and bigotry against groups of people throughout society. Milbank seems to (incorrectly) believe that “hate” requires a certain threshold of hostility, oblivious to obvious tactics by conservative groups like FRC to polish their public image and save their vitriol for being-closed-doors meetings. Indeed, GLAAD’s Commentator Accountability Project exists primarily to point out that anti-gay activists are more candid about their views with “friendly” conservative audiences than they are when speaking to the mainstream media. By ignoring these tactics, Milbank essentially argues that promoting hate against LGBT people simply isn’t as bad as promoting hate against people of color.

Similarly, Jennifer Rubin complained that there is a double standard about who can be accused of perpetrating hate crimes, laughably claiming that “anti-Christian bias in the media is still acceptable in a way that anti-gay bias is not.” This is demonstrably untrue, with anti-gay Christian voices overwhelmingly dominating the media on LGBT issues. Rubin’s argument requires that she similarly subscribe to the conservative appropriation of Christianity, implying that any criticism of the extreme views of groups like FRC constitutes a smear on all people of faith. She even accused ThinkProgress of “turning itself inside out to insist killing someone for his or her religious-based views is not a hate crime. (You can Google, if you must.)” She purposely didn’t link, because our post actually made the case that Wednesday’s shooting could very well have been a hate crime.

The case being made against the label of “hate group” is weak, and intentionally distracts from the truly valid reasons the label was ever applied.

Change.org has released a petition calling for the resignation of Catholic Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, following comments the Cardinal made to FOX Chicago Sunday comparing the gay rights movement to the Klu Klux Klan’s anti-Catholicism. Equally Blessed, an umbrella group of pro-LGBT rights Catholic organizations, has reinforced the pushback by releasing a statement declaring in part that George, “has demeaned and demonized LGBT people in a manner unworthy of his office. In suggesting that the Catholic hierarchy has reason to fear LGBT people in the same way that blacks, Jews, Catholics and other minorities had reason to fear the murderous nightriders of the Ku Klux Klan, he has insulted the memory of the victims of the Klan’s violence and brutality.” The petition has already garnered well over half the 2,500 signatures the organization was aiming for.

Chicago’s upcoming gay pride parade had been rerouted past Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, raising concerns it would logistically interfere with that Sunday’s services — sparking Cardinal George’s incendiary comments:

CARDINAL GEORGE: Well, I go with the pastor. I mean, he’s telling us that they won’t be able to have Church services on Sunday, if that’s the case. You don’t want the gay liberation movement to morph into something like the Ku Klux Klan, demonstrating in the streets against Catholicism. So, I think if that’s what’s happening, and I don’t know that it is, but I would respect the local pastor’s, you know, position on that. Then I think that’s a matter of concern for all of us.

Watch it:

Meanwhile, Chicago’s LGBT community could give Cardinal George a lesson in graciousness: They met with representatives from Our Lady of Mount Carmel last week, and have agreed to a noon start time for the parade to accommodate parishioners moving to and from Sunday services.