Perhaps desperate that societal support for marriage equality and other LGBT issues continues to grow, anti-gay hate groups seem to be showing their true colors more and more, abandoning tame “protect our family values” talking points for flagrantly pro-bullying rants. MassResistance, in particular, is increasing its visibility, attacking Mitt Romney by painting him as pro-gay, partnering with the Family Research Council to smear GLSEN, and today inspiring fear in the American Family Association’s “news” outlet that the anti-bullying “It Gets Better” project might soon be used in schools. Oh dear!
The OneNewsNow “article” is merely a pedestal for MassResistance’s Brian Camenker to remind people of the group’s campaign against the “It Gets Better” project:
CAMENKER: The homosexual movement discovered in the early 1990s that they could use this tactic of claiming safety or anti-bullying or anti-suicide to do anything. They’ll scream and holler that if you don’t let them into the schools to give their program, then you favor kids killing themselves.
In addition to an archive of “Dan Savage’s sick and obscene attacks, writings, and statements,” MassResistance maintains a page designed to rebut the “It Gets Better” campaign as well as The Trevor Project, which provides suicide prevention resources for young people. Here are the four “big lies” MassResistance worries that these LGBT-affirming resources provide:
“LIE” #1: “You were born that way and can’t change.”“LIE” #2: “It gets better.”“LIE” #3: Suicide is caused by hate and intolerance.“LIE” #4: Promoting homosexuality as being normal and natural is good for troubled kids.
MassResistance would rather young people get the following messages:
1: Homosexuality is an “addiction,” and “the worldwide ex-gay movement has shown that people can heal and change if they desire.”
2: “It DOESN’T get better,” because “male homosexual behavior takes 20 years off one’s life” and “loneliness and depression are par for the course.”
3: The real reason gay (“gay”) teens contemplate suicide is “because they’re horrified at the disgusting things they’re doing to themselves.”
4: Promoting homosexuality is “psychological trauma” that harms kids “emotionally, psychologically, and certainly medically.”
In a way, it’s almost refreshing that MassResistance’s rebuke of the “It Gets Better” campaign is so candid and unvarnished. Here is a hate group being heralded by other hate groups for unabashedly trying to demonize LGBT youth, scare them into harmful ex-gay therapy, and condemn them to a life of self-hatred. Encouraging stigma is nothing short of a pro-bullying campaign. The media would portray MassResistance as a “fringe” group, but the organizations that command mainstream recognition like FRC and AFA stand hand-in-hand with Camenker and his vitriol. The fact that they seem to have no inhibitions about highlighting MassResistance speaks to how audacious their rhetoric is becoming.
Until the media stops treating hate groups as simply “the other side of the story” and repudiates their tactics, these dangerous messages will continue to permeate our culture. Fortunately, the “It Gets Better” campaign keeps growing, saving the lives of young people one video at a time, and there’s nothing Camenker can do to stop it.