OK, I’ve just received a few more letters from Donald Wildmon, the man behind the oh so benign-sounding “American Family Association.” Here they are, in all their brilliant lunacy:
Let me take a minute to tell you of a video that has really taken us by surprise. The video is entitled “It’s Not Gay.” In the last few weeks we have received thousands of orders for “It’s Not Gay.” We had no idea there would be such a demand for the video.
It presents a story that few have heard. In the video, former homosexuals tell their own story in their own words. Along with the homosexuals, medical and mental health experts give a clear warning that the sanitized version of homosexuality being presented to students and in the media is not accurate.
I guess one reason the video has enjoyed such surprising sales is that it is 28 minutes long, which makes it a great tool to use with a Sunday School class, evening service or study group.
I hope you will order a copy and show it to your group. It should be shown in every church in America. The price is only $15, including shipping.
To order, click here.
Sincerely,
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family AssociationP.S. Please allow three weeks for delivery.
What I found most interesting, aside from the depravity inherent in making money through the sale of hate tapes for kids, was what came after the sales pitch — an ad for The American Family Association’s web filtering products; AFO Online, their internet service provider (which even does you the favor of filtering out news that you may not like!), and Bsafe Online, a filter that you can strain your internet though (if you can’t get the pre-filtered AFO Online)… For just $50 a year, per computer, you can filter everything, from mentions of drinking (I kid you not) to un-supervised, non-Christian chatrooms.
OK, here’s the second note from Donald:
HELP MAKE THE DISPLAY OF THE TEN COMMANDMENTS LEGAL IN ALL PUBLIC PLACES
Dear Mark,
As you know, the Supreme Court is currently studying the Ten Commandments issue. The Supreme Court is not immune to the will of the people. While we cannot directly influence the outcome of the decision by the Supreme Court, we can express our desires as citizens of the United States.
I urge you to join with other Americans in expressing a desire that the Ten Commandments can be legally displayed in all public places. It is important that we have a moral basis for our laws. The Ten Commandments are in essence the foundation for our laws. Should the foundation be destroyed, the building will fall.
Please join me in supporting the display of the Ten Commandments in all public places, including schools and courtrooms.
From time to time the number of Americans who have expressed a desire to see the Ten Commandments legally displayed in public places will be released and forwarded to the Supreme Court. It will take millions of Americans participating for us to be successful.
Thank you for participating in this effort. If we are to be successful, we need you to forward this letter to others today.
Sincerely,
Donald E. Wildmon, Founder and Chairman
American Family AssociationP.S. Don’t forget to forward this letter to others today. It is very important that they know about and participate in this effort.
I need to run upstairs now, to help with the baby’s bath, so I can’t really comment except to say that these people are seriously fucked up and we need to do whatever we can to keep them from influencing policy. If you haven’t done so already, give something to the ACLU right this minute (before we find ourselves having to pray in public places).
Ok, while we’re on the subject of the muscle-flexing American fundamentalists (I suppose the baby’s bath can wait while I post one more link), you should also read this article on the Pennsylvania school district that’s looking to build “Intelligent Design” (a codeword for creationism) into its curriculum, despite the Supreme Court’s ruling that to teach creationism in a public school would violate the constitutional separation of church and state.
OK, now I really do have to run up and help with the bath… If one of you gets a chance, write to Wildmon and see if he’ll send you a copy of the “It’s Not Gay” video for free. (Don’t pay for it.) I’d like to hear a review… As I sit here, thinking about it, I can easily imagine a video which aims to convey the fact that gay people in “real life” aren’t like they are on TV, but I don’t think that’s probably what Wildmon is going for. My video would just show boring, unfashionable gay and lesbian folks at their jobs, or doing something equally inane, like watching TV. (“See, kids, they aren’t really glamorous at all!”) I think, however, that Wildmon probably has something else in mind though. I’m envisioning a voiceover that says, “Kids, if you watch TV, you might think homosexuals are cool. Well, I’m going to introduce you to a few men now who don’t think homosexuals are so cool… They’re the victims of the gay cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer!!!” (It would be kind of a new version of Scared Straight.)
OK, now I do have to go and give Clementine her bath.
16 Comments
In searching for a review of the film ‘It’s Not Gay’ on-line, I stumbled across this very helpful tool for determining what actually qualifies as gay sex.
It was appear as though, technically speaking, I have yet to have real gay sex.
My initial thought/question was “Why on earth is Mark on this lunatic fringe’s list?” But then I realised it’s probably a case of Know Thy Enemy. I applaud you, Mark, because that shit would make me want to shoot people – specifically, fundamentalists – and I’m a pacificist, so that wouldn’t work at all!
I’m okay with the 10 commandments being displayed in public buildings as long as each installation is accompanied by a rotting goat’s head sacrificed to Baphomet.
Fair’s fair.
It seems like I’m sayin’ it all the time, Steve, but Ypsi won’t be the same without you…
Do me a favor and keep stopping in when you get to Hamtown.
As for all of these fundamentalist newsletters, Kathleen, if I were more organized, I’d suggest that we all sign up for a few and then start up a sister site to MM.com where we could keep tabs on them as a public service.
Aw Mark. Ypsilanti’s going to be exactly the same as it was before I showed up. I didn’t even deface anything (yet).
As far as visiting your weblog, you can forget it. As soon as we move Hillary and I are going to become rockstars and won’t be bothered with c-list celebrities like yourself.
I volunteered to monitor the Howard Stern Show for the American Decency Association but didn’t get a reply.
My plan for groups like the ADA and AFA employ “creative” tactics used by a number of intel organizations. Infiltrate and subvert.
But what a horridly boring hobby that’d be. We could just make fun of them.
Oh, by the way, good-lookin-out with monitoring the crazies. I’m on all kinds of mailing lists which deliver all the goodies to my inbox. Between mailing lists and rss feeds I’m up to my eyeballs in the stuff.
Last night I was getting crazy reading the Rush Limbaugh Show transcript about renaming Detroit “New Fallujah”.
Nothing that a few internment camps wouldn’t fix.
I think Boblo Island would make a great internment camp.
I like the idea of using Boblo Island, Steve, but I’d rather see it become a kind of reverse Ellis Island.
I nominate Mark king of Bob-lo Island. Sorta like the king of beaver island.
Folks,
As a committed Catholic, and therefore officially one of the crazies mentioned above, I’d be agreeable to the idea of the goats head being posted next to the 10 commandments…assuming that a vote of the people involved in the constituency in question was in favor of the goats head.
By the way, does the goat’s head actually have to be rotting? If we suggest a goat’s head that has been treated with preservatives, is that right out?
By the way, I’d also like to congratulate you on the impressive level of hypocrisy it takes to want to silence the AFA and their exercise of free speech inherent in the distribution of this video. Are you folks generally against free speech, or only against it for “crazies”?
If you believe that this video constitutes hate speech, or that it incites violence against practicing gays or lesbians, you should collect information about the motivation that the AFA had behind making the video, and all the cases of violence against gays that it has engendered. If it is as awful as you say, that should be relatively easy, right? Then take the evidence to a local DA, and get charges preferred against the AFA in each of the cases of violence that you found.
Let me know how that works out.
Rob
Rob,
I’m glad you’re open to the goat head suggestion, though myself I’d prefer to have neither in a governmental setting.
I don’t believe that anyone here is trying to silence the AFA or accuse them of overtly inciting violence, but rather pointing out that the group is being a tad intolerant of others by their publication of these items.
Call me a cultural relativist, but I don’t support groups that make a living by demonizing harmless behavior. It seems that the Catholics spent a long while as a persecuted minority here in the states, and as such you might recognize that sometimes the ‘popular opinion’ isn’t always the best way to judge what’s ‘right’. As I understand it, this is precisely why we have a constitutional democracy as opposed to a theocracy.
“assuming that a vote of the people involved in the constituency in question was in favor of the goats head.”
So only the majority gets to have their idols displayed on public property. Sounds a bit like state endoresed religion.
The point of the goat-head is that the only way it can be fair is to have all religions represented and I can promise you that nobody wants that.
I would like to air “It’s Not Gay” on my website http://www.OutoftheCloset.TV. Does anyone know the producers of the film? Could you have them email me. You can reach us at Ted@OutoftheCloset.TV
As memory serves, you can find copies for sale on-line. And I’m sure there are email addresses associated with those offers… As they’re selling them though, I doubt they’d allow you to air it for free on-line. Sure, they’d love to win a few gays over to having sex the way God would want them to, but I suspect they like the money just as much.
For the record, I’m Catholic, but not “crazy.” And I hate that these days all Catholics are viewed as right wing Republicans who want to inflict their beliefs on everybody else.
I’m sure I have much more in common with Mark, Brett and Tony than I do with self-proclaimed Catholic Crazy, Rob.
Just saying…