BY NATASHA BARSOTTI – In an online flyer aimed at kids, a US Christian group says “most cultures long ago decided” that men who wanted to date men and women who wanted to date women “was very wrong.”
“First of all, two men can never create their own child. Neither can two women. And two men kissing — well, it just doesn’t seem right. That’s because it isn’t!” the flyer goes to say.
Those statements are among other anti-gay items and prescriptions in “Questions and Answers for Kids about Homosexuality,” whose author is listed as Linda Harvey on the Mission:America website.
The document goes on to discuss bullying, noting that while making up “false stories that someone is ‘gay'” or calling boys names like sissy is “horrible,” neither is it “right to tell someone that being homosexual is okay.”
“So tell your friends, in a nice way, that no one needs to be ‘gay’ or pretend to be the other gender. It’s not the right thing to do,” Harvey advises.
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has listed Mission:America as a hate group.
Meanwhile, a so-called Values Voter Summit, hosted by the Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, DC, begins today, Sept 14. The SPLC describes it as a “gathering of rightwing religious activists” and lists the scheduled speakers along with some of their past pronouncements about queer people.
In a letter, the SPLC and other advocacy groups urged a number of public officials, including Republican vice-presidential hopeful Paul Ryan, who is invited to speak at the weekend summit, not to attend.
“The FRC is far outside the mainstream,” the letter states. “It has engaged in repeated, groundless demonization – portraying LGBT people as sick, vile, incestuous, violent, perverted, and a danger to the nation. One of its officials has gone so far as to say that homosexuality should be criminalized.”
The SPLC’s labelling of the FRC as a hate group led to a war of words following a recent shooting incident at FRC offices in Washington, DC. FRC president Tony Perkins said the SPLC’s branding of his organization as a hate group gave the shooting suspect Floyd Corkins “a licence” to shoot an unarmed guard.
But SPLC stood behind its listing, in the leadup to the weekend summit.
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