Monitoring Hate Speech: Recent News in West Virginia and Utah

Two stories in the news the last several days catch my eye. I see connections between them that may not be apparent to some readers. And I think those connections deserve attention.

The first story has to do with a video just released by the group West Virginia for Marriage—WV4Marriage. The video contains footage implying that some insidious group or groups could open fire on unsuspecting “traditional” families in West Virginia.

The video is on the homepage of WV4Marriage (here). The footage showing a family in the sights of a sniper is about a minute into the video. The context leaves viewers in no doubt about who is “attacking” such families in West Virginia. The voiceover states explicitly that those mounting these “attacks” are proponents of same-sex marriage: the gays, in other words.

The first thing that catches my attention here is that this representation of hidden gays planning an attack on an iconic all-American mom-and-pop-and-apple-pie family verges on hate rhetoric. As Jim Burroway notes on Box Turtle Bulletin (here), the video was released just days after the sentencing of Jim David Adkisson, a real shooter who opened fire against liberals and gays in a Knoxville, Tennessee, church last year, and whose written statements about that act suggest that he hoped to spur others to do the same:

And to think that this irresponsible image went out right as Jim David Adkisson was sentenced for training his scope on a gay-friendly church. Images matter, especially in a well-armed state like West Virginia. This conjured image of a “homosexual threat” has clearly crossed the line.

It is malicious and irresponsible for any group to claim that gay folks pose a potential threat to their fellow citizens and to families—a violent threat—in a culture in which precisely the opposite is overwhelmingly the case. LGBT citizens remain susceptible to violence at a much higher rate than most other groups in American society, precisely and solely because they are gay.

Whoever produced this video—and, as I’ll explain below, that’s a question still not completely resolved—is spurring violence against gay citizens. This is a form of hate rhetoric, and it needs to be declared beyond the pale.

The second interesting point about this video: do some digging to try to discover who funded and produced it, and you quickly discover that the answer to that question is—well, mysterious. Heath Harrison on the West Virginia Blue blog has the full story (here).

As he notes, WV4Marriage implores concerned West Virginians to donate to WV4Marriage, but doesn’t provide any clear indication to whom one would be donating, if one did send money. A search for the producer of the video leads to an interesting discovery: it was produced out of state. In Georgia, to be precise. By the equally mysterious group CampaignSecrets.com.

A group apparently led by one Mark Montini. With a history of producing anti-gay web materials and with ties to the Swift Boat Veterans. In the WV4Marriage video, we have, then, a video targeting citizens of West Virginia produced by a citizen of another state, through a website whose sponsors, affiliations, and funding are not made clear, and with a producer tied to (to use Heath Harrison’s phrase) other national-level “conservative misinformation group(s)” that have tried to herd voters to the polls to vote for conservative candidates on the basis of disinformation.

Interestingly enough, this is not the only story to break in the last few days re: a campaign mounted by a mysterious group attacking gays and employing hate rhetoric in the process. As the Towleroad blog is reporting (here), on Sunday, a group called America Forever, with no business license or PAC registration in Utah, placed a full-page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News. Towleroad characterizes the ad as hate rhetoric:

The ad is replete with hateful rhetoric and fear tactics. In fact it's so extreme that even those who agree with the message behind it think the group, which "does not have a current Utah business license as a nonprofit nor is it registered as a political-issues or political-action committee" according to the Salt Lake Tribune (here), has crossed the line with the ad, which "compares being gay to being 'druggies and hookers,' labels homosexuality as 'anti-species behavior' and concludes that 'gays should be forced not to display' their sexual orientation."

As the preceding statement from Towleroad indicates, a 16 February article by Rosemary Winters in the Salt Lake Tribune notes that America Forever’s lack of Utah business or PAC registration. The article also notes that the group had not responded to the Tribune’s request for more information by the close of business on the 15th. Head to the America Forever website (here), and you’ll find a mission statement, but not (at least, not insofar as I can find) an address or information on who founded the group and/or currently directs it.

And there you have it: two anti-gay initiatives in a matter of days, both inciting hatred of gay human beings, both spearheaded by organizations whose source of funding and leadership is not clear. In one case, the organization producing the material targets a state in which the video producers don’t even appear to live. The same may well be true in the other case, given the lack of any registration in Utah of a group placing full-page ads in Utah newspapers.

What to make of these stories? Now that the economic stimulus plan has been passed, it seems clear that at least one strategy those on the right will be using to attack and undermine the new administration, as the administration demonstrates success in addressing serious problems, is inflammatory anti-gay rhetoric. This is rhetoric designed to trouble the political waters and keep people distracted, so that they focus on hot-button issues and not the success of the new administration. In addition to its video claiming “Christians” are being attacked in our society today if they express anti-gay views, the American Family Association announced on 11 February a new initiative called Project Push Back (here).

It hardly seems coincidental that we are seeing the emergence, all at once and precisely at this moment in the history of the new administration, of well-orchestrated attempts to play the anti-gay card as the administration begins to do its work of putting the nation back on track. These local attempts are part of a larger strategy of the political and religious right to distract by targeting vulnerable groups: to use hate to make political points. To target human beings and human lives. And, shamefully, to do so in the name of God.

Those of us concerned about the use of hate to undermine our democracy need to continue monitoring these groups. And the new administration needs (in my view) to stop playing footsie with the religious right. It’s important to note that, as these initiatives stir hatred against gay citizens, there is still no federal-level protection for gay citizens against discrimination, and no federal hate-crimes law that includes sexual orientation.

We need action on those fronts. Real human beings are the target of these hateful political initiatives. Hate rhetoric has effects on real human lives. We need to find ways to place such rhetoric beyond the pale, and to stop allowing religious groups to claim the right to attack fellow citizens, stir hatred, and discriminate in the name of God.

Moving Beyond Lies: Responding to "Ex-Gay" Lies by Claiming the Gay Place at Table

Another update to my recent postings about the American Family Association’s beefed-up outreach to youth through the internet. Pam’s House Blend reported last evening that WOOD-TV, a Grand Rapids news station, has decided not to air the video “Speechless.” This is the AFA video that claims Christians are being silenced in the United States today about which I blogged yesterday (www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9447 and http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/02/targeting-youth-with-anti-gay-lies-afa_11.html).

Pam notes that the Human Rights Campaign issued an action alert yesterday about this video. The action alert notes that AFA intends to air this video nationwide, as an opening salvo in a battle against new Congressional pro-equality legislation, and, in particular, against hate crimes legislation to protect gay citizens from violence and discrimination (www.hrcbackstory.org/2009/02/take-action-afa-anti-lgbt-tv-program-could-air-saturday).

The HRC statement names the lies around which AFA is building this campaign to assault a vulnerable group of citizens. These include claims that “Christians” are being denied free speech and arrested for proclaiming the gospel. Linked to the HRC action alert is a video by HRC’s Religion and Faith Program Harry Knox. I find that the Central Valley Yes on Equality website links to my posting about AFA yesterday, with the same video (http://centralvalleyyesonequality.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/hrc-responds-to-afas-hate-crimes-lies).

Harry Knox’s statement about AFA’s campaign is powerful and unambiguous—he identifies the AFA initiative as one based on lies and distortions:

The truth is that the AFA and their allies have never been speechless when it comes to promoting their own agenda, and that’s driving a wedge in the very places where LGBT Americans work, live, and even pray. They claim to speak from a religious viewpoint, but they pervert the love and kindness that leads millions of Americans of faith to support common-sense hate crimes laws. As we gear up to pass a law that protects millions of Americans from hate violence, we must not allow these sixty minutes of lies and distortions to fuel more hate.

As my first posting today notes, German journalist Mario Kaiser has just published an op-ed piece discussing his reason for resigning from the Catholic church in the wake of Pope Benedict’s rehabilitation of anti-Semite Richard Williamson. For Kaiser, the straw that broke the camel’s back was the implication, in the Vatican response to the revelation of Williamson’s vile anti-Semitism, that Holocaust denial is one possible “position” among others.

Kaiser states, “But there are certain issues I do not want to discuss. I don't wish to discuss if Hitler had a lovely side to him. And I don't ever wish to discuss if the Holocaust really happened.”

Kaiser makes a very important point here, and it’s one that, in my view, applies both to Holocaust denial and to the “ex-gay” myth. Readers may have noted that, several times in recent days, Holocaust deniers have logged onto this blog to stir discussion of whether the Holocaust really happened, of details about what happened that have long since been settled by credible historians, and so forth. You may also have noticed how I chose to handle those attempts to gain a hearing for lies.

Rather than engage points of view that must not be engaged, if we wish to avoid giving them any semblance of legitimacy, I simply took these comments and their links to hate-filled anti-Semitic internet sites and used them as the occasion to tell the truth about the Holocaust. I countered lies with the truth. I blogged about what I have seen with my own eyes.

Arguing with Holocaust deniers about whether the Holocaust actually happened allows these purveyors of lies and hate to gain legitimacy for their lies. It allows them to represent their lies (and the agenda of hate underlying them) as one position among other possible, other thinkable, positions.

My strategy in dealing with those who pretend an interest in various “positions” when their real agenda is to promote noxious lies is simply to turn the tables of the conversation, and speak the truth back. I have learned not to engage arguments that claim to be all about fostering pluralistic discourse but are actually an attempt to shut the conversation down so that a false ideological position can be imposed in the name of truth.

This is a tactic I learned long ago in academic life. It’s a tactic about which I wrote back in the 1990s in an article entitled “Telling It Slant: American Catholic Public Theology and Prophetic Discourse,” Horizons 22 (1995), 88-103. That article takes its cue from Emily Dickinson’s insistence that we’re to tell the truth but tell it slant, since success in circuit lies.

And it’s more than a tactic, really: it’s a means of assuring that what really needs to be said and heard is said and heard, despite the attempts of those who want to control the conversation to keep the truth from being told. Right-wing interest groups have been adroit in recent years about pretending to use the structures of respectful pluralistic conversation regarding important issues to subvert any meaningful pluralistic conversation.

Those on the right with no commitment whatsoever to permit open conversation and a diversity of viewpoints about all kinds of issues—including the place of women in church and society, gender roles, homosexuality, evolution, and on and on—routinely charge anyone who challenges their lies (and names the lies as lies) with betraying the commitment to respectful dialogue. When their lies are identified, they shout about incivility and language that bashes others—even as they themselves engage in the most uncivil agenda of all, one seeking to deny human rights to others, and in ugly broad slurs about the character of those who do not fit the right-wing Christian norm.

As the masthead for this blog indicates, with Bilgrimage, I consider myself on a journey towards truth that needs to be spoken but doesn't get told. When I meet lies dressed as truth on this journey, I consider it important to undress them and deal with them for what they are. I do an injustice to myself and to others journeying with me if I allow lie to posture as truth and do not confront the lie hidden inside its nice clothes—even when I’m accused by those propagating the lie of being unkind or unfair in exposing a lie that is intended to have destructive social consequences.

My profile statement on this blog also says that I’m committed to challenging the religious right’s claim to own God. One of the premier ways in which those of us working to discover and speak the truth in those areas where the religious right insists on systemically distorting public discourse is simply to act as if the barriers imposed by the religious right are not there.

We who are gay are told, for instance, that we have no right to speak in the name of God, or about God, or about the scriptures. A number of websites are reporting today that a gay pastor was asked to give the opening prayer at the Oklahoma House of Representatives on Monday (www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2009/02/12/8743). At the end of the day’s legislative session, when a routine motion was made to enter the prayer into the minutes of the session, a legislator who objected to recording any mention of the prayer in the minutes called for a roll call vote.

Twenty legislators voted against recording the prayer. These included controversial Oklahoma legislator Sally Kern, a staunch ally of the religious right and wife of a Baptist minister, who has stated that gay citizens are a greater threat to the nation than terrorism. As Jim Burroway reports in the Box Turtle Bulletin article to which I’ve just linked, nothing about the prayer was controversial. One has to conclude, Burroway thinks, that the rhetoric of Christians on the right who claim to love the sinner while hating the sin is just that: rhetoric and and not an expression of what many in the religious right actually believe.

What this story says to me, loudly and clearly, is that many Christians on the right do not think that an openly gay person is qualified to pray. To use the name of God. To study and write about the scriptures. There is a claim of ownership of God running through the religious right that requires members of that movement to vilify, lie about, undermine, attack, smear, and annihilate gay human beings—in the name of the Lord, of course—and in particular, to do so when a gay human being claims the right to pray, to speak in God’s name, to read and interpret scripture.

As my postings on interpreting the holy stories of the world religions have noted (see, e.g., http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/12/gay-marriage-debate-and-ownership-of.html), I think that it is crucially important for those of us who are both LGBT and believers to claim our place at the table, as the scriptures are interpreted. The holy stories are our stories, too. They speak to us in ways they cannot speak to the comfortable and sated. We understand the joy of Mary, the mother of Jesus, at the thought of the mighty being cast down from their thrones and the lowly lifted up, and of the poor being filled with good things and the rich sent empty away.

It is important for us who are gay and Christian to claim our place at the center and act as if we have as much right to that place as any other Christian has. It is important for us to act as if the barriers are not there, as if the hedge of lies is not barring our entrance, and to speak as if our voice counts, to read and disclose the meaning of the scriptures as though we have as much right to this act of interpretation as any other believer.

As we do that, we begin to build up alternative discourse worlds that simply circumvent the roadblocks of the religious right, and alternative traditions of interpretation that challenge the dominant ones insofar as those bar voices from the margins such as ours. As we claim our right to speak in the name of a God whom we experience as grace in our life journey every bit as much as any other believer experiences that God, we also demonstrate in the most compelling way possible that the lies of the "ex-gay" movement are not one among several “possibilities” for believers, but are what they are: lies. Lies that should be ruled out of bounds every bit as much as Holocaust denial has been ruled out of bounds, and for the same reason: these are lies told to harm people, to diminish their humanity, to make people susceptible to scorn and violence. Such lies absolutely have to be exposed and weeded out in any civil society which seeks to allow everyone a place at the table.

We who are gay have an additional obligation to be concerned about stopping lies like these—noxious attacks on the humanity of others—because one of the groups in our society most susceptible to damage by the lies of the "ex-gay" movement are young folks. Young gay and lesbian folks, struggling to understand their identities in a society still frequently hostile to them. Young folks seeking what every young person seeks: affirmation, love, self-understanding, a place in the community.

The lies of the "ex-gay movement" are especially harmful to young people. They impose on youth a burden in addition to the many burdens the maturation process itself imposes. In fact, they can and do lead to suicide.

I will not “answer” the lies of the "ex-gay" movement here in any detailed way. What I want to note in passing here is simply the obvious: the movement is built around a fundamental lie from which all its other lies flow. That fundamental lie is that we can change our sexual orientations, and that sexual orientation is not an innate, God-given part of a human being’s make-up. On that basis, the "ex-gay" movement has built an entire house of cards, each depicting yet another lie about scripture and theology, the real lives of real gay persons, gay relationships: you name it.

Look through the screen of lies the ex-gay movement tells about gay human beings and you will not see a single recognizable face of a single recognizable gay human being you know. You will see human faces on which a screen of lies have been imposed to distort those faces for the pleasure of the "ex-gay" movement.

The way out? Journeying together towards the truth. Despite those who want to disrupt that journey, because it threatens them and their agendas. Seeking the truth together. Forming alternative communities of discourse and interpretation that claim the center even as we are told that we have no right to a place there. Changing the conversation so that lies appear for what they are and no longer determine the conversation or masquerade as one “position” among many.

Liliana Segura addresses these concerns today in a fascinating article at Alternet about the need to question authority (www.alternet.org/rights/126492). She notes that Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University recently replicated the findings of the classic Milgram experiment, in which it was found that an astonishing percentage of people of all walks of life will follow orders of an authority figure and inflict pain on someone else simply because they are told to do so.

Segura points out that though the media is interpreting Burger’s findings to mean that we have a thirst to torture inside us, the real message is about authority—about our unwillingness to challenge authority figures, and our willingness to place ourselves in the hands of an authority figure even when he or she tells us to do what is wrong. She concludes,

But while Milgram so effectively demonstrated the challenge of defying authority, he also showed that subjects were far more likely to do it when they saw other people doing it. He wrote in The Perils of Obedience, "The rebellious action of others severely undermines authority."

"In one variation, three teachers (two actors and a real subject) administered a test and shocks. When the two actors disobeyed the experimenter and refused to go beyond a certain shock level, 36 of 40 subjects joined their disobedient peers and refused as well."

Put in a political context, this is perhaps the most important lesson Milgram has to teach us. The best hope people have of resisting an oppressive system is to validate their experiences alongside other people. There is no more basic antidote to authoritarianism than support, solidarity and community.

Our hope to resist, to overturn lies designed to hurt and build a better, more humane society? Finding others who want what we want—a more humane society—who will no longer tolerate the lies, and who form community and solidarity with us in pursuit of something better.

Targeting Youth with Anti-Gay Lies: AFA Launches New Website

As a follow up to my last posting about the American Family Association, which notes that AFA has turned its Facebook site into a closed group (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/02/targeting-youth-with-anti-gay-lies-afa.html), I’d like to draw attention to a posting at Pam’s House Blend two days ago. Pam Spaulding notes that, identifying itself and “Christians” as “victimized” in contemporary American society, AFA has just launched a Silencing Christians website (www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=600C4800E0F365416A1CE8F1170AF6C4?diaryId=9404). Pam links to the AFA site at www.silencingchristians.com.

Pam offers a brilliant breakdown of the site’s bogus claims that “Christians” are being persecuted. As she points out, head to the AFA site, and you’ll see it’s not about Christians at all, but about gays and lesbians—about attacking gays and lesbians in the name of Christianity, and then claiming that one is persecuted when those attacked fight back. Or point out that lies are being disseminated in the name of hate. Or ask for the truth to be told. Or call on Christians to adhere to the ethical guidelines of Christianity, which forbid believers to lie and to hate.

The anti-democratic theocratic agenda of AFA and its adherents is evident in comments like the following on the website:

This goes to show us the end near. With a Muslem in the White House and a liberal congress we know God is about to say enough is enough and Jesus will be coming soon to rapture us Christian [sic] out.

As for the claim that “Christians” are persecuted in contemporary American society, note the nifty graphic (from AFA itself) at Pam Spaulding’s discussion of AFA’s claims of persecution. Christians are an overweening majority of the citizens of the United States. It ill befits a huge majority to whom the political structures of the nation and its media constantly bow to call itself persecuted, when the attempt of a select group of its members to suspend democracy and force theocracy on everyone else is thwarted by democratic consensus.

For those of us who are Christian, but who combat the theocratic ambitions of some right-wing Christians and critique the theological basis on which those ambitions are founded, it’s essential to make our alternative voices heard. It’s also important to work around the roadblocks such groups try to place in the way of free discourse (even as they claim that they are being censored), and to see that accurate information about these hot-button issues gets out—particularly when groups are announcing their intent to step up their use of online tools to to target youth.

Targeting Youth with Anti-Gay Lies: AFA Facebook Group Goes Closed

When I last blogged about the new American Family Association Facebook site (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/01/targeting-youth-with-anti-gay-lies-more.html), I stated the following:

The AFA site is currently marketing itself as an open group site with open discussion. But that claim is belied by the administrators’ handling of the discussion board. Because it’s open, it’s receiving contributions from posters who are energetically challenging the AFA agenda—including a delightful Rev. Kris Hussein Smithleton, whose username is a cheeky response to some of the bona fide AFA members who seem to think it’s still clever to spell out the new president’s full name.

But follow the postings, and you’ll note that censorship is alive and well on the site. Discussion topics that get into the face of AFA have been disappearing from the site with notes that the posting was removed. It will be interesting to see how long the site remains open and permits posters like Rev. Kris (and other courageous souls who are also logging on to make their voices heard) to contribute to discussion at the site.

I went to the site today, and here's what I find (www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?sid=4830d85576ac3c0ff20081d25f3aaef2&gid=8160796407):

AFA IS NOW A CLOSED GROUP.

When we began this page we intended the discussion board to be an open forum in which all persons with all points of view were welcome to participate. We have calculated that, out of 45,000+ members only 200 or so persons participate on the discussion board and most of these individuals are not members. We also observed that discussion often became uncivil on certain threads, particularly when homosexuality was the topic. After receiving several complaints we have decided to limit participation on the discussion boards to members.

In the future all members must be invited to join the group. Hence forth we are instituting a strict policy requiring civility on the wall and discussion board. Those who violate the policy will be removed from membership.

Can't have much discussion, can you, when one side has "the" Truth and uses it to beat the other side about the head with? It appears discussion--or pursuing the truth--is not the name of the game for these religious right groups "reaching out" to youth today, just as dialogue and shared pursuit of a truth that transcends all of us, and which none of us owns, is not the name of the game for those whom Joseph S. O'Leary calls neocaths (http://josephsoleary.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/02/the-fall-of-the-neocaths.html).

Targeting Youth with Anti-Gay Lies: More on the Right's New Outreach to American Youth

As an addendum to my series on what seems to me to be an unfolding agenda of the political and religious right to enhance its appeal to younger voters (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/01/targeting-youth-with-anti-gay-lies_27.html), I’d like to recommend an article from yesterday’s Slate (www.slate.com/id/2209980). In the article, Christopher Beam examines the attempt of the right to create its own version of the netroots movement.

As my last post on this theme of new methods of right-wing outreach to younger voters (to which I link above) notes, the American Family Association recently started its own Facebook site (www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?sid=61d73ee76743cf03436a4ec35620dc52&gid=8160796407). I’ve been following the development of that site by logging in to it daily. As I do so, it’s becoming clear to me that churches of the religious right and other groups affiliated with that movement are heavily promoting this new outreach to youth.

Daily, there are eye-popping announcements that thousands of new members have joined the site. Peruse these members, though, and you’ll discover that a great many of them are not the youth the site is hoping to target, but the old war horses of the religious right.

The AFA site is currently marketing itself as an open group site with open discussion. But that claim is belied by the administrators’ handling of the discussion board. Because it’s open, it’s receiving contributions from posters who are energetically challenging the AFA agenda—including a delightful Rev. Kris Hussein Smithleton, whose username is a cheeky response to some of the bona fide AFA members who seem to think it’s still clever to spell out the new president’s full name.

But follow the postings, and you’ll note that censorship is alive and well on the site. Discussion topics that get into the face of AFA have been disappearing from the site with notes that the posting was removed. It will be interesting to see how long the site remains open and permits posters like Rev. Kris (and other courageous souls who are also logging on to make their voices heard) to contribute to discussion at the site.

It’s also interesting to note that though Rev. Don Wildmon’s oft-repeated ground rules for the AFA Facebook site state that no stereotyping is allowed, and that “[a]ll persons are to be treated with dignity even if you disagree with what they say or do,” some posters routinely use the word “homosexual” as an epithet, and do so with impunity. One of the worst offenders in that regard is an older married woman in Florida who has now chosen to change her Facebook picture. Whereas it previously showed her standing behind her husband, it now has one of the anonymous-face i.d.’s that Facebook assigns if one does not upload a picture of one’s own.

AFA may soon learn that it’s harder work than they imagined, to maintain a site that purports to value free discussion when the real agenda is to promote the AFA agenda, and to try to hook younger folks with that agenda. Those being targeted are computer-savvy and also know the ropes of these discussion boards, and may well use this new site to give AFA a run for its money.

And make no mistake about it, this site promotes an agenda, and a highly political one at that--one that goes far beyond resistance to gay rights. It calls for activism to resist the new president and his administration; its posters take strong sides in the Arab-Israeli conflicts; it stoutly resists women's rights, etc. It supports a theocratic political agenda that would dearly love to force all American citizens to submit to the religious, moral, and political views of a right-wing evangelical minority who have deified the past president and who are betraying core Christian principles by idolizing one political party.

By the way, if you visit this site, check out the picture of site creator and administrator Jacob Dawson. Is it just me, or is that one scary photo?

Targeting Youth with Anti-Gay Lies: American Family Association's New Facebook Site

Another reminder that those of us who commit ourselves to challenge the religious right's assault on the foundations of our democracy must continue to be vigilant: as I noted some weeks back, in this new year we can look for the religious right to try in every way possible to present a kinder, gentler version of itself to youth, who are turning away from this political movement for more progressive forms of evangelicalism (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/01/obamas-election-and-rise-of-hate-groups.html). I've been noting that I foresee the religious right to try to make inroads among youth by crafting new strategies of outreach including campus visits, campus crusades, and enhanced web technologies (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2009/01/targeting-youth-with-anti-gay-lies.html).

For continued evidence that this new youth outreach is an urgent priority for the religious right now, check out this posting at Pam's House Blend blog on the weekend: www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9184. As it notes, the American Family Association, a leader of the religious right's anti-gay movement, has just launched a Facebook site.

The announcement of the new site spells out its political intent: "And you can network wtih like-minded people concerned about America's moral decline." Visit the AFA Facebook page (www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?sid=c34b8f8b0792c32225794d23e67ad881&gid=8160796407), and you'll find statements indicating that the demographic that the new site is targeting is the age group 15-34. You'll also see AFA's political agenda tricked out in Facebook format, with discussion groups on all the usual right-wing wedge issues--abortion, gay folks and gay lives, prayer in schools, etc.--which try to convince young folks that it's all about love and not about hate.

But read between the lines and see if you agree . . . .