Posted on 07/07/2011 3:13:37 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Gov. Rick Perry’s planned Aug. 6 day of prayer and fasting, “the Response,” has garnered a range or reactions over the last month, from Houston clergy expressing concern about the blurring of lines between church and state, to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force decrying the rally as “profoundly harmful.” What almost every denouncement of “the Response” has in common is shock that the governor would align himself with the American Family Association, an organization listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.
For those who’ve followed Perry’s political career closely, however, his connections with a notorious hate group are just par for the course.
The Southern Poverty Law Center is a pro-bono legal firm and civil rights advocacy group. Since shortly after its founding in 1971 the SPLC has declared certain groups “hate groups” based on the groups’ perpetuation of inaccurate and harmful information about communities fighting for their civil rights. In the case of anti-gay groups the SPLC places organizations on the list of hate groups for “their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling. Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups.”
Perry publicly aligned himself with the AFA as early as 2005, when AFA founder Don Wildmon was invited to participate in a signing ceremony celebrating the passage of Texas’ constitutional amendment defining marriage as between “one man and one woman.” The governor’s signature is not required on constitutional amendments. In fact, the executive branch of Texas government can neither propose nor approve constitutional provisions. That didn’t stop Perry from conducting a media event designed to take credit for the amendment’s passage. Perry selected Calvary Christian Academy in Fort Worth as the venue for the event, despite concerns that holding an (albeit superfluous) government ceremony in a religious facility strayed dangerously close to violating the separation between church and state. Also invited to the ceremony was former Louisiana State Rep. Tony Perkins, president of another group on the SPLC’s list, the Family Research Council.
The Family Research Council was formally a part of founder James Dobson’s far-right media empire, Focus on the Family. In 1992 the organizations formally split due to concerns that FRC’s political activities might endanger Focus on the Family’s nonprofit status, but the two groups retain close ties, with Dobson serving on both organizations’ boards (both Dobson as an individual and FRC as an organization would go on to endorse Perry in the 2010 election). Perkins has served as the FRC’s president since 2003.
One of the speakers before Perry’s extraneous signing of the amendment was Rod Parsley, a Pentecostal faith healer and televangelist. Parlsey provided the audience with several “facts” about homosexuality: “Only 1 percent of the homosexual population in America will die of old age,” said Parsley. “The average life expectancy for a homosexual in the United States of America is 43 years of age. A lesbian can only expect to live to be 45 years of age. Homosexuals represent 2 percent of the population, yet today they’re carrying 60 percent of the known cases of syphilis.”
Although Parsley gave no source for his supposed “facts,” the information is taken from a widely discredited study conducted in 1994 by the Family Research Institute, another hate group on the SPLC’s list. The FRI is headed by Dr. Paul Cameron. Cameron’s numerous discredited studies attacking LGBT people have earned him the scorn of the scientific community, losing him his membership in both the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association (the ASA said Parsley “consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality and lesbianism”).
As Parsley presented his “facts,” Gov. Perry smiled in tacit approval, later beaming when Parsley went on to thank him for “protecting the children of Texas from the gay agenda.” Neither the governor nor any other organization involved in the signing ceremony issued a retraction or apologized for disseminating misinformation.
Perry’s inclusion of the AFA and FRC in his faux signing ceremony helped elevate the national profile of both organizations. In 2008, when Perry published his book, On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts are Worth Fighting For, he would turn to both organizations for help with its promotion. On My Honor presents the history of the Boy Scouts as grand myth, complete with divine intervention guiding lost travelers through the fog so they can meet and preserve an institution that Perry claims is crucial to American prosperity. However, the real purpose of the book is to decry what Perry sees as a “legal assault” on the Boy Scouts, namely the efforts to remove taxpayer support of the Scouts so long as they maintain their discriminatory policies against LGBT people. Both the AFA’s Wildmon and Ken Blackwell, senior fellow at the FRC, provided glowing promotional quotes for the book which can still be read on the official website.
Perry reunited with the AFA and the FRC in September 2009 when he was a featured speaker at the “Value Voters Summit,” co-sponsored by both groups and another group on the SPLC’s hate list: the Traditional Values Coalition. Founded in 1980, the TVC claims to speak on behalf of 43,000 churches and lobbies in opposition to LGBT rights and reproductive freedom. Founder Lou Sheldon was quoted in a 1992 Washington Times article as saying: “Homosexuals are dangerous. They proselytize. They come to the door, and if your son answers and nobody is there to stop it, they grab the son and run off with him. They steal him. They take him away and turn him into a homosexual.” Sheldon disputes the quote. The TVC dismisses concern about suicide by LGBT teens on its website, claiming “teens who are struggling with homosexual feelings are more likely to be sexually molested by a homosexual school counselor or teacher than to commit suicide over their feelings of despair.”
In his speech at the Values Voters Summit, Perry trotted out the old conservative war horses of family values and small government conservatism. He also took the opportunity in his speech to make a most peculiar reading suggestion: The Five Thousand Year Leap by Cleon Skousen. Skousen is the founder of the ubiquitously named National Center for Constitutional Studies. Last spring the SPLC wrote an extensive profile of the NCCS and its attempts to rewrite American history to conform to an apocalyptic vision based on fringe Mormon theology.
The Five Thousand Year Leap, which Fox “news” commentator Glen Beck described as “divinely inspired,” lays out a strategy for turning the U.S. into 50 loosely confederated theocracies with little to no federal government. Six years after the book’s 1981 publication, Skousen revised and condensed its claims in a book titled The Miracle of America. In Miracle, Skousen described the white slave owners of America’s ante bellum south as the “worst victims” of slavery, labeled African-American children as “pickaninnies” and expressed sympathy for southerners who defended “white civilization” from the threat of slave revolts.
Both Leap and Miracle are still published by the NCCS. Recent editions, however, have had the most overtly racist passages excised.
Considering Perry’s close ties with the FRC, it’s no surprise that he received their endorsement in the 2009 governor’s race. They joined a long list of far-right organizations and leaders including the state director of the Texas chapter of Concerned Women for America, Ann Hettinger. CWA is not considered a hate group by the SPLC, but has been profiled in the SPLC publication Intelligence Report due to their homophobic propaganda. In 2009, the same year Perry accepted the endorsement of their state director, the CWA’s national office accused the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) of recruiting children, warning “teaching students from a young age that the homosexual lifestyle is perfectly natural … will [cause them to] develop into adults who are desensitized to the harmful, immoral reality of sexual deviance.”
Hettinger’s endorsement makes sense in light of Perry’s assistance in promoting the CWA. In 2008, when Perry held a press conference to promote the creation of a Texas “Choose Life” license plate, he did so with representatives of the CWA by his side. Perry’s prepared speech for the event specifically mentions the CWA and his pleasure at their attendance. That seems to be a pattern for Perry. He’ll invite a group like the AFA, FRC or CWA to one of his press events, talk them up and help them receive public attention. Then, or within the next few years, he enthusiastically accepts that group’s endorsement for public office.
“The Response ” is different than Rick Perry’s other partnerships with hate groups. While comparable in scale to the 2009 Values Voters Summit, and similar in sponsorship to the 2005 staged “signing ceremony,” the timing of this event is unique. In the past Perry seems to have reserved his associations with the likes of the AFA, FRC, FRI, TVC, NCCS and CWA for years that led up to the Texas gubernatorial races in 2006 and 2010. Perry doesn’t face re-election again until 2014, so why is he brushing up his far-right bona-fides so early?
Rumors persist that Perry plans to enter the 2012 presidential race, and he did nothing to quash them by saying he is “thinking about” running. If he does run, this partnership with the AFA would be consistent with his previous campaign pattern. When media commentators warn that the Aug. 6 event in Houston is a precursor to Perry running for president, it’s this pattern they are noticing. If Perry runs it’s a safe bet that the AFA and the other organizations co-sponsoring the event will reward him for his promotional assistance with endorsements. It’s also a safe bet that Perry will use the homophobia of the AFA’s members to scare them into voting for him.
Right,and using the Gardasil issue against Perry is just falling for media lies about the issue.
Anyone who says anything "bad" about Obama or speaks about wanting to put someone else in the White House, is going to be labeled as a member of a hate group -- a racist hate group for "good measure."
And that will extend to all the liberal Obama support groups; if we oppose him -- we oppose them. But of course now they will be called teachers, working families, the middle class, old people and children, the infirm and the poor and so on -- and not the liberal groups lined up against our freedom that they are.
I believe I can say without fear of being wrong that the Southern Poverty Law Center would accuse any group of Whites who gathered to have lunch together without a black or homosexual present is a hate group.
This article is just an example of what whoever runs against “The One” is facing from every individual with one drop of black blood in their veins, or one case of hemorhoids caused by their sick sex life.
Forget the Black vote and the homosexual vote. They are a given. They would vote for Obama to Captain the Titanic as they stood at the stern rail and watched the water coming to meet them.
That is a significant question. Unfortunately the level of stupidity occasionally exhibited on this site leaves comments such as yours suspect. Of course that does not apply to those who know you and your leanings. Sadly not everyone knows you or bothers to notice who the poster is. (mea culpa)
I try to make my sarcasm so thoroughly outrageous as not to be misinterpreted. Even then there are times when I have been scolded for my presumed stupidity.
You might have made some reference to Mittens as the acceptable R nominee. Surely the SPLC finds Romney a reasonable candidate. Queers like him because his religion is weird. Blacks will vote for Obama anyway.
Please accept my apology. I will remember you. -
The Premier Media Source For LGBT Texas
Pffttt!!!
Al changed. I guess Tipper finally agreed.
*********************
Rick Perry: Al Gore's gone to Hell
Perry does not believe there is valid scientific proof of anthropogenic global warming. He has said several times that there is no scientific consensus on the issue.
On September 7, 2007 Perry gave a speech to California Republicans. He said, "Virtually every day another scientist leaves the global warming bandwagon. ... But you won't read about that in the press because they have already invested in one side of the story."
************
["Perry was part of the "Pit Bulls", a group of Appropriations members who sat on the lower dais in the committee room (or "pit") who pushed for austere [Texas] state budgets during the 1980s."] Source
Karl Rove claims Rick Perry as his candidate in Perry's FIRST campaign for the Texas Agriculture Commission. [From what I’ve found this was their only collaboration]
Perry was a Texas Democrat (not a liberal Democrat). He switched to the Republican Party in 1989. In 1990 Perry won the election (against Jim Hightower) to head the Agricultural Committee (a post Perry was well suited for as having come from a cotton farming family -- raised and worked the land -- and had a degree in Animal Science from Texas A&M). He was reelected in 1994 to that office in a landslide (62%). He did not seek reelection for a 3rd term and ran for Lt. Gov of Texas (1998), winning in a 3 way race, in a hard fought campaign against John Sharp (D).
["Perry thus became the state's first Republican lieutenant governor since Reconstruction, taking office on January 19, 1999 until his ascension to the governorship on December 21, 2000 upon the resignation of then-Governor George W. Bush."] Source
In that 1998 campaign year, the G.W. Bush camp (which included Karl Rove) was campaigning for W's reelection for Texas Gov (1st elected in 1994) and was at odds with Rick Perry's hard nosed campaign against John Sharp for Lt. Gov. Karl Rove told Perry to soft peddle to lift Bush's numbers in minority groups, Perry refused. Bush won reelection as Texas Governor. Perry won office as Lt. Gov. (arguably a stronger office than TX governor).
["Bush won by 1.4 million votes, Perry by fewer than 70,000. There were harsh words afterward; Rove and Dave Carney, a top Perry strategist, now are bitter foes."] Source
Then there was this in the TX Monthly about the 2010 governor's race:
October 2009: “....It would not be surprising to find that Karl Rove had a hand in this somewhere. The Bushies are definitely in the Hutchison camp, and there is no love lost between them and the Perry camp. The tension (according to Perry team members whom I interviewed on this subject last year) dates all the way back to Perry’s race for lieutenant governor in 1998, when Rove insisted that Perry stick with a positive message even while he was being pounded by John Sharp. Meanwhile, in the view of the Perry camp, Rove was trying to turn out Hispanic Democrats who would vote for Bush, even though that meant they were likely to switch back to the D column to vote for Sharp. The Perry team decided that they had to fight back, Rove or no Rove, and they went rogue, going after Sharp hard. It worked.
...If that animosity weren’t enough, after Bush was named the winner in December 2000, Perry was insistent that the president-elect vacate the governor’s mansion so that Perry could move in, notwithstanding that Bush wanted to stay a day or two longer before leaving for Washington. I heard that firsthand from the Bushies at the time....” -- Texas Monthly
********
Basically, in the 2010 GOP primary in TX for the governor's office, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutichison was hoping to come home to Texas as Governor. Her election was being backed by the Bush family and all their power players were lined up against Gov. Rick Perry, with Karl Rove serving as Sen Hutchison's adviser against Perry. Source
Rick Perry won a 3rd term as Governor of Texas in 2010.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
It's amazing the truth that you find when you look past the lies; when you don't just "buy" what the Left is selling and repeat it. Too many people just expect the worst and never take the time to find out the truth. Although I must admit the truth has been buried and the lies grow like weeds to cover it up.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/07/legislature/4535418.html
Perry’s vaccination order still stoking fires
AUSTIN — Blowback continued at the Capitol on Wednesday over Gov. Rick Perry’s order mandating
that schoolgirls be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease linked to cervical cancer.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/07/legislature/4528909.html
Critics rip Perry’s vaccine mandate
Governor rejects opponents’ calls to reverse order
AUSTIN — Gov. Rick Perry stood firm Monday against a political firestorm generated by his
order that sixth-grade girls be inoculated against a sexually transmitted virus linked to cervical cancer.
Social conservatives from Texas to Washington called on Perry to reverse his order making
Texas the first state to require the vaccine, saying the mandate makes sex seem permissible
and that parents should be the ones to decide whether to immunize their daughters.
And several Texas lawmakers expressed outrage at Perry for circumventing the legislative process.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/us/26texas.html
The vaccine, Gardasil, is manufactured by Merck, which was represented in Austin by the
lobbyist Mike Toomey, who was chief of staff for Mr. Perry from 2002 to 2004.
BTW, your additional claim that the Algore was a Conservative is close to bizarre.
NO, the Algore grew up here in Fairfax County. He was part of the Washington DC inner circle ~ their children spend entirely too much time imagining Che Guevara.
Trust me, Algore was never a Conservative.
I’m not related to Diogenesis. He or she pinged me once, and I’m not against being pinged, but there’s no coordination there. I’m always looking through the threads looking for new Perry stuff. Sometimes I’m online, sometimes not. If I’m trying to find older Perry stuff, if something on a Perry thread bugs me enough to go back and correct the record, I’ll follow your posts. But I’m also watching all the presidential candidates, and have opinions on all of them.
I just find Perry the most repugnant of all of them.
Here’s an interesting thought.....(my brain working overtime - LOL).
Rick Perry used to pilot beat up old planes to campaign stops back in the day.
Now, imagine Rick Perry and Sarah Palin flying around “fly-over” country to hold campaign events for Americans.
I can see it now. The crowds would come.
The votes would follow.
They both sound like Ron Paul supporters IMHO...
Do you ever READ and learn, or do you just hiss and rant?
Apparently Diogenesis called you forth because he saw a kindred spirit in you.
You’re wrong
"We would aggressively work to defeat him [Perry], of course," said Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, which describes itself as non-partisan but typically backs Democrats. Star Telegram
Wow. AFA a hate group? Probably because they promote “traditional” family values but, to be labeled a hate group is a harsh.
Yoda loves Perry. My candidate, Perry is.
If you slam McCain, you’re slamming Sarah.
Perry is an opponent of Palin.
If you support Palin, you do not support Perry.
It’s truly sickening to watch the sleazy Perry people try to grab some of Palin’s hard earned fame and popularity. A dirty, sleazy Karl Rove tactic.
I can’t trust Gardasil Rick.
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