Our review of what we heard from the far right in 2012 includes the requisite ignorance, intolerance and verbal gay-bashing that’s still so prevalent in those quarters. You can read more quotes from 2012 and previous years here.
“We don’t think that there are any such students.”
— Dr. Michael Farris, Patrick Henry College’s founder and chancellor, denying the existence of gays and lesbians on his fundamentalist Christian campus. “Queer at Patrick Henry College,” a six-month-old blog operated by three pseudonymous writers — all of whom graduated from or have taken classes at the school — shows otherwise.
“Since April, JC Penney’s has not aired Ellen DeGeneres in one of their commercials until now. A new JCP ad features Ellen and three elves. JCP has made their choice to offend a huge majority of their customers again. Christians must now vote with their wallets.”
— Religious-right group One Million Moms, urging Christians to boycott JC Penney because talk show host and lesbian Ellen DeGeneres appears in a Christmas TV ad for the retailer.
“This issue will destroy and undermine the church in America more than any other movement.”
— Former senator and presidential candidate Rick Santorum, campaigning against a marriage equality referendum in Washington state
“No thanks Oreo. We don’t want this unhealthy sinful lifestyle flaunted.”
— One of the critical comments directed at Oreo after its Facebook page featured a picture of an Oreo filled with six layers of frosting in the colors of the rainbow flag
“We deny that the effort to legalize ‘same-sex marriage’ qualifies as a civil rights issue since homosexuality does not qualify as a class meriting special protections, like race and gender.”
— A resolution approved by the Southern Baptist Convention in New Orleans
“Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks never took an oath of office they broke. Sodomy is not a civil right, it’s not the same as the civil rights movement.”
— Virginia lawmaker and Republican senate candidate Bob Marshall, on why he led the battle against the judicial nomination of an openly gay prosecutor
“In a galaxy not so far far away, Star Wars gamers have already gone to the dark side.”
— Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, in a radio ad criticizing Austin video game studio Bioware. Bioware’s new game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, will allow characters to have same-sex relationships
Good for Bioware. And Dr. Michael Farris needs to leave the river of DeNile and live on the firm ground of reality with the rest of us. Patrick Henry does have gay students, any decent demographer will tell him that. Get over it.