Promoting fear and discrimination against gay people has long been a key political tactic on the right, and you can see in these quotes how that didn’t change much in 2011. At least overseas, that rhetoric perhaps fueled deadly anti-gay violence. Read other quotes from the far right in 2011 here.
“Promoting special rights for gays in foreign countries is not in America’s interests and not worth a dime of taxpayers’ money.”
– Texas Gov. Rick Perry, criticizing a new Obama administration policy to defend the human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people who are imprisoned, brutalized and murdered in some countries. ABC News, December 6, 2011
“I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian. But you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.
As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion, and I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again. I’m Rick Perry and I approve this message.”
– Gov. Perry, speaking in one of his presidential campaign ads in Iowa. Talking Points Memo, December 7, 2011
“Some of our friends have criticized FRC’s decision by drawing the scriptural parallel of Jesus eating with sinners. But this isn’t Jesus eating with sinners — it’s Jesus partnering with them to open a restaurant!”
– Tony Perkins, president of the far-right Family Research Council, referring to the inclusion of gay people at the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference. Politics Daily, January 6, 2011
“They (American evangelicals) didn’t know that when you speak about destroying the family to Africans, the response is a genocide. The moment you speak about the family, you speak about the tribe, you speak about the future. Africans will fight to the death. When you speak like that, you invite the wrath.”
— Rev. Kapya Kaoma, a Zambian who attended antigay meetings held by American evangelical Christians in Uganda, discussing the horrible consequences of such talk. Last week one of Uganda’s most prominent gay rights advocates was attacked in his home and beaten to death with a hammer. New York Times, January 29, 2011
“I’m not sure that’s who you want as mayor. If they’re indecisive about who they are, are they indecisive about other issues?”
– David Grisham, a candidate for Amarillo mayor and an outspoken pastor and director of Repent Amarillo, a religious, fundamentalist group, on his transgender opponent, Sandra Dunn. Grisham previously called for a boycott of Houston after the election of a gay mayor, Annise Parker. Amarillo Globe-News, February 25, 2011
“Liberty is not the ability to do whatever hedonistic ideas you have. Whoever’s defining the terms is going to win the argument
. . .
There are a lot of gay staffers in Congress. They work all hours and they don’t have family lives, but they do have veto power.”
– Former Texas State Board of Education member Cynthia Dunbar, arguing (in separate quotes) that anti-gay Christians must change the language the public uses when talking about homosexuality and that the debate over civil rights for gay people. Religious-right activists at the strategy session decided that Christians should use words like “sodomy” and “unnatural vice” instead of “gay” when discussing homosexuality. American Independent, April 10, 2011
“In 5,000 years of recorded human history… neither in the east or in the west… has any society ever defined marriage as anything other than between men and women. Not one in 5,000 years of recorded human history. That’s an astounding fact and it isn’t until the last 12 years or so that we have seen for the first time in recorded human history marriage defined as anything other than between men and between women.”
– Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, speaking during an installment of the Iowa Family Leader’s presidential lecture series. Politico, April 11, 2011
What else would one expect from right-wing bigots
Methinks they protesteth too much
“Promoting fear and discrimination against gay people has long been a key political tactic on the right”
You are a bit too wordy here and that leads to a bit of inaccuracy. Wedi that line, delete “against gay people” and you will have a more accurate statement.
Oops. Typo.
Edit”
I, for one, am glad Rick Perry made his “War on Religion” ad. Not only did it result in countless hilarious parodies, but it helped get Perry laughed out of the Presidential primary race, and probably helped defeat Romney in November as well.