The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an aggressive pro-homosexual activist group, has launched a campaign targeted at silencing conservative, Christian, and pro-family commentators who offer the media perspective that is often at odds with political efforts to normalize homosexual behavior. According to a GLAAD press release, the group’s Commentator Accountability Project is supposedly aimed at educating the media “about the extreme rhetoric of over three dozen activists who are often given a platform to speak in opposition to [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] people and the issues that affect their lives.”
“Hate is not an expert opinion,” GLAAD spokesman Herndon Graddick charged of the balanced perspective offered by such Christian and pro-family leaders as Charles Colson, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, and Focus on the Family’s Jim Daly, to name just three of the 36 leaders targeted (see all the names HERE). “In most cases, news outlets invite reputable experts to speak on the subject at hand, but when talking about LGBT issues, open hostility and anti-LGBT bias seems to be all the credibility required.” Graddick claimed that his group’s project “holds these so-called ‘pundits’ accountable for the extreme anti-LGBT rhetoric they continue to spread.”
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GLAAD’s communications director, Rich Ferraro, told Politico.com that the three dozen commentators — nearly all of them highly respected leaders in the Christian and pro-family community —“are being booked in local and national news as ‘experts’ on the lives of LGBT people….” However, what reporters and producers do not know, Ferraro insisted, is that that these trained, educated, and seasoned professionals “aren’t experts, but people who have dedicated their careers to making life more difficult for LGBT people.”
Hecomplained that merely having a scripturally based view of homosexuality — what he refered to as being “anti-LGBT” — “should not be a qualification for speaking about LGBT people and issues.”
Ferraro insisted that GLAAD is not trying to silence the voices of the commentators, but merely to force them to be accountable for their supposedly hateful rhetoric. “If a reporter is speaking with one of these voices who has repeatedly stated that gay people are Satanic,” Ferraro declared with subtle hyperbole, “it’s the journalist’s responsibility to put any statements in perspective.”
While Ferraro was unable to offer any examples of speech by the commentators that could be construed as hateful, GLAAD’s assault on actor-turned-evangelist Kirk Cameron (who is not on the list) is instructive. As reported by The New American, Cameron recently spoke up on the issue of homosexuality and same-sex marriage during an interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan, calling the “gay” lifestyle “unnatural” and “ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization.”
On the subject of marriage Cameron said that it should be defined as “one man, one woman, for life, till death do you part,” adding that “I would never attempt to try to redefine marriage, and I don’t think anyone else should either. So do I support the idea of gay marriage? No, I don’t.”
Encouraged by what might reasonably be termed a “hateful” GLAAD petition drive entitled “Tell Kirk Cameron It’s Time to Finally Grow Up,” (an apparent reference to the TV series Growing Pains, in which Cameron starred) thousands of homosexuals and their sympathizers have continued a non-stop campaign condemning the Christian actor for his reasoned scriptural views on what society — particularly Christendom — has considered immoral and unacceptable behavior. Cameron countered the attack by expressing his belief that “I should be able to express moral views on social issues — especially those that have been the underpinning of Western civilization for 2,000 years — without being slandered, accused of hate speech, and told from those who preach ‘tolerance’ that I need to either bend my beliefs to their moral standards or be silent when I’m in the public square.”
In response to GLAAD’s self-serving campaign, one of the commentators on the list — conservative commentator and talk-show host Kevin McCullough (picture above) — said it was “ironic that GLAAD’s exclusive goal in all of this seems to be the idea that shutting people’s voices down — who oppose them — will somehow make their arguments more sound.” He added that it “says a great deal about the weight of GLAAD’s arguments to throw out provocative and inflammatory statements about people who oppose you.” He also promised that “I will never attempt to have Rich Ferraro banned from appearing on media — simply because I disagree with him.”
Matt Barber of the conservative group Liberty Counsel Action, another of the individuals targeted by GLAAD, countered the homosexual group’s claim that he and other conservative, Christian spokespersons were engaging in hateful rhetoric. “They need to understand … that as Christ followers, we will never, ever stop speaking God’s truth in love,” Barber said. “We appreciate when they reveal who they really are here and reveal the weakness inherent within their own arguments by attempting to silence those who would dare to dissent with their radical secular socialism.”
Gary Schneeberger of Focus on the Family told CitizenLink.com that, now more than ever, the reasoned voices of those on GLAAD’s hit list are sorely needed to counter the destructive ideology often pushed by the mainstream media. What pro-family experts like those with Focus on the Family “bring to the national discussion in their media appearances,” he said, “are reasoned, passionate, and compassionate insights that help families make sense of, and make their mark in, the world around them.”
While Focus on the Family’s president, Jim Daly, is one of those targeted by GLAAD, Schneeberger said that his group’s views on issues like same-sex marriage “are mainstream Christian positions — and in most cases, majority Christian positions. It is always our goal, when expressing those viewpoints, to do so in a way that upholds God’s truth … but also models Christ’s love.”
Schneeberger warned that GLAAD’s campaign is nothing less than “an attempt to stifle freedom of speech and freedom of religion by trying to intimidate the media into forfeiting their constitutional right to freedom of the press…. America was founded on debate and discussion; that formula has worked pretty well for us for more than 230 years. It makes you wonder why GLAAD would want to eradicate it.”
Related article: “Gay” Animosity on Display as Kirk Cameron Takes Stand for Traditional Values
