The American Family Association is at it again. This time they’re claiming that the Hate Crimes bill (H.R. 1913) will make incest and “30 different sexual orientations” into “federally protected classes.”

Such bullshit!

No one, other than crazy Christianists such as Don Wildmon, thinks that incest and apotemnophilia and toucherism are sexual orientations. They couldn’t win by convincing Americans that it’s okay to allow hate crimes against queers, so now they’re desperately trying to make people think that sexual orientation isn’t just whether one is straight or gay or bi but also is whether one wants to have sex with amputees. Gotta give them credit for imagination.

Well I say, more power to ’em! The crazier the Christianists talk, the more irrelevant they become. Go ahead, rant and rave about how Congress is about to make hate crimes against kleptophiliacs illegal. Yes, try to make Americans believe that should H.R. 1913 become law that our country will be overrun by gerontosexuals. Good luck with that.

You may already know that I subscribe to the American Family Association's Action Alert e-mails and that I consider AFA Founder and Chairman Donald E. Wildmon to be a liar. Today I got another one of his Alerts, and I just feel like screaming, "Donald Wildmon, you are such a fucking liar!"

Today's Alert is nothing new really, just the AFA's latest attempt to get their members to tell Congress not to add sexual orientation to the federal hate crimes law. I'm still amazed, though, at how flagrantly Wildmon lies. The Alert's headline is "A bill in Congress makes it a crime for pastors and churches to speak against homosexuality." Within the e-mail, Wildmon claims that "House bill H.R. 1592 and Senate bill S. 1105 would make negative statements concerning homosexuality, such as calling the practice of homosexuality a sin from the pulpit, a 'hate crime' punishable by law." These claims are absolutely and completely wrong, and I think that Wildmon knows that.

Here's the text of H.R. 1592. I defy anyone to point to the section of it that says a pastor can't preach against homosexuality. Instead what it talks about are "crimes of violence." Now I don't really buy the old adage about sticks and stones—words can in fact hurt people, especially kids—but the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 is not about punishing anyone who simply says homosexuality is wrong or a sin or even someone who calls someone else a faggot. What it's about is punishing people who "willfully causes bodily injury to any person ... because of [their] actual or perceived ... sexual orientation." Bodily injury, not psychological or mental. Wildmon and his fellow Christianists can thump their Bibles as much as they want, and they can continue to bash homosexuals verbally. They just can't bash us physically, which surely as the Christians they claim to be, they don't want to do.

Wildmon mentions a California lawsuit (but doesn't cite a particular case) that would make the use of certain terms in government workplaces a "'hate speech' crime," whatever that is. Even if that's true (and why on earth would I believe a word Wildmon says), that's a far cry from banning speech in church.

I don't think Wildmon seriously thinks anyone intends to regulate what clergy people are allowed to say in their places of worship. I think instead that he's counting on the ignorance of his followers and is willfully lying to them in order to incite them to action. And the action he wants is not just to defeat the hate crimes bill. No, he wants all his followers, outraged by this Alert, to "please support [him] with a small gift."

Donald Wildmon, you're an ugly man. Both outside and inside.

Now you may think it strange, but I subscribe to the American Family Association's free Action Alerts. AFA's Founder and Chairman, Donald E. Wildmon, takes time to send me warnings of various things going on that threaten the moral foundation of our nation and gives me links through which I can write the appropriate politicians or businesspeople to urge them to take action to stop whatever indecent behavior Donald is warning about.

In the past few months Donald has warned me of Charlie Sheen's desecration of Christmas, of Fox's deliberate display of the F-word (fuck, not faggot) during prime time television, of our tax dollars supporting inappropriate art at the Sundance Film Festival, of the need to make English our official language, of Discovery Channel's slamming of Christianity by its speculatory "documentary" about the family of Jesus, and of Ford Motor Company's cessation and then renewal of support for the homosexual agenda. Each time I've taken advantage of Donald's links and e-mailed personal notes to the various individuals involved, but Donald would probably be disappointed to know that I don't take AFA's suggested wording but instead say what I personally feel. Donald and I often disagree about what's actually a threat to our nation's morals.

Just now I've received Donald's latest warning, about the proposed law that would extend federal hate crimes protection to cover crimes committed on the basis of sexual orientation, and I'm shocked, absolutely shocked, to find that Donald Wildmon is a liar. His ActionAlert today includes a link to a page with "highly offensive" footage from last year's gay pride parade in Dallas, Texas (to the right you can see a screenshot showing some of the offensive activity). On that page, Donald makes two claims in bold, both of which are lies:

• The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act would increase protection for the kind of activity shown on this video.
  
  Sorry, Donald, but the law does no such thing. The LLEHCPA says nothing about the legality of activities in gay pride parades. If having sex in public is illegal in a particular jurisdiction, the LLEHCPA will not make it legal. What the LLEHCPA does say is that if you beat up or kill gay people because you find their behavior "highly offensive," you've committed a hate crime.
  
  
• If this "hate crimes" bill is passed, and you publicly protest, complain or oppose the type of activity in this video, your action could eventually be construed to be subject to prosecution for a criminal act.
  
  This to me is the most offensive lie. The LLEHCPA does not ban speech or demonstrations. If the AFA wants to picket gay pride parades and say that homosexual behavior is offensive and immoral, the AFA will still legally be able to do so. The LLEHCPA merely says that if you physically attack people based on such a belief, you're committing a hate crime.

Surely the AFA doesn't want to beat up or kill homosexuals or advocate that others do so. Perhaps they're just opposed to the concept of hate crimes in general. Even some gay people oppose hate crimes legislation. But if the AFA disapproved of hate crimes legislation, surely they'd be advocating repealing it altogether for all groups, instead of just making that you can bash a queer without doing any extra time.