A 'Blacklist' is in the Eye of the Beholder

Earlier this year, GLAAD, with the assistance of Jeremy Hooper, unveiled their Commentator Accountability Project which was aimed at putting "critical information about frequent anti-gay interviewees into the hands of newsrooms, editors, hosts and reporters" so that audiences could be accurately informed about their true views whenever these anti-gay activists were featured in the media.

When the list of commentators was release, those who founds themselves on it were quick to scream "McCarthysim," as if merely chronicling their publicly stated anti-gay statements for all to see was some form of blacklist.

In fact, that is exactly what Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber said:

“McCarthyism is alive and well within the ranks of the homo-fascist political lobby. Since liberals can’t win the debate, all they have left is to silence dissent,” said Barber, AFTAH board member and Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action. “As we’ve seen evidenced by the recent [Sandra] Fluke flap involving Rush Limbaugh, left-wing extremists have ramped-up their Orwellian efforts to silence those who pose a threat to their radical secular-socialist agenda.

“I count it an honor to be included among such a distinguished list of pro-family warriors,” Barber said. “As Christ followers, we will never stop speaking God’s truth in love. These homosexualist hatemongers have exposed who they truly are. They will never silence us.”

Said AFTAH’s LaBarbera: “This is all about silencing, discrediting and demonizing pro-family voices. I guess GLAAD is so afraid that the truth about homosexuality will be heard that it will go to the extreme of creating a ‘blacklist’ against moral leaders — for a media already disinclined to be fair on this politically correct issue.”

So it is no small irony that both Barber and LaBarbera have signed on to an open letter to Fox News calling for Truth Wins Out's Wayne Besen to be banned from appearing on the station:

It is time that the O'Reilly Factor cease using Besen as a guest commentator. Providing Besen with a forum lends credibility to his pernicious tactics and enables Besen to exploit his appearances for fundraising purposes.

When Fox News provides a forum to a radical homosexual activist known for employing inflammatory and hateful language in the service of promoting lies, the network becomes complicit in the damage done to the victims of Wayne Besen's and the SPLC's smear campaigns.

We ask the News Corporation, Fox News, and Bill O'Reilly to find more ethical spokespersons for the liberal view of sexuality. In their infamous Washington Post ad accusing FRC of hateful values, Besen and the SPLC claim that "words have consequences." Yes, they do. And Besen's may lead to violence.

If GLAAD's project which simply collected the views of anti-gay activists was, as Barber decried it, nothng less than censorship and a blacklist and downright un-American McCarthyism, what is it when Barber and others sign onto to a letter demanding that someone else be banned from appearing on a major media outlet?