« Peter Sprigg
March 21, 2008
FRC’s Sprigg Wants to Export Gays
Medill News Service, a project run by Northwestern University graduate journalism students, recently ran a story about the Uniting American Families Act, legislation that “would allow same-sex partners to be united legally through the U.S. immigration process. The bill would correct the bias in the [Immigration and Nationality Act] by adding the term ‘permanent partner’ to the law’s definition of family members; therefore, same-sex partners of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents would be eligible for green cards and immigrant visas available to spouses and other family members.”
The piece profiles a couple, Tim Miller and Alistair McCartney, who have been together for fourteen years who may be forced to separate or leave the country altogether when McCartney, an Australian citizen, sees his work Visa expire next year.
Reporter Sirena Rubinoff then interviewed Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council who explained his organization’s opposition to the legislation:
We oppose this bill because it is, although it may be at the margins, part of an assault on the definition of family ... I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe homosexuality is destructive to society.
Posted by Kyle at 1:35 PM | Permalink
September 21, 2007
Family Impact Summit: 'Jaunty Musclemen,' 'Gay Aliens,' and the 'Homosexual Agenda' in PowerPoint
One of our correspondents sent this report from the first day of the Family Impact Summit in Florida:
The first panel's topic was "The Homosexual Agenda," and Peter Sprigg, vice president for public policy at the Family Research Council, gave his talk with the aid of a PowerPoint presentation purporting to outline the "Elements of the Agenda." Sprigg lectured the crowd about how “militant gay rights activists” were going about crossing off agenda points, and spoke at length about the gay rights activists' movement to "indoctrinate every student from kindergarten to 12th grade."
While Sprigg gave the usual compassionate-sounding phrases of the anti-gay movement—with statements like, "We desire the best for homosexuals, and desiring the best for someone and acting to bring that about is the essence of love…"— he "affirmed" the state of Florida for having the strongest prohibition against adoption by gay couples. He made the claim that "most children raised by homosexuals are the result of previous heterosexual relationships," and proceeded to pontificate about how this "undermines the notion that homosexuality is something fixed from birth and cannot change—there are very few homosexuals who have never had a heterosexual relationship."
Sprigg’s shining moment, I think, was when he chastised the "militant gay rights activists" for characterizing sexual orientation as tantamount to race. He stated that "homosexuality is not equivalent to heterosexuality," and thus is not a civil rights issue like race.
We heard a lot about those "ex-gays" and then were addressed by "an ex-gay" in person: Alan Chambers, the president of Exodus International. Chambers worried about "the militant activist groups out to co-opt family life, our rights, and change America into an America that is only good for them." We were told that these “militant gay activists” were "trying to co-opt our very way of life."
In fact, the phrase "militant gay activist" was bandied around so much, I felt silly for having left my weaponry at home … I was also ashamed not to fit Chambers' image of what a gay man is: a "jaunty mustached muscleman," apparently, in contrast to the "nice young people, old people, and attractive women" progressives are said to use in our commercials and media campaigns. Chambers also claimed that "the gay activist movement is wealthy. None of us in the pro-family movement are making money. I am in poverty compared to what the executives of the pro-gay movement are making."
Chambers concluded by saying, "We have to stand up against an evil agenda."
Bob Knight of the Media Research Center’s Culture and Media Institute posed a rhetorical question: "If there's only less than 2-3% of the population that are gay, how are they so powerful?” Knight’s answer: “Because they are like a little kid, with a big brother and a baseball bat behind them—the American media." According to Knight, the "gay media" is making bizarre, unfounded claims. Gay and lesbian journalists' organizations, he argued, should be courted by The Weekly World News and the Globe instead of reputable news providers; "The truth about those gay aliens" should be exposed, he joked.
Knight claimed that the gay rights movement stole the "moral capital of the civil rights movement" by applying it to sexual behavior. He chastised the gay community for "messing with the institution of marriage," and he accused us of "sticking a finger in God's eye Himself, and saying that 'we will define morality ourselves.'"
Posted by Ezra at 4:15 PM | Permalink
April 30, 2007
God Forbid
Some PBS stations are reportedly set to air a three-part BBC series entitled “A Brief History of Disbelief” which seeks to “uncover[] the hidden story of atheism.”
Not surprisingly, the Right doesn’t like it at all:
Janice Crouse, director of the Beverly LaHaye Institute for the conservative group Concerned Women for America, told Cybercast News Service that "airing the program gives credibility and cohesiveness to individuals who seek to undermine the beliefs and values on which democracy and the American dream are founded."
"One has to wonder why it is so important to them for everyone to understand their 'disbelief,'" she said. "The program is not a dispassionate, positive voice - as they claim. Instead, it is clearly demagogic and propagandistic."
Perhaps Crouse is not the best judge of what is or is not “dispassionate” considering that Beverly LaHaye, the namesake of the institute which Crouse heads, believes that “Christian values should dominate our government. The test of those values is the Bible. Politicians who do not use the Bible to guide their public and private lives do not belong in office.” And when it comes to demagogic, it’s hard to top this: “In recent times, Western Civilization has willingly chosen to exchange the faith and logic of a Biblical worldview for an irrational secularism based on an unthinking and cruel relativism. This foolish exchange is at the root of the glaring injustices of modern American public policy.”
But CWA is not alone in opposing this program:
By airing "Disbelief," [Peter] Sprigg [of the Family Research Council] added, PBS is "revealing their bias against Christianity, against traditional faith."
…
"If they really want to be objective, they need to have a three-part series documenting the evidence in favor of Christianity," he added.
Indeed. PBS hardly ever runs anything about Christianity.
Posted by Kyle at 5:24 PM | Permalink