Badpuppy Gay Today

Wednesday, 04 June 1997

Several fundamentalist and evangelical hate-groups calling themselves "pro-family", in transparent attempts at making themselves appear benign, launched an anti-gay ad campaign Wednesday, focusing once again on employment rights for gay men and lesbians, an issue about which "pro-family" groups regularly squawk. Their tireless efforts to deny jobs and job benefits to same-sex couples have now become a perpetual preoccupation.

The latest hate-ad "pro-family" zealots have fashioned is an open letter to American Airlines Chief Executive Officer Robert Crandall, which appeared in the Washington Times, the Allen American, the Plano Star-Courier, and the Louisville Leader.

The ad lashes out at American Airlines principally for its "support of homosexuality" through "discount fares for homosexual partners". American is also castigated for sponsorship of " gay pride" events as well as all-night "circuit parties."

Sensationalist fundamentalist threats have been made against other large companies. "Pro-family" front groups live on a mysterious diet of critiquing and boycotting every major corporation with sexual-orientation non-discrimination policies. Most major companies, however, seem now ready to act as if the meddlesome zealots no longer exist. Even so, according to gay activists, American Airlines needs to know its support for equality in the workplace is appreciated.

The "pro-family" hate groups say in their ad that American Airlines was once designated as official carrier of a gay schoolteachers group, and that it makes donations to "partisan homosexual activist groups" such as the Human Rights Campaign and Parents, Friends and Family of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG).

The sin of which the hate-groups accuse both PFLAG and HRC--aside from the fact that they are gay and lesbian organizations-- is that both these groups have labeled their "pro-family" organizations "extremist" and "bigoted."

"Words like 'bigoted' and 'extremist' alone hardly describe these "pro-family hate-groups," said Mike Bernstein, an activist who keeps tabs on far-right religious buffoonery. "A proper description would certainly have to include a word like 'meddlesome.' Bawling out American Airlines in big city newspaper ads only helps to make them look more meddlesome than ever, doesn't it?"

Three major American newspapers, USA Today, the Dallas Morning News and the Fort Worth Star Telegram refused to carry the anti-gay hate-ad. Activists hope that the publishers of these three papers also need to know that there are many who appreciate their principled rejections of hate-group advertising.

The ad's dubious contents have been signed by the even more questionable Gary L. Bauer of the Family Research Council, the blue-movie-maker, D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, the vapid James Dobson of Focus on the Family, the obtuse Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association, the pretentious Beverly LaHaye of Concerned Women for America, and the slip-shod Richard Land of the Christian Life Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. These religiously-"inspired" cronies boast that their hate-groups collectively represent more than 20 million Americans.

"American (Airlines) is free to market their services in any way they see fit," said Robert Knight, Family Research Council's Director of Cultural Studies. "They are also free to support homosexual activism. But we are free to alert the American people to their agenda and to urge Mr. Crandall to stop his airline's endorsement of a radical movement that seeks to use government and corporate power to impose obligatory acceptance of homosexuality on all of society."

The hate-groups fulminated about what they perceive as their unwarranted elimination from mainstream issues:

"The national press has long been biased toward the homosexual activist movement, but now we are witnessing outright suppression of dissent. We support the existence of a free press. Newspapers have a right to print what they want, and to decline to print. But we also have the right to expose how they are actively suppressing one side of a major issue while posing as objective sources of information.

"We call on USA Today, the Dallas Morning News, and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to reexamine their indefensible rejection of a reasonable, soundly researched and documented advertisement. And we call on American Airlines to stop lending its name to behavior that is immoral, unhealthy and destructive to individuals, families and societies."

Mike Bernstein's reply to all "pro-family" groups, he says, includes his hope that they may re-examine their own "indefensible rejection of common sense," and will soon get on with their lives in a positive way, doing something "worthwhile and sensible for a change."