AFA's Wildmon proposed a hypothetical tour of gay bathhouses, repeated misinformation on average gay incomes
SUMMARY: In response to gay rights organization Soulforce's Equality Ride -- a bus tour aimed at confronting religious schools and military academies that ban the enrollment of GBLT students -- the American Family Association's Don Wildmon proposed his own hypothetical trip to "the homosexual bathhouses," saying, "[W]e're going to confront these people ... for what they're doing."
On the March 8 edition of the AFA Report, Donald E. Wildmon, founder and chairman of the American Family Association (AFA), responded to the Equality Ride, a seven-week bus tour of 32 young adults organized by gay rights organization Soulforce "to confront nineteen religious schools and military academies that ban the enrollment of GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] students." Wildmon proposed his own hypothetical trip to "the homosexual bathhouses," saying, "[W]e're going to confront these people ... for what they're doing." In a discussion with Ed Vitagliano, news editor of the American Family Association Journal, Fred Jackson, AFA news director, and Rusty Benson, Journal associate editor, Wildmon also repeated misinformation about average gay incomes -- while falsifying his own -- claiming, "[T]he average homosexual makes four times more than I do." The AFA Report is broadcast daily on the AFA-operated American Family Radio.
From the March 8 broadcast of American Family Radio's AFA Report:
WILDMON: What does -- what does [Equality Ride co-director] Jacob Reitan say? He's one of the spokesmen. "We must cut off the suffering at its source. The source is religion-based opposition -- the religion-based oppression -- and it's taken place for centuries." In other words, we must get rid of the Christian faith. Let's go to these Christian schools. What if we had organized a tour and said, "We're going to the bathhouses in -- in 24 cities -- the homosexual bathhouses -- and we're going to confront these people, you know, for what they're doing," etc. -- etc. -- how would the media play that?
JACKSON: And demand that these bathhouses give us a forum to have our say.
WILDMON: Make them and bring 'em out there and give us -- set us up and -- yeah.
JACKSON: Yeah. Well, we know where the media would have its sympathies in that case. Of course, and it wouldn't be done, anyway. But these people, it just reinforces as you say, Don, what you just said. They regard Christianity, they regard biblical teaching, as the source of their problems. And what they're demanding is no less than you Christians stop teaching that homosexuality is a sin.
WILDMON: Stop -- stop -- stop preaching from the Bible.
JACKSON: That's right.
[...]
BENSON: Yeah, I mean, this is -- this is what you call -- what? -- chutzpah. This is -- this is --
WILDMON: That's a Jewish word, right? Be careful.
[...]
WILDMON: The spokesman [Equality Ride spokesman] says, the source for our -- "We must cut off the suffering." That is, the homosexual suffering. You know, I saw yesterday how much -- how much money the homosexual community has. I mean, good gracious, the average homosexual makes four times more than I do, Ed. Goodness gracious!
VITAGLIANO: Right.
WILDMON: I mean, we could take a professional homosexual salary all four of us --
VITAGLIANO: We could live pretty well on it.
WILDMON: -- and split it up four ways and all of us would get pretty good raises. I mean, they're not -- these people are not in poverty or hurting or denied or anything else.
Though Wildmon did not state specifically "how much money the homosexual community has," according to the Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, the AFA has, for many years, based its statements on average gay incomes on a discredited 1988 survey by the Simmons Market Research Bureau, which listed the average gay income as $55,430 -- well above the mean income for heterosexuals ($32,286). According to the Ontario group's website, the survey's findings were reported in a 1991 Wall Street Journal article and subsequently repeated by anti-gay conservative groups such as the Heritage Foundation, Focus on the Family, and the AFA.
The survey's findings, however, did not reflect a representative sample of the national gay population. The Simmons survey polled only readers of popular gay-oriented magazines and those who filled out sign-up sheets for the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. As the National Organization of Gay and Lesbian Scientists and Technical Professionals Inc. (NOGLSTP) noted, "People who buy and read newspapers and magazines tend to have more education and higher incomes. Gay events attract people who can afford to travel or pay an entrance fee." Indeed, as NOGLSTP also noted, a 1989 study by Simmons found that readers of African-American-oriented magazines like Jet, Ebony, and Essence earned 41 to 82 percent more than the average African-American.
A December 1998 study commissioned by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's Policy Institute titled "Income Inflation: The Myth of Affluence Among Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Americans," by M.V. Lee Badgett, a University of Massachusetts associate professor of economics, paints a decidedly different picture of gay incomes than does the Simmons survey. Relying on U.S. Census Bureau statistics, exit polls conducted at 300 polling stations on election day in 1992 and 1996 -- which inquired about sexual orientation and family status -- sexual partner questions in the National Opinion Research Center's 1988 General Social Survey, and four other sources, Badgett concluded that gay men earn as much as 25 percent less than their heterosexual counterparts. Further, she reported that gay and lesbian households earn only 4 percent more than heterosexual households.
Yet even if the Simmons survey were accurate, Wildmon's assertion that "the average homosexual earns four times more than I do," would not be. According to the AFA's 2004 990 filing -- the Internal Revenue Service's return for organizations exempt from income tax -- Wildmon paid himself $58,010 plus $13,787 in benefits and a housing allowance of $39,200. He paid his son, Tim, who is president of AFA, $79,000.
WILDMON: Stop -- stop -- stop preaching from the Bible.
And a correction note,
It isn't the teaching, lessons and messages in the Bible that offends. Rather it is those that use the lessons, messages and teachings; Pimping them out to the people.
If people like Donald E. Wildmon, would stop WHORING out the Christian faith, maybe it would look more like Christ meant it to be. But unfortunately, they've perverted His teachings, lessons, and messages. Christ, born a Jew, wouldn't even recognize Christianity as a religion of "Monkey see, Monkey do" Christ was no Monkey, but these chimps that claim to be blessed by God to do His work, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, condemn those that do not fall in line.
Christ, born a Jew, would not be welcome in their religion.
Shame. Such Shame.
G. Wills has a new book out "What Jesus Ment" to make a long story short, Jesus is neither Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, and basically if you feed, cloth or house the least among you, you are doing the same to Jesus, and if you do the opposite, you do the opposite to Jesus, and you will have to answer for it in heaven. Interesting book.
Hasn't it been said that god has showered many conservative christians with wealth? Isn't that their reward for being so good and pure and just and jesuslike?
Well, he must love these gays also, as they are making 4 times more money than these purists here.
It's the hypocrisy of the whole "christian" thing that makes me an athiest! Twist the words, twist the words.
There are gay bathhouses?
I thought bathhouses ended in the 80s. And more and more, I agree with people that suggest that homo-obsessed folks are homo-oppressed folks. How can they fret about queer folks, year after year, decade after decade, unless there's some internal incentive.
Which explains why they wanna tour the bathhouses, which might take a time machine.
And if they have a time machine, why don't they go back in time to when men were men, queers were closeted, and black Americans had their very own water fountains.
If you believe Wildmon made $58,010 in 2004, I've got a bathhouse in his backyard I'd like to sell you.
Hmmm...
"the average homosexual earns four times what I do"
Let's see, ummm...
Total compensation in '04, $110,997, times four = $443,988
Guess I'm below the homosexual poverty line according to these geniuses...
Given their salaries, when Wildmon and his son die, they'll step into a pearly elevator. The doors will close. They'll look for a button. There will only be one. It will be marked: CTC.
Wildmon will smile.
"Ahhh," he'll say, "Christ the...Christ, the...."
His smiling son will just press it, saying, "Let's go meet the Man."
Only after he presses it, will he realize that it means "Cut the Cable."
And sure enough, by dint of their wealth alone, the Bible and Jesus suggest that they will meet the Man. Just not the one they're assuming.
Wildmon is paid a 6-figure income. There are about 3,000 warnings against wealth in the Bible. According to Wildmon, they could quarter the average salary of a homosexual American citizen and he'd still have a nice raise. Thus, by Wildmon's assertion, the average homosexual American citizen makes about $500,000 a year. If the Bible didn't warn and warn and warn about wealth, I'd sign up to be queer.
These 2 seem very concerned about gays but not about their own misrepresentations (better known as lies). I wonder if they remember this one from their bibles..."Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor." They probably feel it's fine to lie if it meets their Christian agenda. From what I've seen, lying causes more damage in this world than gays.
There's nothing quite as disgusting as self-righteous, hate-filled pharisaical nutcases who claim to speak on behalf of Christianity.
WILDMON: That's a Jewish word, right? Be careful.
Oy vey. What bozos these 2 are.
Such a Modest Proposal of Rev. Wildmon's ranks right up there with the common practice over 100-125 years ago of tourists being shown actual opium dens in the Chinatown districts of several major cities (especially so New York and San Francisco), the better to reduce the Chinese to objects of fun and derision (by suggesting that opium was being used by the Chinese as an agency of White Slavery against innocent--and, by theory, "morally-superior"--white girls and women).
Which, if anything, could be the start of "Hate Tourism"--i.e., a form of tourism designed solely for the sake of promoting hatemongering, bigotry and prejudice in especially a vulnerable and easily-led element.
Go figure....
Just the fact that the 'discourse' devolves into "good gracious -- those gays make a lot of money" is ridiculous.
The premise is classic, homegrown hatemongering... "we hate those people, therefore they must be destroyed"
...what's worse, "those we hate seem to be better off than we are...therefore we hate them MORE" These are self-proclaimed Christians folks. So much hate, so little time.
Check out: [link to www.thetaskforce.org]
and
[link to www.thetaskforce.org]
Right wingers never cease to amaze me. In an attempt to work the masses into a frenzy, they pull out the class card. Assume for a moment, that it is true that homosexuals make four times what Wildmon makes, what’s wrong with that? Last time I looked, we were a capitalist system. I can see it now…"Heterosexuals of the world unite! You have nothing to loose but your bathhouses."
Peet: "So much hate, so little time."
Peet, you are so worthy of repeeting.
But how long are these unholy folks going to flog the homosexual horse?
As I've posted many times, let rich people take their turn before the unrighteous eyes, hands, and mouths of these demagogues.
As a conservative Christian(although a moderate in political sense) I feel sad when I read these sorts of things. It is our duty as Christians to represent Christ at all times in our life and be missionaries to that effect. For people like this to claim they speak for Christians and then do nothing but spew words of hate must make Jesus cry. These people are not a representation of the average Christian let alone average person. All they do is drive people away from Christianity because people start believeing that all Christians are as bigoted and closeminded as these guys are. As to the who homosexual issue, I just wish they could say, as most of us do, that although we believe homosexuality is wrong, it is not our place to judge and that they are still good and valuble people, and we love gays as our brothers and sisters and as equals. I think that is far more what Christ would want then to attack homosexuals at every chance. Again, so sad.
Well, since they know where all the bathouses are, they could plan that trip pretty quickly, I imagine.
As ridiculous as the article is, I actually find it very exciting. These guys are flustering. They're making fools of themselves. They are going to appeal less and less to intelligent, fair-minded Christians.
They should have meetings in the steamroom more often.
Please forgive my sarcastic response... Having compassion on the Bathouse Riders & their supporters is an area that I am apparently weak in, and since I am committed to becoming more compassionate to people, I'll just add the Bathouse Riders to the list. -- Nate Black www.nateblack.us
My first comment was basically just an insult to the Bathouse Riders... so let me see if I can write a thoughtful response.
I truly believe that the louder and more histrionic these ridiculous, extremist voices get, that more & more fair minded people will distance themselves from their rhetoric.
Let them squeal & holler. Maybe even provoke them a little.
But publicly counter every word with a poised, compassionate, and intelligent response.
-- Nate Black www.nateblack.us
There's always a "new" way for these people to preach hate.
It would be fun for Wildmon to go to bathhouses, and then balk at having to pay to enter, and then get arrested when the clerks call the cops for harrassment.
I say, bring it on AFA douchebags.
Bones, right.The fables of the spook are anti-gay and anti-hunan period, but people overlook the evil.Bishop Spong claims there is a god of love in hi s hate-filled fables. who knows what J. Christ would say about gays: who cares? He preached hell:no matter if interpreted metaphorically , it is immoral!See Richard Carrier's " Sense and Goodness without God".Fable -thumpers say they love the sinner, not the sin to approve their soft bigotry>It is none of their business what sexual orientation one is!Even if biology had nothing to do with ones orientation, one is free to pursue it.[Sixty minutes had asegment on biological orientation.].