One among abundant examples

I frequently talk about how the far right engages in lies, smears or distortions as part of their war on gay people. Today I thought I’d share a specific example.

I saw a quote from convicted Watergate felon Chuck Colson, who now claims he’s a Christian. But a huge part of his “ministry” is lying about, smearing and distorting the truth about gay people. He was one of the authors of the infamous “Manhattan Declaration”, endorsed by all the leading and minor anti-gay hate groups, which calls on “Christians” to disobey any law that protects the civil rights of GLBT Americans.

The convicted felon said:

"Although the media elite don’t want you to know it, according to a recent Alliance Defense Fund poll, the majority of Americans want to reserve marriage to one man and one woman."

This is a deliberate deception in the nature of a lie, and on two counts.

First, the “poll” was funded by one anti-gay hate group and conducted by another anti-gay hate group specifically to get the results it got. It was, in other words, not a real poll, had absolutely no validity whatsoever and was done solely to use as a propaganda tool. The truth is that real polls, conducted by real and reputable polling organisations all find strong majority support for relationship recognition for same-sex couples, and such polls are also increasingly reporting growing majorities backing marriage equality. So, the real facts are the opposite of what the “poll” claimed to find. The rightwing “poll” was a deception, designed to fool people who don’t know the truth about it or its origins into thinking it was legitimate.

Colson’s being deceptive when he says, “the media elite don’t want you to know” about the “poll” because he’s trying to imply they’re refusing to report real news. In fact, the news media don’t knowingly report bullshit as if it’s true, no matter how much Colson prays they do. The “poll” got no mainstream news coverage because it was a deception, not news.

This is one of the more minor examples of the lies, smears and distortions coming from the anti-gay industry. But since it popped up just today, I thought I’d share it as one example of the tactics of the anti-gay industry. There will be more, no doubt.

Top o’ the hat to Joe.My.God.