But the administration dealt with this bit of insubordination in the clumsiest of fashions. First mistake was taking policy advice from the Article 8 Alliance, whose claim to fame is a ridiculous effort to fire the justices who ruled gay marriage in Massachusetts to be legal. Romney’s chief of staff then called the commission chairwoman on Thursday and told her the panel was kaput. She called back a few hours later to say never mind.I guess they didn't get the press release that Article 8 changed it's name to Massresistance now. It used to be Parent's Rights Coalition but then it became Article 8 and, oh, nevermind, just call it Carpetbagger Camenker's group.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
That Joke That Is Article 8/Massresistance
Well, stick a fork in them, they're done. The most conservative (and mainstream) newspaper in Massachusetts, The Herald, has called out Article 8 (hat tip to an anonymous poster):
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"Stand Up Newton"
http://www.eidos.org/article18.htm
Activists first became suspicious of religious-Right activity last fall, when Camenker appeared on the Newton cable TV show “Newton Talk” and asked for people to run for the School Committee. Months later, Newton residents and public schools received a four-page essay by mail that links homosexuality with pedophilia and claims GSAs are breeding grounds for pedophiles, written by anti-gay Sherborn resident J. Edward Pawlick.
and
"The Newton Taxpayer's Association"
http://www.parentsrightscoalition.org/GlobeLetter.htm
Friends from Newton say Camenker was booted from the NTP for trying to make every meeting about fighting gay rights.
It's interesting how long Camenker and the Pawlicks have been fighting gay rights in Mass.
Also interesting that someone from Florida refers to himself as a "southerner."
-Paul
Not to mention the "Interfaith Coalition of Massachusetts" which was dedicated to abolishing sex education. The ICM morphed into the Parent's Rights Coalition.
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/narth/camenker.html
The man has spent his entire adult life trying to deny other people rights. It's fortunate for MA that he's a total whack job.
Interestingly, Ms. Masssresistance put up a posting on her "blog" about the Herald article. Now she's saying that her precious Herald is no different than the Globe. She said the article isn't worthy of excerpting, most likely because she doesn't like what it says about the Article 8 Alliance/MassResistance "group" (I'm not sure if Camenker and Contrada, being the essence of Article 8, constitute an actual "group" :) )
Yes, one of the best things about Article8 is how closely each month's "traitors list" resembles the previous month's "heroes list."
MassResistance/Article8 does seem to be a group dedicated to general grumpiness about all issues relating to gay and lesbian rights. With society slowly moving toward more tolerance of homosexuality and same sex marriage, they are always going to find something to be unhappy about. No one will ever be "good" enough to be their friend for very long. MassResistance/Article8 members don't seem to subscribe to "Judge not lest ye be judged," so they should hardly be surprised when some of the vitriol the spew blows back in their faces.
Sorry, that should be "they spew," of course!
Today on massresistance she accuses me of complaining about how corporate pride is while taking corporate money myself.
This is untrue. While my place of employment, bagly inc., does receive a few very small donations from companies, the vast marjority of bagly's budget is funded by individual donors and non-profit grants.
QueerToday.com costs $15 per year for the domain name which is paid by msyelf. The rest is completely free. We do not fundraise or spend money on anything because we believe that if we begin to do that our money could start influencing our decisions. Any protest materials, banners, etc. are donated by individuals or a very small allied non-profit organizations.
Amy Contrada has never been one to let facts get in the way of her vitriol.
Sue them. It's clearly malicious in intent and we're a "defamation per se" state.
http://www.dancingwithlawyers.com/freeinfo/libel-slander-per-se.shtml
Bud, I don't think we should "stick a fork in" the MassResistance folks--we should promote them, point at them, plaster their whack-job ravings where everyone in Massachusetts can see them. (And this blog is the best effort I'm aware of to do so--bless your heart.)
What I think the Herald editorial proves is that the MassResistance claque is now a millstone around the neck of anti-gay forces in Massachusetts: the more publicity these particular bigots get, the worse it is for people who are opposed to GLBT equality. Every time a Bay Stater sees one of Ed Pawlick's hilarious "JUDGE MARSHALL RESIGN" banners (e.g., http://tinyurl.com/pnbbx ) being dragged across the sky, she learns how unhinged the opposition to marriage equality really is. Every time Brian Camenker shows up on TV to bluster ( http://tinyurl.com/mmgfr ) about how a group of kids forming a support group constitutes radical homosexual indoctrination, the viewing public learns that certain 'phobes are actually opposed to gay kids feeling (and being) safe in school. And then Amy Contrada lets fly with her own special blend of hatred--such as her all-too-revealing argument about depictions of gay couples in children's books:
[W]e say even "Who's In a Family?" is about human sexuality, because when a young child from a normal background is forced to focus on two mommies or two daddies with their children, they will naturally find it strange. Then their thoughts inevitably move on to how two mommies or two daddies can make babies. "Do they kiss like my mommy and daddy? Do they sleep together?", etc.
( http://tinyurl.com/pfjzp .) The import here is obvious: this woman is absolutely obsessed with ("abnormal") gay sex--she sees it in a freakin' children's book, and she's convinced that kids see it there too! The above passage practically yells it: Contrada's gay-sex obsession is the origin of her virulent homophobia. So when she posts stuff like this, MassResistance readers learn that opponents of gay rights are flat-out deranged. Whether you're gay or straight, a fan of GLBT rights or not, would you want the woman who wrote the paragraph above to get anywhere near your children?
Then there's the "gay marriage was never legalized" joke, and the Parker/Wirthlin lawsuit, and of course the estimable Fred Phelps.... in all of it, the anti-gay fringe is trying very hard to alienate the hell out of the Massachusetts public. With enemies like these, who needs friends? (In a manner of speaking. :-)
The more sophisticated opponents of gay rights, of course, are well aware of the damage that Contrada/Camenker/Pawlick's antics does to their side. As we've noticed ( http://tinyurl.com/q3o98 ), anti-gay groups with far more PR savvy than our favorite fruitcakes desperately want to distance themselves from said fruitcakes. Groups like the Massachusetts Family Institute understand that the fringe fanatics are dangerous, because those fanatics rip the veil off of the anti-gay bigotry in MFI (and PFOX, Focus on the Family, etc.), despite the careful attempts to position those groups as committed but tolerant champions of "traditional marriage." GLBTs and their allies have known for a very long time that anti-gay sentiment comes from some very ugly places in the human psyche; the more distribution MassResistance et al. get, the harder it is for the smarter homphobes to obscure that fact.
The MR blog doesn't take comments, so I'll have to say it here: Keep writin', Amy. Don't let The Man (MFI, the Governor, or mean old Bud ;-) get you down. Every time you put marriage in scare quotes, every time you complain that the anti-gay constitutional amendment isn't homophobic enough (because it lets some gay marriages survive), and every time you shriek that a kid brought up by two women is not "normal," you hasten the onset of full equality for GLBT people. Put this fervent advocate of gay rights down as a MassResistance fan.
What you fruits fail to realize is that Brian and I are in the *MAJORITY*! We will force you back into the closets, and if you refuse to go, we still have our 2nd amendment rights to take care of those that dare oppose us!
See, and the woman is wacky enough that we don't even know if that's the real Contrada or a spoof.
Either way: love ya, Amy. Show that "MAJORITY" who's boss. You go, girl.
To the poster who said "Sue them": Yeah, you could sue them but it wouldn't gain anything. To prove slander it would have to come from a credible source and Massresistance isn't credible at all. A judge would just say that no one believes them anyway so it isn't slander.
Actually, a credible source isn't required. Here's another source:
http://www.expertlaw.com/library/personal_injury/defamation.html
Typically, the following may consititute defamation per se:
* Attacks on a person's professional character or standing;
* Allegations that an unmarried person is unchaste;
* Allegations that a person is infected with a sexually transmitted disease;
* Allegations that the person has committed a crime of moral turpitude;
I do agree that Amy Contrada is not credible to sane people. There are still enough WorldNutDaily readers out there to keep it business and Article8 lies all too frequently get repeated there.
Amy contrada is now accusing BAGLY of sponsoring pedophilia (http://www.massresistance.blogspot.com/) and Brian Camenker is calling them predators.
BAGLY should definitely go for a slander/libel suit.
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