Next week on Election Day marriage for gay and lesbian couples will be voted on in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington. GLAAD’s update to the CAP project includes profiles of anti-LGBT activists working against LGBT families in those states. The profiles, which include direct quotes or writings from the activists, have also been shared with pro-LGBT campaigns in the states.
“Media have a responsibility to provide context when giving platforms to anti-LGBT activists who are dedicated to making life more difficult for LGBT families,” said GLAAD President Herndon Graddick. “Voters should know that ads and talking points put forward by these activists are not fueled by facts, but merely by anti-gay animus."
The profiles include several people who are often quoted as 'experts' on marriage or on LGBT issues, but without mention of their history of vehemently anti-LGBT remarks. The profiles, which include direct quotes or writings from the activists, have also been shared with pro-LGBT campaigns in the states.
MAINE
Carroll Conley - calls marriage equality "insidious and evil"
Bob Emrich - says pro-equality legislators are "mocking God"
Mike Heath - says the LGBT equality movement is "rooted in sorcery and it is a child of the devil"
Paul Madore - calls same-sex couples suffer from "unadultered sophristy and perverted kind of thinking"
MARYLAND
Harry Jackson - says marriage equality is part of “a satanic plot to destroy our seed"
Derek McCoy - says marriage equality is an assault on the kingdom of God
MINNESOTA
Barb Anderson - Says LGBT equality is "the greatest threat to our freedom and the health and well-being of our children"
Brad Brandon - claims gay people are using Bob the Builder and Dora the Explorer to make kids pro-equality because "Satan knows that if he gets the kids he gets the future. Even Adolf Hitler knew that"
Chuck Darrell - claims "medical evidence proves" that being gay "is a killer"
Bradlee Dean - has claimed that “On average, [gay people] molest 117 people before they’re found out”
John Helmberger - says it is necessary to vote against LGBT equality in order to "restrain evil"
Tom Prichard - equates being gay with pedophilia and infidelity
WASHINGTON
Joseph Backholm - equates marriage equality with the practice of bloodletting
Joe Fuiten - says "demons inspire people to believe that homosexual union is the moral equivalent of a proper marriage"
Ken Hutcherson - compared Governor Chris Gregoire, who signed marriage equality into law, to John Wilkes Booth, who shot Abraham Lincoln
Stephen Pidgeon - says the true goal of the LGBT equality movement is "about population control, and the goal is to get the United States to 150 million people"
GLAAD also released new profiles of anti-LGBT activists regularly quoted in national outlets along with updates to previously released ones including Keith Ablow, Brian Brown, and Bryan Fischer.
If the key voices on one side of any other issue were to consistently state that their opponents are controlled by Satan, influenced by demons, comparable to Nazis, or equal to pedophiles, those beliefs would absolutely be a central part of the conversation," said GLAAD President Herndon Graddick.
Visit the GLAAD Commentator Accountability Project at http://glaad.org/cap and follow the Twitter hashtag #GLAADCAP. If you see any of these individuals appear in the media, without the context needed for voters to make informed decisions, please report it here.