Posts
The following post was sent in by Obama IS America! contributor Nakhone about an organization he has founded called the Gays United Network. Please find the organization's mission statement below.
This post also includes information on a movement called Truth Wins Out (TWO). Here is information about this organization pulled *straight from their website*:
Mission: TruthWinsOut.org is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.
Mission: TruthWinsOut.org is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.
Creed: TruthWinsOut.org is resolute in its belief that ex-gay programs are a politically motivated fraud designed to exploit vulnerable clients for financial gain and pass anti-gay legislation. Attempts to change sexual orientation are patently offensive, discriminatory by definition, theologically shaky, uniformly unsuccessful and medically unsound. TruthWinsOut.org firmly believes that ex-gay programs can damage families, lower self-esteem, generate guilt and shame and sometimes lead to suicide. The organization holds as self-evident that the world would be a better place without ex-gay programs, which are an unnecessary and destructive hindrance to the natural coming out process.
Goal: TruthWinsOut.org aims to end the dangerous practice of ex-gay therapy in all of its injurious forms. The organization will tirelessly advocate against such programs, vigorously disseminate educational material, and doggedly pursue actions that will help undermine the ex- gay myth.
I (the Editor of OIA!) would like to take this opportunity to say (from personal experience) that the Prop 8 protests (at least in California) have been PEACEFUL PROTESTS.
The letter Nakhone wrote in conjunction with his submission has also been included to give some background and a personal voice to the information you can find below.
Finally, please note that on Valentine's Day (Feb. 14) 2009, Gays United Network will be hosting a fundraiser dinner on behalf of TWO called --> "Dinner for TWO: Dining for Equality."
Event Info
Host: GAYS UNITED NETWORK
Type: Causes - Fundraiser
Network:Global
Time and Place
Start Time: Saturday, February 14, 2009 at 5:00pm
End Time: Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 12:00am
Location: Across the United States of America
Contact Info
Phone: 323.635.5384
Email: nakhone@gaysunitednetwork.org
THANK YOU!!! And enjoy the post below!!!
Hi There,
We met at Marriage Equality USA's town hall last Sunday and I came up to you to ask for your email. You told me to email you info about my organization Gays United Network. I am posting our mission state below.
More importantly, I am reaching out to you to enlist Obamaisamerica.blogspot.com to do a feature on both Gays United Network as well as a Call To Action to help support Truth Wins Out (TWO). TWO has finally responded to the hateful ad from No Mob Veto.org, the frontman for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty (or as I like to call it "Bigotry). I will also post a letter from Wayne Besen, executive director of TWO. I also created a cause on facebook named Gays United Network to help raise money and the funds that will be raised through that cause will benefit TWO. The link to donate to Gays United Network on facebook is https://www.causes.com/fb/
I enjoyed listening to your impassioned speech on Sunday, and, apparently, I recruited you at the reception for speaker of the house Assemblywoman Karen Bass. What a small world.
Much love,
-Nakhone Keodara
Gays (UN)
Founder
Wayne Besen's Letter:
December 10, 2008
From Wayne Besen, Executive Director, Truth Wins Out:
Today, I took a big risk for equality.
I placed a $6,000 full-page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune with the limited funds of a small organization in tough economic times.
What was so important that I felt I had no choice?
Last week, on Friday, December 5, the anti-gay organization "No Mob Veto" took out a full-page ad in the New York Times that accused our community of engaging in "anarchy and mob violence" just for protesting Proposition 8!
Maybe you took part in one or more of those peaceful protests, or maybe you didn't. But whether you participated or not, we can all agree on how scurrilous it is that the right-wing wants to vilify the gay and lesbian community by falsely accusing us of acting like a mob!
This is a dangerous moment. We cannot just sit back and do nothing while the anti-gay crowd works to convince people that we're conducting a "jihad" against the Mormon Church...or any church for that matter. If such a smear should be allowed to take hold in the minds of fair-minded Americans, it could set the cause back five or even ten years.
Truth Wins Out believes that when our opponents openly defame us, we must strike back twice as hard. No one will hand us our rights – we must take them by exposing the other side for who they are: a group of dishonest anti-gay crusaders who will say absolutely anything in order to deny us full equality under the law.
I chose to run our ad in the Salt Lake Tribune to highlight their hypocrisy and to torpedo their "Big Lie" before it has a chance to take hold. The headline of our ad---"Lies in the Name of the Lord"---is bold and hard-hitting. It will surely get the attention of Utah's Mormon leadership.
These "No Mob Veto" activists include notorious homophobes such as convicted felon Chuck Colson (Prison Fellowship); Rich Cizik (National Association of Evangelicals) and William Donohue (The Catholic League).
In their ad, these men claim to be great defenders of the Mormon faith! Yet, T.W.O.'s research has found that their statements contain blatant anti-Mormon bigotry. It's crucial that we highlight their offensive statements to let people know it is totally preposterous for them to pose as friends of Mormonism.
Please take a moment to view their dishonest "No Mob Veto" ad.
http://www.nomobveto.org/images/nytad_lg.png
Then, take a look at Truth Wins Out's ad, "Lies in the Name of the Lord."
http://www.truthwinsout.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/ 12/two_ad_large.jpg
The Salt Lake Tribune charged us $6,000 for the ad. We need your help to pay this invoice and to continue doing the kind of hard-hitting activism that some gay organizations have refused to do.
If you're like us, you believe that lies about the gay community must never go unanswered. We're looking for 60 people to give a $100 tax-deductible gift. If you agree to do so by joining our "Group of Sixty", we will also send you an original copy of the Thursday edition of the Salt Lake Tribune, the issue which contains T.W.O.'s full-page ad. This is our modest way of saying "thank you" for joining us on the front lines of this new gay activism.
Together, we can stand up to anti-gay lies and win full equality. The days of sitting back and doing nothing are over. Please join our "Group of Sixty" by giving a $100 gift right now.
You have always been able to count on T.W.O. to speak the truth, and now, we are counting on you.
Please donate here: http://www.truthwinsout.org/donate.html
P.S. If you are able to give more we would greatly appreciate it. If you are unable to give at this level, please consider a gift of $10 or more and help us fight back. Every dollar helps.
From Wayne Besen, Executive Director, Truth Wins Out:
Today, I took a big risk for equality.
I placed a $6,000 full-page ad in the Salt Lake Tribune with the limited funds of a small organization in tough economic times.
What was so important that I felt I had no choice?
Last week, on Friday, December 5, the anti-gay organization "No Mob Veto" took out a full-page ad in the New York Times that accused our community of engaging in "anarchy and mob violence" just for protesting Proposition 8!
Maybe you took part in one or more of those peaceful protests, or maybe you didn't. But whether you participated or not, we can all agree on how scurrilous it is that the right-wing wants to vilify the gay and lesbian community by falsely accusing us of acting like a mob!
This is a dangerous moment. We cannot just sit back and do nothing while the anti-gay crowd works to convince people that we're conducting a "jihad" against the Mormon Church...or any church for that matter. If such a smear should be allowed to take hold in the minds of fair-minded Americans, it could set the cause back five or even ten years.
Truth Wins Out believes that when our opponents openly defame us, we must strike back twice as hard. No one will hand us our rights – we must take them by exposing the other side for who they are: a group of dishonest anti-gay crusaders who will say absolutely anything in order to deny us full equality under the law.
I chose to run our ad in the Salt Lake Tribune to highlight their hypocrisy and to torpedo their "Big Lie" before it has a chance to take hold. The headline of our ad---"Lies in the Name of the Lord"---is bold and hard-hitting. It will surely get the attention of Utah's Mormon leadership.
These "No Mob Veto" activists include notorious homophobes such as convicted felon Chuck Colson (Prison Fellowship); Rich Cizik (National Association of Evangelicals) and William Donohue (The Catholic League).
In their ad, these men claim to be great defenders of the Mormon faith! Yet, T.W.O.'s research has found that their statements contain blatant anti-Mormon bigotry. It's crucial that we highlight their offensive statements to let people know it is totally preposterous for them to pose as friends of Mormonism.
Please take a moment to view their dishonest "No Mob Veto" ad.
http://www.nomobveto.org/image
Then, take a look at Truth Wins Out's ad, "Lies in the Name of the Lord."
http://www.truthwinsout.org/
The Salt Lake Tribune charged us $6,000 for the ad. We need your help to pay this invoice and to continue doing the kind of hard-hitting activism that some gay organizations have refused to do.
If you're like us, you believe that lies about the gay community must never go unanswered. We're looking for 60 people to give a $100 tax-deductible gift. If you agree to do so by joining our "Group of Sixty", we will also send you an original copy of the Thursday edition of the Salt Lake Tribune, the issue which contains T.W.O.'s full-page ad. This is our modest way of saying "thank you" for joining us on the front lines of this new gay activism.
Together, we can stand up to anti-gay lies and win full equality. The days of sitting back and doing nothing are over. Please join our "Group of Sixty" by giving a $100 gift right now.
You have always been able to count on T.W.O. to speak the truth, and now, we are counting on you.
Please donate here: http://www.truthwinsout.org/
P.S. If you are able to give more we would greatly appreciate it. If you are unable to give at this level, please consider a gift of $10 or more and help us fight back. Every dollar helps.
GAYS UNITED NETWORK MISSION STATEMENT:
SILENCE = OPPRESSION!
When the voters of California took away basic fundamental rights for Gay people to marry, they committed an emotional rape on our Community and "left a STAIN upon our State Constitution (Robin Tyler's words)."
Gays United Network ("Gays (UN)") is a direct response to that injustice--the long overdue antidote to smear-the-queer tactics that have been used against Gays. Gays (UN) has been formed to provide the GLBTQI (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex) Community with an avenue of political activism with the goal of achieving full Gay Liberation.
We cannot let them define the debate EVER again. We MUST go on the offense and get in their faces. We WILL exposed their lies, hold a mirror up to their hypocrisy and hold them accountable for the deceitful and immoral Campaign that took away our hard won civil rights.
Our charge is to enlighten these voters by demythologizing deeply woven institutional lies surrounding marriage. Let's help our fellow citizens find their way out of the labyrinth of religious tyranny! Civility will be our Ariadne's thread.
With that said, only by taking action and getting our cause out there in the media and in the faces of conservative hate, is the only way they will really see us.
Gays (UN)'s strategy is to organize a large scale Street Theatre and Guerrilla Film Projects, across the state and the nation, Ã la Theater of the Oppressed style.
To that end, we will also produce eye-opening and informative Public Service Announcements.
Through organized planning and well thought out actions, we can show we mean business.
We are the creative ones so let's show them just how creative we can get. Let's produce another Prop 8 Musical. This time it should be titled "Prop 8 Musical: Joseph Smith and his 33 wives."
In 2008, the California State Supreme Court ruled that "It is illegal to hide discrimination behind religious beliefs." The time to organize and to fight for equal rights is NOW. We will no longer accept religious tyranny that justifies bigotry based on its "Deeply & Bigotedly Held Religious Beliefs."
We are committed to restoring integrity to our Constitution and dignity to our Community. We will use any means necessary (within the bounds of civility) to get our point across--that we will no longer stand for oppression. Not for one more second. No More Mr. Nice Gays!
We will soon march to victory, but it will take everybody's blood, sweat and tears.
Rise. Now. For freedom cannot wait!
UNITED WE CAN, OVERCOME WE SHALL!
I am very proud to stand with the Church on this issue. In my mind it is the gay movement that is seeking to blur the line between civil rights and morality.
The Church has every right to speak on moral issues.
I am disappointed that in this article you pit one Church against another. I very much doubt that every Unitarian, Episcopalian, and member of the United Church of Christ is proud of gay marriage. It is a significant deviation from basic morality. I refuse to have my conscience dulled and that of my children, let alone the definition of marriage as established by God, to make a few people happy.
If God didn't make the pattern of marriage clear enough when he married Adam and Eve, he certainly displayed his distaste for a gay society when he destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Historians also contend that the downfall of the Greek and Roman Empires started with a similar decline in morality.
I think the Church is concerned, among other things, that eventually the laws of the United States might require Mormons to allows gays to marry in their temples, which would make a complete mockery of God's plan and promises.
I am proud to stand for something that I value above nearly all else, the preservation of traditional marriage.
Finally, why do gay people demand to be given rights as a separate class when they already have the rights that matter as part of the human class?
I would sooner take away the right of judges to marry (which is questionable) than give gay people alternative marriage that dilutes the entire institution.