The anti-gay ads are ramping up...

[elfs]

Of one thing I'm fairly certain: Glenn Beck isn't going after homosexuals. Despite the vicious anti-gay attack peers Hannity and O'Reilly have perpetrated against Assistant Secretary of Education for Safe and Drug-Free Schools (man, that's a mouthful, how does that fit on a business card?) Kevin Jennings, Beck hasn't said a single word about Jennings. Attacks against gays and lesbians are notably absent from Beck's usual patter. In one rare demonstration of humanity, Beck has even called for the United States to grant asylum to a young Iranian man who faced the death penalty for his homosexuality should he be deported back to Iran.

I'm also fairly certain that Beck (or his distributor) has zero control over what local radio stations put into the ad slots of his show. Which is unfortunate for Beck, because today, in the 20 minutes I spent in the car, I heard two different anti-gay ads on KTTH 770, the local radio station that carries Beck (as well as Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved, and Michael Savage).

Both ads had the same theme, but different scripts. The first had a feminine, teacherly voice saying "Today, kids, we're going to read a fairy tale about a family! But instead of a mother and a father, this family had too fathers!" followed by a chorus of kid's voices gasping in surprise. Then the Scary Man Voiceover began, telling parents that their children would be exposed to "knowledge" about same-sex families, that there was no "opt-out" provision, and that you had to do something to "protect your child's innocence," followed by an appeal to vote "NO" on the state's domestic partnership law.

Thank the gods for Washington's sunshine laws, because it was then revealed that this ad was paid for by Focus on The Family out of Boulder, Colorado. I had one of those "Get the Hell out of my state" moments.

After a brief and fairly sane segment in which Beck and his co-hosts discussed how politicians always had people behind them as backdrops when making an announcement (Reagan was fond of that, as I recall), the other ad came on. Similar themes: two moms talking, one mentioning how "A teacher read King and King to her children, and how a court said the schools had a duty to inform children that same-sex couples exist," followed by the other saying, "Oh, I don't want that!" Cue Scary Man Voiceover, with a similar patter, this time paid for by the in-state group "Protect Marriage Washington."

KVI 770 is wholly partisan. It's not going to swing any votes. It will probably remind a few people to vote, although this year the ballot is mail-in so the voting process consists of taking a half-hour one day in the comfort of your own home to tick off a few boxes and put it into the mailbox you see every day anyway. But man, the accusations are getting ugly.

Comments

[solarbird]

They've always been this ugly. Actually, in the 90s, during the big spate of anti-gay referenda of that decade (both waves), the "gays want to rape your children" rhetoric was much more explicit. I think it's just getting a little more surprising, which is good.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been following Maine more closely than Washington, but Washington's referendum isn't even related to marriage, right? Isn't it just domestic partnerships? I guess I kinda thought the right had given up on those as a lost cause by now. :(

Number 127

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Oh, the "Protect Children" rhetoric is just as bad as always on their website. Now it's "Teh Gays Wanna Rape Your Child's Mind!"

[urox.livejournal.com]

Correct. There are people on overpasses saying "protect marriage" but this isn't even about marriage. This is about people who don't want gays to have the same rights as heterosexuals because giving a group rights is the same as validating its existence, something they can't stomach.

[jenk]

They're also afraid that after getting "everything BUT marriage" the legislature will turn around and pass a gay marriage law, because we're nearly there anyway. So they're trying to throw a spanner in the works and pull back the clock.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

No, that's giving them too much credit.

I was in Colorado in 1992. Trust me: the Fundies want me and those like me to simply cease to exist, by any means necessary. They will viciously and mindlessly attack anything that tries to treat ho-mo-seksals as human beings, no matter how small.

[christinaathena.livejournal.com]

That kind of thing always boggles my mind. It's obvious that they feel that they're describing a nightmare scenario, and yet, to me, there's absolutely nothing there even remotely terrible. At least the "gays are child molesters" meme uses something bad. A complete lie, of course, but a lie associating them with something bad, but that ... "Oh, no, knowledge!"