"Holy War" - article on anti-gay movement by Southern Poverty Law Center

[kweerwolf]

This is a fascinating and fairly in-depth look at the anti-gay movement in the religious right over the past three decades. It appears on the Southern Poverty Law Center website.

Holy War
The religious crusade against gays has been building for 30 years. Now the movement is reaching truly biblical proportions
By Bob Moser

On June 26, 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the convictions of two Texas men arrested for having sex. Writing for the majority in Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that the two men were "entitled to respect for their private lives." The state, he declared, "cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."

The decision was unusually popular. A national survey found that 75% of Republicans and 88% of Democrats wanted to see sodomy laws struck down. But not everyone cheered.

"Six lawyers robed in black have magically discovered a right of privacy that includes sexual perversion," said Jan LaRue, chief counsel for Concerned Women for America. "This opens the door to bigamy, adult incest, polygamy and prostitution," said Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council.

For anti-gay crusaders, who have been fighting gay rights for three decades, Lawrence was the most unsettling court decision since Roe v. Wade. Fundamentalist groups had filed 15 briefs supporting Texas' sodomy laws, only to see their arguments — that gay sex was a threat to public health and "traditional family values," and that gay people do not deserve equal rights — shot down.

The rest of the report can be found at: http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=522

[beyurslf]

1. Thank you. Well worth the read. Lots of interesting

history into their debate.