Religion and Child Abuse News: Extremist Catholic sect protesters bully Brown University students with anti-gay hate speech

25 Apr 2011

Extremist Catholic sect protesters bully Brown University students with anti-gay hate speech

The New Civil Rights Movement (blog) April 22, 2011

Why Did NOM Post The Video YouTube Won’t Let You See?

Video Of Group Tied To International Religious Neo-Fascist Para-Military Cult Accused Of Assassination Plot On Pope And Reagan

by DAVID BADASH

NOM, the National Organization for Marriage, Friday morning posted a blog entry, “The Video YouTube Won’t Let You See,” which consists mostly of a video — titled, “Pro-Homosexuals at Brown University Respond to Peaceful TFP Rally with Violence” — which depicts Brown University students reacting to an organization named TFP, which was holding a “traditional marriage” “rally” on the Brown campus. TFP — actually, TFP Student Action, a project of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property – is a chapter of ”Tradition, Family, Property” (TFP), which has been described by the UN as “an ultramontane Catholic group, strongest in Brazil and Argentina, which among other things maintains that all Popes since John XXIII have come under Marxist influence.”

The selectively-edited video (below) shows students arguing with members of TFP, ripping up and spitting on a leaflet, (reportedly, “ 10Reasons Why Homosexual “Marriage” is Harmful and Must be Opposed,”) and, in what seems to be the filmmaker’s greatest example of so-called “pro-homosexual violence,” one protestor running and ripping a TFP banner that reads, “God’s marriage = 1 man & 1 woman.”

If you watch the entire video (below), you’ll see members of the supposedly “peaceful TFP” wearing military-looking black uniforms with wide red sashes (neo-fascists, anyone?) and shouting, “A moral wrong can never be a civil right,” while later, brandishing what could appear to be a bayonet or weapon. Or could be used as one. So much for “peaceful.”

Look at TFP, with their military accouterments, their bagpipes, their drum, their banners, their black uniforms and red sashes, marching, militantly. What teenager wouldn’t feel threatened and accosted — especially if they knew the group’s background – especially hearing their words of hate, especially on a peaceful Ivy League campus like Brown University in Rhode Island?

“The protestors stayed on the Green for approximately 15 minutes before moving to the sidewalk behind the Stephen Roberts ’62 Campus Center, said Paul Shanley, deputy chief of DPS [Department of Public Safety],” according to The Brown Daily Herald. “Shanley, who has been with the University for four years, said he has never seen anything like it. Most protests are associated with student groups, he said, but this group seemed “entirely independent.”

The Herald adds this:

“I’m really offended,” said Kerry McKittrick ’13, one of the first students to see the protest on the Green. “It’s essentially a hate rally.”

“The anti-gay marriage activists were a “very typical, cookie-cutter group,” Judy Park ’13 said. The protest’s approximately 15 members, were mostly white and entirely male.”

Of course, we have to ask, was NOM President Brian Brown at Brown University filming the video (it’s posted to a Vimeo account that bears his name and “NationForMarriage.com”), and if it wasn’t Brown filming, who was, who edited it, and how did it come into NOM’s possession? How would Brown have known to be at Brown University, or, why would TFP have given the video to NOM? What is the connection? It’s not that NOM just embedded a YouTube video they found into their site. Wouldn’t someone have to upload it to their Vimeo account?

Further, why would NOM want to associate with, or in any way promote an organization who has ties to (and/or was founded by) a group that is accused being a cult, and was accused of planning “to murder Pope John Paul II,” and to “conspire to assassinate President Ronald Reagan”? (See below.)

The video opens with Brown University students shouting at TFP members, “Two Four Six Eight, get your hate, out of our state.”

As you watch the video, you’ll see the anger, pain, and upset these college students have over the visit by TFP, proselytizing their agenda of hate in the streets of the Rhode Island institution’s campus.

Now, here’s what you really need to know.

First, this may be NOM’s most shameful attempt ever, especially as they claim they are working to support the family and the best interests of children.

NOM is using college students to demonstrate the (false) point they increasingly seem to be trying to make, that gay activists are violent. But these are not “professional gay activists” (not that professional activists are violent either!), these are college kids upset that an organization (about which I’ll explain more in a moment) is militantly protesting on their campus, an organization not even based at Brown.

Seriously, as a parent, how would you like it if a shadowy group like NOM were using a video of your child at school (and a rather expensive school at that!) standing up for love and equality, and twisting it as evidence of “violence?”

These are not acts of “violence.” And even if they were, these are college kids, not “professional gay activists.” They are not paid by a “a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, giving it the flexibility to lobby and support marriage initiatives across the nation,” such as NOM.

Now, here’s the second part you need to know. Who is “TFP?”

According to their website,

TFP Student Action is a project of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property. Founded in 1973, the American TFP was formed to resist, in the realm of ideas, the liberal, socialist and communist trends of the times and proudly affirm the positive values of tradition, family and private property. The American TFP was inspired by the work of the Brazilian intellectual and man of action Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira.

What We Do

Networking with thousands of students and concerned parents, TFP Student Action defends traditional moral values on college campuses. Inspired by the teachings of the Holy Catholic Church, TFP volunteers are on the front lines of the culture war, working to restore the values of Christian civilization.

TFP activities are carried out by 75 full-time volunteers and have the support of 120,000 members nationwide. The director of TFP Student Action is John Ritchie.

Now, here’s what else you need to know about TFP.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, “[i]n a 1986 article, The Washington Postdescribed TFP as an “all-male, extreme right-wing group with chapters in 13 countries” (15 May 1986). The Brazil-based organization was financed mainly by wealthy South American families and supported the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (ibid.). It was banned for its paramilitary activities in Venezuela, where it was implicated in 1984 in a plot to assassinate the Pope, a charge that the group denied.”

Wikipedia says,

Tradition, Family, and Property (TFP) is a Catholic religious sect with branches a number of countries. The TFP was founded by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira in Brazil in 1960, and he remained president of the Brazilian branch’s national council until his death in 1995.”

In October 1984 the Latin America Weekly Report described TFP as “an ultramontane Catholic group, strongest in Brazil and Argentina, which among other things maintains that all Popes since John XXIII have come under Marxist influence.”

The TFP branch in Venezuela was banned in 1984 when plans were discovered to murder Pope John Paul II during a visit to Venezuela. In addition, according to security reports, members of TFP had travelled to the United States to conspire to assassinate President Ronald Reagan.

Then there’s this:

The American TFP’s worldview is based on Corrêa de Oliveira’s 1959 study, Revolution and Counter-Revolution. According to the aims laid out in this book, TFP acts to oppose the anti-Christian process that has undermined Christian civilization since the 14th century, the “Revolution” of the study’s title. This “Revolution” has three phases which progressively undermine the Church and social order:

The Protestant “Pseudo-Reformation” and its rejection of religious authority and inequality, in particular the Pope.

The “Enlightenment” and the French Revolution and its rejection of temporal authority, in particular the King and nobility.

The Communist Revolution and its rejection of economic inequality.

The final phases that follow (now taking place) seek to eradicate the Church and Christian civilization while applying more radical egalitarianism and implementing neo-paganism.

The American TFP promotes what it sees as the values of Christianity, and opposes liberal and egalitarian ideas, policies, and trends in both society as a whole and in the Catholic Church. In addition to supporting all official Catholic teaching, the group also argues for the need for authentic elites in society that raise, above all, the moral tone of general society, as witnessed by de Oliveira’s Nobility & Analogous Traditional Elites in the Allocutions of Pius XII. In this book, de Oliveira seeks to balance the notion of “preferential option for the poor” idea in some modern liberal Catholic social thinking, with support for the natural elite that exists in all societies, according to the teaching of Pius XII, that they may become the obligated class working for the good of society (Noblesse Oblige).

If the Revolution is disorder, the Counter-Revolution is the restoration of order. And by order we understand the peace of Christ in the reign of Christ. That is, Christian civilization, austere and hierarchical, fundamentally sacral, anti-egalitarian and anti-liberal.

If you read the poorly-written writeup at TFP’s site, you’ll see who truly frightening they are.

Clearly, NOM hasn’t done their homework. Again. But we have to ask, given how secretive NOM is about their backers, who are they really associating with?

Pro-Homosexuals at Brown University Respond to Peaceful TFP Rally with Violence from Brian Brown on Vimeo.

READ: “New York Times: ‘Gay Marriage Opponents Now in Minority’“

This article was found at:

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/why-did-nom-post-the-video-youtube-wont-let-you-see/marriage/2011/04/22/19149

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The New Civil Rights Movement (blog) April 22, 2011

Gay And Straight Teen Suicide Attempts Higher In Conservative Regions

by DAVID BADASH

Researcher: Gay-Straight Alliances Key To Reducing Teen Suicide Attempts

Gay and straight teens who live in socio-politically conservative areas are more likely to attempt suicide, and the degree of an area’s political conservatism reflects the degree teens — gay or straight — are likely to attempt suicide. Conversely, the rate at which teens attempt suicide decreases with the more liberal an area is, defined by the number of Democrats and same-sex couples, along with gay-straight alliances, and anti-discrimination and anti-bullying policies that specifically protect lesbian, gay, and bisexual students in schools, according to a new study by psychologist Mark Hatzenbuehler, Ph.D., of Columbia University.

The ground-breaking study, published in the journal Pediatrics today, shows that gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens are more than five times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers. The study also showed that straight teens were 9% more likely to attempt suicide when living in the most conservative areas, compared to teens living in the most liberal areas.

Hatzenbuehler conducted this study of 31,852 high school students in Oregon, by examining health surveys given from 2006-2008, to three-years worth of 11th grade students. Of note is that the study finds that 4.4% of the teens identified themselves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, similar to (albeit just slightly higher than) a recent study by The Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law, “How many people are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender?,” which showed that close to 4% of the American adult population identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.

In the study’s Pediatrics abstract, Hatzenbuehler writes, “Lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth were significantly more likely to attempt suicide in the previous 12 months, compared with heterosexuals (21.5% vs 4.2%). Among lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth, the risk of attempting suicide was 20% greater in unsupportive environments compared to supportive environments. A more supportive social environment was significantly associated with fewer suicide attempts, controlling for sociodemographic variables and multiple risk factors for suicide attempts, including depressive symptoms, binge drinking, peer victimization, and physical abuse by an adult.”

Dr. Hatzenbuehler, whose “research on the impact of social policies on mental health disparities in LGB populations has been cited in an amicus brief for the California Supreme Court’s decision on Prop 8,” according to his bio at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Yale University.

I spoke with Dr. Hatzenbuehler today by phone and asked him how his study could help real-world teens and their families with the challenges they face. He tells me his hope is that his study will be used as “a roadmap for reducing suicides for LGBT youth.” He stressed that “gay-straight alliances and anti-bullying policies can have important beneficial mental health consequences,” contrary to recent attempts by some conservatives to limit or eliminate gay-straight alliances.

I asked Hatzenbuehler what he might say in response to detractors who blame the Left for suggesting to LGBT teens that they are more susceptible to suicide attempts. Dr. Hatzenbuehler says his study proves the exact opposite is true, that it “challenges those ideas that suicidal behavior is inherent to gay youth,” and that a conservative socio-political environment “strongly contributes to suicide rate numbers.”

But Hatzenbuehler also reminds us that, while LGBT teen suicide attempts are problematic, “the vast majority — 80% — of gay teens aren’t attempting suicide.”

I also asked Dr. Hatzenbuehler how he might respond to comments made from those, like Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage, who on Friday, and at other times, claimed that in Massachusetts, when same-sex marriage became legal, we did not see a decrease in gay teen suicide.

Hatzenbuehler says that studies show “LGB individuals living in states that passed gay marriage bans experienced an increase in psychiatric disorders,” when those bans went into place.

Bottom line, Hatzenbuehler says it’s important to “create these environments for gay youth health,” because the study proves that “if you care about the health of gay youth, you are improving the health of straight youth, too.”

Read: “September’s Anti-Gay Bullying Suicides – There Were A Lot More Than 5“

This article was found at:

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/gay-and-straight-teen-suicide-attempts-higher-in-conservative-regions/politics/2011/04/18/18938

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