Ed Vitagliano

American Family Association Makes Another Anti-Gay Movie

The American Family Association’s monthly magazine, AFA Journal, has a story this month about a movie written by the group’s research director Ed Vitagliano called “Accidental Activist”:

Ted and Lynn Murphy lead a simple life. They have three wonderful children, their own small business, and a good relationship with friends and neighbors.

But that life is turned upside down when Ted signs a petition advocating traditional marriage. It is a small act of civic duty in his mind, but in the minds of others in the community it is viewed as an act of heartless bigotry.

Ted and his wife become the focus of a local protest that threatens not only to destroy their business but suffocate their religious freedom as well.

AFA Journal interviewed Vitagliano about his “friendships with people who are homosexual or have been, and have left that lifestyle when they became Christians.”

Vitagliano laments that a gay person, even the “the ordinary homosexual non-activist,” for some reason may not want to maintain a friendship with someone who opposes his or her right to marry: “I don’t know how many homosexuals would want to be friends with a Christian who signs what we would call a pro-marriage petition.” He says he wants gay people to “see that in the culture war, Christians are victims as much as they see themselves as victims.”

What happens when an ordinary Christian family is “accidentally” thrown into the fires of a heated culture war battle?

American Family Association’s new movie, Accidental Activist, follows the trials of Ted Murphy and his family as their reputations, friendships and even livelihood are threatened after he signs a petition supporting traditional marriage.

The story is propelled by the friendship of Ted who, along with his wife, runs a custom T-shirt business, and Ron who owns a nearby popular coffee shop. Ron is a homosexual.

…

Ed Vitagliano: I tried to portray Ted as an ordinary Christian who reacts in a very human way to his trials. Ted wants to know where God is in the midst of his troubles. Earlier in my Christian walk I sometimes felt like that. I wasn’t yet at a place to understand that stressful circumstances are often used to glorify His name. As I grew older and more experienced with my walk with the Lord, I realized that God doesn’t have to explain to me what He’s doing in my life. Ted faces the same dilemma.

Over the years, I've had friendships with people who are homosexual or have been, and have left that lifestyle when they became Christians. Some still struggle with it. For me, those relationships humanize the struggles of gay men and women. Admittedly, I’ve had limited experience; however, I realize they are human beings made in God’s image.

I wanted to make sure that Ron represented what I think is the ordinary homosexual non-activist who is just trying to live his life and find happiness. I wanted him to be seen as someone with whom a Christian could have a friendship. At the same time, I wanted to make it clear that there was an important disagreement between Ted and Ron.

AFAJ: Do you think such a friendship is possible?

EV: I think Christians would want to maintain friendships with people who have beliefs that are outside Christian belief – atheists, for example.

On the other hand, I don’t know how many homosexuals would want to be friends with a Christian who signs what we would call a pro-marriage petition. But if there are homosexuals who watch the movie, I hope they might give Christians a chance.

…

On the other side, I’d like for those in the homosexual rights movement to see that just because we Christians see marriage in a way that excludes homosexuals, that doesn’t mean we are motivated by hate. I want them to see that in the culture war, Christians are victims as much as they see themselves as victims.
Brian Tashman's blog

Right Wing Leftovers - 4/29/13

  • It is a genuine tragedy that this country never had the opportunity to witness the class that Sarah Palin would have brought to the Vice Presidency.

  • Even The Blaze is recognizing that Glenn Beck's 2123B timeline doesn't make much sense.

  • Tom Minnery says this nation may soon see a religious revial, in part because "religion makes people healthier" and so "given that health care costs are rising chronically, it may be that discounts on health insurance may be offered for those who attend church regularly or who otherwise demonstrate their religious participation."

  • Bryan Fischer continues to speculate that the military blocked the Southern Baptist Convention's website out of some sort of hostility toward Christians despite the fact that even the SBC says that was not the case.

  • Peter LaBarbera is not happy with news that the LDS church supports a proposal to drop the ban on gay Boy Scouts: "Look, this is a church which is outside of Christendom. Mormons can change their core beliefs and call it a divine transformation. They did it with polygamy; they did it with racism – and now I'm afraid, I'm very afraid, that they're going to do it with homosexuality.”

  • Finally, the AFA's Ed Vitagliano is also a little worked-up over the prospect that the Boy Scouts may soon allow gay scouts: "For the tolerance gurus there is a secular morality that is just as absolute as that preached by any Bible-thumper behind a pulpit. It is a pagan sexual ethic rooted in moral relativism with the taproot deeply embedded in Darwinian evolution. Its teachers have their own unbending laws cut into stone and pronounced from on high. Their prophets hurl jeremiads at the unrepentant, who are relegated to a this-worldly hell consisting of the drying up of corporate funding, the disdain and downright persecution of the civil state, banishment to the fringes on university campuses, and the sneering mockery of Hollywood. For these pioneers of the brave new world, people who practice sodomy are the saints and Christians are the sinners. And humanist stormtroopers have spent the last 60 years hunting down and driving out the infidels."
Kyle Mantyla's blog

The Men of the American Family Association Explain how George Clooney Swung the Election to Obama

American Family Association president Tim Wildmon and research director Ed Vitagliano today spoke to WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah about how they are all still astonished that Obama won re-election. Vitagliano apparently did his research into the Obama campaigns strategies, and figured out that “they hooked women to Obama through these Hollywood stars” like George Clooney and Sarah Jessica Parker. Vitagliano said that our “devolved” culture has made women voters simply think, “‘I love George Clooney, George Clooney loves President Obama, therefore I love President Obama.’” Farah concurred and said Hollywood is “bombarding” Americans with “unconstitutional” and “ungodly” ideas, and asserted that even law schools no longer teach the Constitution.

Vitagliano: They said ‘what Hollywood star do women love’ and they found that they love overwhelmingly George Clooney, so what they did is they went and got George Clooney to have a dinner with President Obama and then they had a big fundraiser and they said to women, ‘if you want to have dinner with George Clooney and President Obama here is how much you pay per plate for this big fundraiser.’ They did the same thing in the east with Sarah Jessica Parker, who was a beloved icon of many women. So what they did, and it’s brilliant even while cynical, is they hooked women to Obama through these Hollywood stars. These women were saying well ‘George Clooney loves President Obama,’ and a fair number of them I’m guessing said, ‘so I love President Obama,’ and the same thing with Sarah Jessica Parker. That to me, and this is obviously an overstatement, that to me is not what the Founding Fathers envisioned that when they were hoping for a well-informed electorate being advised of the issues and studying the issues, no, what we’ve devolved to is ‘I love George Clooney, George Clooney loves President Obama, therefore I love President Obama.’

Farah: That’s right. We think these decisions that America made on Election Day every four years or every two years but they’re really not; how does George Clooney become this icon to women? How does Sarah Jessica Parker become an icon? That’s the culture that is operating 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it’s bombarding us with these immoral, unprincipled, unconstitutional, ungodly ideals. That has an effect. You can’t deny that it has an effect. Who is speaking for God in our culture? Who is standing up for God in our culture? Who is standing up for the Constitution in our culture? Is it being taught in our law schools? Come on, it hasn’t been for years.

Farah argued that America is now facing God’s judgment and it is “going to get worse” because “the little pockets of blue are dictating to the big swaths of red.” Apparently, Farah hasn’t figured out that those “little pockets of blue” evidently have more people residing in them than the “big swaths of red” and that geographical size doesn’t determine population. Later, Wildmon expressed utter amazement that Americans re-elected Obama, and Farah said a person randomly selected from a phone book should have been able to defeat the President.

Farah: When you look at that election map and you see the big swaths of red and the little pockets of blue and the little pockets of blue are dictating to the big swaths of red. This isn’t new, this isn’t just in 2012, this has been the case for many, many years, every election in my lifetime has been like this but it’s getting worse. So what’s the answer? I think there’s only a couple of things we can do, we’ve talked about them before together, I think it is very important that Christians get down on their knees and tremble before God for what has happened to this country, what we’re going to be experiencing for the foreseeable future here and really take a good look at 2 Chronicles 7:14. That is not talking about the whole country coming to repentance, it’s talking about the people who are ‘called by my name,’ it’s us, it’s the believers, if we do this, God will answer. I really believe that, I think we have got to embrace that view very strongly in the days ahead. I do believe America is facing judgment and I think we’re in the midst of it and I think it’s going to get worse.

…

Wildmon: This was history made Tuesday night in this respect: a fellow won re-election for president who was by all measurements a failure, an utter and complete failure.

Farah: It’s so unbelievable, unthinkable, inconceivable, by what standard of measurement do the American people use to evaluate this guy? I mean if he was running against just some guy you picked out of the phone book you would have thought they would’ve rejected Obama because he is a complete and total failure.
Brian Tashman's blog

'Pro-Life' Activists Pile Praise Decision to Defund Breast Cancer Screenings at Planned Parenthood with Phony Science

After a fierce pressure campaign, the Religious Right is positively giddy about the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation’s move to stop funding breast exams and mammogram referrals at Planned Parenthood, which conducts approximately 750,000 breast exams every year.

Now, anti-choice activists are returning to the discredited charge that abortion causes breast cancer.

To be clear, the US National Cancer Institute found that both induced and spontaneous abortion “is not linked to an increase in breast cancer risk” and a study by Harvard professor Karin B. Michels of the Harvard Medical School similarly concluded that “neither induced nor spontaneous abortion was associated with the incidence of breast cancer.”

Furthermore, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists claim that the most recent and methodologically sound studies “demonstrate no causal relationship between induced abortion and a subsequent increase in breast cancer risk” and the American Cancer Society called the purported link a “false alarm” since “the scientific evidence does not support the notion that abortion of any kind raises the risk of breast cancer or any other type of cancer.”

Talk show host Janet Parshall appeared on Today’s Issues with Ed Vitagliano and claimed that Komen was in an “unholy alliance” with Planned Parenthood and said “might be a cause of some of the reasons why people are wearing pink ribbons, pink t-shirts and running in the race.” Vitagliano said that legal abortion “may very well be an explanation of why the incidence of breast cancer in this country is so staggeringly high”:

Bryan Fischer on Focal Point today alleged that “early abortions are a risk factor, a huge risk factor, perhaps the main risk factor for breast cancer.” According to Fischer, “Planned Parenthood is out there causing breast cancer”:

Fischer also praised Karen Handel, the former Republican politician with a history of attacking Planned Parenthood who was recently named Komen’s Vice President for Public Policy, as a hero for “standing in the gap” against “the Enemy”:

Brian Tashman's blog

Who’s Who at the Values Voter Summit: A Guide to the Anti-Gay, Anti-Muslim, Anti-Mormon, Anti-Choice Activists Spending the Weekend with the GOP

This weekend, nearly every major GOP presidential candidate, along with the top two Republicans in the House of Representatives, will speak at the Values Voter Summit, an annual gathering of the leaders of the Religious Right movement to integrate fundamentalist Christianity and American politics.
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