CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A popular African-American, LGBT blogger based out of Columbia, S.C., debuted a short booklet on Tuesday documenting the anti-gay propaganda of right-wing leaders and organizations.
The blogger, Alvin McEwan, has worked for years to highlight the anti-gay rhetoric and activities of anti-LGBT organizations. He says his online booklet, “How They See Us,” is an attempt to highlight the dangerous beliefs of those who would seek to strip LGBT people of their rights. The booklet is available via McEwan’s blog.
McEwan’s booklet takes examples from a 1986 comic book, “Homosexuality: Legitimate, Alternate Deathstyle,” by Dick Hafer, which contained extreme examples of anti-LGBT hate. McEwan uses some examples from the comic book and compares the language from it to the more softened, though still dangerous, rhetoric of today.
“The religious right claim that they aren’t ‘anti-gay’ but ‘pro-family,'” McEwan told qnotes in a short Q&A via email. “‘Deathstyle’ reminds people how much of that jargon is a lie because when you compare the images in that book and the statements made by the religious right now, nothing has really changed, except how they deliberately dull the knife of their homophobia.”
McEwan added, “It’s like when the Klan started saying ‘we aren’t anti-black, we are just pro-white.'”
Several key anti-LGBT leaders take center-stage in McEwan’s booklet, including Americans for Truth about Homosexuality’s Peter LaBarbera, a National Organization for Marriage North Carolina spokesperson and Raleigh pastor Patrick Wooden, Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber and the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer.
Several of the groups mentioned by McEwan have been documented as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala.
“The main thing I want people to take away is a knowledge of how insidious homophobia is,” McEwan said of his new booklet. “And also understanding the fact that these groups are deliberate liars. If they believe in Christian values, then they have no business lying.”
So far, McEwan said the response has been overwhelmingly positive. He hopes the public will read his short booklet and learn more about the motives and lies behind the anti-LGBT religious right. He’s also personally sent copies to the several leaders he profiled.
“And I do want a response from the religious right. Part of their lie is that gays want to silence them. I made it very clear that I have no intention of silencing them. On the contrary, I demand an explanation for the lies they have told,” McEwan said. “I don’t expect that they will give an answer back. And while I would like to hear their response, it doesn’t affect the success of the booklet either way. If they give a response, I am going to publicize that fact and if they don’t I will publicize that also.”