Gays and straights alike carried red flags (a comment on a Media General exec who said the station viewed Speechless: Silencing Christians and “it didn’t raise any red flags”) and signs relabeling the NBC affiliate in Tampa Bay as News Channel H8 on Wednesday afternoon. More than 100 protesters gathered along Kennedy Boulevard in front of the station’s News Center to draw attention to the hate program that was aired for what they believe was $35,000 paid by a Christian group.

In a sign of political courage, Tampa City Councilman John Dingfelder attended the rally and said of News Channel 8’s decision,”This is not who Tampa is. This type of hate is just not acceptable in our community.” Dingfelder is running for a County Commission seat, a demographic that is much more to the right than the city of Tampa where he has served two terms.

Watch CL video coverage of the rally after the jump.

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

On Saturday, June 27, thousands of people gathered in the streets of St. Petersburg, FL for the city’s annual Gay Pride parade and festival. While we were celebrating and honoring the legacy of the LGBT civil rights movement, our local NBC affiliate (WFLA-Ch. 8) was airing Speechless: Silencing the Christians, an hour long special paid for by the conservative American Family Association (AFA) that makes a series of specious and demeaning claims about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Watch a clip from the program after the jump.

Within hours of airing Speechless, WFLA was flooded with phone calls and emails from viewers who disagreed with and disapproved of the special’s anti-gay thesis. Equality Florida, a Tampa based statewide gay rights group, repeatedly petitioned the station and its parent company, Media General, to issue a public apology for airing the homophobic program, to divest themselves of the $35,000 paid to them by the AFA by donating it to an LGBT youth organization, and to devote an hour of air time to a special that balances out the hateful message of Speechless. So far, these petitions have gone unanswered except for a comment from Media General’s top Florida exec, John Schueler, who told Equality Florida that he could see why “people who have chosen the homosexual lifestyle might be offended” by the program’s “strident tone” but that the program “didn’t raise any red flags” for him or his associates.

Didn’t raise any red flags? According to Speechless, homosexuals (who, for PR reasons, started calling themselves “gays” in the 1990’s) are a danger to children and an existential threat to the family; they are the masterminds of an elaborate conspiracy to eradicate Christian influence and Christians themselves from our culture; they are simultaneously a cause and a symptom of cultural, spiritual and national decline. How could such apocalyptic rhetoric, such demonization of a segment of society not raise any red flags?

Imagine if Speechless targeted a racial minority instead of LGBT people. Imagine if the voiceover at the beginning of the program went something like this: “Family values, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and morality are all threatened by a radical Asian American activist agenda that’s redefining the family, teaching children that Asian Americans are normal and pushing for minority status and preferential treatment for Asian Americans” (replace the words “Asian American” with “homosexual” and you have an actual line from Speechless). All the money in the world couldn’t get that special aired on WFLA.

Due to Media General’s flagrant disregard for fairness… oh, let me try that again eschewing the euphemisms for once. Due to Media General’s flagrant disregard for the equal citizenship and physical safety of LGBT people in Tampa Bay and everywhere, Equality Florida, Impact-Florida (Ed’s. note: of which Lorna is founder) and a number of other grassroots groups from the surrounding area are organizing a demonstration outside of Media General’s Tampa headquarters at 202 S Parker St., Tampa, on Wednesday at 5:30 pm.

WFLA and Media General have made it clear over the past two weeks that they do not speak the language of reason and civility. We have tried to engage their decision makers in innumerable other ways. Since these attempts have failed, we will be there this Wednesday (at the same time as Media General’s national president) to make our demands in the “strident tone” Media General seems to prefer. Since many of us “homosexuals” are Christians ourselves, we may even quote a scripture or two. Perhaps a little something from Jeremiah? “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness and his chambers by injustice” (Jeremiah 22:13).

By Catherine Durkin Robinson
PoHo contributor

As we remember Stonewall and the beginning of the modern gay rights movement, the progressive community is understandably frustrated with the pace of our administration in bringing about real change.

They have a point.

Enough already with the military’s ridiculous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

And it’s about time we legalize gay marriage.

Yet after the stunning parades this weekend and the first official recognition of the movement by a sitting working US President, I’m filled with more hope than ever before.

Which is why I didn’t allow my blood pressure to rise when WFLA/News Channel 8 aired an “it would be disturbing if it weren’t so silly” documentary infomercial Saturday night about wicked gays trying to silence Christians. I urged my fellow libs to take deep breaths and see this program for what it was — a spoiled brat stomping his feet and holding his breath in the hopes of getting attention and that last piece of cake.

“Their world is ending, Mary,” I said with a giggle. “It’s falling down around them and they can’t do a thing to stop it. Let’s not be so reactionary. Pass the Sangria and shut the fuck up. I want to hear what these freakshows have to say so I can make fun of them later.”

My calls for calm were roundly ignored. Equality Florida and St. Pete Pride urged boycotts and asked supporters to write letters, send emails, and make phone calls (oh my) designed to make it all go away.

And yet the show went off without a hitch.

Either News Channel 8 wasn’t impressed or paradegoers were too busy using their mouths and hands for other pursuits.

It was, after all, a Saturday night.

But a few of my gays started screaming and using the c-word.

And that’s when I put my motherfucking foot down.

We should be extremely concerned when we start behaving like the tyrannical fundies we rail against. And the whole, “Would it be all right to allow Holocaust deniers to broadcast a program on Rosh Hashanah?” smacks of intellectual desperation.

Come on, we can do better than succumb to a lazy metaphor.

Let’s get angry about the lies the radical right spews under their crosses and from behind their Bibles. Absolutely, let’s laugh among ourselves about how funny it is that their movement is dying and true equality is within reach. Let’s counter illogical arguments with reasoned debate and religious mumbo-jumbo with good old-fashioned wisdom.

If we try to shut them up, their rallying cry becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Who needs that? Haters are like roaches, running for cover when the light of knowledge and truth shines upon them.

I prefer they stay in the light. It’s easier to aim the bug spray.

And besides, Mary, that’s how we’ll win.

Catherine Durkin Robinson is a “feminist mother of twins” and a political blogger, working under the title Out in Left Field.

Equality Florida says:

The Gainesville Sun reports that Republican Bill McCollum is moderating his political views and appealing to the Charlie Crist voters in his run for Florida Governor. The article points out that McCollum’s support for includng sexual orientation in Hate Crimes laws and the fact that his finance chairman’s lead oppositon to Amendment 2 has drawn the ire of arch conservatives including form Christian Coalition leader Dennis Baxley.

His finance team chairman is Jonathan Kislak, who last year led a group that unsuccessfully opposed a constitutional amendment that banned gay marriage in the state. McCollum says he disagrees with his friend on that issue.

Just because some of the winger groups are “upset” at McCollum not breathing fire on stem-cell research or hate crimes or God knows what else doesn’t mean that McCollum has fundamentally changed his stripes.

He hasn’t.

By Lorna Bracewell
PoHo contributor

In a recent blog posting, Nadine Smith, Equality Florida’s executive director, issued a formidable challenge to GLBT people everywhere: If you want equality, sacrifice for it. With the bus boycotts and lunch counter sit-ins of the black civil rights movement as her inspiration, Smith asks “What can we (GLBT people) do that demonstrates not only the rhetoric of equality but the personal sacrifice that will awaken the conscience of a nation?”

Smith answers this question with a simple suggestion:

If you’re legally married in one of the three (soon to be four) states that permits same-sex marriage, refuse to deny your spouse on federal forms.

Smith writes, “When the government asks legally married couples in Massachusetts to file as ‘married’ in their state and then mark ’single’ on the Federal Tax form, they are asking that couple to participate in their own discrimination so that the government doesn’t have to dirty its hands.”

According to Smith, this dirtying of the government’s hands is crucial in any civil rights struggle because it lays bare ”the contradiction between what our fellow Americans believe they stand for and what they allow to be done in their name.” She invites us to imagine the “ripple effect of government issued letters to married gay couples ordering them to deny their spouse on federal forms.” “We have to compel these moments,” Smith continues, ”by deciding that our lives will be about honesty and self-respect. Even if it comes at a price.”

While Smith doesn’t delve into the gory details, she does seem sensitive to the reality that that price could be quite high. In a follow-up email, Smith informed me that Equality Florida has reached out to “a law school dean and a well-respected Tax attorney” for guidance regarding the likely consequences for such an action.

Admittedly, it is unlikely that IRS agents will break down the doors of same-sex couples brandishing fire hoses and snarling dogs reminiscent of the black civil rights movement.  However, as anyone who has been caught in the byzantine web of federal bureaucracy knows, the lives of couples opting to take this stand will doubtlessly be disrupted in profound ways. The question is will their suffering be vivid enough to in Smith’s words “prick the conscience of our country.” Well, there’s only one way to find out.

Beth Fountain, a writer and former lawyer, questioned the dense language of the decision, in which the court essentially contradicted its position from a year before.

Like Fountain, musician Lisa Noe of the band Karmic Tattoo wondered why gay marriage could be “OK one minute, then it’s not OK the next.” And Rick Boylan, president of the Pinellas chapter of Stonewall Democrats and the secretary of the state Democratic party, pointed out that, even with the setback in California, the state is still years ahead of Florida in its recognition of gay rights: “We’re still dealing with issues that are left over from Anita Bryant days.”

More interviews after the break.

Not everyone at the protest was gay; Jack Crepeau, a volunteer with Equality Florida and Stonewall and a sociology professor, had just returned from his wife’s ultrasound; they’re having their first child. Crepeau’s sign: “Only divorce hurts marriage.” And Fountain’s sign — “Am I not a citizen?” — intentionally referenced the slogan of African-American protestors during the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike in 1968:  “I am a man.”

Headlines after the jump …

• Folo-up: Ann Coulter appears on The Today Show; no NBC ban. ‘I don’t think I would be sitting here if it wasn’t for a headline on Drudge.”
• Equality Florida: Hillsborough’s anti-gay pride library policy “under review.”
• Sansom’s damage control efforts.
• Cleaning up after Buddy: Phyllis’ first days in office.
• Media General’s Hernando Today cuts publication on Monday and Tuesday.
• Who’s in and who’s out for the Senate seat from Florida in 2010.
• Marco Rubio’s in.
• Who is Florida’s most maverick congressperson?
• Roland Burris denied.