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moominmuppetI found the title of this article offensively misleading, so I'm listing it differently. Still, what's actually going on is still thoroughly disturbing, and deserves note.
Gays Banned From National Parks Civil Service Group Says
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: December 23, 2003 12:01 a.m. ET
(Washington, D.C.) All images of gay gatherings at national sites,
including the Millennium March on the Washington Mall have been ordered
removed from videotapes that have been shown at the Lincoln Memorial
since 1995 according to a civil service group.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says that the
directive came from National Parks Service Deputy Director Donald
Murphy. Murphy is said to have been concerned about pictures in the
video that showed same-sex couples kissing and holding hands after
conservative groups complained.
The Millennium March held in 2000 to bring attention to LGBT civil
rights issues drew tens of thousands of gays and their supporters to
the
mall for one of the biggest demonstrations since the civil rights and
anti-war marches of the 1960s.
Also ordered cut from the tape were scenes of abortion rights
demonstrations at the memorial, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations
"because it implies that Lincoln would have supported homosexual and
abortion rights as well as feminism."
In their place, the Park Service is inserting scenes of the Christian
group Promise Keepers and pro-Gulf War demonstrators though these
events
did not take place at the Memorial in what Murphy calls a "more
balanced" version.
"The Park Service leadership now caters exclusively to conservative
Christian fundamentalist groups," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff
Ruch. "The Bush Administration appears to be sponsoring a program of
Faith-Based Parks."
Last July, Murphy ordered the Grand Canyon National Park to return
three
bronze plaques bearing biblical verses to public viewing areas on the
Canyon's South Rim. Murphy overruled the park superintendent who had
directed the plaques' removal based on legal advice from the Interior
Department that the religious displays violated the First Amendment.
This fall, the Park Service also approved a creationist text, "Grand
Canyon: A Different View" for sale in park bookstores and museums. The
book by Tom Vail, claims that the Grand Canyon is really only a few
thousand years old, developing on a biblical rather than an
evolutionary
time scale. At the same time, Park Service leadership has blocked
publication of guidance for park rangers and other interpretative staff
that labeled creationism as lacking any scientific basis.
The Park Service is also engaged in an extended legal battle to
continue
displaying an eight-foot-tall cross, planted atop a 30-foot-high rock
outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve in California. PEER Board
Member and former-Park Service manager Frank Buono filed suit to force
removal of the cross. That suit is now pending before the U.S. Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals.
Gay footage will stay in Lincoln Memorial video
Tue Dec 23, 8:50 PM ET Add Community - Planet Out to My Yahoo!
Patrick Letellier, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
SUMMARY:
Footage of gay rights demonstrations will not be removed from a Lincoln Memorial videotape, according to spokespeople from the National Park Service and the Human Rights Campaign. Earlier reports said the images would be removed.
Footage of gay rights demonstrations will not be removed from a videotape shown at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C, according to spokespeople from the National Park Service and the Human Rights Campaign. Earlier reports in various news outlets said the gay images would be removed.
In a press release yesterday, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a government-watchdog group, said that because of pressure from conservative groups, the National Park Service agreed to remove from the tape all scenes depicting gay and abortion rights rallies. "The Park Service leadership now caters exclusively to conservative Christian fundamentalist groups," PEER executive director Jeff Ruch said in the release.
But today that story has changed. "We have been assured that they are redoing the tape, but are not stripping out scenes of gay and lesbian events at the Lincoln Memorial, because to do so would be historically inaccurate," said Winne Stachelberg, political director at the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group. Stachelberg told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network that National Park Service Chief of Public Affairs, David Barna, made those reassurances to her this morning.
"It certainly sounds as if the park service is getting pressure from right-wing extremists groups to drop images of the gay community and add other images," Stachelberg added.
As part of its update, the National Park Service plans to add scenes including rallies by the Promise Keepers, a fundamentalist Christian men's group, and by pro-life groups to the video.
To do so, however, may not be historically accurate after all. Those rallies did not occur at the Lincoln Memorial or even on the nearby Mall, said Bill Line, a spokesperson for the National Park Service.
Line told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network that the pressure to replace gay and pro-choice images with Christian and pro-life scenes comes from conservative Kansas Republican congressman Todd Tiahrt.
In a letter to the National Park Service last February, Tiahrt objected to the portions of the video that depict gays and a National Abortion Rights League rally, Line said. Tiahrt is "in discussion" with the park service about adding the new scenes, Line said.
The 8-minute video, on public display since 1995, depicts images of a wide variety of events that took place at the Memorial, including black civil rights marches and anti-war demonstrations. The footage of gay rights lasts about 13 seconds, and the pro-choice footage lasts about 16 seconds, Line said.
Congressman Tiahrt's spokesperson was unavailable for comment, having left on a holiday vacation.
The changing video footage is part of a "very disturbing" series of events in which conservative Christians are influencing National Park service policy, said Ruch.
The National Park Service has been fighting a lengthy legal battle to continue to display an 8-foot cross in California's Mohave National Preserve, and has reinstalled plaques with Biblical verses along the rim of the Grand Canyon.
They have also endorsed the sale at Park Service bookstores of a creationist text, "The Grand Canyon: A Different View," which argues that, despite geological evidence to the contrary, the canyon was "created" several thousand years ago.
"The pattern is to accommodate Christian fundamentalist demands to display religious objects or remove historical objects they find offensive," Ruch said.
Gays Banned From National Parks Civil Service Group Says
by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: December 23, 2003 12:01 a.m. ET
(Washington, D.C.) All images of gay gatherings at national sites,
including the Millennium March on the Washington Mall have been ordered
removed from videotapes that have been shown at the Lincoln Memorial
since 1995 according to a civil service group.
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says that the
directive came from National Parks Service Deputy Director Donald
Murphy. Murphy is said to have been concerned about pictures in the
video that showed same-sex couples kissing and holding hands after
conservative groups complained.
The Millennium March held in 2000 to bring attention to LGBT civil
rights issues drew tens of thousands of gays and their supporters to
the
mall for one of the biggest demonstrations since the civil rights and
anti-war marches of the 1960s.
Also ordered cut from the tape were scenes of abortion rights
demonstrations at the memorial, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations
"because it implies that Lincoln would have supported homosexual and
abortion rights as well as feminism."
In their place, the Park Service is inserting scenes of the Christian
group Promise Keepers and pro-Gulf War demonstrators though these
events
did not take place at the Memorial in what Murphy calls a "more
balanced" version.
"The Park Service leadership now caters exclusively to conservative
Christian fundamentalist groups," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff
Ruch. "The Bush Administration appears to be sponsoring a program of
Faith-Based Parks."
Last July, Murphy ordered the Grand Canyon National Park to return
three
bronze plaques bearing biblical verses to public viewing areas on the
Canyon's South Rim. Murphy overruled the park superintendent who had
directed the plaques' removal based on legal advice from the Interior
Department that the religious displays violated the First Amendment.
This fall, the Park Service also approved a creationist text, "Grand
Canyon: A Different View" for sale in park bookstores and museums. The
book by Tom Vail, claims that the Grand Canyon is really only a few
thousand years old, developing on a biblical rather than an
evolutionary
time scale. At the same time, Park Service leadership has blocked
publication of guidance for park rangers and other interpretative staff
that labeled creationism as lacking any scientific basis.
The Park Service is also engaged in an extended legal battle to
continue
displaying an eight-foot-tall cross, planted atop a 30-foot-high rock
outcropping in the Mojave National Preserve in California. PEER Board
Member and former-Park Service manager Frank Buono filed suit to force
removal of the cross. That suit is now pending before the U.S. Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals.
Gay footage will stay in Lincoln Memorial video
Tue Dec 23, 8:50 PM ET Add Community - Planet Out to My Yahoo!
Patrick Letellier, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
SUMMARY:
Footage of gay rights demonstrations will not be removed from a Lincoln Memorial videotape, according to spokespeople from the National Park Service and the Human Rights Campaign. Earlier reports said the images would be removed.
Footage of gay rights demonstrations will not be removed from a videotape shown at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C, according to spokespeople from the National Park Service and the Human Rights Campaign. Earlier reports in various news outlets said the gay images would be removed.
In a press release yesterday, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a government-watchdog group, said that because of pressure from conservative groups, the National Park Service agreed to remove from the tape all scenes depicting gay and abortion rights rallies. "The Park Service leadership now caters exclusively to conservative Christian fundamentalist groups," PEER executive director Jeff Ruch said in the release.
But today that story has changed. "We have been assured that they are redoing the tape, but are not stripping out scenes of gay and lesbian events at the Lincoln Memorial, because to do so would be historically inaccurate," said Winne Stachelberg, political director at the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group. Stachelberg told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network that National Park Service Chief of Public Affairs, David Barna, made those reassurances to her this morning.
"It certainly sounds as if the park service is getting pressure from right-wing extremists groups to drop images of the gay community and add other images," Stachelberg added.
As part of its update, the National Park Service plans to add scenes including rallies by the Promise Keepers, a fundamentalist Christian men's group, and by pro-life groups to the video.
To do so, however, may not be historically accurate after all. Those rallies did not occur at the Lincoln Memorial or even on the nearby Mall, said Bill Line, a spokesperson for the National Park Service.
Line told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network that the pressure to replace gay and pro-choice images with Christian and pro-life scenes comes from conservative Kansas Republican congressman Todd Tiahrt.
In a letter to the National Park Service last February, Tiahrt objected to the portions of the video that depict gays and a National Abortion Rights League rally, Line said. Tiahrt is "in discussion" with the park service about adding the new scenes, Line said.
The 8-minute video, on public display since 1995, depicts images of a wide variety of events that took place at the Memorial, including black civil rights marches and anti-war demonstrations. The footage of gay rights lasts about 13 seconds, and the pro-choice footage lasts about 16 seconds, Line said.
Congressman Tiahrt's spokesperson was unavailable for comment, having left on a holiday vacation.
The changing video footage is part of a "very disturbing" series of events in which conservative Christians are influencing National Park service policy, said Ruch.
The National Park Service has been fighting a lengthy legal battle to continue to display an 8-foot cross in California's Mohave National Preserve, and has reinstalled plaques with Biblical verses along the rim of the Grand Canyon.
They have also endorsed the sale at Park Service bookstores of a creationist text, "The Grand Canyon: A Different View," which argues that, despite geological evidence to the contrary, the canyon was "created" several thousand years ago.
"The pattern is to accommodate Christian fundamentalist demands to display religious objects or remove historical objects they find offensive," Ruch said.
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can I say FUCK
Date: 2003-12-24 08:03 am (UTC)Well Dear I hope your xmas is better than this thing.
Ash
no subject
Date: 2003-12-24 09:34 am (UTC)The rest of the stuff in this article is vile and bigoted, but this is absolutely ludicrous. The last thing the world needs is any government organization giving legitimacy to the moronic views of creationist idiots. I can't believe that any intelligent person would believe that nonsense.
no subject
Date: 2003-12-24 11:20 am (UTC)Fer criyi, there's a cat who would've been first in line for gay marriage had he had the option.
Don't you love how the video has been going on for eight years and when these whack jobs complain they got a smile and a head nod and everyone was happy but now under dry drunk george they've got to make it more balanced?
In the future (assuming we survive) they're going to look back at our constitution with pride at ushering in a brave new world but they're going to shake their heads about our allowing slavery and the belief in imaginary people in the sky to remain socially acceptable.