An email I got today from reader Vicki Nantz:
Hi Steve.
Have you heard about the anti-gay Florida Bar newspaper ad? In light of this week's news about the just released briefs from the Gill case, and the TV station in Tampa airing the anti-gay program, it makes this next story very relevant and disturbing.
The Florida Bar publishes a regular newspaper. And in the latest edition (paper version, not online) they have allowed a full page anti-gay advertisement to run, paid for by a member of the Florida Bar's family law section who objected to the family law section's amicus brief filed in the Gill case. Attached is the pdf (not a very good quality, but readable).
LGBT attorneys throughout the state are weighing how best to respond to this offensive ad which was just discovered and sent around on Thursday. This is really no different than WFLA's broadcast of an anti-gay program, but maybe even more disconcerting in that it comes via a Bar publication. Would they have placed a Klan ad condemning African Americans or Jews? If you need LGBT law contacts, my partner is a member of the Central Florida group and she is aware that their president is working on a response.
Here’s the ad:
Caution: the book cited as the source of the childhood horrors is highly suspect. The attorney-author of the FL Bar advertisement should have been more circumspect and selective in his choice of evidence if he wants to be taken seriously. Dawn, the author, a licensed accountant, home educator, and media spokesperson who self published her book through Annotation Books. They limit their press to “G-rated, family friendly” titles, such as the Bible as Your GPS, and Revelation and Other End Time Scriptures. The publisher is a member of the Christian Booksellers Assn and claims to use their press “to glorify God”.
Dawn’s website has a fund raising approach like a non-profit charity. Her website includes requests for financial support like" We welcome your financial support. This helps offer services and resources to those who visit this website. Checks can be mailed to [me]. We are unable to provide tax receipts at this time." However, no services beyond reading the website are offered.
Blurbs for the book include one by Michelle Cretella MD, an adviser to Rhode Island chapter of the National Organization for Marriage [sic]. Her views, frequently expressed in letters to the editor, are clearly out of the mainstream. One memorable letter refuted homosexuality as a natural variation by stating that if we accept that, then we must also “conclude that filicide and cannibalism are in accordance with human nature”.
Overall Dawn’s story is highly suspect, possibly a work of complete horrifying fiction driven by sales to, and support of the radical right.
Posted by: Marco Luxe | July 18, 2009 at 08:21 PM