Update: Most of the TVC associated sites in this post have now been substantially altered or no longer accept referral traffic from Ex-Gay Watch. In response I have posted google cache backups of all links cited.
I’m sorry to post this graphic which is definitely NOT one of mine. If you don’t wish to view the image I’ll just tell you it’s a banner ad created by an ugly and hateful site called AlainsNewsletter.com which encourages its readers to place the image on their personal homepages. It features an image of the Prophet Muhammad superimposed onto toilet paper.
I find it ugly, degrading, offensive, and I’m not even Muslim. The only reason I’m showing it to you is because the Traditional Values Coalition admits sending out emails on behalf of AlainsNewsletter.com. In fact, AlainsNewsletter.com is edited by the founder of the TVC’s internet consultant. This same consultant also handles mass email distribution systems for NARTH.
On my personal yahoo email I subscribe to only two religious-right mailing lists, the TVC and AFA. Recently I started receiving this ultra-whackjob email publications from AlainsNewsletter.com so I assumed this was some new offshoot of the TVC which is known to do that sort of thing. Then of course I saw the offensive graphic and recognized stylistic similarities between it and some stuff I’ve seen on the TVC website and suspected a connection. There’s a whole page of offensive graphics here. (Google Cache backup.) It was worth asking up front so I shot off an email to the TVC:
Hey somehow I ended up on the email list for this thing called Alains Newsletter that seems to be related to the TVC. Is this a new side ministry you’ve got going or did you sell my email to them? I rather enjoy reading it, I’m just trying to figure out how I started receiving it.
Yours in Christ,
Dan
This is of course the only time in my life I have ever signed an email that way. Evidently somebody at the TVC was working on the sabbath because I got this reply a couple minutes later:
Alain works for TVC, but this is an independant [sic] project.
WE [emphasis theirs] sent out the email on his behalf.
TVC
Of course I took a screen capture of the email which includes the header.
“Contributors” listed on AlainsNewsletter.com include Rev. Louis P. Sheldon (Google Cache) and Stephen Bennett’s past guest J. Matt Barber. (Google Cache)
So who is this Alain? How do you pronounce his name? And what happened to the apostrophe? I can only help you with the first question.
Now as far as I can tell, Alain is employed by the an internet consulting/hosting company called XYZ123 Inc. which is contracted by a variety of religious right organizations set up their web pages and send out mass emails. XYZ123 often attaches this logo of a large headed baby to the bottom of emails and webpages they have worked on such as this one for the TVC.
But the relationship gets far more cozy than that. The TVC homepage currently has a large vertical banner ad for ThisIsWhatIbelieve.com and the top item on the endorsements page (Google Cache) of ThisIsWhatIBelieve.com reads:
Traditional Values Coalition
It is absolutely essential that Christians tell their elected officials how they think on the important issues of the day. And, it’s also important to remind these officials that biblical morality is the foundation upon which our nation was built.
Our country is experiencing a moral meltdown because we have rejected God and His moral laws in politics—and every other area of life. We must return to our biblical roots if our nation is to survive.
ThisIsWhatIBelieve.com is performing a valuable service by informing our elected officials of their duty before God.
Rev. Louis P. Sheldon
Chairman
Traditional Values Coalition
https://www.traditionalvalues.org
At the bottom of the page is a banner ad for AlainsNewsletter.com and the XYZ123 logo.
If you wish to support ThisIsWhatIBelieve.com the support page (Google Cache) invites you:
You can send a check to:
The This Is What I Believe Project
PO Box 28
Wapiti WY, 82450
Note that address. According to a WHOIS query of whois.opensrs.net, ThisIsWhatIBelieve.com lists:
Administrative Contact:
Lange, Alain alain@xyz123.org
PO Box 28
Wapiti, WY 82450
Not surprisingly whois.opensrs.net has the registry for AlainsNewsletter.com:
Registrant:
alains newsletter
PO Box 28
Wapiti, WY 82450
What appears to be an old version of XYZ123’s website on Google Cache makes the company appear to be a one-man operation. However it should be noted that site address is xyz123.org and is registered to a Mark Langlois in California who could simply be a proxy.
In summary: It appears Alain Lange runs a and created XYZ123 Inc., the TVC’s internet consultant. XYZ123 has projects which the TVC has openly endorsed, created the offensive graphic which began this post and is so cozy with the TVC that the TVC is willing to not-so-openly send out emails promoting his hateful website. One has to wonder what the TVC’s official position would be on graphics even more extreme than their own.
What’s NARTH’s connection to Alain’s operation? Although they never appear to have supported any of his hateful endeavors directly they do contract with him for mass email distribution as evidenced by this Google Cache of a NARTH email. Note the baby logo at the bottom of the message.
Just a random passer-by…
It seems that the website now blocks visitors who are reffered to their page via this site. To access the page, copy the link and paste it into a new browser window.
They are obviously trying to hide something…
In fact, every link from this page to traditionalvalues.org, alainsnewsletter.com and thisiswhatibelieve.com is blocked, and redirects to google. Also, I don’t know if they did it before, but now the toiletpaper graphic has a “Special hello to our buddies at exgaywatch!”:
“Hi! Keep smiling! Stop being gay, you will LIVE LONGER! … Remember Jesus will forgive you. Islam will kill you.”
What is wrong with these people? Anti-Islam, anti-gay, soon there won’t be a person left on this planet who they aren’t anti-something against.
“Hi! Keep smiling! Stop being gay, you will LIVE LONGER! … Remember Jesus will forgive you. Islam will kill you.”
Incredible.
That trick of redirecting links from critic’s sites is something that another hate site, Little Green Footballs, does too. Birds of a feather…
Much as I hate to I have to agree that Islam is currently a more hateful and violent religion than Christianity or Judaism, but what really strikes me about people like alain is the incredible hypocrisy where Christians cry out they are being defamed and then do this. They obviously don’t know or don’t follow the golden rule.
If Christians want gays to choose between a hateful christian version of religion and Islam they’d better be careful. They’ve created an oppressive live for some gays in both religions but in Islam they teach that as long as you deny yourself on earth you can enjoy your sinful pleasures in heaven. In an oppressed life some religious gays might decide quick martyrdom in Islam is preferable to a lifetime and eternity of denial under christendom. I think Christians like alain should be thankful GLBTs like me who are depressed and angry at society for creating unfair repression prefer no religion at all.
Posted by: Anonymous at March 6, 2006 12:30 PM
That was me again, I’m not at my normal computer and keep forgetting to make sure my posts are signed.
Randi Schimnosky
To be consistent, one must support anyone’s right to offensive humor if one supports the First Amendment.
But I do wonder how Alain would like Baby Jesus Toilet Paper®?
Probably not very much.
I find it amusing that gays would have any sympathy for Muslims who, unlike Sheldon, NARTH and Bennett, openly und unequivocally advocate the murder of homosexuals.
Show me one non-gay Muslim who doesn’t want to kill gays. You can’t. There isn’t one.
Southern, we didn’t defend Islam any more than we’d defend Christianity.
Are you suggesting that we oppose freedom of religion and freedom of speech unless we happen to agree with the religion or speech, as the religious right has done?
Mike Airhart:
“Are you suggesting that we oppose freedom of religion and freedom of speech unless we happen to agree with the religion or speech?”
The fact that you are asking such a strawman-argument question shows you didn’t bother to even get my point. Freedom of religion/speech does not extend to killing people/threatening to, the way the Muslim community (not just individual Muslims!) does and has done. I don’t have to be tolerant of people who want to kill me, and the law agrees with me.
Um… SD, no one’s saying you should be tolerant of people who want to kill you. You brought it up, you keep it going, you created a position for the other people here that they don’t hold so that you can argue. Which is to say you’re a troll.
And for the record, SD, I know several straight Muslims with no interest in killing gay people. In fact, they have gay friends.
I agree that people who want to kill others should not be tolerated.
I might go further to suggest that the specific actions of intolerant people — extremists of the left or right, for example — to promote intolerance need not be socially or culturally tolerated. (Note that I did not say that the intolerant should be regulated or legislated against.)
“I find it amusing that gays would have any sympathy for Muslims who, unlike Sheldon, NARTH and Bennett, openly und unequivocally advocate the murder of homosexuals.”
Southern takes an interesting position here. He would have no SYMPATHY with… etc.
I’m not a psychologist, and I will probably phrase this poorly. However: I believe there is a theory in psychology that addresses how persons can behave with incredible cruelty and that the idea is that in order to behave abominably to another, you have to view them as someone as not worthy of sympathy. They have to be seen as “not like you”.
In other words, as long as Muslims (or anyone, really) are not just people born in another part of the world, but instead are people undeserving of sympathy, then you don’t have to care about their plight, whatever it may be. You feel justified in ignoring their concerns.
So too can some religious conservatives not care about the concerns of gay people – such as health care plans, hospital visitation, employment security, or even just staying alive and not being incarcerated for being gay – because they don’t believe gay people are deserving of sympathy. This is why we see actions and attacks that they would be horrified to do to someone they thought of as like them.
Baptists would never campaign to deny Methodists of marriage. Nor would evangelicals try to stop Catholics from adopting. Yet these are things that they have no problem denying gay people.
The irony is that the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ, tried to get his disciples to learn to show sympathy to those unlike themselves. He preached that the outcast Samaritan was as worthy as the Priest. He said that his religion was based on loving your neighbor.
Some current Christians have twisted that commandment to love and think it means to judge and force others to do what you want them to do. Because, after all, they aren’t worthy of sympathy so therefore they aren’t worthy of the kind of love that treats people the way they want to be treated. Jesus surely didn’t mean show people sympathy and real love, of course.
I don’t know Southern, but by his posts, I suspect that he is probably an anti-gay Christian. It’s clear that he holds no “sympathy” to Muslims. And probably not to gay people as well.
For the record — we happen to more than one person that is both Muslim and does not want gay men and women gaoled, killed or anyway mistreated. This has been rather good to know, as we’ve have them over for dinner on many occassions.We also know Christians who feel the same way.Unfortunately, we’re also corresponded with both Christians and Muslims that do want to mistreat gay men and women; up to and including execution. About the only bright side is that they also feel the same way about each other.And needless to say, nobody like that has ever been to our place for dinner.I’m not sure what to make of this type of lunacy though — claims about “manufactured outrage” when “two Iranian teenagers are hanged according to their government’s laws”.That’s right… our fear and outrage is not genuine, it’s just done to further the Gay Agenda(c). Little does anyone know, but the two that were hanged were actually volunteer martyrs — suicide hangings, if you will.But at least some gay-hating Christians feel that gay-hating Muslims serve some useful purposes. Perhaps they could hate us together, and thereby find common cause?
I’d like to add to the roster of straight Muslims that don’t wish gay people any harm to show to SD. I work for an organization that deals with education in the Middle east. I deal with literally hundreds of people a day who wish gay people no harm.
And let’s make no mistake: the only difference between extremist Muslims and extremist Xians is simply opportunity. Anyone that thinks a xian extremist would act differently if they could get away with it is simply naive.
What happened to Alains newsletter, and the Christian underground. It seems they have been banned from my computer by either msn, or Plesk. Please help me find out how to get back in touch with Alain.
Ty,
I don’t know what the Christian Underground is/was but Alains Newsletter wasn’t banned, it’s just gone. It was banned from Google’s news feed but that was a while back.
David Roberts
SouthernDecency, I am a non-gay Muslim who doesn’t want to kill gays. So please stop espousing such close-minded blather. It’s people like you who give me a really, really bad impression of Christianity.
Correct me if I am wrong Fareed, but I thought the death penalty for homosexual acts between men was a fundamental tenet of Islam? How then do you justify not wanting to kill homosexuals?
ab — a “fundamental tenet”? No, it is not. There are a few basics, and killing homosexuals is not one of them.
It is believed by some extremist Muslims, yes.
I understand parts of Leviticus reads the same way with some extremist Christians (and Jews). Hmm?
Most Jews, Christians and Muslims feel this type of issue has nothing to do with their faith, but instead falls into the “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s” category — a matter of public laws, to be decided as seen appropriate at the time and place, but not a matter of the faith.
Actually grantdale, it’s a little more complicated than that…
There are many muslims who don’t advocate violence towards queers or anyone and most of them are actually liberal in nature. However their religious institutions are another matter. The politically incorrect reality is that a majority of mosques and imams are fundamentalist and down right extremist. Most do advocate replacing secular law with the draconian Shari’ah, including the legal execution of homosexuals. Take Qaradawi for example. He holds this view and he’s considered a ‘moderate’ among his peers!
If you want to read more about this problematic issue, then I suggest you read some of the articles on Muslim Wake Up on the subject and their LGBT forum.
Also, can you name me a single gay-friendly mosque?
Xeno, oh — the schools etc.
Different matter, but agree with you on that score. And problematic for many Muslims. It’s also very difficult to speak out against the loons, in many places. And complicated by other politics etc, particularly around Palestine.
Sorry if we sounded naive about all that because we didn’t mention it, but it simply isn’t true that there are not reformist or tolerant Muslims etc (which is what we were replying to). Our own experience is (nearly always) with Indonesians and Malaysians, and that again complicates matters — what is being presented as “Islam” by some is better described as Arabic tribal laws or culture etc. I don’t think it’s a coincedence that the rise of dominational Islam in some quarters of Indonesia and Malaysia is matched by the arrival of funding from the Gulf states for the “new” madrasah.
Even 10 years ago we noticed a step change between the attitudes of older folk of Jawa (they laughingly call themself “lazy muslim”) and those of some of the grandchildren — particularly the boys. And it ain’t a good change. IMO.
Tolerant and non-sectarian Muslims do have a real struggle on their hands. I only hope it doesn’t last as long as the Inquisition 🙂
The name of the particular Arabic sect is Wahhabi, though they refer to themselves in by other terms. The founder was Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab. He allied himself with the House of Saud some time in the early 1700’s and they began their “Holy War” in the mid 1700’s which led to the formation of the first Saudi kingdom, the control of Mecca and Medina and continues in the current kingdom. They were of minor influence in the Islamic world, despite controlling the major pilgrimage site, until oil money became available. Since then, they’ve maintained a systematic effort to control the face of Islam throughout the Muslim world. Most of the current terrorist groups within Islam are connected to the Wahhabi movement in some way.
This is a fairly good summary of them from the viewpoint of a scholar of religious violence, Dawn Perlmutter:
https://www.meta-religion.com/Extremism/Islamic_extremism/wahhabism.htm
A small portion of the article:
“Wahhabi theology and jurisprudence is based respectively on the teachings of Ibn Taymiyah and on the legal school of Ahmad ibn Hanbal; they stress literal belief in the Quran and Hadith and the establishment of a Muslim state based solely on Islamic law. The contemporary Wahhabi movement is flourishing in every Muslim country. In Lebanon alone, the movement is estimated by officials to have about 4,000 members; it is far larger in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. It goes by many names, including Ikhwan, Salifiyya, Mowahabin, and the best known, Taliban. Anti-Wahhabi Muslims refer to Wahhabism as fitna an Najdiyyah or “the trouble out of Nejd.” Wahhabis receive financial support at the highest levels of the Saudi Arabian government. Wahhabi religious schools, known as madrassas , are part of a worldwide network of Muslim extremists. Beginning at ages 7-15, Wahhabi schools indoctrinate young men into the fundamentals of strict Islam, religious obligations, and radical militancy. Between the ages of 15-25, the young men are prepared for jihad and are trained to fight for the conquest of Wahhabi Islam. Not all of the young men who attend Wahhabi schools turn to violence. Some become religious teachers, and the vast majority of Wahhabi communities do not openly maintain armed militias, although they may engage in paramilitary training. The exception is the Taliban, who do not conceal weapons or other arms. The term Wahhabi has pejorative connotations, and Saudis themselves do not use the term, preferring to call themselves Unitarians, believers in one indivisible deity. “
Hava Israel,
I’m afraid it’s not only Wahhabi or Salafi theology and jurisprudence that are problematic. Hanbali, Hanafi, Ja’fari (Sh’ia jurisprudence), Maliki, Shafi’i; They all are vile and problematic.
Xeno, thanks for directing me to that. Quite a complicated subject. The similarities in thinking about orientation (or the denial of homosexual orientation) are close to the general Ancient and late Ancient Jewish approach and why the current liberal/non-Orthodox arguments are often centered around the idea that the Torah is not talking about orientation at all, but of pederasty in the case of turning to young boys when a woman is not available (because everyone is assumed heterosexual to begin with) and pagan ritual practices. There is also the same focus on anal intercourse being the main issue rather than other forms of affection – with Lesbianism being brought up only much later and outside of the foundational scriptures or the Torah and the Koran.
In Judaism, Lesbianism is specifically stated as being a practice that is in imitation of Egyptian cultic practices – related to paganism, which strengthens the argument that the Leviticus prohibition is specifically related to cultic practices, as it’s the priestly code. It’s important for people to understand that even men with physical deformities were not allowed into the men’s section of the Temple, so the level of restriction for what is ‘pure’ and what is ‘impure’ from the point of view of the priests is much higher and quite different from current Jewish and Christian understanding.
Women were not allowed into the first inner section at all, though they could not even enter the outer section during menses, for seven days afterward and for a period of weeks after childbirth (longer after the birth of a daughter, shorter after the birth of a son), or to touch any consecrated object, so what many people are reading into Leviticus today does not relate at all to what the ancients were thinking on the subject. The issue is not everyday ‘holiness’, it had to do directly with Temple activities and steering as far away from the surrounding pagan practices as possible.
Since orientation doesn’t figure in at all and sexism does quite strongly, as the ancient custom of pederasty took the form of the passive/feminized partner being always younger or even a slave, seems to explain the Torah prohibition as well as the vehemence within Islamic culture against homosexuality. It does appear that the more strictly women are controlled, the more opposition against homosexuality there is. This also seems to be true in many forms of Christianity. Certainly the belief that homosexuality is merely a form of gender disfunction lends itself to this idea. It’s only ‘kosher’ for a man to dominate women, slaves and children, not another man, and women should not be ‘manless’ and independent. It may be that lesbianism isn’t mentioned in either the Torah or the Koran because women literally had no autonomous freedom – they were property exchanged between men.
It’s interesting that lesbianism is mentioned in the New Testament when the concept arises that the membership within the Christian community dissolves male and female distinctions and free person and slave distinctions, so specific legislation via Pauls letters (as an authority) needed to be established concerning the new boundaries, as women were specifically also granted no authority in church matters and doctrinal teaching (as I understand 1 Timothy).
Official Islam appears to be in a similar place to Orthodox Judaism, though much closer to ancient practices. The Rabbis voted out corporal punishment when the Sanhedrin was still in existence, before 70 C.E. IIRC (I’d have to do some research on the exact years) because it was considered too cruel (it’s never been brought back) and there’s no culture of pederasty going on because it’s been considered a pagan practice since the earliest periods.
From what I understand, the idea of orientation is accepted by many Orthodox Jews, but not all, and many consider it ‘natural’, but acting on it is considered wrong. Sometimes this is only with regard to anal intercourse.
None of this is actually relevant to the original statement that there are no non-gay Muslims who disagree with the death penalty, however. Considering the death threats sent to vocal Muslims who publicly state opinions that differ from offical doctrine, I doubt that any kind of active dissention can be common. Irshad Manji keeps a collection of letters and responses which are interesting to read that reflects some of the issues people face within Islamic communities (not just the issue of homosexuality):
https://muslim-refusenik.com/letters.html
If people scroll down, there are very positive comments on several subject matters from Muslims who know they are writing to a lesbian (along with the vile ones). These people do exist, but like any people living in a restrictive environment, there is not much freedom of dissent except in very personal situations. Often the only approach is to leave the community.
The similarity to both fundamentalist Christianity and Judaism, which the original story of the toilet paper image and the websites response to the dissent of XGW is uncanny, despite the size, and the doctrinal and cultural differences. I think Christians and Jews are quite fortunate in that there has been a more successful history of reform in both traditions. We have more choices so that we can more easily practice our religion and live honest lives as ourselves at the same time.
Irshad Manji’s great. Such an intelligent young woman. She told a story on the Vicky Gabereau show about how she was questioning a religious leader when she was quite young. I believe she kept asking him why women had no say in Islam and he kept getting more annoyed as she persisted. Finally he told her something to the effect of “Either you believe and you’re with us or you don’t and you’re not, enough with the questions, leave.”. She was so upset she decided to make a bold statement as she walked out so she yelled back “Jesus Christ!”. At the time she didn’t know who Jesus was but had simply heard that exclamation and decided to repeat it not realizing just how bold a statement she was making.