hate group – RI Future

March 7, 2016July 13, 2016

I used to live in fear: Driver’s licenses and the undocumented

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I used to live in fear. Fear of being separated from my family and fear of being forced away from my home, away from everything and everyone I had ever known. I am not a criminal, but my life has been criminalized. I have lived in Rhode Island for practically my entire life, having moved here from Europe when I was merely ten months of age. My visa expired when I was a young child and just like that, I became an undocumented immigrant.

For much of my life, documentation has been an obsession. Angst consumed me as a teen. My status constantly raised basic questions about life. I worried that I would never be allowed to drive. I worried about getting a job. These were recurring, pervasive thoughts in my thirteen-year-old mind.

Fortunately, in 2012, President Obama announced his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) memorandum. This decision granted provisional presence to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. Finally, I felt a sense of relief. I applied for DACA and underwent a background check. My application was approved. Thanks to DACA, I was now allowed to get a driver’s license.

Possessing a driver’s license means everything to me. This document allows me to work, to pursue higher education and to volunteer in my city. A license gives me a sense of being, by allowing me to fully participate in the community. Unfortunately, thousands more are not in my position. Many undocumented immigrants in RI are terrified that they will be pulled over while driving to their jobs, homes, or schools. I believe that these undocumented immigrants should not live in fear. They deserve a chance to apply for a driver’s license.

Despite enormous hurdles, undocumented immigrants continue to contribute to their communities. They have paid approximately $33.4 million in yearly tax contributions in RI, including income taxes, as reported by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy. With an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number provided by the IRS, millions of undocumented immigrants throughout the United States contribute billions to local, state and federal governments. Nationally, immigrants comprise 13% of the population, but contribute 14.7% of the total economic output in the US, as shown by the Economic Policy Institute.

Unfortunately, there has been a systematic effort to distort the contributions of undocumented immigrants in the United States, with the intent of keeping them mired in the immigration process. Lobbying groups, such as the private prison industry, have echoed many of RI Rep. Nardolillo’s sentiments in his February 28th op-ed. Private prison corporations such as GEO Group and the Corrections Corporation of America stand to gain financially from undocumented immigration. For instance, between 2000 and 2010, the industry has doubled in size, while simultaneously spending over $32 million on federal lobbying and campaign contributions. In addition, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which Nardolillo cited, has a track record of affiliating with white nationalist movements. The founder of FAIR, John Tanton, has a record of association with former Klan lawyers and Holocaust deniers, as shown by correspondence archived at the University of Michigan’s library. In fact, FAIR is identified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

As a result, the benefits of immigration are lost in debate. Immigration reduces overall budget deficits, as shown in a study by the National Resource Council. The issue here is not that undocumented immigrants are stealing two and three jobs each while paradoxically qualifying for every government assistance program in existence. The issue is that corporate interests stand to gain from a system that deports members of working families while inflating the profit margins of the private prison industry and appeasing white supremacists.

I strongly believe that Rhode Island should grant drivers’ licenses to the thousands of undocumented immigrants who file taxes, as the legislation requires. The thousands who live in fear only wish to better the lives of their family and children, an unequivocally American value.

I urge everyone to stand with me to end this cycle of fear and contact the legislators on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees to support H7610 and S2333.

August 24, 2015August 24, 2015

Five thoughts about Saturday’s Planned Parenthood protest

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On Saturday Bishop Thomas Tobin of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence lead his followers in the “National Day of Protest” against Planned Parenthood here in Providence. I was on hand to observe and take pictures. Inspired by Tobin’s recent column, five thoughts came to mind:

• As I watched the demonstrations, I wondered if Bishop Tobin was aware that the videos presented to the public by the anti-choice group Center for Medical Progress, the videos that inspired these protests, are hoaxes made to fool gullible people? These videos are amateurishly edited lies, as any Google search will show. (See: Snopes, Wonkette, MediaMatters and LittleGreenFootballs) Could the Bishop have checked the Internet before continuing to spread false witness?

• I wondered if Rhode Island Catholics are aware that under the leadership of Bishop Tobin, the Providence Diocese has made a habit of teaming up with extremist anti-LGBTQ hate groups? The national sponsors of the “Day of Protest” against Planned Parenthood included:

–American Family Association is listed as a hate group with the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). For just a flavor of the sickening things this group has said, I’ll supply one quote from Bryan Fischer, director of issue analysis for government and public policy: “Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.”

–Family Research Council is also listed as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the SPLC, whose senior Fellow for Policy Studies, Peter Sprigg, said, against all evidence to the contrary, that, “We believe the evidence shows … that relative to the size of their population, homosexual men are more likely to engage in child sexual abuse than are heterosexual men.”

-Besides the SPLC identified hate groups, the Planned Parenthood protest event was also backed by Operation Rescue, which has been linked to violent anti-choice extremists.

-Saturday was not the first time Tobin has sided himself with extremist hate groups. In 2013, Tobin gave his blessing to FAPSMEG, an anti-marriage equality coalition that counted MassResistance, another certified SPLC hate group, among its members. MassResistance executive director Brian Camenker even came to RI to testify against marriage equality as part of the coalition.

Do Rhode Island Catholics really want to be allies with hate groups?

• Is the general public aware that the Catholic Church doesn’t simply oppose abortion, they also oppose most common forms of birth control such as condoms, birth control pills and IUDs? At least one group sponsoring the Planned Parenthood protests, the American Life League, (ALA) is opposed to “abortion under any circumstance” and “all forms of contraception, embryonic stem cell research, and euthanasia.” The ALA is “the largest Catholic grassroots pro-life organization in the United States.”

CNBHkaZWwAA-A7M — Representatives Justin Price and Raymond Hull

Now, this might be a fine way for believing Catholics to live, but the Church would see its beliefs imposed on everyone, through law. America, and specifically Rhode Island, was founded on very different principles. Here, we separate church and state.

• The Catholic Church in Rhode Island pays no taxes, yet exerts an out-sized influence on Rhode Island’s politics. At least three state legislators were outside Planned Parenthood with the protesters. I saw Representatives Raymond Hull, Robert Lancia and Justin Price. We should ask ourselves: How are laws shaped by Catholic theology fundamentally different from sharia law?

• Women’s rights to privacy, medical care and freedom of conscience are under attack across the country. The ugly manifestations of this are starting to be felt in Rhode island. Governor Gina Raimondo, who sought the endorsement of Planned Parenthood, has shown herself to be no champion of reproductive rights. Rhode Island has a proud tradition of standing against intolerance, fear and ignorance. When will we demand leadership that will stand against these pernicious attacks on our fundamental freedoms?

With this in mind, I hope you will join me in making a donation to Planned Parenthood.

July 21, 2014July 21, 2014

Racist rhetoric from anti-immigration group RIILE

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RIILE (Rhode Islanders For Immigration Law Enforcement) is a nativist hate group.

The inspiration for RIILE and a big help in organizing the group was FAIR, (Federation for American Immigration Reform) according to a June 29, 2008 ProJo piece by Karen Lee Ziner. Sandra Gunn, FAIR’s Eastern field rep, “came to Pawtucket… at the invitation of William ‘Terry’ Gorman, a 68-year-old retired postal worker and member of FAIR since 1997. Gorman, increasingly frustrated, wanted to organize his own local campaign against illegal immigration. Gorman and his wife were among the eight people at the organizational meeting on Feb. 28, 2006, of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement. Gunn provided start-up strategy, literature from FAIR and advice to the new members, Gorman said.”

On Friday, July 18, 2014 RIILE organized a protest against the large number of refugee children crossing the border. The action at the Rhode Island State House was at the behest of ALIPAC (Americans for Legal Immigration PAC). The protest drew about two dozen people and consisted of Terry Gorman and others speaking to a tiny crowd of rapidly dwindling reporters.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified both FAIR and ALIPAC as Nativist hate groups based on their rhetoric, and there is little to differentiate RIILE, though the SPLC has not made the determination that RIILE is a hate group.

The SPLC website says of FAIR: “Although FAIR maintains a veneer of legitimacy that has allowed its principals to testify in Congress and lobby the federal government, this veneer hides much ugliness. FAIR leaders have ties to white supremacist groups and eugenicists and have made many racist statements. Its advertisements have been rejected because of racist content. FAIR’s founder, John Tanton, has expressed his wish that America remain a majority-white population: a goal to be achieved, presumably, by limiting the number of nonwhites who enter the country.”

ALIPAC’s president, William Gheen, recently asked his members to mail their used underwear to members of congress and to the refugee children crossing the border, saying “Instead of using our tax money to buy illegals 42,000 pairs of new underwear, we would like to send the illegals and DC politicians a message by mailing them our used underwear, and some of our pairs are in really bad shape due to the bad economy and all of the jobs illegal immigrants are taking from Americans.” In an open letter to the SPLC, Gheen complained about being labeled a hate group.

On Friday, here in Rhode Island, Terry Gorman talked for nearly an hour in a rambling, conspiracy fueled screed warning of disease, economic cataclysm and possible terrorist incursions as a result of offering aid to the thousands of undocumented refugee children arriving at our borders. Gorman blamed the recent gang violence in Providence on “illegals” with no evidence to support his claims.

And then there were the conspiracy theories. According to Gorman, as many as four hundred refugee children may have been flown into Rhode Island on a pair C-130’s and then bused to secret locations throughout our state on the day of the rally. Gorman has heard this rumor on Facebook and claims the information is solid, but is not at liberty to reveal his source. Obama and Chafee, says Gorman, are working together to destroy Rhode Island and destroy the United States.

In an hour of unbelievable statements, the most over-the-top was when Terry Gorman said that if he knew that there was a busload of refugee children leaving Quonsett airport, he would lay down in front of the bus to prevent the children from finding shelter in our state. Gorman is the kind of person who sees news reports of unhinged Americans screaming at frightened, hungry busloads of children and imagines how cool it would be to join them at the front lines. He is a fearful, mean-spirited person.

Unfortunately, Terry Gorman was not alone. Joining him behind the podium was Gorman’s daughter-in-law and executive director of RIILE, Karen Gorman; Larry Girouard, of Rhode Island Taxpayers; Rhue Reese, Republican challenger to Representative Jim Langevin; John Carnavale, Republican running for Secretary of State; right-wing radio host Lee Ann Sennick; Mike Daz, who runs an organization in nearby Massachusetts called Overpasses for America and Monique Chartier, who writes for Anchor Rising and is associated with the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity. Mark Zaccaria, the Republican challenger to Senator Jack Reed, wished he could have been there, but had a prior engagement.

These then, are the people in Rhode Island who lack compassion, are ruled by fear and susceptible to nonsensical conspiracy theory. These are the people who see a humanitarian crisis and respond with thinly veiled racism, stupidity and xenophobia. These are, without a doubt, the very worst people Rhode Island has to offer, and I find solace in the fact that they are not only small in spirit, but small in number and small in support.

The arguments made during the rally can be heard in the statements of people not directly associated with the groups represented. State representative Peter Palumbo demonstrated once again that he has no problem bullying children when he wrote a letter to Governor Chafee asking that refugee children be turned away from our state. (Palumbo, it should be remembered, once called my niece, Jessica Ahlquist, an “evil little thing” and a “pawn star” on the John DePetro Show simultaneously dehumanizing and sexualizing a sixteen year old girl.) Palumbo argued that the state simply can’t afford to help out hungry children, sentiments echoed by Gorman, Chartier and others at the rally.

Meanwhile, Bishop Thomas Tobin has taken a powerful stand against such hate. Speaking as the leader of the Providence Diocese, Tobin said, “If the refugee children come to Rhode Island, I hope and pray that all the members of our community will work together, in a thoughtful and compassionate way, to welcome them and care for them to the very best of our ability.” Tobin added, “Certainly the children should not be the object of our political scorn. As a starting point, in our public discussions, let’s avoid the negative rhetoric that serves only to inflame passions and divide the community.”

Let that sink in: Children should not be the object of our political scorn. Then compare that statement to this:

The full video of Gorman’s hate rally can be seen here. Warning: it will turn the stomach of decent people. (This video and the one above were shot by Adam Miner.)

Here’s the ad for the rally RIILE ran on Craig’sList:

November 12, 2013November 13, 2013

Mass ‘hate groups’ focus attention elsewhere

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Massachusetts got the ball running on marriage equality back in 2004 when the state supreme court ruled, in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health that under the state constitution, it was illegal to deny same sex couples their right to marry. Less than a decade later, Hawaii has become the 15th state to recognize this human right, and though the road ahead seems difficult, there is little reason to suspect that the rest of the United States will not come around eventually.

Still, progress towards a more just future almost never occurs without a reactionary, religious-based backlash, and today the state of Massachusetts is bookended by a pair of anti-gay hate groups that seek to spread the view that LGBTQ citizens are deserving of second-class treatment at best, if not outright condemnation. Not content to merely influence the direction of public discourse in their home state, these groups spread their hate and lies nationally and even internationally, helping to destroy lives in the process.

In Waltham, just outside Boston, Brian Camenker leads the group he founded in 1995 to oppose the “homosexual agenda,” MassResistance. Meanwhile, across the state in the city of Springfield, Scott Lively leads Abiding Truth Ministries, “a church that seeks to ‘re-Christianize’ the city of Springfield, Mass., where he lives.”

Perhaps sensing that the battle over gay rights has been lost in their home state, both men have turned their groups’ attentions elsewhere. (Though MassResistance continues to advocate strongly in Massachusetts against any bill that seeks to expand the legal protections of trans persons and against any bills that might seek to help LGBTQ teens who are victims of bullying.) Camenker made at least two appearances at the Rhode Island State House to testify before the General Assembly against marriage equality, and MassResistance was part of the anti-marriage equality coalition known as the Faith Alliance.

Most recently Camenker’s organization bombarded the Hawaiian Legislature with copies of its booklet “What same-sex ‘Marriage’ had done to Massachusetts” a book filled with lies and misrepresentations, as well as real life “horror stories” about the effect marriage equality has had on Massachusetts, such as requiring insurance companies to recognize same-sex couples in their coverage. Yes, that’s portrayed as a horror story, for some reason.

As bumbling and comical as Camenker’s antics may appear in one light, do not forget that there is a wide spectrum of groups, even here in Rhode Island, that take the views of his organization very seriously. The groups that shook the dome of the Rhode Island State House during the marriage equality hearings, including the Knights of Columbus, the Providence Catholic Diocese, the Hispanic Coalition of Pastors and Ministers, NOM-RI and many others welcomed Camenker’s group as one of their own. Camenker’s views are also taken seriously by several state senators and representatives.

Worse, Camenker is going international, delivering “a copy of the MassResistance booklet… to every member of [the Australian] Parliament” as the people there debate legally recognizing same-sex marriage rights. How much influence Camenker has is debatable, but the media he generates, including a new DVD, “What ‘gay marriage’ did to Massachusetts” allows disorganized marriage equality opponents to access a series of pernicious and false talking points around which to rally their cause.

Vastly more dangerous than MassResistance is Scott Lively and Abiding Truth Ministries. Lively does not seem all that interested in the finer points of battling for his views in state legislatures and courtrooms. Lively’s schemes are international in scope and always self-aggrandizing. He has a sickening fondness for theocratic authoritarians like Vladimir Putin of Russia, who he calls, “the defender of Christian civilization.”

Mid-October found Lively in Russia, helping to plan the World Congress of Families VIII, to take place at the Kremlin in September of 2014. While in Russia, Lively met and “bonded instantly” with Archpriest Dimitri Smirnov, head of the Patriarch’s Commission on the Family, and together they discussed Lively’s plan to reclaim the rainbow as a Christian symbol from the LGBTQ movement. Lively seems keen to help his Russian friends to undermine any effort LGBTQ activists may undertake to use the upcoming Moscow Olympics as a forum to protest Russia’s new anti-homosexuality laws.

Should we take Lively’s efforts seriously? Perhaps not, but unfortunately the Ugandan parliament does. In March 2009 Lively, along with Don Schmierer and Caleb Lee Brundidge, gave a series of talks in Kampala, Uganda. According to Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times,

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

One month after Lively’s visit, “a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals.” Lively himself reported with some satisfaction that his visit to Uganda “was like a nuclear bomb against the ‘gay’ agenda in Uganda,” though he later backed away from his involvement when the international criticism became too harsh.

Expect to see Lively attempt to distance himself more and more from his Ugandan visit over the next year as he is being sued by the pro-LGBTQ rights group, Sexual Minorities Uganda, for allegedly “violating international law by inciting the persecution of gay men and lesbians in Uganda.” If Lively is concerned about the lawsuit, he has not publicly demonstrated it. Instead he has announced his candidacy for Governor of Massachusetts.

Lively has long spread hate against homosexuals, and it should not seriously surprise him that homophobic politicians would take his ideas and run with them. He is the author (along with Kevin Abrams) of The Pink Swastika, a repellent piece of pseudo-history and holocaust revisionism that claims that “homosexuality found in the Nazi Party contributed to the extreme militarism of Nazi Germany.” Further, the book claims that “many leaders in the German Nazi regime, including Adolf Hitler himself, were homosexual and [the book] says that eight of the top ten serial killers in the US were homosexuals.”

Is it any wonder that those who take Lively’s lies seriously might want to outlaw, criminalize and punish the homosexual community?

Scott Lively and Brian Camenker lead the only two anti-LGBTQ hate groups in New England of note. Certainly there are smaller religious ministries that share the views of these two men and swallow their lies whole, but these smaller groups lack the reach and the influence of MassResistance and Abiding Truth Ministries. Lively and Camenker do not seem to work together too often, but they are fans of each others’ work. Lively refers to Camenker as a “good friend and ally” while Camenker has passionately defended Lively on his website.

To misquote Oscar Wilde, “Deceiving others. That is what the world calls a bromance.”

January 18, 2013January 18, 2013

Tobin Aligns With Hate Group to Oppose Equality

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FAPSMEG (the Faith Alliance to Preserve the Sanctity of Marriage as Established by God) is a coalition of religious and political groups, brought together by the executive director of NOM-RI, Christopher Plante, to fight against marriage equality rights. The coalition marks the first time the local Catholic church, and perhaps the first diocese anywhere, has joined forces with an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has identified as a hate group.

MassResistance has erroneously claimed that pro-equality groups supporting anti-bullying programs in schools “actually want to lure children into homosexuality and, very possibly, sadomasochism,” according to the SPLC. Its founder and executive director Brian Camenker has erroneously claimed that in Massachusetts “gays were trying to get legislation passed to allow sex with animals,” according to the SPLC.

In an interview yesterday, Mark Potok, a senior fellow with the Southern Poverty Law Center told me:

In our experience, it is highly unusual for the Catholic Church to work with groups like MassResistance, which has repeatedly, and utterly falsely, linked homosexuality to pedophilia, among other things. This is a group that lumps homosexuality in with criminal behaviors like bestiality, claims gay people are dangerous to children, and says, again falsely, that no gay people were murdered in the Holocaust.

I should add, however, that we’ve not seen any real history of the Catholic Church working with hate groups. It may be that in this case they’ve simply failed to look into the background of the group they’re allying themselves with. At least I hope so.

I hope so as well.

I call upon Bishop Thomas Tobin and the Providence Diocese to repudiate the ugly comments and hateful views of MassResistance and Brian Camenker. I would hope that this alliance was made in haste and in error, and that the Catholic Church would not want to make alliances with groups that put to a lie the Bishop’s assertion that individuals with same-sex attraction are to be treated with respect.

The Roman Catholic position on same-sex marriage is well known. They believe it is sinful and are against it. But as Bishop Thomas Tobin states, in an editorial reprinted on the FAPSMEG website:

It’s important to emphasize once again, however, that while rejecting homosexual activity, the Catholic Church has consistently promoted respect and pastoral care for individuals with same-sex attraction. They are children of God and our brothers and sisters.

This is the concept of hating the sin but not the sinner, and I get that. MassResistance, under the leadership of Brian Camenker, does not share this sentiment.