| Be scared. Be very scared. |
But WND covers all manner of threats to America, from not allowing concealed firearms in schools and churches to international government. From the relentless persecution of Christians to survivalist strategies, WND draws in a fierce crowd of believers.
The publisher, Joseph Fara, has been hyper-critical of all things gay. He had a Warholian 15 minutes when he disinvited right-wing firebabe Ann Coulter from his pages and a WND convention because of her agreeing to speak to gay right-wingers in New York. (She did speak at GOProud, where the crowd apparently paid big bucks to hear her tell them they were deviants who didn’t belong in the Armed Forces or in legal relationships.)
But even WND’s below-the-muckraking campaigns against sexed-crazed Transportation Safety Administration workers or those Obama health-care death squads pales in comparison to its ongoing obsession with all things gay.
Actually, according to WND, it’s the rest of America that obsessed. Whistleblower, WND’s magazine, has devoted an entire issue to the greatest threat to America’s sense of decency, fair play and bad haircuts: the invasion of the militant gays.
"It’s a classic war-time sneak attack," WND warns. "For the past two decades, the powerful ’gay rights’ lobby has been crusading tirelessly to promote special legal rights for homosexuals, indoctrinate the nation’s schoolchildren with their worldview, radically redefine the institution of marriage, repeal the U.S. military’s time-tested rules of conduct, intimidate and discredit any and all critics, and - perhaps worst of all - criminalize and punish the open expression of Judeo-Christian moral beliefs."
What apparently riles up WND even more than the (totally expected) capitulation of the media and the liberal elite to the invading gay hordes is the growing acceptance of gay Americans as actual breathing human beings by many on the right. Allowing GOProud, which was founded by gay Tea Party types who believed the Log Cabin Republicans were too far to the left, to co-sponsor the Conservative Political Action Conference -- a South by Southwest without the music, drugs or hippie vibe -- is a sign of the right’s capitulation.
The article cites the votes against gay marriage in states like Maine and California (which, incidentally, both had margins of less than 4 percent). The article trots out the usual tropes about how openly gay military personnel will decimate the Armed Forces’ fighting power (while conveniently ignoring nations such as Israel, which was the first nation to allow openly serving personnel and is not, by most measures, considered a spent military power).
The issue predictably has article by the two "barbaras," J. Matt Barbara and Peter LaBarbera, two of the most vociferous critics of gay rights on the scene.
Many would counter that the writers’ arguments are of the chicken-and-egg variety. For example, such writers often site statistics that gay teens are more prone to suicide without noting that an entire adolescence being viciously persecuting for the mere fact of existing could possibly give an isolated young person some difficulties in coping.
The favorite list serve of the far right Free Republic, predictably greeted the issue with hallelujahs.
"They aren’t the new Blacks no matter how hard they try," read one typical response. "Race is a matter beyond dispute. There is no doubt one is born that way." Another quoted a pastor as saying "I know quite a few people who used to be gay. I don’t know anyone who used to be black." (The posters presumably never one of the film iterations of Imitation of Life, about a young black woman who attempts to "pass" as white, a not-uncommon phenomenon in the days of Jim Crow laws, although one poster does cite Michael Jackson.)
Another alleges that a friend (in Austin, Texas) was evicted from an apartment building for having a child call another one a "fag," without noting that such behavior may not be conducive to maintaining a peaceful residential unit.
Despite this ominous threat, World Net Daily has not neglected other pressing issues. WND’s latest posts concern other pressing crises. Aging film tough guy Chuck Norris warns that Obama’s review of useless anti-business regulations is actually creeping socialism in disguise.
Also: Obama’s use of regulating the Internet in case of a massive terrorist cyber-attack really means Big Brother in disguise. But it’s not all negative. An article looks approvingly at a Texas legislator’s fight against the other great threat to the commonweal, the imposition of Muslim Shariah Law.
EDGE Editor-in-Chief Steve Weinstein has been a regular correspondent for the International Herald Tribune, the Advocate, the Village Voice and Out. He has been covering the AIDS crisis since the early ’80s, when he began his career. He is the author of "The Q Guide to Fire Island" (Alyson, 2007).
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