The company they keep

Guess who the Salvation Army chose to give a speech at their 2012 annual luncheon? Dinesh D’Souza, a homophobic conservative commentator who blames American liberals for causing the 9/11 attacks by angering Islamic terrorists.

For the 2012 annual luncheon Salvation Army leadership tapped renowned New York Times best-selling author and filmmaker (2016: Obama’s America) Dinesh D’Souza as guest speaker. He rewarded the audience of more than 500 with a talk on the influences that Christianity has had on religions and people worldwide. His talk at the Hilton Americas-Houston received a standing ovation.

Chaired by Penny and John Butler, the luncheon, hosted by the Salvation Army Advisory Board, honored Rob Mosbacher. Proceeds from the fundraiser topped $425,000, all for Salvation Army coffers.

In his 2007 book, The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, D’Souza wrote:

I am saying that the cultural left and its allies in Congress, the media, Hollywood, the nonprofit sector and the universities are the primary cause of the volcano of anger toward America that is erupting from the Islamic world. The Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attacks were the product of this visceral rage—some of it based on legitimate concerns, some of it based on wrongful prejudice—but all of it fueled and encouraged by the cultural left. Thus without the cultural left, 9/11 would not have happened.

In his book The Crisis of Islam, Bernard Lewis rehearses what he calls the “standard litany of American offenses recited in the lands of Islam” and ends with this one: “Yet the most powerful accusation of all is the degeneracy and debauchery of the American way of life.” As these observations suggest, what angers religious Muslims is not the American Constitution but the scandalous sexual mores they see on American movies and television. What disgusts them are not free elections but the sights of hundreds of homosexuals kissing each other and taking marriage vows. The person that horrifies them the most is not John Locke but Hillary Clinton. …

Thus we have the first way in which the cultural left is responsible for 9/11. The left has produced a moral shift in American society that has resulted in a deluge of gross depravity and immorality.

The homophobia in D’Souza’s book is not an isolated occurrence:

– As editor of the conservative Dartmouth Review, he outed the officers of Dartmouth’s Gay-Straight Alliance. He then accused the GSA of using the university’s money for “gay parties, gay orgies, or whatever.”

– In 2003, he offered his opinion of gay men and lesbians:

Journalist Andrew Sullivan argues that it is social ostracism that encourages the reckless promiscuity and socially destructive behavior of male homosexuals. If gays are allowed to marry like everyone else, Sullivan is confident that this outrageous element of gay culture would diminish. Sullivan’s argument can be condensed to the slogan, “Marriage civilizes men.” But Sullivan is wrong. Marriage doesn’t civilize men, women do. This point is even evident in the gay community: it helps to explain why lesbians are generally much better than male homosexuals in sustaining long-term relationships.

– And in 2008, he had this to say about same-sex marriage:

Yet if it’s discriminatory to gays to require that marriage be between a man and a woman, why isn’t it discriminatory to Mormons and Muslims to require that it remain between two people? Isn’t incestuous marriage also between “consenting adults” who have a right to equal protection of the laws? And why doesn’t the Fourteenth Amendment protect the fellow who wants to walk down the aisle with his poodle on the grounds that “I love my dog and my dog loves me”?

This is the man the Salvation Army selected to speak at their $425,000+ fundraiser. They saw no problem choosing someone who would blame our own country’s values of equality and civil rights for provoking Islamic extremists into launching the most deadly terrorist attack in our history. They chose someone who considers gay people “socially destructive” and compares our commitments to poodle marriage. He’s their man.

If the Salvation Army wants to counter their public perception as a homophobic organization, this isn’t helping.

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The company they keep
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23 thoughts on “The company they keep

  1. 1

    In the second chunk, D’Souza seems to be indicating that terrorists attacked us because they found our acceptance of things, like men kissing men, offended their sensibilities. The problem is that he seems to be arguing that this is a problem with us and our society, not a problem with someone who would fly a plane into a building because the nation where the building stands has started to accept, rather than continuing to persecute, homosexuals. (I’m not accepting his explanation, just repeating it.) He’s really got the exact same mentality as the Taliban here – all of those immoral people who showed too much skin or failed to worship whatever god adequately were just asking for violent retaliation; he’s basically saying that if your lifestyle happens to shock some religious fanatics, the problem is you and not them.

    And honestly, outrageous elements of gay culture? If you want you can find equally outrageous elements of straight culture, it’s just that the ‘outrageous displays’ of heterosexuality are seen as a part of it, and not the whole thing. Homophobes just can’t seem to figure out that gay people love each other, it’s not just about sex.

    Kind of surprised the Salvation army invited this guy, with the recent adultery scandal and given his overtly partisan nature. I don’t feel the least bit guilty about not giving them a cent now.

    1. 1.1

      It’s also a grossly inadequate argument, given that there are many nations which have done much more to protect and promote the legal rights of gay men and women who have not been targeted by terrorists.

    2. 1.2

      I know this is simplistic, but men are sexually aroused by women, say, and because of that women need to stop dressing so provocatively, and arousing the men, and in the Middle East the extreme version is to cover the woman completely and don’t allow her to even talk to another man who might be sexually aroused, cuz’ see it’s all the woman’s fault men can’t control their desires. So the object of desire is the problem, not the one with the desire. Not quite patriarchy but at least rooted in the idea of controlling women.
      I’m not sure if I have to say this, but my point is about how abuser’s will blame the victim works regarding sex and men’s desires. Kinda like the psychopath who when you lay dying after he/she shoots you you hear them say, “look what you made me do,” Or the bully with his boot on your neck as you lie on the ground prone, you hear him say, “stop you’re hurting me.”

  2. 4

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  3. 5

    Funny, I don’t seem to recall bin Laden bringing up American homosexuals as a major reason behind attacking the United States.

    In fact, I think his public justifications had something to do with American foreign policy vis-à-vis the Middle East…

  4. 6

    American tolerance for the gblt community may bring up some revulsion in the hearts of those who attacked us, but it certainly cannot be considered the cause of their anger at America. The real issue is that the main exports from the US to the rest of the world are war, destruction, and occupation. There are no people on this planet who would not be rightfully indignant at such policies directed at them. Sorry to break it to you but in their eyes, we are the evil empire, we are darth vader.

  5. 8

    Dinesh D’Souza, a homophobic conservative commentator who blames American liberals for causing the 9/11 attacks by angering Islamic terrorists.

    By the standards of Al-Qaeda, even a guy like Dick Cheney is a liberal. He lets his wife out in public with an uncovered face and he doesn’t kill his immoral daughter.

    Are the Sallies our own version of Al-Qaeda?

  6. 9

    “Guess who the Salvation Army chose to give a speech at their 2012 annual luncheon? Dinesh D’Souza”

    I got through the first sentence and then headdesked. I thought D’Souza was disgraced on the right for his bizarre account of his infidelity and thus denied the lucrative fundy speaking circuit. I didn’t like the Salvation Army before but this type of judgment (very very bad) calls into serious question if they are even competent to be a charity (may already have been at that point in the last post but this is detail is few more nails in their coffin).

  7. 10

    So, this Dinesh guy thinks that seeing men kissing each other inspired fundamentalist Islamic extremists to murder thousands of innocent people… and he thinks that the men who were kissing each other are at fault here?

    The conservative movement should hurry up and disown this guy, stat.

    1. 10.1

      I have another comment about DeGASBAG DELOOSE-NUTT’s disconnect. Men kissing would anger a Muslim more than say his family being blown to shit by the US military?I’m sorry, but a man kissing a man is not what I’d be repulsed over compared to the US insigated Iran-Iraq war, where Iran bussed bus loads of kids to the frontlines to die as martyrs. A man kissing a man romantically, though not for me, bloody kids in parents arms as in the Israelis’ action Cast Lead would anger me more, Desert Storm was a despicable action in the end as helicopters and jets picked off the retreating Iraqi’s saying it was “like shooting fish in a barrel,” What is wrong with these people? Those Iraqi soldiers were retreating and were no threat, and they were living breathing human beings, how is it their lives have no value to these people?

  8. 11

    Yet if it’s discriminatory to gays to require that marriage be between a man and a woman, why isn’t it discriminatory to Mormons and Muslims to require that it remain between two people? Isn’t incestuous marriage also between “consenting adults” who have a right to equal protection of the laws?

    It is discriminatory, and we shouldn’t ban any of them (re: incest, RAPE still would and should be illegal, but I see no good reason to deny consenting adults the ability to share a household with the same economic and legal benefits of any other household nor even to have sex with each other on the sole basis of their genetic similarity – the primary function of such objections is actually to illustrate why marriage law shouldn’t exist in the first place); I’m pretty sure most of the people who are opposed to plural marriage or sibling marriage are also Christians (and I’m willing to bet that a disproportionate number of people who don’t think marriage laws should be as restrictive as they are or even exist at all are secularists). This is kind of a straw argument, but I also think it’s worth pointing out that this particularly slippery slope isn’t all that steep, nor is what’s at the bottom actually bad. As for this:

    And why doesn’t the Fourteenth Amendment protect the fellow who wants to walk down the aisle with his poodle on the grounds that “I love my dog and my dog loves me”?

    Well, that’s easy: your dog isn’t a person, though among a group that considers an 80-cell blastocyst to be a person, I can perhaps see why there might be confusion.

  9. 12

    Ya-know … if a liberal spouted this drivel about American action causing 9/11 the right would shout them down as “blaming America first” without even listening to their argument, but seeing as it is one of the rights chosen golden boys it is all good.

  10. 15

    Dinesh caught some static for not respecting the ‘sanctity of marriage’ recently. He got fired from his job as president of some fundy college after he started making the rounds with his new young ‘fiancee’, even though he was not yet divorced. I though super-Catholics like Dinesh took a dim view of divorce. Anyhoo, I guess the Salvation Army doesn’t have a problem with this. I don’t have a problem with it, but then I’m not a raging judge-holic.

  11. 16

    Ha! Wholly shit! I am just taken aback, flummoxed, utterly speechless, and thoroughly flabbergasted at the tremendous disconnect DeSHEESHGASbag DeLOOSE-NUTT displays whenever he just opens his mouth to speak about Obama, Democrats, or liberals. He has got a screw loose as he never sees in Neocons/RWNJNeocons as a much better group for blame by Muslims regarding 9/11. Gay folks aren’t a monolith but are unlikely to be in the majority of those who are the soldiers and military mercenary contractors that are just blowing the hell out of and killing civilians and innocents in 2 wars in the Middle East, while the USA at the same time creates millions of Iraqi refugees, not to mention that the US and its unconditional and unequivocal support of Israeli policies against Palestinians and Israeli occupation in Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank composed of majorities of Palestinians who are refugees in their own land, as a major cause of 9/11. It’s information that is there for all to see, the main reason for 9/11 was US support of Israel and its policies that victimises Palestinians, not to mention the $8.2 million daily giveaway to assist Israel in its occupation and apartheid on Palestinian land.
    It reminds me of Ann Coulter’s disconnect who keeps writing book after book with the same plot, liberals are ruining Amurca, despite the fact that she doesn’t seem to have noticed the country center right now is way too to the right as CONJOBservaTURDS have been in charge for the last 30 years, in spite of Clinton and Obama who are really Rockefeller Republicans, not Progressives, or anything other than corporate shill Democrats, definitely not liberals.
    When DeSHEESHGASbag DeLOOSE-NUTT writes about how Obama and his relationship with his father is what makes this president so bad, falls in line with the stupidity of the RW NUTT Gingrich line of ‘nobody knows who this president Obama is” bullshit, in spite of Obama writing 2 books telling who he is and showing how he actually didn’t know his father that well at all, let alone be a part of his fathers dreams of colonial blah blah blah as told by and from DeSHEESHGASbag, I want to stick my head in an acid vat, there’s more sense and less insanity and inanity there. I love my PC monitor but everytime I hear this arrant homophobic blockhead distorter of my reality I want to throw something at my monitor. I mean this DeSHEESHGASbag DeLOOSE-NUTT just seems to get every damn thing absolutely completely unreasonably WRONG!!
    I will never give money to the Salvation Army again, I’m not gay, I voted on MD Question 6 FOR Gay marriage, and I’m not anti-semitic, but I am anti-injustice.
    Peace, Zinnia.

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