Utah Foaming, Luv

This just in, from the Salt Lake Tribune:

On Sunday, a group called America Forever ran full-page ads in The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News calling on Utahns to "stop the homosexual movement." The ad also condemns Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. for endorsing the Common Ground Initiative, a legislative push that would offer inheritance and medical-decision-making rights to same-sex couples and make it illegal to fire or evict someone for being gay or transgender. . . .

America Forever, which solicits donations in its print ad, does not have a current Utah business license as a nonprofit nor is it registered as a political-issues or political-action committee, according to state Web sites.

The ad compares being gay to being "druggies and hookers," labels homosexuality as "anti-species behavior" and concludes that "gays should be forced not to display" their sexual orientation.

Gay-rights opponent Rep. Carl Wimmer, R-Herriman, agrees with America Forever's stance on upholding "traditional marriage" but condemns the group's tactics and rhetoric, including the ad. "Everything they're doing crosses the line," Wimmer said Monday, noting he helped to eject members of America Forever from an Equality Utah news conference last week after they became confrontational.

"There's no need to have hateful discourse," Wimmer said. "Quite frankly, they make those of us who are on the side of traditional marriage --they make a lot of us --look bad."

Mike Thompson, executive director of Equality Utah -- the advocacy organization for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Utahns that is pushing the Common Ground Initiative -- called the ad "inflammatory" and "divisive."

"It demonstrates what we are up against in having a rational debate," Thompson said. "There's no reason to respond directly to the content of the ad because it's just ridiculous. The conversation should be focused on the Common Ground Initiative and the bills that are part of that." . . .

Agreeing to run an ad does not mean a newspaper endorses it, said Tribune Editor Nancy Conway.

"We didn't see [America Forever's ad] until we saw it in the paper," she said. "Advertising and news are entirely separate."

Conway said she personally didn't like the ad. But "we have generally a philosophy about ads that freedom to express oneself and First Amendment rights are covered in advertising. … We would be hypocrites, really, if we didn't allow expression."

And Pink News reports:

Nearly 60% of Utah residents are members of the Church of Jesus and the Latter Day Saints, known as Mormons, and the Church has a strong influence on the state's culture and attitudes. The [Common Ground] Initiative was designed as a response to statements by leaders of the Mormon Church that it does not oppose civil unions or other measures aimed at moving LGBT people toward equality under the law.

It includes measures designed to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in employment and housing, provide benefits for State of Utah employees and their adult designees, provide inheritance rights and other protections to adults who enter into a declaration of joint support, and repeal part of an amendment to the state constitution that prohibits civil unions.

America Forever's website states:

"Exposing children to this environment of homosexual unions would deprive them of their necessary defences and contribute to the spread of the homosexual propaganda.

"It is imperative to recognise that the approval or legalisation of the homosexual act is something far different from the toleration of it.

"They are already allowed to acquire sexual pleasure with whomever they wish, therefore they are already tolerated. The children however need to be protected as they have been in the past.

"They must be protected until they are 18, from the act of masturbation and therefore cannot be allowed to be exposed to homosexual unions."

No jacking off till you're 18? OMG, is that why I'm gay?!? If only I had known!

Click here to see the full-page ad from these creeps.