Homosexual agenda

"Homosexual agenda" (or "gay agenda") is a term used by social conservatives primarily in the United States, referring to advocacy of cultural acceptance and normalization of non-heterosexual orientations and relationships. Efforts referred to by the term include changing government policies regarding LGBT issues — such as same-sex marriage, LGBT adoption, anti-discrimination laws, inclusion of LGBT people in the military, and inclusion of LGBT history and issues in public education — as well as non-governmental campaigns and individual actions to increase visibility and cultural acceptance of LGBT people, relationships, and identities. Some believe this agenda is a secret one.

Use of the term
The term "the gay agenda" was first used for political purposes in 1992 when the Family Research Council published a video series called The Gay Agenda as part of a pack of materials campaigning on homosexual issues and the "hidden gay agenda". In the same year the Oregon Citizens Alliance used this video as part of their campaign for Ballot Measure 9 to amend the Oregon Constitution to prevent what the OCA called "special rights" for gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Paul Cameron (co-founder of the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality in Lincoln, later to be renamed the Family Research Institute) appeared as an expert in The Gay Agenda video, his claims including that 75 percent of gay men regularly ingest fecal material and that 70-78 percent have had a sexually transmitted disease. The Gay Agenda was followed by three other video publications; The Gay Agenda in Public Education (1993), The Gay Agenda: March on Washington (1993) and a feature follow-up Stonewall: 25 Years of Deception (1994). All these videos contain interviews with anti-gay experts, and the series is widely available through Christian right organizations.

The similar phrase "homosexual agenda" appears in many forums from political commentary to talk radio, and even once in 2003 by the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote in his dissent in the landmark case Lawrence v. Texas that the "law-profession culture... has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct."

In 2005, James Dobson, director of Focus on the Family, a Christian non-profit organization based in the United States, and a social Christian conservative commentator in American popular media, described the homosexual agenda as follows: "Those goals include universal acceptance of the gay lifestyle, discrediting of scriptures that condemn homosexuality, muzzling of the clergy and Christian media, granting of special privileges and rights in the law, overturning laws prohibiting pedophilia, indoctrinating children and future generations through public education, and securing all the legal benefits of marriage for any two or more people who claim to have homosexual tendencies."

The term is sometimes used satirically or sarcastically by those who might normally be offended by a serious reference to this term.

After the Ball
In 2003 Alan Sears and Craig Osten, president and vice-president of the Alliance Defense Fund, an American conservative Christian non-profit organization, offered another characterization: "It is an agenda that they basically set in the late 1980s, in a book called After the Ball, where they laid out a six-point plan for how they could transform the beliefs of ordinary Americans with regard to homosexual behavior — in a decade-long time frame.... They admit it privately, but they will not say that publicly. In their private publications, homosexual activists make it very clear that there is an agenda. The six-point agenda that they laid out in 1989 was explicit: Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible... Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers... Give homosexual protectors a just cause... Make gays look good... Make the victimizers look bad... Get funds from corporate America."

After the Ball is a book published in 1989 by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen. It argues that after the "gay liberation" phase of the '70s and '80s, gay rights groups should adopt more professional public relations techniques to convey their message. It was not a "private publication", but was publicly available, having been published by Doubleday, one of the largest publishers in the world.

According to the Christian Broadcasting Network, Sears and Osten argue that After the Ball follows from "a 1988 summit of gay leaders in Warrenton, Virginia, who came together to agree on the agenda" and that "the two men [Kirk and Madsen] proposed using tactics on 'straight' America that are remarkably similar to the brainwashing methods of Mao Tse-Tung's Communist Chinese -- mixed with Madison Avenue's most persuasive selling techniques." The article goes on to claim that films such as Brokeback Mountain are part of this "well-planned propaganda campaign".

Opposition to the term's use
Groups such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), an American non-profit organization, deny the existence of any secret agenda. They state that their major goal is to end discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations and to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons. These groups describe the term as a "rhetorical invention of anti-gay extremists seeking to create a climate of fear by portraying the pursuit of civil rights for LGBT people as sinister". Some members of the LGBT community consider their political goals to be too heterogeneous to be grouped together into one single agenda.

Michael Swift's essay
Some commentators allege a more radical "homosexual agenda", quoting a satirical article authored by Michael Swift which first appeared in the Gay Community News in February 1987. Originally titled "Gay Revolutionary", the article describes a scenario in which homosexual men dominate American society and suppress all things heterosexual. The article was reprinted in Congressional Record without an opening disclaimer in which the author states that the essay is intended as "outré, madness, a tragic, cruel fantasy, an eruption of inner rage, on how the oppressed desperately dream of being the oppressor", suggesting it is a satirical piece of literary hyperbole, and is not intended by its author to be taken literally.

Nonetheless, the essay has been repeatedly cited by the Religious Right and others who describe themselves as socially conservative or philosophically traditional in their world view, as evidence that some (or most) members of the gay community seek to dominate and destroy traditional American family values.

Gay texts cited as evidence of a "homosexual agenda"

 * Text of the 1972 Gay Rights Platform - 1972 platform of the National Coalition of Gay Organizations convention, at Chicago (Historical text cited by conservatives as evidence of a "gay agenda")
 * Highlighted excerpts from After the Ball:How America will conquer its fear & hatred of Gays in the 90's - Highlighted excerpts from a pro-LGBT book, hosted by Mass Resistance, a conservative anti-LGBT action group

Examples of "homosexual agenda" in pro-LGBT contexts

 * "The Homosexual Agenda", Landover Baptist (Parody site)
 * "The Radical Homosexual Agenda" (Radical queer organization)

Examples of "homosexual agenda" in anti-LGBT contexts

 * American Family Association: Homosexual Agenda, conservative anti-LGBT action group
 * Americans for Truth about Homosexuality: The Agenda- LGBTQ activist groups, conservative anti-LGBT action group