[Vision2020] NOM: Tickle Our Funnybones

[Art Deco]

*Religious right to target Starbucks in Middle East over gay marriage
(bizarre)*
  11/12/2012 8:00am by John
Aravosis<http://americablog.com/author/john-aravosis>
  <http://americablog.com/2012/11/starbucks-gay-marriage-nom.html#>


In a scheme so misdirected, so unlikely to succeed, it could have been
crafted by Karl Rove, the lead religious right group fighting marriage
equality for gays says it will take its war to Starbucks’ effort to spread
into the Middle East.

The National Organization for Marriage, NOM, says that its strategy is to
run online ads in Middle Eastern countries to inform them that Starbucks
has supported marriage equality in Washington State. I wonder if those same
countries are aware of the religious right’s views on Islam?  Let’s inform
them.

First, here’s an excerpt from the Colorado
Independent<http://coloradoindependent.com/126270/audio-nom-pledges-to-make-starbucks-pay-for-support-of-marriage-equality>,
then my analysis:

During the call, one participant cited Starbucks, which endorsed gay
marriage legalization in Washington, and General Mills, which spoke out
against the proposed gay marriage ban in Minnesota. The participant asked
what could be done “to stop the wave of corporate sponsorship of gay
marriage.”

NOM President Brian Brown responded by saying that NOM was targeting the
international business of companies that support same-sex marriage such as
Starbucks, which NOM also hit with a national boycott effort this year.
Brown said the aim is to make these companies’ political stances known in
countries in the Middle East and elsewhere that generally do not support
same-sex marriage, or homosexuality in general.

“Their international outreach is where we can have the most effect,” Brown
said. “So for example, in Qatar, in the Middle East, we’ve begun working to
make sure that there’s some price to be paid for this. These are not
countries that look kindly on same-sex marriage. And this is where
Starbucks wants to expand, as well as India. So we have done some of this;
we’ve got to do a lot more.”

Oh where to begin?

[image: Starbucks] <http://americablog.com/?attachment_id=68766>I do get a
kick out of the religious right when they say they’re going to boycott
products that the left adores and that religious right rednecks probably
wouldn’t touch in a million years. I mean, seriously, Starbucks is worried
about losing some speaking-in-tongues couple in the deep south who don’t
even know what Starbucks even is?

As for these online ads in the Middle East, who exactly does NOM think is
going to see these ads? I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I’d suspect
that the ruling class is dying to have Starbucks move in, and they’ve
probably already figured out how to reconcile a love for all things western
with traditional Islam. Starbucks will simply be another contradiction met
with a shrug, regardless of their position on legislation in a single
American state.

Of course, what’s even funnier is that NOM, and the American religious
right, thinks they’re going to be the messenger of truth to the Muslim word
when the conventional wisdom in the religious right is that all Arabs are
terrorists, that Islam is a religion of violence and evil, and that
Mohammad is a pedophile [Propagated by Moscow's Cultmater Douglas Wilson.].
The religious right’s active hatred of Islam, Muslims and Mohammad trump
any “evil” Starbucks has done in one small American state.

Let me walk you through what America’s religious right thinks of Middle
Eastern countries and Islam more generally. From Michelle Goldberg at the
Daily Beast<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/15/right-wing-islam-obsession-at-the-values-voter-summit.html>,
who went to the big religious conference of the year:

If there was one dominant theme at this year’s Values Voter Summit, the
right-wing confab organized by the Family Research Council, it was that
President Obama is endangering the United States by coddling radical
Islamists. “[W]hat we’re watching develop before our eyes today are the
direct consequences of this administration’s policy of apology and
appeasement across the globe,” Michele Bachmann said of the attacks on
American embassies and consulates in the Middle East.

Last year, you might remember, some American counterterrorism trainers were
found to be using material so virulently anti-Muslim that senators Joe
Lieberman and Susan Collins wrote an outraged letter to the Department of
Homeland Security. Bachmann described the resulting changes in
counterterrorism curricula this way: “That’s enforced Islamic speech codes
here in the United States, and all done with the help of our president and
secretary of state.”

There is a grotesque irony in the way speakers at the Values Voter Summit
kept invoking the deaths of the four American officials in Libya to argue
that the *United States needs to adopt a more belligerent stance toward
Muslims*. Describing what’s at stake in the election, Ryan said, “We’ve all
seen the images of our flag being burned and our embassies under attack by
vicious mobs. The worst of it is the loss of four good men, including our
ambassador to Libya.” From these speeches, one would never know that at
least two of the dead were deeply devoted to fighting the sort of politics
that the Values Voter Summit represents.

Then there’s the American religious right
coterie<http://maxblumenthal.com/2012/09/meet-the-right-wing-extremist-behind-anti-muslim-film-that-sparked-deadly-riots/>who
produced the anti-Islam film that may have been behind some of the
recent rioting in the Middle East.  I’m sure Muslims will love them.  And
the religious right leaders who got upset when President Obama tried to
dampen down some of the Arab anger of the anti-Mohammad
film<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/25/christian-conservatives-angered-obama-islam>
.

PFAW has extensive resources on how religious right American try to
dehumanize Muslims in our country and abroad – here are some of the titles
of the various writings over at
PFAW<http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/the-right-wing-playbook-anti-muslim-extremism>
:

   - Strategy One: Frame Muslim-Americans as dangerous to
America<http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/the-right-wing-playbook-anti-muslim-extremism#strat1>
   - Strategy Two: Twist statistics and use fake research to “prove” the
   Muslim threat<http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/the-right-wing-playbook-anti-muslim-extremism#strat2>
   - Strategy Three: Invent the danger of “creeping
Sharia”<http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/the-right-wing-playbook-anti-muslim-extremism#strat3>
   - Strategy Four: “Defend liberty” by taking freedoms away from
Muslims<http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/the-right-wing-playbook-anti-muslim-extremism#strat4>
   - Strategy Five: Claim that Islam is not a
religion<http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/the-right-wing-playbook-anti-muslim-extremism#strat5>
   - Strategy Six: Maintain that Muslims have no First Amendment rights
   under the Constitution<http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/the-right-wing-playbook-anti-muslim-extremism#strat6>
   - Strategy Seven: Link anti-Muslim prejudice to anti-Obama
rhetoric<http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/the-right-wing-playbook-anti-muslim-extremism#strat7>
   - Strategy Eight: Claim an “unholy alliance” exists that includes
   Muslims and other groups targeted by the Right
Wing<http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/the-right-wing-playbook-anti-muslim-extremism#strat8>

Good luck with that.
Tags: gay marriage <http://americablog.com/tag/gay-marriage>, Middle
East<http://americablog.com/tag/middle-east>,
NOM <http://americablog.com/tag/nom>, religious
right<http://americablog.com/tag/religious-right>,
Starbucks <http://americablog.com/tag/starbucks>

*John Aravosis <http://americablog.com/author/john-aravosis>*
@aravosis <http://twitter.com/aravosis> |
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