Thursday, January 29, 2009

More on the Pink Swastika - showing my work

I was reminded by a commentator that if I make a comment that religious right work has been discredited, I should show my proof.

This is true. Yesterday, I said the Pink Swastika, a religious right tome claiming that gays influenced the Nazi Party in Germany, was discredited. However, I neglected to show proof.

Allow me to now:

From the Southern Poverty Law Center:

The Pink Swastika — whose cover has a swastika in place of the "x" in "homosexuality" in the book's subtitle — has been roundly discredited by legitimate historians and was thoroughly debunked in a 2005 Intelligence Report article. Stephen Feinstein, director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota, said the book was "produced by a right-wing Christian cult and is as correct as flat earth theory."

From that 2005 Intelligence Report:

Written by fundamentalist activists Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika says that rather than being victimized by the Nazis, gay men in Hitler's inner circle actually helped mastermind the Holocaust.

"While we cannot say that homosexuals caused the Holocaust, we must not ignore their central role in Nazism," write Lively and Abrams. "To the myth of the 'pink triangle' — the notion that all homosexuals in Nazi Germany were persecuted — we must respond with the reality of the 'pink swastika.'"

Historians agree that this "reality" is utterly false. But many anti-gay crusaders have used the "gay Nazi" myth as proof that gay people are immoral and destructive.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

THAT deserves more cookies :)
You may have to wait a week or so.

Anonymous said...

The NAZIs weren't gay, they were born-again Christians.

Matt Algren said...

There's also The Annotated Pink Swastika. They rip it apart page by page.

Unknown said...

The book is in its 4th printing. Now that that is a sad thought.

BlackTsunami said...

Anonymous, I don't know if that is true or not. Could you verify that.

BlackTsunami said...

LOL. my mother would really love you for that.

Buffy said...

Bravo!

Unknown said...

Nazi's were not born again Christians. Hitler was born and raised as a Catholic. but held the Christian religion in low regard. It is interesting to note that his book Mein Kampf is a best seller in some parts of the Muslim world.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&pwst=1&ei=kVyCSeLOHo-ctwfDx4g3&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=mein+kampf+best+seller+Muslims&spell=1&cts=1233280308728

It is also a fact that far too many of Nazi Germany's conquered regions, especially in the east, were all too happy to turn on their Jewish neighbors.