Christian Group Uglies Up Lesbian Moms

via The Orlando Sentinel

​Melanie Leon and Vanessa Alenier, the South Florida lesbian couple who last month won a court case to adopt a child despite Florida's gay adoption ban, apparently weren't sufficiently ugly for the Florida Family Policy Council's propaganda purposes. So in an email blast to its members decrying the decision, the group swapped out a picture of the pair for a photo of two women wearing men's button-down shirts, mullets, and a little upper-lip hair.

Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel noticed the pic swap and wasted little ink condemning the Florida Family Policy Council:

"These are the dirty tactics of Christianity's far-right warriors. Not the majority of mainstream Christians, mind you. Not those who are focused on caring for their own families and practicing their own faith -- but those who are obsessed with homosexuality.

These extremists wage their campaigns of intolerance based on deception and misrepresentation.

And they have the gall to do it in God's name."

This group isn't lingering on the right fringe, though. Words they've written are enshrined in Florida's constitution. They're the group that orchestrated 2008's successful Amendment 2 drive to ban gay marriage and civil unions in the state constitution.

The group's founder, John Stemberger, also has close ties to James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family -- the group that Tim Tebow shilled for in a Super Bowl ad.

It's funny how members of this and similar groups will often rant against what they think is misrepresentation of Christians, yet they turn around and do much worse to gays and lesbians.

In fact, in a blog retort, they called the story a "name-calling hit piece."

Stemberger defended the use of the photo, saying he found it on a Bossip blog post, which he calls a news article, associated with another Florida gay adoption ruling, and apparently thought it was the couple in question. We love Bossip, but it's decidedly not a news website, and the post was about a gay man adopting.

[Orlando Sentinel: Religious right selfishly turns boy into pawn in gay-adoption battle]
[Broadsheet: Christian group's gay gaffe]
[Riptide: Judge Approves Third Gay Adoption in South Florida Since 2008]