Gay Demonstrations Removed from Lincoln Memorial Tourist Video

[QC]

All images of gay gatherings at national sites, including the Millennium March on the Washington Mall have been ordered removed from videotapes that have been shown at the Lincoln Memorial since 1995 according to a civil service group.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) says that the directive came from National Parks Service Deputy Director Donald Murphy. Murphy is said to have been concerned about pictures in the video that showed same-sex couples kissing and holding hands after conservative groups complained....

Also ordered cut from the tape were scenes of abortion rights demonstrations at the memorial, and anti-Vietnam War demonstrations "because it implies that Lincoln would have supported homosexual and abortion rights as well as feminism."

In their place, the Park Service is inserting scenes of the Christian group Promise Keepers and pro-Gulf War demonstrators though these events did not take place at the Memorial in what Murphy calls a "more balanced" version.

http://www.365gay.com/newscontent/122303natParks.htm

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

1. Revisionist history

While the real history goes down the memory hole. Incredible isn't it?

[QC]

6. These people think 1984 was an instruction manual.

[burrowowl]

2. Getting better than

the Soviets for re-editing history.
Of course, it is simplier nowdays. Retouching negatives was difficult, retouching digital stuff is a wizz. Stuffing ballot boxes could only be done on a small scale, stuffing electronic voting machines all over the place is easy now. O mores, O tempore!

[Blade]

3. Jesus Christ...

why don't everybody just cater to the fucking republican party now? First CBS, now the National Parks Service. This country is going all to hell....lets edit history and put what the government wants instead of what really happened...1984, anyone?

[dsc]

4. I hope this isn't true

as it would be an insult to history.

[jonnyblitz]

5. this

pisses me off. :grr:

[Eric J in MN]

7. We don't know if Lincoln would have supported

We don't know if Lincoln would have supported the Promise Keepers or the Gulf War, either. Why are protests for some causes banned because Linclon might not have supported them but not others.

[QC]

10. It's just a rationalization for eliminating anything the reactionaries

find icky.

It would seem to me that the point of showing video of demonstrations is to show the role the Memorial has played. That clearly has nothing to do with whether Lincoln would have supported gay rights, acid wash jeans, or what have you.

[foreigncorrespondent]

8. How the hell...

"because it implies that Lincoln would have supported homosexual and abortion rights as well as feminism."

...it sounds to me like, they are implying that Lincoln would have supported Promise Keepers, and pro-Gulf War demonstrators. If they say that keeping history as it is, simply implies a thought about a long dead President, then changing history is doing the exact same thing.

Fucking bastards!

[Silverhair]

9. If Lincoln were alive today, he would not be a Republican

today. Lincoln had some really strong Socialist leanings. He would be a radical leftist.

[Walt Starr]

11. GLBT people are to the NeoCons

what the Jews were to the Nazis in the twenties.

They are the perfect scapegoat. They enrage the neocon base and provide an easy target for ire.

And before anybody starts screaming about my comparison, there were no Jews in concentration camps in the 20's. People of Jewish heritage should understand, though, the same anger that National Socialism in Germany directed towards the Jewish people of Germany in the 20's is being directed at GLBT people in 21st century USA. The same results of that anger and scapegoating against Jews in the 20's could occur in the USA towards the GLBT people within the next decade if left unchecked.

It could happen again. It could happen here.

[jonnyblitz]

12. the sad thing is, it's not just neocons that don't like us.

Because it seems the majority of Americans vote against us in polls and on the issues many times. I can't believe they are all neocons...

[Walt Starr]

13. Nope, and it wasn't just Nazis who didn't like the Jews

Using the Jews as scapegoats won the Nazis support outside of National Socialism, just like using GLBT people as scapegoats wins necons support outside of Neo-conservatism.

[jonnyblitz]

14. exactly. n/t