RW Wiki update

[ck4829]

A week ago, I said that I was considering making a Wiki to expose the secrecy of the Right Wing groups.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=2751321&mesg_id=2751321

I've been working on it, and I have a sample page to share with you all. This page is about the Traditional Values Coalition.

Traditional Values Coalition

Christian Right group led by Louis Sheldon and his daughter Andrea Sheldon-Lafferty.

1. Allegations of having Biological Weapons
1. Urine-filled balloons
2. Anthrax
2. "Cities of Refuge"
3. Derogatory references toward transgendered individuals
4. Received Abramoff money
5. Hate Group



Allegations of having Biological Weapons

Urine-filled balloons

* Christian conservatives showed up carrying urine-filled balloons during a gay and lesbian pride festival in Santa Ana's Centennial Park in 1988, they taunted attendees with chants of "Go back to your closet," and hired an airplane to fly over the event carrying a banner reading, "Sodomites out of Santa Ana! No AIDS in OC!" Lou Sheldon declaring, "We just want to show these people their sins and lead them down the right path." (1)

Anthrax

* In 2002, after a series of anthrax attacks were sent to several Democratic Senators' offices in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., National Public Radio reporter David Kestenbaum telephoned TVC executive director Andrea Sheldon Lafferty to ask if the group had been contacted by the FBI. Kestenbaum reportedly told Lafferty that TVC's criticism of Democratic U.S. Senators for opposing the use of the phrase "so help me God" in oaths sworn before Congress made TVC a likely suspect in the anthrax attacks. (2)

"Cities of Refuge"

* Louis Sheldon has declared that AIDS patients should be cut off from the rest of society and quarantined in "cities of refuge". (3)

Derogatory references toward transgendered individuals

* There are several instances where the Traditional Values Coalition has openly referred to transgendered individuals as being "she-males" (4), (5), (6). This term is considered to be derogatory by transgendered and non-transgendered individuals alike.

Received Abramoff money

* Jack Abramoff, through Susan Ralston, gave $25K to the Traditional Values Coalition. (7)

Hate Group

* The Traditional Values Coalition is considered to be a Hate Group by the SPLC.

(1) Orange County Weekly, Vol. 7 No. 40 June 7 - 13, 2002
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Values_Coalition
(3) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/08/21/BAGGCKM69G1.DTL&type=politics
(4) http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=1530
(5) http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=2316
(6) http://www.traditionalvalues.org/modules.php?sid=307
(7) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/15/AR2005101501539_3.html
(8) http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp?source=redirect&url=tolerance-maps-hate&T=29&m=4

[davidinalameda]

1. Sheldon ranks up there with the other con nut cases

I expect him to stroke out every time I see him on TV

[Vexatious Ape]

2. Great work

Whenever these creeps are mentioned in the msm, I doubt very much that urine filled balloons will be mentioned--this is what blogging is all about.

[Mnemosyne]

3. "Urine-filled balloons"!!! And they believe that

gays are disgusting?!

Christian Seniors Assoc. is another front company for these morans:


Welcome to the
Christian Seniors Association

Founded by Rev. Louis P. Sheldon in February, 2003, the Christian Seniors Association is a membership organization for religious conservatives over the age of 50 years-old.

It is an activist organization which participates fully in the debate over traditional Judeo-Christian values in the media and public policy arenas.

http://www.christiansenior.org/home/index.php :puke::puke::puke:


And once he was on the infamous DU Top Ten Conservative Idiots list. Number 4.

The Top Ten Conservative Idiots (Week 39)
October 8, 2001
Not-So-Fine Man Edition:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/top10/01/top10_2001_39.html

What a guy! :puke:

[ck4829]

4. Kick for the evening crowd

[bonito]

5. Kick

[Jim Lane]

6. Consider using an existing wiki with an established userbase

I have two suggested alternatives to starting your own wiki.

SourceWatch (formerly Disinfopedia) is a wiki that monitors a wide range of organizations and individuals. Its stated objective is "to produce a directory of the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda." (See .) Its article on the Traditional Values Coalition is kind of bare-bones right now and would benefit from the addition of your material. See the article .

The Daily Kos also runs a wiki, called dKosopedia. It describes itself as "a collaborative project of the DailyKos community to build a political encyclopedia. The dKosopedia is written from a left/progressive/liberal/Democratic point of view while also attempting to fairly acknowledge the other side's take." (See .) Their article on the Traditional Values Coalition has more detail than does SourceWatch's; you can read it .

Neither of these projects follows Wikipedia's policy of adhering to a Neutral Point of View.

A wiki works best when there are many participants. The DU admins tried to start a wiki here, to build a political encyclopedia, but there just weren't enough participants, and so Demopedia died. How do you expect to attract very many other people to work on a new wiki? Demopedia had a link from the DU homepage but was still largely ignored.

I suggest that you find areas where SourceWatch or dKosopedia have no article or an article in need of improvement, and direct your attention there, instead of trying to start from scratch.

Also, while I know you don't want to be bound by Wikipedia's NPOV policy, those other two projects both use the same license as Wikipedia (the GNU Free Documentation License). That means that content contributed to either one can be imported to Wikipedia (with proper attribution). If you make sure to cite sources, you'll make your text more valuable to your readers, and you'll make it easier for progressives to move much or all of your text into Wikipedia.

[ck4829]

8. Already have a wiki to host it on

[salin]

7. I don't have the reference - but it should be easy to find

during the Terri Schaivo RW showdown - Sheldon was interviewed by a major paper (I think the NYT) and said something to effect that it was a great 'cause' - because it got people to 'open up their checkbooks'. He didn't discuss the cause - just that it was a great fundraising tool.