DR. LAURA, ARNOLD, AND MARIA, TOO

While it is no big surprise for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. You would think Maria Shriver, the California First Lady, would have a little more sense then to have invited Dr. Dr. Laura Schlessinger to be a featured speaker at the 19th annual conference on Women and Families in Long Beach, Calif., Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005.

"It is unconscionable that the first lady of the state of California is giving a platform to a woman who has made a career for herself condemning families headed by LGBT individuals, opposing hate-crime legislation and promoting hate," said National Center for Lesbian Rights executive director Kate Kendell. Kendell said the lack of representation of same-sex families at the conference at a time when the first lady should be demonstrating leadership in supporting equality for all families is disheartening. "She instead is selling out her values for her husband's anti-equality agenda," she said.

"For Maria Shriver to give a role at this conference to a woman who believes in the exclusion from equal protection of the law of so many California families is outrageous," said Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). "This event is an opportunity for the first lady and the governor to focus on inclusion of all California families."

Executive Director Geoffrey Kors of Equality California said, “Equality California is shocked that the Governor and the First Lady would feature Dr. Laura at what should be a non-partisan conference on women and families. On a day to celebrate the role of women in America, Dr. Laura casts a shadow of anti-gay sentiment and bias toward our families. Dr. Laura has spearheaded an inaccurate campaign against LGBT people, claiming we are child molesters and 'biological errors.' For Maria Shriver to give the blessing of the State of California to a woman who has promoted hate is unconscionable."

Dr. Laura once stated, "If you're gay or a lesbian, it's a biological error that inhibits you from relating normally to the opposite sex. The fact that you are intelligent, creative and valuable is all true," she said. "The error is in your inability to relate sexually intimately, in a loving way to a member of the opposite sex. It is a biological error."

She also said,"How many letters have I read on the air from gay men who acknowledge that a huge portion of the male homosexual populace is predatory on young boys. There's nothing new here."

Back in 99, the not really a doctor said, "When we have the word homosexual, we are clarifying the dysfunction, the deviancy, the reality. We change it to the word gay, it makes it more difficult to pinpoint the truth. So one of the things that the homosexual agenda did was to change the name. Just like somebody complained to me yesterday about ethnic cleansing, that it sounds like washing machine as opposed to murder. They were right. Ethnic cleansing sounds nice. Murder is the truth, homosexuality is the truth. Gay isn’t."

Schlessinger was invited to speak at the conference by Schwarzenegger a month after he vetoed legislation that would have permitted same-sex marriage in the state.

The Gov. himself spoke at the conference. In his speech he said nothing about the numerous widely opposed anti-worker, anti-education ballot measures which he is pushing.

Shortly after he started speaking, about 15 nurses, teachers and other protesters who had infiltrated the arena unfurled banners and began chanting: "We nurse. We teach. You won't stop our speech."

Plainclothes security guards quickly converged and led them out of the building. Some of the protesters later told the Los Angeles Times that the guards treated them roughly.

Speaking earlier in the day at the California Governor and First Lady's Conference on Women and Families, Maria Shriver urged women to be courageous "warriors" in pursuit of societal change. Apparently, viewing gays as human beings is too much societal change for her.

Shriver did take time to attack one of her husband's more notable critics – Warren Beaty. "When I look in the mirror, I don't just see a first lady," Shriver said. "I don't just see a Kennedy or a Schwarzenegger. I don't just see a mother, a daughter, a wife, a sister or a friend." Her voice swelling with enthusiasm, she added: "Thank God I don't see Warren Beatty!"

In a telephone interview afterward, Beatty said: "I like Maria, but I would think that she might have some trouble looking in the mirror because she knows and I know that all these right-wing union-busting initiatives are bad for California. Sources: 365Gay, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Bay Times, Out In San Francisco, Equality California, Stop Dr. Laura, Horizons Foundation