Monday, May 25, 2009

Dr. Prevo's Friday Anchorage Daily News Letter to the Editor

There are a few remarkable things that caught my eye last Friday, reading through Rev. Jerry Prevo's letter to the editor of the Anchorage Daily News, in which he recommended that the Anchorage Assembly reject the equal rights ordinance in their upcoming deliberations. The two most notable features were these:

1. The letter was composed of one demonstrably false argument after another.

2. The letter solicited money for his church.

Gryph, at the Immoral Minority has composed the best takedown of Provo's letter's lies, one after another:

Here is a recent letter to the editor received from Jerry Prevo, our local Moral Majority assclown, concerning the idea of introducing an ordinance (which you can read for yourself here) that protects Alaskans from discrimination based on their sexuality.
Here are just some of the reasons I am against the homosexual ordinance. (Believe me, he did not call it the "homosexual ordinance" by accident. Your homophobia is already showing Jerry.)

It would allow any man to dress like a woman and use any public women's restroom. Ladies, do you want that to happen? If not then you should contact the Anchorage Assembly and show up at the June 9 public hearing. (This is false and has NOTHING to do with the ordinance. It is just an attempt to define people with a different sexual orientation as deviants and is nothing more than fear mongering.)

A man in a highly visible sales job could come to work dressed like a woman. (Also not true. Employers can insist on a certain type of uniform or dress code as part of their guidelines for ALL of their employees. All this ordinance says is that they may not discriminate against an employee because of his/her sexual orientation.)

A person of either sex who indulges a taste for extreme sexual promiscuity and pornography during working hours could not be stopped or fired even though it damages the company's image. (This is so ignorant that I almost cannot believe that a thinking person wrote it. Using work computers to watch porn is against the rules at probably every single business in Alaska, as is using work computers for online gambling, downloading illegal movies files, and sending spam to other computers. Nothing in this ordinance would force anybody to allow their workers to use the company internet access for non-work related activities, such as these. Once again Prevo is trying to tie sexual orientation with his idea of deviant behaviors.)

Maybe, worst of all, this ordinance would allow a man who teaches a second grade class or any grade to show up as a woman in the classroom and the School District could do nothing because of this ordinance. (The school district already has a non-sexual discrimination policy which can be found here: And which says the following: It is prohibited to harass, discriminate against, or grant a discriminatory advantage based on race, creed, gender, national origin, age, marital status, political or religious beliefs, physical or mental conditions, family, social, or cultural background, or sexual orientation. As far as I am aware, though this policy was adopted back in 2003, it has NEVER resulted in a male teacher coming to school dressed as a woman, with the possible exception of a Halloween party.)
This is a poorly written ordinance. For more of my explanation can be found at www.SOSanchorage.org

Gryph goes on to observe that:

Jerry Prevo is an especially disagreeable human being who spends much of his time dabbling in politics, and telling his congregation what to think, which movies to watch, how to vote, and that the devil will snatch them up if they don't listen to his every word.



Blogger and Alaska's most meteoric independent commentator, Shannyn Moore, merely posted Dr. Prevo's screed, knowing that just reading it and following the links was damning enough to post as an essay. She did ask readers to comment, though.

They did! BuffaloGal said it well:

Hey – I’m gay but didn’t get this memo about an ordinance update to our massive gay agenda. I was told to just quietly wait , watching old Ellen reruns and putting rainbow stickers around the neighborhood until the word came down from the higher ups in the gay army. Does this mean our long awaited glorious gay revolution started without me ??

Damn….that’s what I get for having been busy raising my kids, cleaning my house, paying my bills and working my normal non-gay job.

Ah well – I suppose I’ll have to be happy just living a regular life like the heteros. (and really – I’ve got nothing against them. Some of my best friends are straight. )

Enjoy your holiday weekend bbqs with your families everyone!

A third thing that bothered me was that the ADN, when it published his letter. published it without informing its readers that Prevo is now a very active prominent Republican, and has recently served on standing committees, and as an officer of that party.

Prevo was honest enough to sign off as the pastor of the Anchorage Baptist Temple though. After all, his letter to the editor links to a paypal page that will help pay the bill on the next oil change on his immodest car.

Having watched Alaska media handle Prevo coming back on this equal rights issue again now, for the third time (the 80s, with the devil costume debacle, the 90s with the Loussac windshield breakage, and now), they don't appear to have gotten very far, if anywhere. This is sad, because the rest of the country's media seems to often be leaders in promoting rational debate. Instead, the ADN seems to be giving Rev. Prevo another undeserved free pass.


image - Palin & Prevo - PA

15 comments:

Aussie Blue Sky said...

Phil, the ADN has apparently crossed some line into territory it previously eschewed. I hear they take their orders from outside Alaska these days.

Unfortunately, the 'new' audience appears to be that demographic which doesn't read 'news'papers.

Seriously, I can't imagine anyone actually being influenced in any way by the Anchorage Daily News. Most people of every stripe appear to have nothing but contempt for it.

The fact that the ADN would publish this kind of tripe tells you everything you need to know about why you should join the boycott of the ADN.

onejrkitty said...

The ADN has lowered their bar to a level that suggest either a "take over" by some entity or pure desperation by current employees to keep their jobs.

I think they will find out too late that keeping their integrity would have been the proper choice.

I am ashamed of the ADN and have no respect for those that work there.

I have to go now as the shock is starting to overwhelm me. YOU MEAN THERE WAS A PAY PAL LINK FROM THE "LETTER TO THE EDITOR" SO PEOPLE COULD CONTRIBUTE TO PREVO'S CHURCH?

JESUS H. CHRIST THAT IS UNBELIVEABLE !!

Ok, the ADN has no "bar."
Shame shame shame.

What's next, Anchorage becomes the new "Sand Point, Idaho?" ( skinhead country )

Anonymous said...

To be a vehicle that allows this type of misinformation is ....????
I have always had a low opinion of the ADN when I got a chance to read it and to now hear of this - nothing better than a tabloid rag!
If this state, AK, can't learn to work together and support ALL the differences in people it will continue to rank as one of the highest in all the wrong things.
It saddens me to see a person of the 'church'spreading hate and fear.
Such a good example and THEN to suggest someone send $$$ - REAL outstanding citizen - NOT!!
Rose R

clark said...

it would be interesting to go back and look at all the other times in the last several years that prevo was on the same crusade.
society has changed, he hasn't.

Anonymous said...

Prevo Burke Hour One

Anonymous said...

Prevo Burke Part Two

Anonymous said...

oops, my bad, here they are, ignore those first linx

prevo on burke 5/26/09



Part 1 12 mb mp3

Part 2 9.6 mb mp3

Part 3 17mb mp3

Part 4 6.3 mb mp3

Anonymous said...

KTUU News just did a story on Prevo's opposition to the gay rights ordinance on the 6:00 news. Then there was a political commercial in the middle of the broadcast, urging people to vote against the proposition. The voice on the commercial was the same person that does the Anch Baptist Temple commercials, and I can only assume the ad was bought by Prevo. My point is this: the ABT is a TAX-EXEMPT "religious" institution, that is prohibited from engaging in political activities as such. I think this should be brought up at the Assembly meeting. They are exempt from paying property taxes in the Municipality. And they have gotten away with this political crap for too long, and still managed to maintain their "tax exempt" status. If Jesus were around, he'd slap the sh!t out of Jerry Prevo. Christian, my butt!

Star the wonder pup said...

Making tax cheats pay up and pay off -- Page 2
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com

Reward vs. effort
While the IRS won't provide information on its largest reward or indeed any specific rewards to protect the privacy of its informants, by law it can't pay more than $2 million and, according to Levin, won't pay less than $100. Simply put, if your tax cheat isn't worth substantially more than what it will cost the IRS to pursue him, you're unlikely to see any moola.

- advertisement -

By law, current and former employees of the Department of the Treasury who discover a tax cheat on the job cannot apply for a reward. Nor can you collect if you were part of the scheme. In fact, you may want to think twice about turning in your former boss if you don't want the IRS peeking too closely at your own returns.

"I don't know that we're likely to look into it, but I would imagine that it might be fairly obvious if someone is the bookkeeper and they prepared the fraudulent return," Heiskell says.

"It's not a normal course of business when we receive information to do a background check on the informant," Levin aggress, "but if something happened to come out that would preclude them from getting a reward, then that may come to light."

Once you've turned in your tax cheat, don't hold your breath waiting for a check. Due to disclosure laws, the IRS won't even say what it's doing with the information you provided, although it gets plenty of calls from people wondering precisely that.

Once you've filed a Form 211, you can expect one of two things from the IRS, months or years later: a letter with a check (the exception) or a letter saying you didn't meet the criteria for a reward (the rule).

Should you be lucky enough to receive a reward, don't forget to declare it as income on your tax returns for the year in which it was issued.

You wouldn't want to cheat the IRS, would you?

Star the wonder pup said...

LOL at the Yoga pose

Jaime from Wasilla said...

I just watched "Milk" last night, and realized we need a bit of good street theater to show how absurd these people are. Wouldn't it be funny if 1500-2000 of us showed up and took all the seats inside Prevo's church on Sunday? We could all start singing Libby Roderick's song "How Could Anyone Ever Tell You". It would be even more interesting if 10,000 people showed up and blocked the traffic on Northern Lights and Baxter. That would get some national attention.

As Harvey said - "You have to give the people Hope."

Melissa S. Green said...

Re: Prevo's 1985 "devil costume debacle", referred to in this post -- well, I finally finished up a nice long post about it, which you can read here. That particular piece of Dr. Prevarication was actually about an anti-apartheid protest: only goes to show that us LGBT folk aren't the only people Prevo is willing to lie to or about.

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Anonymous said...

only goes to show that us LGBT folk aren't the only people Prevo is willing to lie to or about.

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Julie
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caramel popcorn said...

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