June 29 and 30, 2013

Photo Credit: Rick Gerharter

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Pride

Pink Brick

About the Pink Brick

The Pink Brick is a symbol of the first brick hurled at the Stonewall Riots in 1969. This faux award is an opportunity to highlight an individual or organization that has done significant harm to the LGBT community. It is also an opportunity to educate the community and the Pink Brick recipient about relevant issues.

After 3,751 votes were submitted by the public, the recipient of the this year’s Pink Brick is Peter LaBarbera. Peter LaBarbera is the president of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (AFTAH), an anti-LGBT organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified as a hate group. AFTAH’s mission is to oppose “the radical homosexual agenda” while supporting what it calls a “God-ordained sexuality” and the “natural family”. LaBarbera describes himself as a conservative critic of the homosexual activist movement.

About the Pink Brick

The Pink Brick, a symbol of the first brick hurled at the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969, is an annual 'award' given each year to a person or institution whose actions are deemed to have caused significant harm to the LGBT community.

Pink Brick 2011

Dishonoree: Lou Engle

Lou Engle beat out anti-marriage equality advocate Maggie Gallagher and preaches-against-gays-only-to-be-caught-with-a-young-male-escort George Rekers for this year's Pink Brick. As in the past, the community voted in a public poll to select this year's Pink Brick recipient.

Evangelical leader Lou Engle praised the Ugandan government’s efforts to combat homosexuality through the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which would increase sentences for "homosexual acts" from 14 years imprisonment to life. The Bill also proposes the death penalty for cases of "aggravated homosexuality" and would criminalize the failure to alert the authorities about known "homosexual actvities."

2010 Annual Pink Brick Award is given to Senator Roy Ashburn
Anti-Gay California Senator Is Award's First Gay Recipient

Senator Ashburn has served in the California state legislature since 1996 and has an extensive voting history of vigorously opposing LGBT rights, including his overwhelming support of the state's Proposition 8 which denied equal rights to LGBT citizens. Early in March 2010, Senator Ashburn was arrested for drunk driving shortly after he left a Sacramento gay bar with another man in his state-issued car. Ashburn's arrest has sparked major controversy. Since his arrest he has admitted he is gay, and claims his voting record reflects his constituent's views. Ashburn says he plans to continue voting on behalf of what he sees as the majority viewpoint in his district, even if that means voting against LGBT civil rights.

Past Pink Brick (Dis-)Honorees

The following were the Pink Brick recipients for in years past:

  2011 Lou Engle
  2010 California Senator Roy Ashburn
  2009 Carrie Prejean
Runner-up: Archbishop George Niederauer
  2008 Bill O'Reilly
  2007 George W. Bush
 
  2006 Arnold Schwarzenegger
     
  2005 Senator Diane Feinstein