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Love Your Horse, But Don’t LOOOOVE Your Horse.

Another day, another homophobic Republican wanker:

Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) said Sunday that the expansion of state laws allowing gay marriage could lead to people marrying horses.

Hayworth, during an interview with an Orlando, Fla., radio station explained: “You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage — now get this — it defined marriage as simply, ‘the establishment of intimacy.’”

(…)

“I mean, I don’t mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point,” he continued. “I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse.”

The former Republican congressman then insisted that the “only way” to prevent men from marrying horses is to create a federal marriage amendment. Hayworth noted that he supports such an amendment.

Or you could, y’know, just make it illegal to marry horses.

Personally, I’d like to see Obama pass a bill outlawing cross-species marriage, just for the fun of watching Republicans and conservatives reflexively oppose it.  Mitch McConnell would unleash the full fury of his obstructionist bag of tricks, and Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck would rant and rave about Obama the communofascist infringing on Americans’ God-given Constitutional right to wed farm animals.

Who knows, maybe the GOP would even add horse-buggery equiphilia as an official plank in the party platform, just to show those liberals that no one tells them what to do.

1 comment March 15th, 2010 at 08:01pm Posted by Eli

No One Could Have Anticipated

Because only gay officers would ever sexually harass their subordinates…

Rep. Massa, an upstate Democrat, resigned his seat after admitting to “inappropriate” behavior with young male aides – groping and unwanted advances, the complaints alleged – that he described as a carry-over from his days as a career Navy officer.

Then former shipmates emerged last week with stories that Massa tried to grope, “snorkel” and ogle those of lesser rank.

“It’s a cautionary tale” of a superior officer allegedly seeking to prey upon subordinates that argues against repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, said Elaine Donnelly, head of the anti-repeal Center for Military Readiness.

“That kind of abuse would become far more frequent” if gays were allowed to serve openly, Donnelly said.

That is such homophobic bullshit, right up there with all the arguments against gay priests/teachers/scoutmasters that equate homosexuality with pedophilia.  There has never been any shortage of straight sexual harassers, and tolerance for gay servicemembers doesn’t mean tolerance for abusive ones.

Add comment March 15th, 2010 at 07:03am Posted by Eli

Desmond Tutu Is Awesome.

Tutu says what desperately needed to be said, and not just to Africa.  I usually try not to quote an entire column, but, well…

Hate has no place in the house of God. No one should be excluded from our love, our compassion or our concern because of race or gender, faith or ethnicity — or because of their sexual orientation. Nor should anyone be excluded from health care on any of these grounds. In my country of South Africa, we struggled for years against the evil system of apartheid that divided human beings, children of the same God, by racial classification and then denied many of them fundamental human rights. We knew this was wrong. Thankfully, the world supported us in our struggle for freedom and dignity.

It is time to stand up against another wrong.

Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people are part of so many families. They are part of the human family. They are part of God’s family. And of course they are part of the African family. But a wave of hate is spreading across my beloved continent. People are again being denied their fundamental rights and freedoms. Men have been falsely charged and imprisoned in Senegal, and health services for these men and their community have suffered. In Malawi, men have been jailed and humiliated for expressing their partnerships with other men. Just this month, mobs in Mtwapa Township, Kenya, attacked men they suspected of being gay. Kenyan religious leaders, I am ashamed to say, threatened an HIV clinic there for providing counseling services to all members of that community, because the clerics wanted gay men excluded.

Uganda’s parliament is debating legislation that would make homosexuality punishable by life imprisonment, and more discriminatory legislation has been debated in Rwanda and Burundi.

These are terrible backward steps for human rights in Africa.

Our lesbian and gay brothers and sisters across Africa are living in fear.

And they are living in hiding — away from care, away from the protection the state should offer to every citizen and away from health care in the AIDS era, when all of us, especially Africans, need access to essential HIV services. That this pandering to intolerance is being done by politicians looking for scapegoats for their failures is not surprising. But it is a great wrong. An even larger offense is that it is being done in the name of God. Show me where Christ said “Love thy fellow man, except for the gay ones.” Gay people, too, are made in my God’s image. I would never worship a homophobic God.

“But they are sinners,” I can hear the preachers and politicians say. “They are choosing a life of sin for which they must be punished.” My scientist and medical friends have shared with me a reality that so many gay people have confirmed, I now know it in my heart to be true. No one chooses to be gay. Sexual orientation, like skin color, is another feature of our diversity as a human family. Isn’t it amazing that we are all made in God’s image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?

The wave of hate must stop. Politicians who profit from exploiting this hate, from fanning it, must not be tempted by this easy way to profit from fear and misunderstanding. And my fellow clerics, of all faiths, must stand up for the principles of universal dignity and fellowship. Exclusion is never the way forward on our shared paths to freedom and justice.

More Tutus, fewer Hagees.  And Warrens.  And Dobsons.  And…

9 comments March 13th, 2010 at 12:36pm Posted by Eli

Miss Beverly Hills Achieves The Impossible

…She makes Carrie Prejean look good:

Ashley told Fox News that not only is she against same-sex marriage, but that she thinks it is divine law that gays should be put to death because “the Bible is pretty black and white“:

Carrie Prejean isn’t the only beauty queen open to expressing her objection to same-sex marriage. Miss Beverly Hills 2010 Lauren Ashley is also speaking out in support of traditional nuptials.

“The Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. In Leviticus it says, ‘If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them.’ The Bible is pretty black and white,” Ashley told Pop Tarts.

“I feel like God himself created mankind and he loves everyone, and he has the best for everyone. If he says that having sex with someone of your same gender is going to bring death upon you, that’s a pretty stern warning, and he knows more than we do about life.”

Despite her strong words about homosexuality, Ashley also told Fox that she “has a lot of friends that are gay,” and that there’s “no hate between [her] and anyone.”

Why is it that I never hear any gays or minorities saying that some of their best friends are bigots?  I mean, there are more than enough bigots claiming to be friends with them…

2 comments February 25th, 2010 at 07:18am Posted by Eli

Hysterical Right-Wing Wanker Of The Day

According to Ken Blackwell, Dawn Johnsen’s (still disgracefully languishing) nomination to head OLC is exactly like Stalin exterminating millions of Russian Jews.

President Obama is big on civility. He talks a very good game. But his nominee for a top slot at the Department of Justice–Dawn Johnsen–is a leading exponent of incivility. Johnsen worked with the ACLU for years. And she joined ARM–the so-called Abortion Rights Mobilization–to strip the Catholic Church of its tax-exempt status because of its pro-life advocacy. The Catholic Church eventually won that case–but not until it had spent years and millions of dollars defending itself. The Catholic Church was just the biggest ARM target. If they had succeeded against the Catholics, they surely would have come after the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, and The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.

If Mr. Obama is serious about civility he needs to withdraw Dawn Johnsen’s nomination. If she is confirmed, we will see a radical anti-Catholic, pro-abortion zealot influencing policy thoughout the Justice Department—but also policy throughout the entire federal government.

What we are witnessing right now is an anti-Christian programmatic pogrom. What is a “pogrom” it’s the word that describes anti-Jewish raids by Cossacks and others in czarist Russia, but a programmatic pogrom best describes what is happening right now. These are not isolated attacks. And while we no longer have Cossacks to threaten, we now have left-wing bloggers who actually call themselves Kossacks (after the Daily Kos).

Those poor beleaguered Christians.  It’s a wonder they’ve survived this long with all the adversity and persecution they must face as a tiny disempowered minority.

Add comment February 18th, 2010 at 07:22am Posted by Eli

Fierce Advocacy: Ur Doin It Wrong

Well, Dick Cheney is now to the left of Obama and the Democrats on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.  Great job, guys.

As Joe noted below, former vice President, and arch-conservative nemesis of the Obama administration, Dick Cheney said today that he thinks the ban on gays serving in the US military will be lifted, and he thinks it’s time. That means the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress now having Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Gates, and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mullen covering their backside on this issue. So what do they do? Do they push for a repeal now, strike when the iron is hot, take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime momentum that has developed around this issue in the past two weeks?

No.

After two weeks of no direction whatsoever from the White House as to whether we even should proceed with the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell this year, more unnamed administration officials are telling AP that they won’t touch the repeal for years to come. (Apparently, according to AP, they want to give the troops time to “get used” to the idea, gentle souls that they are.)

(…)

We now have Colin Powell (Republican), SecDef Gates (Republican appointee), Chairman Mullen (Republican appointee), Dick Cheney (Republican), Ted Olson (Republican), and the torture twins (Republicans), better than the Democratic party on this paramount gay civil rights issue. For years, we’ve been able to laugh in the face of gay Republicans who claimed the GOP was a viable alternative for gay Americans seeking their civil rights. No one is laughing any more. The Democratic party needs to wake up and realize that its political homophobia is losing it a constituency.

Fantastic.  Apparently we’ve reached a point where gays’ best chance for equality is to either vote Republican or hope that one of Obama’s daughters comes out.

Add comment February 14th, 2010 at 01:21pm Posted by Eli

Pay No Attention To The Crazy Bigotry Behind The Curtain

Hmm, I wonder if some of the conservatives are finally realizing that craziness and bigotry, well, kinda makes them look bad.  First their efforts to keep the CA Prop 8 trial off-camera, and now this:

Word from Nashville on Monday was that the First National Tea Party Convention next month will be closed to the press, other than for a limited number of “selected” journalists. No word on who or how many.

This from the people who brought us last summer’s media-saturated Town Hall meetings.

The restrictions apparently apply to the much-anticipated speeches by Sarah Palin and Minnesota’s own Michele Bachmann.

Organizers say that journalists without passes will not be allowed into the convention at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel. (A Star Tribune request for a pass was denied, the paper’s interest in covering its home-state congresswoman notwithstanding).

Convention spokesman Judson Phillips informs us that most of the sessions are closed “at the request” of the presenters. “Given the media interest, I don’t want the sessions disrupted and overrun with the media,” he said.

While organizers are offering to help set up interviews with speakers, they said Palin will not be available.

Since when have Palin or Bachmann ever shied away from the media spotlight?  Something has changed.

1 comment January 12th, 2010 at 07:25am Posted by Eli

Uganda Reveals Christian Right’s True Colors

You may think Prop 8 was a huge triumph for the fundie homophobic right, but it appears that they view it as a consolation prize compared to how they really want to deal with “the gay agenda”:

For three days, according to participants and audio recordings, thousands of Ugandans, including police officers, teachers and national politicians, listened raptly to the Americans, who were presented as experts on homosexuality. The visitors discussed how to make gay people straight, how gay men often sodomized teenage boys and how “the gay movement is an evil institution” whose goal is “to defeat the marriage-based society and replace it with a culture of sexual promiscuity.”

(…)

One month after the conference, a previously unknown Ugandan politician, who boasts of having evangelical friends in the American government, introduced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill of 2009, which threatens to hang homosexuals, and, as a result, has put Uganda on a collision course with Western nations.

Donor countries, including the United States, are demanding that Uganda’s government drop the proposed law, saying it violates human rights, though Uganda’s minister of ethics and integrity (who previously tried to ban miniskirts) recently said, “Homosexuals can forget about human rights.”

The Ugandan government, facing the prospect of losing millions in foreign aid, is now indicating that it will back down, slightly, and change the death penalty provision to life in prison for some homosexuals. But the battle is far from over.

Instead, Uganda seems to have become a far-flung front line in the American culture wars, with American groups on both sides, the Christian right and gay activists, pouring in support and money as they get involved in the broader debate over homosexuality in Africa.

I can certainly understand gay activists doing everything they can to help fight against this, but it’s absolutely despicable that so-called Christians are sending money to support this kind of heartless evil.  Oh, but wait – it’s all just a big misunderstanding, they had no idea that the Ugandans would actually take them seriously, they totally love gay people:

The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.

“I feel duped,” Mr. Schmierer said, arguing that he had been invited to speak on “parenting skills” for families with gay children. He acknowledged telling audiences how homosexuals could be converted into heterosexuals, but he said he had no idea some Ugandans were contemplating the death penalty for homosexuality.

“That’s horrible, absolutely horrible,” he said. “Some of the nicest people I have ever met are gay people.”

You see?  They may believe that gays are immoral pedophiles who want to convert children to their satanic lifestyle… but some of them are really very nice!  Well, I’m sure that makes all the difference in the world, and I look forward to some of these anti-gay fundamentalists going back over to Uganda to explain that executing or imprisoning people just for being gay just goes way too far… unless, of course, they think it’s a-okay.

Add comment January 5th, 2010 at 11:39am Posted by Eli

63 MILLION Dollars!

That is the staggering sum that it would take to extend benefits to the domestic partners of gay and lesbian federal government employees.  Why, I bet that eclipses even the Defense Department’s annual stapler budget!  No wonder a totally not-homophobic budget hawk like Joe Lieberman opposes it – he’s all about the fiscal responsibility:

“I believe this legislation is really on the right side of history,” Lieberman said. “The basic point here is federal employees should not have to choose between their commitment to federal public service and their commitment to their families because they get fewer protections for their families than they could receive from private employers.”

(See?  Totally Not Homophobic!)

Lieberman and [Republican Senator Susan] Collins said they were happy to see the bill move forward, but they would not seek time on the Senate calendar for debate until OPM explained how it planned to pay for the benefits it would begin providing to the domestic partners of gay and lesbian federal employees.

(…)

Collins said she was “very disappointed” OPM had not provided the final plan, but added she had been told the Office of Management and Budget was reviewing a proposed list. Lieberman said the strategy for making the benefits cost-neutral was critical to the bill’s ultimate passage.

“We will not move it on the floor of the Senate until we get that explicit offset so this is a deficit-neutral step,” he said.

I think this is very responsible.  I would hate to think that we might have to sacrifice half a day of operations in Afghanistan or something.

Add comment December 17th, 2009 at 12:47pm Posted by Eli

Rick Warren, Defining Christianity Down

What a truly repellent excuse for a human being, much less a Christian:

Now Warren’s on the defensive again, this time for his affiliation with Martin Ssempa, a Ugandan pastor who has endorsed proposed legislation in Uganda that makes certain homosexual acts punishable by life in prison or even, in some cases, death. Ssempa has made appearances at Saddleback and has been embraced warmly by Warren and his wife, Kay.

In October, Warren distanced himself from Ssempa and the Ugandan legislation, saying, “Martin Ssempa does not represent me; my wife, Kay; Saddleback Church; nor the Global PEACE Plan strategy,” a reference to Warren’s work in the developing world and Africa in particular. “In 2007 we completely severed contact with Mr. Ssempa when we learned that his views and actions were in serious conflict with our own.

(…)

But Warren won’t go so far as to condemn the legislation itself. A request for a broader reaction to the proposed Ugandan antihomosexual laws generated this response: “The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.” On Meet the Press this morning, he reiterated this neutral stance in a different context: “As a pastor, my job is to encourage, to support. I never take sides.” Warren did say he believed that abortion was “a holocaust.” He knows as well as anyone that in a case of great wrong, taking sides is an important thing to do.

So Warren thinks abortion is  “a holocaust,” but when it comes to some madman advocating imprisonment and execution for gays, or actively facilitating the spread of AIDS, he suddenly decides that it’s not his affair and he shouldn’t take sides?

I guess Warren considers fetuses to be more precious than actual gay people – I wonder if he’d be okay with aborting gay fetuses.

Add comment December 1st, 2009 at 07:19am Posted by Eli

Grotesque Irony Of The Week

How. Dare. They.

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.

“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says.

These bastards actually invoked Martin Luther King’s name in their mission to oppose civil rights.  That’s even more monstrous than Dick Armey studying Saul Alinsky.

Add comment November 20th, 2009 at 10:49pm Posted by Eli

Come To Think Of It, I’ve Never Seen Them Together…

The resemblance is uncanny!

If only I had the juice (and cash) of sick, bloviating, untethered-from-reality-and-the truth Glenn Beck! The New York Times Opinionator Tobin Harshaw compares my call to shut down the gAyTM to the radical, racist, bigoted diatribes of Glenn Beck. His reasoning?

“We know that hard-line conservatives are riled up. But so are hard-left Democrats and their gay allies.”

Who knew my statement was equivalent to the nut-teabaggers and a radical call to arms:

(…)

She offers a call to arms along the lines of MoveOn’s:

I don’t know about you, but at the very least, it’s a peek at the kind the two-timing that goes on in national politics with constituencies they find “troublesome” or a perceived “liability” (save the $$$, of course). The difference is that the peek inside makes you realize how easily you’ve been had …Shut the gAyTM down; only give directly to candidates and organizations you believe are truly working in your best interest. Not a penny to the DNC; it’s the only leverage you have as an average citizen. The big donors in our community have to take a stand on this kind of nonsense, otherwise, they are enabling this kind of treatment of our community. It’s party-building at our expense each and every time …

Pam, you may not like to hear it, but that last line could just as easily have come from Glenn Beck. Just goes to show: it may be entertaining to watch your enemies rip themselves apart, but you might just want to keep an eye on the guy to your left.

What.

Apparently, saying “Let’s stop giving money to people who repeatedly take advantage of us” is exactly the same as saying that the president hates white people, organizing hate rallies, and rolling out a new insane black-UN-helicopters-are-trying-to-fluoridate-our-water-for-one-world-government conspiracy theory every night.  Who knew?

Add comment November 9th, 2009 at 09:01pm Posted by Eli

The Fierce Advocate

I remember watching some nature documentary with my girlfriend which tried to claim that pandas are actually fierce predators.  I had kind of the same reaction to that as when Obama claimed to be a “fierce advocate” for Teh Ghey.  Right after he picked homophobe Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.  And after he went to Saddleback to kiss Rick Warren’s ring. And after he toured with Donnie McClurkin.

In fact, I would be hard pressed to think of a single example of Obama really sticking his neck out for gay rights.  He announced his support for a bill expanding domestic partner benefits (but not health insurance) for federal employees, and he made so-far-empty promises to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and so far that’s about it.  The snubs have far outnumbered the accmplishments, and I think the gay community may have noticed.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think that Obama has made a cynical calculation that A) There are a lot more homophobic voters than homosexual ones, and B) That gays will continue to support him and the other feckless Democrats because they have no other alternative.  He might be correct about the first (although I’d like to think that being morally right would count for something), but he’s playing with fire on the second.

4 comments November 6th, 2009 at 11:32am Posted by Eli

Wanker Of The Day

Anonymous White House “adviser” (and probably Obama, if this is an accurate reflection).

So does this mean that President Obama thinks Candidate Obama is part of the “internet left fringe”?

UPDATE: Well, at least the White House is saying the right thing now – I guess they’ve decided that maybe they shouldn’t go out of their way to antagonize the netroots any more than they already have.  That’s nice.

Add comment October 12th, 2009 at 10:06am Posted by Eli

Great Moments In American History

It’s a shame, but these things happen.

(From Married To The Sea)

Add comment October 8th, 2009 at 11:16am Posted by Eli

The Crazy Goes Up To 11!

Wow, this sounds like an awful lot of batshit in one building at the same time:

Conservatives gathered at a Hilton hotel in St. Louis over the weekend for the “How to Take Back America Conference,” a Phyllis Schlafly-hosted gathering where the faithful gathered to discuss issues such as “How To Counter The Homosexual Extremist Movement,” “How To Stop Socialism In Health Care” and “How To Recognize Living Under Nazis & Communists.”

Among the prominent speakers who traveled to St. Louis for the conference were former Arkansas Gov. and GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, Republican Reps. Tom McClintock, Tom Price, Steve King and Michele Bachmann, and “Joe the Plumber,” aka Samuel Wurzelbacher.

(…)

Schlafly went on to suggest that Americans are “waking up” and that they don’t want “our country to be run by czars,” which she called “a Russian idea.” She said of her organization, Eagle Forum, “fighting feminists is still our main object,” arguing that feminism is “the most destructive force in the world.

(I sure hope the agenda features a debate between Schlafly and Jerry Boykin, who said that “there is no greater threat to America than Islam”…)

On the conference’s Web site, there is only one section available under the “listen & take action” tab: “HOMOSEXUAL EXTREMIST MOVEMENT.” There, Liberty University School of Law Associate Dean Matt Barber writes that “the sin of homosexuality is the bunker-buster bomb in this war against morality.”

“The very firm response by defenders of Biblical truth to the homosexual lobby’s relentless assault on our nation’s Judeo-Christian tradition is indeed a defensive reaction, not an act of aggression,” he says. “The sheer mechanics of homosexual conduct very naturally elicits revulsion in most rational folk. Therefore, most of us would prefer not to even imagine it, much less struggle to defend against its wholesale promotion. But regrettably, our hand has been forced.”

Oh, and Mike Huckabee wants to jackhammer away the part of Manhattan with the UN on it and float it out to sea.

It never ceases to amaze and terrify me that there are millions of people who take these backward freaks seriously.  Has America always had this many crazy/stupid people, or did the GOP somehow perfect the science of wacko husbandry?

(h/t WT)

2 comments September 28th, 2009 at 08:56pm Posted by Eli

This Just In: Porn Makes You Gay!

No, really:

At the Family Research Council’s Values Voters Summit today, FRC Senior Fellow Pat Fagan, Heritage Foundation scholar Matthew Spalding and Michael Schwartz, the chief of staff for Sen. Tom Coburn, held a discussion on “The New Masculinity.” Schwartz, who was the final speaker, said that Fagan wanted him to discuss “how men, who already are good husbands and fathers,” can “change the culture.”

A few minutes into his speech, Schwartz moved to the topic of pornography, calling it a “blight” and a “disease” that parents’ “sons” would encounter. Noting that he was about to get “politically incorrect,” Schwartz said that it is his “observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people”:

SCHWARTZ: But it is my observation that boys at that age have less tolerance for homosexuality than just about any other class of people. They speak badly about homosexuality. And that’s because they don’t want to be that way. They don’t want to fall into it. And that’s a good instinct. After all, homosexuality, we know, studies have been done by the National Institute of Health to try to prove that its genetic and all those studies have proved its not genetic. Homosexuality is inflicted on people.

Schwartz then recalled “a very good friend” of his “who was in the homosexual lifestyle for a long time,” saying that he “had good conversations about, about the malady that he suffered.” He then relayed “an astonishingly insightful remark” his friend had made about the relationship between pornography and being gay:

SCHWARTZ: And one of the things that he said to me, that I think is an astonishingly insightful remark. He said, “all pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards. Now think about that. And if you, if you tell an 11-year-old boy about that, do you think he’s going to want to go out and get a copy of Playboy? I’m pretty sure he’ll lose interest. That’s the last thing he wants.” You know, that’s a, that’s a good comment. It’s a good point and it’s a good thing to teach young people.

Umm… yeah.  Good luck with that.

Add comment September 20th, 2009 at 08:22pm Posted by Eli

Good Protest/Bad Protest

Black Tsunami has put his finger on what differentiates a Good Protest from a Bad Protest.

Mobs sponsored and directed by corporate lobbyists to shout, threaten, intimidate and generally shut down all discourse: Good Protest.

People spontaneously protesting against organizations which have harmed and denigrated them personally: Bad Protest.

Well, I’m certainly glad we were able to clear that up.

(h/t Peterr)

2 comments August 8th, 2009 at 08:37pm Posted by Eli

The Absurdity Of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Exhibit 267

“I am gay” gets you discharged immediately, but “I am autistic” doesn’t.

Also: Epic Recruiting Fail.

(h/t La Lisa)

Add comment July 6th, 2009 at 07:33am Posted by Eli

Sara Robinson Wants The Right-Wing To Declare Themselves

She appears to be a teensy bit irritated with their nudge-nudge-wink-wink game of inciting hatred and then indignantly denying all responsibility when that hatred turns into violence.

Dear Conservatives:

Your fellow Americans demand an answer — and we want it now. Just one simple question:

Are you deliberately trying to start a civil war?

Just answer the question. Yes or no. Don’t insult us with elisions, evasions, dithering, qualifications, or conditional answers. We need to know what your intentions are — and we need to know NOW. People are being shot dead in the streets of America at the rate of several per month now. You may not want responsibility for this — but the whackadoodles pulling the triggers make no bones about who put them up to this.

You did.

(…)

If your answer is yes, then stop this cowardly half-assed screwing around. You speak the language of war and honor; but the honor code of the warriors you pretend to revere demands that you declare your intentions. If you really believe that the only way to get the America you want is to negate a fair election, shred the Constitution, and violently cleanse the country of everyone who doesn’t agree with you, then man up and get on with it. If it’s a shooting war you want, do not doubt that there are plenty of progressives who will oblige you. If this goal is so important that you’re really willing to kill for it, please don’t forget that you will also need to be willing to die for it. Because, like martyrs Greg McKendry and Steven Johns proved, we are willing to do whatever is necessary to stop you.

If your answer is no, then you have just one other choice. Knock off the tantrums, grow up, rebuild your party, come back to the table, and sit down and govern with us. (We know this will be a stretch, but we think some of you are capable of it.) You will need to learn, many of you for the first time, to get your way as adults do — without fear-based politics, polarizing rhetoric, on-air threats against those who disagree with you, and repeating outrageous lies in the face of stone facts and irrefutable evidence.

And most of all: you need to stop feeding the crazies. You need to disavow them in every way possible — sincerely, emphatically, and with full awareness that every time one of these people acts, it destroys the credibility of “conservatives,” “Republicans,” and “the right wing” in the eyes of the country. You cannot assassinate your way back to power. And don’t doubt for a moment that the majority of Americans — even those who agree with your ideas — will abandon your cause forever once it realizes that’s what you’re trying to do.

Since you’re the ones funding the violent radicals on your flank, you need to stop sending them money. Since you know far more about their activities than any one else, you need to be the ones who turn them in. Since you’re the ones who make heroes and martyrs out of them, you need to be the ones who call them out as criminals. Until you do this — consistently, wholeheartedly, and responsibly — we can only conclude that these assassins are operating with your support and approval, and that you are intentionally trying to start an armed revolution in America.

There’s a lot more great stuff in the middle, so read the whole thing.  It’s very hard to believe the right wing’s protestations of innocence when they do so little to dampen or repudiate the crazies.

Add comment June 12th, 2009 at 09:13pm Posted by Eli

Comment-Inspired Musings

Just a couple of thoughts inspired by the comments to my Dick Cheney, Gay Marriage Crusader post:

1) How long before Republicans’ two favorite hot-button topics converge, and they start wailing about immigrants using phony gay marriage to get green cards?

2) How will Rush Limbaugh and other hardcore bigoted conservatives deal with Cheney reiterating that gay marriage isn’t so bad after all?  It’ll be pretty hard for them to argue that Dick Cheney, of all people, isn’t a real conservative.  My guess is that they’ll just ignore it…

2 comments June 3rd, 2009 at 07:01am Posted by Eli

Dick Cheney, Gay Marriage Crusader

On the surface, it sounds like Dick Cheney is a pretty decent and enlightened guy on gay marriage:

Speaking at the National Press Club for the Gerald R. Ford Foundation journalism awards, Cheney was asked about recent rulings and legislative action in Iowa and elsewhere that allowed for gay couples to legally wed.

“I think that freedom means freedom for everyone,” replied the former V.P. “As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don’t support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. … But I don’t have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that.”

Not bad, right?  But make no mistake – this is not Dick Cheney saying that all people should be treated equally, this is Dick Cheney saying that his daughter should not be a second-class citizen.

Of course, that still puts him way ahead of, say, Ronald Reagan, Alan Keyes, or Brit Hume.

4 comments June 2nd, 2009 at 07:09am Posted by Eli

Behold The Future Of America

So, to sum up: Bestiality and heterosexual sex do not cause AIDS, but lesbian sex does.  I want to write this off as just one screwed-up kid with fundie homophobic wingnut parents, but she’s wearing a prize ribbon.

The future is doomed.

(From Picture Is Unrelated)

UPDATE: Oh thank God – it’s a fake. Thanks to Ol’ Froth for partially restoring my faith in humanity.

Picture Is Unrelated is still awesome, tho.

2 comments May 28th, 2009 at 11:25am Posted by Eli

Wait… What?

Surely this can’t be right:

Former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, who represented then-Vice President Al Gore in the contested election, have joined forces to tackle the same-sex marriage issue, which has deeply divided Californians and left 18,000 gay couples married last year in legal isolation.

In a project of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, Olson and Boies have united to represent two same-sex couples filing suit after being denied marriage licenses because of Proposition 8.

Their suit, to be filed in U.S. District Court in California, calls for an injunction against the proposition, allowing immediate reinstatement of marriage rights for same-sex couples.

George W. Bush’s Ted Olsen???  Either he has a gay family member who wants to get married, or this is some kind of elaborate ratfuck to sabotage gay marriage.  I sure as hell don’t believe that he’s suddenly discovered the principle of equality and fair play.

Add comment May 27th, 2009 at 07:18am Posted by Eli

Contrast

Healthy:

[Marie Osmond] told “Entertainment Tonight” she is completely supportive of her eldest child, Jessica, who is a lesbian.

“I love my daughter! She’s my baby girl, come on,” she said. “So what if she’s gay? She’s my daughter and she’s an amazing woman and a good kid. I raised her, she better be good.”

She went on to preach that her Mormon faith did not keep her from loving her daughter, given her sexual orientation.

“I think it’s sad when we have to separate something from society. Whether it’s, ‘Oh you’re Jewish,’ and then it was ‘Oh you’re a Mormon,’ or ‘Oh you’re gay.’ I love real people,” Osmond said. “A lot of women out there have gay children. Who cares? I want love. I’m a Christian and Christ loved everybody.”

Earlier this month Osmond confirmed to a Los Angeles radio station that her daughter is a lesbian and spoke then about her views on same-sex marriage.

“You know, on those types of things I’m very supportive. When it comes to marriage, I think that civil rights need to be for all,” Osmond said to the radio interviewer.

Not healthy:

Star celebrity magazine reports that Prejean’s mother, Francine Coppola, was involved in a lesbian love affair right up to the night Prejean made her now-famous statement opposing same-sex marriage.

The magazine says the beauty queen’s pronouncement didn’t sit well with her mother’s lover, openly gay sales rep Valerie Vetrano, who confirmed that “Yes, Francine and I dated.”

But religion got in the way of their relationship. “Francine explained how she was a Christian and that her loved ones would never accept her if she were gay,” a friend of the couple tells the magazine.

Coppola reportedly told Vetrano that her daughter would never believe it if she found out about their relationship.

The friend said Coppola’s family didn’t know anything about the affair. “Valerie feels that if Francine had just been open about her sexuality with her family, Carrie would have a better understanding of what gay people have to go through,” the friend tells Star.

Sad.

(h/t Peterr)

2 comments May 21st, 2009 at 11:53am Posted by Eli

Jonah Goldberg’s Perfect Candidate

Must be charismatic and self-loathing.

No freaks.

(h/t BT)

Add comment May 8th, 2009 at 10:11pm Posted by Eli

Has It Been Fifteen Minutes Yet?

I think Gawker is on to something here:

Oh no, everyone is being all mean to Carrie California because she is an idiot and she subscribes to some of the more popular bigotries! Lady should be thanking the Homosexualist Agenda.

Who won the Miss USA pageant? Anyone? Miss… Guam? We don’t know, and don’t care! But we alllllll know Carrie Prejean (Related searches: “carrie prejean racy“), Miss Proposition 8, the pageant loser who won’t get off of our TVs or our popular celebrity gossip blogs. She’s in commercials! (Because NOM couldn’t get any real actors for their miserable commercials, but still: it’s work!)

(…)

So yeah, it sure sucks that everyone is seeing those embarrassing “topless photos” of you, that you posed for, professionally, as a professional model, and sure, people are only republishing them to make you feel bad… and it sucks that TMZ is all delving into the divorce of your parents, but hey, that is the trade-off: we get to “persecute” you and you get to now become terribly famous, like you wanted.

Maybe Prejean The Beauty Queen should hook up with Joe The Plumber, and they can make buffoonish, bigoted, self-promoting babies together.  Because there’s totally a shortage.

(h/t WT)

Add comment May 8th, 2009 at 11:31am Posted by Eli

Religious Right Tacking Left?

Wow, maybe the religious right is reading the New Testament after all:

The Southern Baptist Convention, the dominant religious voice of the South, has finally weighed in on the issue of waterboarding and other forms of torture.

Under no circumstances should they be permitted in this country.

(…)

There is no room for torture as part of the United States’ intelligence-gathering process, Richard Land said today. He also said he believes the practice known as “waterboarding” is torture and, as such, is unethical.

Land, president of the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, said there is no circumstance in which torture should be permissible in interrogations by U.S. officials, even if the authorities believe a prisoner has information that might involve national security.

“I don’t agree with the belief that we should use any means necessary to extract information,” said Land. “I believe there are absolutes. There are things we must never do under any circumstances.

“For me the ultimate test is: Could I, in good conscience, do whatever I am authorizing or condoning others to do? If not, then I must oppose the action. If I could not waterboard someone—and I couldn’t—then I must oppose its practice.”

(…)

“There are some things you should never do to another human being, no matter how horrific the things they have done. If you do so, you demean yourself to their level,” he said.

“Civilized countries should err on the side of caution. It does cost us something to play by different rules than our enemies, but it would cost us far more if we played by their rules,” Land concluded.

Torture is simply not Christian.  I don’t see how that’s even subject to debate, yet a supposedly devout Christian president gleefully indulged in it and then lied about it (also not Christian, BTW – I think there’s a Commandment or something), and millions of supposedly devout Christian Americans had no problem with it at all.

The religious right may even be coming around on Teh Scary Ghey:

In a move that will surprise gay activists and liberals, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, a top religious right groups, tells me that his organization has no problem with GOP Senator Jeff Sessions’ claim today that he’s open to a Supreme Court nominee with “gay tendencies.”

The spokesperson confirms the group won’t oppose a gay SCOTUS nominee over sexual orientation.

“We agree with Senator Sessions,” Bruce Hausknecht, a spokesperson for Focus on the Family, which is headed by James Dobson, told me a few minutes ago. “The issue is not their sexual orientation. It’s whether they are a good judge or not.”

Their sexual orientation “should never come up,” he continued. “It’s not even pertinent to the equation.”

(”Gay tendencies”???  WTF is that supposed to mean?)  John Aravosis doesn’t believe them, but points out that even if it is complete insincere bullshit, it’s still a pretty huge deal that Focus on the Family feels the need to pretend to be tolerant.

If the Christian right decides to start acting more, well, Christian, that can only be a good thing for everyone.  Except for the hate-based extreme right wing of the GOP, and marginalizing them would actually be very healthy  for the GOP as a whole.

2 comments May 8th, 2009 at 07:20am Posted by Eli

Friendship, Republican Style

Not-Joe The Not-Plumber offers a novel new definition of friendship at the end of his homophobic anti-gay-marriage screed in Christianity Today:

I personally still think it’s wrong. People don’t understand the dictionary—it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.

Friends: People you would never allow anywhere near your children.

Republicans must have a lot of them, then.

Add comment May 4th, 2009 at 08:20pm Posted by Eli

Just When You Think They Can’t Get Any Lower

Virginia Foxx is determined to win the hotly contested title of Most Stupid, Evil and Crazy Republican, Michele Bachmann be damned:

The [Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes] bill was named after a very unfortunate incident that happened, where a young man was killed, but we know that that young man was killed in the commitment of robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay. The bill was named for him, the hate crimes bill was named for him, but it’s, it’s really a hoax, that that continues to be used as an excuse for passing these bills.

So I guess when his killers told the cops they killed him because he was gay, they were trying to cover up the fact that they just wanted his money.  Makes perfect sense to me.

Matthew Shepard, just another great big hoax – like the Holocaust, or the moon landing.

Add comment April 29th, 2009 at 10:05pm Posted by Eli