It occurs to me upon reading this that the last movie I saw which mentioned condom use was Knocked Up.  And they did it wrong.

As summer vacation begins, 17 girls at Gloucester High School are expecting babies—more than four times the number of pregnancies the 1,200-student school had last year. Some adults dismissed the statistic as a blip. Others blamed hit movies like Juno and Knocked Up for glamorizing young unwed mothers.

The main reason for the increase?

All it took was a few simple questions before nearly half the expecting students, none older than 16, confessed to making a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Then the story got worse. “We found out one of the fathers is a 24-year-old homeless guy,” the principal says, shaking his head.

How much of this is believable is arguable, but the popular culture argument marries nicely with this Townhall post, declaring that condoms can’t solve the pregnancy problem.  It’s sort of like how food can’t solve the starvation problem.

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Mark your calendars! On September 12-14 at the Hilton Washington Hotel the professional “Christian” set will hold its 2008 Values Voter Summit. Featured confirmed speakers include Newt Gingrich, Tony Perkins, Michael Medved, Phyllis Schlafly and Gary Bauer. The bleating in the press release indicates California marriage equality is going to be the rallying cry for this dying, hypocritical fundie movement.

The summit, sponsored by FRC Action, Focus on the Family Action, American Values and the Alliance Defense Fund, will equip voters to defend marriage, life and religious liberty.

“Family advocates may feel disheartened in light of the attack on marriage in California,” said Sonja Swiatkiewicz, director of Issues Response for Focus on the Family Action. “The Values Voter Summit will equip voters to make a difference at the ballot box this year — despite the judicial activism.”

Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, a featured speaker at the briefing, said she is hopeful the California court decision will inspire others to fight to save marriage in their states.

“We should make sure that all the other states stand up and say, ‘We are not going to follow the leadership of California or recognize the unconstitutional things that they’re doing,’ ” she told Family News in Focus. “Just because the judges have ruled that way, it should not be accepted by the American people.”

Wait a minute. Were these not the same characters supporting last-minute races to the courthouse to file ludicrous petitions at the feet of the

activist judges

to try to stop the marriages from going forward?

I just want to ask these people one question—using their logic, shouldn’t

all civil rights

be determined at the ballot box (including womb control and fetus citizenship), including religious freedom, the rights of racial minorities, the disabled and women? Should we just hold a nationwide poll to determine such matters? Or is the issue that Mother Schlafly’s gay son and the rest of LGBTs—deserve second-class status? Oh never mind.

Matt “Bam Bam” Barber, one of the “like-minded men with Concerned Women for America,” has decided to leave one of the curiously estrogen-free posts at the organization,  policy director for cultural issues (homo-obsessive Bob Knight was the director of its Culture and Family Institute). The Advocate:

Barber is moving on to work with two strongly pro-family organizations in Virginia, the Liberty University School of Law and Liberty Counsel.

CWA founder and chairman Beverly LaHaye said, “Matt Barber has been a tremendous asset to CWA and leaves an indelible imprint on the organization; his intellect and passion about cultural and family issues are second to none. We will miss his very relevant and timely articles, as well as his influence on the broader conservative movement.

Mrs. LaHaye will certainly have a large pool of wingnuts to solicit resumes from. I wonder if Matt’s buddy The Peter will toss his name in for consideration.

More below the fold.

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The desperation of the wingnuts to stop the launch of legal same-sex marriage in California next week is now laughable at this point.

Today Liberty Counsel is filing a petition requesting the California Court of Appeal to stay the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

On June 16, the Court of Appeal will regain jurisdiction over the same-sex marriage cases after the state Supreme Court’s May 15th ruling becomes final. In that ruling, the California Supreme Court directed the Court of Appeal to take “further action consistent with this opinion.”

The Supreme Court did not and cannot remove language from the state statutes, because it is not a legislature. In fact, the Supreme Court’s decision addressed only two statutes relating to marriage. There are many more relevant statutes that were not addressed.  The power to write laws belongs to the people and legislative branch of government, not the judiciary.

Since neither the Supreme Court nor the Court of Appeal has addressed the myriad of other statutes regarding marriage, local government officials do not have the power to issue marriage licenses until the legislature addresses these statutes.

Liberty Counsel’s petition asks the Court of Appeal to order that no marriage licenses be issued to same-sex couples until the language cited by the Supreme Court is stricken by the legislature and until there is a judicial determination that the other current marriage statutes are unconstitutional. The petition also argues that same-sex marriage licenses should not be issued until after the November 2008 general election, in order to preserve the people’s right to vote on the California Marriage Protection Act.

This case is far from over. We will not give up. The people will have the final say on marriage.

Ah, campaign season brings all the freakshow fundies out of the woodwork. Today’s self-important member of the religious fringe is the “Dr. Phil of prayer,” St. Petersburg, Florida-based Bill Keller of Liveprayer.com. He bleats to the Wildmon “news” organ OneNewsNow that Obama is a faux Christian Trojan Horse.

“A lot of the things that he is saying really call into question whether he really is a Christian,” says Keller, offering up as an example Obama’s statement that there are many roads that lead to God. “He has consistently been on record that he’s willing to give away part of the land that God himself gave to the children of Israel directly to their enemies,” he adds.

A campaign brochure titled “Faith. Hope. Change.” describes Senator Obama as a “committed Christian” who visited a local church one Sunday, “felt a beckoning of the spirit and accepted Jesus Christ into his life.” But Keller says Obama has views on social issues that most evangelicals regard as unbiblical.

“He has consistently voted to uphold a woman’s right to kill babies,” Keller points out. “He has consistently voted to support the gay agenda, gay ‘marriage,’ gay adoption, special rights for gays.” Keller says while obviously only God can judge a man’s heart, he does not think Senator Obama can call himself a Christian yet deny the basic tenets of the faith and rewrite them to suit his own purposes.

I guess John McCain’s wiping sweat off his brow for not sidling up to this character. Keller laughably goes on to say that he has requested a formal sit-down with Obama to answer questions about his Christian faith.

As if

, Bill. Like he should give you the time of day.

For extra batsh*ttery points, check out the OneNewsNow forum for the reader comments on the article. They are truly disturbing.

Who is Bill Keller, you might ask? What a shady background this character is; I first blogged about him back in April 2006 when he was profiled at Creative Loafing/The Weekly Planet. Read on below the fold.

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The federal government is attempting to revive a law written to protect children from online pornography.  The problem is, the law was written in 1998. 

Government lawyers tried Tuesday to revive a 1998 law designed to keep online pornography from children, amid questions that it is significantly outdated and blocks too much legal speech while having no effect on content posted from overseas.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit judges hearing the case questioned the law’s effectiveness, given estimates that half of all online porn is posted overseas, beyond the reach of U.S. law.

Free speech groups say the Child Online Protection Act misses the mark today, because it does not cover chat rooms, You Tube and other interactive sites that emerged in the last decade.

The original legislation is here.

Besides the idea of pushing a ten year old law as an effective regulator of modern technology (ten years ago,

a CD-ROM on a computer was a big deal

, hard drives were pushing into the gargantuan one gigabyte of information range, and the idea of watching video online was a full-day endeavor), there’s the problematic unconstitutionality of it all.

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It’s amazing the schisms that have broken open in this campaign season. Bil Browning of The Bilerico Project has an eye-opening post up, “Why is EMILY’s List endorsing anti-semitism, racism and homophobia?”  EMILY’s List, an organization that promotes and helps fund women who run for public office, the primary goal is to ensure that pro-choice candidates are elected.

In one Congressional race (Tennessee’s 9th district, which includes Memphis and environs), EMILY’s List is backing a candidate, Nikki Tinker, who is up against a pro-choice, pro-LGBT incumbent, Steven Cohen. Tinker’s campaign and surrogates have engaged in disturbing tactics that show how conflicts between core Democratic constituencies have erupted into ways difficult to paper over.

Rep. Steve Cohen, who is Jewish, was attacked in a flier (left, “Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and the Jews hate Jesus”) distributed by a black homobigoted pastor from Murphreesboro who is not even from Cohen’s district, Rev. George Brooks. Tinker, who happens to be black as well, and was called to condemn the flier. (WaPo):

[T]he literature encourages other black leaders in Memphis to “see to it that one and ONLY one black Christian faces this opponent of Christ and Christianity in the 2008 election.”

The Commercial Appeal wrote an editorial in Wednesday’s paper condemning Tinker for not speaking out against the anti-Semitic literature.

“What does Nikki Tinker think about anti-Semitic literature being circulated that might help her unseat 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen in the Democratic primary next August?” the editorial asked. “The question goes to the character of the woman who wants to represent the 9th District, and 9th District voters deserve an answer. But Tinker declined to return a phone call about the flier.”

The Memphis Baptist Ministerial Association, an organization of black pastors that has backed Tinker’s campaign as well, has openly criticized Cohen for his support of hate crimes legislation. Why is this not an issue for EMILY’s List? Certainly its resources can be spent more effectively in another race, given incumbent Cohen’s pro-choice record. Why back such a divisive candidate if your primary issue is already supported? Is there something missing from this picture that we should be aware of?

You can read more over at Bil’s pad. He concludes that in this case, for EMILY’s List, it has placed working to elect a pro-choice woman above any concerns about anti-Semitism or homophobia pouring from Tinker’s campaign and supporters.

John McCain:

“We hear talk of a meeting with the Iranian leadership offered up as if it were some sudden inspiration, a bold new idea that somehow nobody has ever thought of before,” Mr. McCain said. “Yet it’s hard to see what such a summit with President Ahmadinejad would actually gain, except an earful of anti-Semitic rants and a worldwide audience for a man who denies one Holocaust and talks before frenzied crowds about starting another.”

I’m just surprised that McCain got through the Republican nominating process and doesn’t see what can be gained from talking to crazy anti-Semites.

UPDATE:  Seriously? 

As I’ve mentioned before, politicians who court endorsements from religious leaders do so at their own peril, because you never know kind of batsh*t politically incorrect statements or sermons will come back to haunt the politician trying to rope in more people of faith at the polls. Look at Obama and Rev. Wright, or John McCain and John Hagee.

One of the luminaries of gay-hating, womb-controlling “professional Christian” set, Ralph Reed, knows the religious right is becoming a big problem for the GOP and he is urging John McCain not to seek fundie endorsements—or at least, keep his contacts with them on the DL, treating them like the crazy granny in the attic. (Right Wing Watch):

And you know that something really odd is happening when that figure is Ralph Reed, whose own political career tanked thanks to McCain’s own investigation into the corrupt world of Jack Abramoff.   Yet here Reed is, nearly two years later, doling out campaign advice to McCain as the candidate struggles to overcome the controversy generated by the endorsements of John Hagee and Rod Parsley:

John McCain should stop seeking endorsements from evangelical pastors and instead appeal directly to their church members, said Ralph Reed, the former Christian Coalition executive director.

“John McCain doesn’t need to be standing at a bank of microphones next to a particular leader,’’ Reed said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital With Al Hunt,’’ to be broadcast today. “My advice would be stay away from endorsements and stick to the issues.’‘

...Reed, 46, said McCain’s strategy of wooing evangelicals shouldn’t be “top down,’’ and his meetings with leaders and activists should be held in private.

“He needs to connect with them’’ by touting his opposition to same-sex marriage and his anti-abortion record, said Reed, a regional director of President George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign.

Point in question, John Hagee’s latest anti-gay Armageddon batsh*ttery. See below the fold.

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Are you lining up for tickets for the dinosaurs-walked-the-earth-with-Man venue this summer? And they want to inflict this anti-science BS on other cities, with mini-versions in churches.

The group behind a museum that focuses on the biblical account of creation plans to expand the facility in Northern Kentucky over the next year, focusing on programs for children. Answers in Genesis founder Ken Ham said that among additions to the Creation Museum will be kiosks aimed at kids and an outdoor playground.

The museum, which presents a literal interpretation of the Bible, has hosted more than 400,000 visitors since it opened last May. Officials hope to have 300,000 museum visitors in the next year.

Ham said the popularity of the museum in Petersburg—just south and west of Cincinnati—has brought requests from other religious groups that museums be built in their cities. He said there are no plans to do so. “Once you’ve done one, it’s easier to do another one,” museum co-founder and spokesman Mark Looy said. “But we just opened this a year ago, and we’re just learning how to operate it. Opening a second one is a dream way off in the distance.”

...In the meantime, Ham said the museum is consulting with churches throughout the country to build one-room displays that will serve as mini-Creation Museums.

Hit the rewind button for an earlier post on this museum after the jump.

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I forgot to post this gem - Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council delivers his response to the California Supreme Court ruling on marriage to Stephen Colbert. Ah, Tony’s a real masochist—who knew?  PageOneQ:

“I’ve read the constitution forwards and backwards,” Colbert continued, “and I see nothing in there that protects gays.

“Why,” he asks Perkins, “do these judges keep seeing gay things in the Constitution?”

“They’re afforded the same rights and privileges as you and I are,” Perkins responded. “They don’t have a right to marry just as you and I don’t have the right to marry anybody we want to. We don’t have a right to marry our first cousin…”

“No, no, no,” Colbert countered. “I’m from South Carolina.”

“There is a reason,” Perkins continued, “that in public policy, that we work to strengthen and uphold the institution of marriage, because that is…really the building block for society.”

“Do you keep Kosher?” Colbert asks. “I think it would really be better for the anti-gay-marriage side if they obeyed everything in the Bible, not just the anti-gay-marriage part. Don’t you?”

It’s what you all have been waiting for…this year’s “research” on the International Mr. Leather event by Peter LaBarbera. Long-time readers of the blog know that The Peter has become an expert in this sexual subculture, because every year he returns to the same event to gather even more information for his “Christian” readership—shocking information that has to be documented with photographs and breathless reporting.

He didn’t even manage to put up a photo from this year’s event in this post. Behold…

LISTEN ONLINE: Hyatt Regency Chicago Hosts ‘International Mr. Leather’ Perversion

WARNING: Interview contains highly graphic content describing twisted behaviors; NOT for children

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