NOTE FROM PAM: If the right-wing bible beating set wants to go after Kevin Jennings and Chai Feldblum, then it’s time to remind them (and the MSM) about the “moral values” of Tony Perkins, for example. You see Family Research Council honcho Tony Perkins frequently on the air to represent the "family values" agenda, but the media seem to ignore his outlandish racist affiliations documented in this Blend diary (posted here with permission), including ties to the Council of Conservative Citizens, declared a hate group by the SPLC, and the KKK. More background, via Media Matters:
The Boston Herald reported in an October 16, 2006, article, "In 2001, [Perkins] gave a speech at a meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, which the Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] considers a hate group."
Indeed, a Fall 2004 article in the SPLC's Intelligence Report asserted that Perkins "spoke to the Louisiana Council of Conservative Citizens on May 19, 2001," during his tenure as a Louisiana state legislator. The SPLC characterizes the CCC as a "white nationalist" organization, and has reported that the group is "the reincarnation of the racist White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 1960s."
We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called "affirmative action" and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.
When confronted with this information, an FRC tool said Perkins has "cannot remember" speaking to the group, but Perkins himself told the Vancouver Sunthat he "could not recall what he said to the group and that he said he had been unfamiliar with the CCC's history at the time."
The family values organization head has also sidled up to former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke. While campaign manager for Louis E. (Woody) Jenkins's campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1996, forked over $82,500 to buy Duke's mailing list. Yes, Perkins wanted make sure to reach the white supremacist voting base.
Bricar1632's diary:
It's said that 'a picture is worth a thousand words.' So I can't help but wonder what Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, must think knowing that this picture exists of him in the newsletter for the Council of Conservative Citizens, a well-known white supremacist group. It seems he was a guest speaker at the time, which he's done twice, once in 1997 and another time in 2001.
He could probably claim he had no knowledge of the groups interests, but he would be hard pressed to resort to this lame excuse.
<;blockquote>;In 1998, nearly three years before Perkins spoke to the CCC a second time, both Sen. Trent Lott and Rep. Bob Barr received widespread national media attention (and outrage) for speaking in front of the CCC—and both politicians used the “I-didn’t-know-their-politics” copout. The national tumult over Lott and Barr that year even prompted US Rep. Thomas Wexler to sponsor a House Resolution condemning the racism of the CCC.
Then there's the nasty detail of the white flag behind him at the podium, the one with the southern cross in one corner.
Bishop Harry Jackson, the Religious Right’s favorite African American preacher, asked the mostly white participants at the Values Voter Summit to tone down their anti-Obama rhetoric. He knew they weren’t racists, he explained, but the fact that some people were sounding like racists made it even harder on him as a conservative trying to get other black clergy to join his anti-gay organizing in D.C.
While asking summit participants to be less offensive, Jackson’s Saturday afternoon speech may have actually reached some new personal lows of offensive rhetoric.
Jackson utterly ignored the existence of African American LGBT people and their leadership in the pro-equality movement in the District of Columbia. He portrayed the battle over marriage equality in DC as a battle pitting rich gay lawyers against black clergy and poor single mothers. Jackson’s litany was a perfect example of the race- and class-baiting he is using to rouse opposition to marriage equality in the District. “Many of our gay people,” he said, are professionals, disproportionately educated, make a lot of money, are living in DC’s fancy new condos. Jackson said a “K Street lawyer who decides to come out and call himself gay” cannot understand the plight of a single mother in Washington, DC raising two kids without a father. This seems to be from his new gays-vs-blacks talking points. Hey, Rev. Jackson, what about all the LGBT people in DC who aren’t rich lawyers, who are people of color, who are raising kids without the legal protections of marriage? Maybe he hasn’t spent enough time in his new hometown to meet any of them yet.
I think we’ve got the good reverend by the short ones because what he’s saying is that he can’t successfully do his homobigoted Jiu-Jitsu on the black folks in the district to fight marriage equality if the right’s teabaggers, birthers and crazies keep spewing anti-Obama racist tripe. I can’t wait for the video of his BS to surface from the VV Summit.
Apparently he also calls for God to strike down the wicked, which also surely includes LGBTs, women who engage in reproductive freedom, etc.—they are faux Christians and God’s going to punish them. Why do I not think adulterers and hypocrites in the pulpit get a pass into heaven in Jackson’s world.
it’s no surprise that the 2009 Values Voter Summit, launching on Friday, sponsored by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Focus on the Family and a host of other professional anti-gay, misogynist, forced birth advocates, will entertain the attendees with a screening of Speechless: Silencing the Christians.
This is the flick that was peddled around the country in local markets to air and scare people about the Homosexual Agenda. Since watching a film about say, Obama’s health care plan and why it’s SOCIALISM; it’s always good to go back to the old saw of hating on the gays to give the crowd a collective hard-on. (OnTopMag):
In the documentary, the AFA asserts that proposed federal hate crime legislation would outlaw religious speech, that employment protection laws force churches to hire gays and lesbians, that gay men and women are largely responsible for HIV/AIDS and all STDs, and that gay marriage hurts the family because it deprives children of a mother or a father.
In July, hundreds of gay activists protested outside the Florida offices of Tampa’s WFLA Channel 8 after executives decided to broadcast the video. The rally was organized by several local gay rights groups including Equality Florida and Pride Tampa Bay, and the Metropolitan Community Church of Tampa, a gay-inclusive Christian denomination. The groups’ pleas to not air the special had fallen on deaf ears.
But in other markets, gay activists were successful in derailing the film’s release, including WOOD-TV 8 in Grand Rapids, Michigan and WSXY 6.2 in Columbus, Ohio.
“There’s a time and place to show such hateful trash, a gathering of bigoted homophobes is the only place,” R. Zeke Fread, director of Pride Tampa Bay, told On Top Magazine in an email. “I’m sure Speechless will receive enthusiastic applause and a standing ovation [at Value Voters Summit].”
On Saturday, FOTF will have a conference session on “countering the “homosexual agenda” in public schools” and another on how marriage equality will destroy religious liberty.
***
I wondered what the turnout would be for the dozens of invited “special guests” in the wingnut, bible beating world at this year’s gathering. Stephen Baldwin will be there, btw. And you know 2012 presidential Clown Car peeps showed up—Huckabee and Mitt, but no Bible Spice. Tony Perkins didn’t forget to close the deal on his black pulpit puppets—Bishop Harry Jackson and Ken Hutcherson—plus Star Parker.
See who is attending (and who turned them down), below the fold.
Damn you, Atrios! Here I was, innocently tweeting links that I didn’t feel I could come up with a full blog post about, and I see that Atrios is making fun of the Washington Post for printing this pointless screed of Michael Gerson’s encouraging young people to get into unhappy marriages headed straight for divorce. Because he cares about your happiness. It certainly has nothing to do with the perverse need of conservatives to stomp out joy and pleasure wherever they see it, nor their especially strong need to do so when young people are being young, which can provoke jealousy if you’re not mature and capable enough to look the other way and count your blessings.
The casual sex promoted in advertising and entertainment often leads, in the real world of fragile hearts and STDs, to emotional and physical wreckage.
In conservative-land, there’s no such thing as condoms, of course. Sometimes I think it’s because they literally cannot fathom asking a man to care about contraception, as the implication is that you’re a big pussy who gives a shit about a woman’s well-being, even if she’s not your official property. But setting aside the STD scare tactics, I have a pop quiz for the Pandagon community. What do you think breaks your heart more: Dating someone for awhile and deciding it’s not working out and moving on, or doing so after getting married, having children, and promising to love and honor each other for life? Which rift do you think takes longer to heal? Because, as much as conservatives like to monkey with and distort statistics to try to prove otherwise, the wedding band doesn’t heal a bad relationship. What a wedding band does seem to unfortunately do is drag out the break-up, or worse, make you feel you can’t leave, and so you waste your life away in an unhappy relationship.
But we’ve trod this ground before. What I like about Gerson’s piece is that it takes conservative incoherence to a new level. He bemoans casual sex, but then he gets all bent out of shape about cohabitation. Kids can’t commit, and to demonstrate their lack of commitment, I’m going to trot out a bunch of kids that are making commitments! Though not the commitment that Gerson wants, so it doesn’t count. Sometimes I get the impression that cohabitation is such a hobby horse for social conservatives because they think that the fact that you’re living in sin makes the sex hotter. Well, as someone in the scandalous state of cohabitation, I’m not going to disabuse them of that notion. Eat it, marriage monkeys.
(Warning: “Marriage monkeys” should not be misconstrued by people trolling for offense to mean anyone who is married. The marriage pimps are the sole object of scorn here.)
But this is not the only incoherence. Gerson admits that many, probably most people living in sin are test-driving the relationship to see if it’s marriage material. Then he says this:
Relationships defined by lower levels of commitment are, not unexpectedly, more likely to break up. Three-quarters of children born to cohabiting parents will see their parents split up by the time they turn 16, compared with about one-third of children born to married parents.
Could it be because people who actually make the leap into marriage are more sure than people who don’t, on average? (Very few sinners are boycotting marriage like my dude and myself.) And that people who are less sure are more likely to break up? Correlation does not equal causation: a concept social conservatives will never get as long as it continues to be inconvenient. You see the same problem with people who point out that very early 20s marriages are no more likely to end in divorce than later marriages. Well, yes—-in an era where few people marry that young, so the group that does so is self-selecting. But if you forcibly expanded that group to include people who don’t feel sure yet, then I imagine that would change dramatically. Same with these statistics. There’s no reason to think these couples would have stayed together if they were married. The far more likely explanation is people whose relationships are rife with problems understandably hesitate to marry before they fix the problems. And as much as our self-help culture would like to deny this, the existence of problems that might make you hesitate to marry is a strong predictor of the chance of breaking up down the line. Or even the existence of problems you ignore to marry. The existence of problems in general. I, for one, would like to congratulate Americans who realize that the “ignore them and they’ll go away after the wedding” approach to problems does not work.
What’s really amusing is that Gerson doesn’t seem to realize that a more enthusiastic attitude about abortion would also fix the problem he’s concerned about. You know who doesn’t give birth out of wedlock? Women who are dead set on not doing so, and therefore choose abortion if they get pregnant out of wedlock. I’m just saying. But of course, anything that conflicts with the larger, unspoken principle that people should have less fun and pleasure is immediately discarded.
Right Wing Watch alerts us to this important breaking news (around the 4:00 mark)...
On a related note, LaBarbera appeared on Alan Colmes’ radio program last night to discuss his anti-gay activism and, specifically, his attack against Ben and Jerry’s. Among the revelations was LaBarbera’s declaration that “we don’t support anal sex for anybody”:
I was debating back and forth in my head on what order to share these links—-unbelievably disturbing before comical or vice versa?—-and I think I’ll do disturbing then comical. It’s less dramatic, but you folks need the relief. Do you know Regent University, the one started by Pat Robertson? Well, a former assistant dean Stephen McPherson and his wife Melina were found guilty of child sex abuse this week. (Hat tip.) They pretended to be fond of three teenage girls stuck in a Christian children’s home—-giving them ice cream and taking them to the movies—-so they could get close enough to sexually assault them. Stephen assaulted two, and Melina assaulted one, and they read the girls’ Bible verses they claimed justified their acts. (Perhaps the story about Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar?)
I’m not going to blame Christianity or even fundamentalist Christianity for creating child molesters. Child molesters of all stripes are very good at coming up with bizarre justifications for what they do. The secular version of “God wants this” is “The victim wants this”. But what is fucked up is that every time some unspeakable evil happens, people like the McPhersons and all their buddies blame, well, us: gays, feminists, non-believers, mainline believers that reject theocracy, etc. Or, as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson said, when casting for blame for the 9/11 attacks: feminists, the ACLU, gynecologists who perform abortion (and I’m sure they don’t love the rest of them very much, either), gays and lesbians, and the People for the American Way. Of course, the fundie Muslims who engineered the attack have the exact same list of enemies, and the same vision of the perfect society as Robertson and Falwell, which is a world where religion is law, women are firmly under the boot, and gays are executed. There’s only minor disagreements about what ancient text to use to justify this.
I’m fairly certain that the fundies in the McPhersons’ life are already hastily blaming “secular influences” for this, even though the McPhersons couldn’t have made it clearer that they were convinced that sexually assaulting teenage girls entrusted to their care was god’s work.
This next story is a lot funnier. South Carolina, to no one’s great surprise, is one of those states that has people who are hostile to the very existence of public education on their school board. (Not that all home schoolers are against public education, but the hardcore fundie stripe that sees public education as some feminist plot is a breed unto its own.) And being Mark Sanford, fundie, their governor appointed this woman, a home schooler who unsurprisingly was a proponent of abstinence-only education to head up the entire school board. Kristin Maguire didn’t just gently support abstinence-only, but she was an advocate for it who worked with abstinence-only organizations. But Maguire abruptly resigned Tuesday, starting immediately, citing the standard “family responsibilities” dodge.
A lot of the press is politely refusing to explain the bigger story here, but the bloggers are all up on it. Fit News claims to have discovered that Maguire is the person behind the alias “Bridget Keeney”, an online writer of large amounts of erotic fiction. Fit News provided documentation to Sanford’s office, and suddenly Maguire had “family responsibilities” take her from her office. Here’s a quote from Bridget Keeney’s writing:
“I fantasize about being the ’second’ F (female) in a MFF (threesome) where the other two are in a committed relationship,” the sultry “Bridget” writes on one post. “I would like to focus on pleasuring her and ‘enhancing’ their intercourse …”
As you can imagine, I’m torn on this. I think it’s foul play to hold someone’s sexual fantasies against them in a professional sense, even if they share those fantasies online with others. We’ve all got them, and we all have a right to them, and we all have a right to get off by sharing them consensually with who we wish. But I’m going to laugh my ass off at Maguire, who is a huge proponent of abstinence-only, and therefore pushes the idea that sex is dirty, that you don’t have a right to your fantasies, and that you should be punished for consensual sharing of your sexuality with STDs and unplanned pregnancy. Clearly, the rules she has for the rest of us don’t apply to her. And so I can’t help but think she had this coming.
There is a simple way to avoid being this level of hypocrite, and the politicians of South Carolina should take heed. If you allow that other people have a sexuality and a right to a sexuality, then we will defend your right to yours. If Maguire wasn’t such a major hypocrite about sex, this wouldn’t be an issue. Fit News would be in the wrong for smoking her out, and if they did it anyway, I’d denounce them. But I fully support the idea that politicians should be held the standards they hold for the rest of us. If you’re like Maguire and dead set on making opposition to healthy sexuality the official state policy, then you should have to live your own rules. And when you’re inevitably smoked out—-because remember, pretty much everyone has a sexuality, and it rarely conforms to the stifling standards of the fundies—-we all have the right to point and laugh.
Well we can confirm one thing about this the fundamentalist who called for the execution of Barney Frank and the President (as well as all you Sodomites out there)—the Secret Service was right in paying LaBarbera Award-winner Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona a visit.
MS: You want all gay people to be executed, correct? SA: That is correct. It is what the Bible teaches. MS: If somebody were to go out with a machine gun and spray down a crowd of gay and lesbian people, would you think that was okay? SA: I would not think it's okay because I believe in due process. MS: Whould that person be a murderer? SA: No, I would not judge them as a murderer, no.
We can laugh at this guy, but we have to take violence-inciting individuals headcases like Anderson seriously because he whips up the unstable, often gun-toting Base that the GOP is catering to these days. Those are the people who may decide to act out as they feel their world spinning out of control (The Homo Agenda, "socialism", "fascism", country overrun with The Brown Menace, etc.).
But as the headline notes, Anderson then shared some special thoughts with Mike. Apparently the agent of hate didn't know Signorile was gay, and that’s what generated this.
MS: You know, I'm gay..I'm gay, and I don't molest any children. What do you think of that? SA: Well, I'd say you're lying. MS: You think i must be molesting children, right? SA: Exactly, right. MS: Do you pray that I'll died tonight. SA: If you're a homosexual, I hope you get brain cancer like Ted Kennedy.
Watch it; Mike completely destroyed Anderson on the air, pinning him down to justify his views. The exchange about the assassination of abortion provider Dr. George Tiller is a slam dunk:
Back in 2007, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality was planning to hold one of its pitiful fundraising banquets at the Holiday Inn Select in LaBarbera’s town of Naperville. He told staff there that there that he expected the homophobia-laden event would draw protestors. Six weeks before the event, the hotel canceled on him, citing “potential negative publicity.”
LaBarbera did not have a written contract, and no money was exchanged, but he said organizers verbally worked out details of the 100-person event, including the menu, during two meetings.
...“It’s always easy to come up with excuses,” said LaBarbera, AFTAH’s executive director, “but the real truth is they didn’t like our message. If you allow this sort of hecklers’ veto, you’re sanctioning discrimination.”
OMG, what flaming crap that is—“heckler’s veto.” How many times has the right wing protested LGBT and progressive events? If bible beating attempts at a “heckler’s veto” fail to garner the desired results (cancellation, bad publicity), perhaps it’s because the message is so ridiculous and offensive that no one gives a flip. When you sue a hotel for religious discrimination that you didn’t even sign a contract with, that smacks of either stupidity or raw headline hunting, not a noble effort to protect religious liberty.
And when The Peter opened his trap and announced there was a potential for demonstrations outside the venue, he basically handed Holiday Inn an out—they aren’t obligated to sign a contract with any organization if the hotelier doesn’t want bad publicity, potential for violence or to need extra security (after all, who knows what kind of overblown expectations The Peter relayed).
More below the fold, including reaction to the article.
"The sodomites are recruiters and you know who they are after? Your children. They are being recruited by the sodomites. They are being molested by the sodomites. They recruit through rape, they recruit through molestation, they recruit through violation"
"Our country is run by faggots. You know who was the man who was the architect of the bailout? His name is Barney Frank, he is a pedophile…"
"That's who just sold our country into fascism. That's who just sold our corporations to the government. That's who sold out our country, a faggot!"
...They recruit through rape. They recruit through molestation. They recruit through violation. They are infecting our society. They are spreading their disease. It’s not a physical disease, it’s a sin disease , it’s a wicked, filthy sin disease and it’s spreading on a rampage. Can’t you see that it’s spreading on a rampage? I mean, can you not see that? Can you not see that it’s just exploding in growth? Why? Because each sodomite recruits far more than one other sodomite because his whole life is about recruiting other sodomites, his whole life is about violating and hurting people and molesting ‘em.
"God Hates Barack Obama, I hate Barack Obama. I hate Him. God wants me to Hate Barack Obama." "Someone who commits murder should get the death penalty." —the wit and wisdom of Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona, recipient of Box Turtle Bulletin's prestigious LaBarbera Award
Poor Jim Burroway. He actually lives not far from this eliminationist nutbag.
It’s been a while since we’ve given one of these awards out. Maybe I’ve become so jaded that nothing much shocks me anymore. But then something like this comes around and all I can do is shake my head. The latest LaBarbera Award winner comes from just up the road from where I live.
In addition to his LaBarbera Award, I didn't realize that Pastor Anderson was the recipient of a "complementary" missive from Jesus' General…
I've been a huge fan of you work for quite awhile. Your sermon on the sin of peeing while sitting and the essay in which you accuse male gynecologists of being perverts are two of the finest examples of biblical scholarship I've ever seen.
But perhaps your greatest accomplishment is the way you've shepherded your flock. One congregant, Brother Matthew Stucky, serves as a living example of the good work you're doing. The sermon he gave in your stead while you were in Norway, "Purge Out the Liberals" was about as good a sermon as a god-fearing man could hear anywhere. I particularly liked the part where he called Gomer Pyle a "faggot."
It goes on from there…
BONUS! Little Teen Steven delivering his first preach-o-rama (h/t commenter Marvin the Martian) at a teenage youth service at Regency Baptist Church in Orangevale, CA. Note the Wham-worthy fluffy highlighted 'do. Any gaydar pinging out there? It doesn’t even have to be in good working order. It would be sad if the bile coming out of this man’s mouth wasn’t so sick.
Pastor Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona is a bible-quoting hellfire and damnation sort of guy. He calls for the execution of gays in numerous sermons that you can listen to here.
“The same God who instituted the death penalty for murders is the same god who instituted the death penalty for rapists and for homosexuals, sodomites and queers”
Jeremy at Good As You has some choice ones so you don’t have to give that hateful cuss any hits.
Anderson, while he’s memorized The Good Book, he is woefully underinformed about a few legal matters—he apparently wants Barney Frank to sue his pious *ss off.
“The sodomites are recruiters and you know who they are after? Your children. They are being recruited by the sodomites. They are being molested by the sodomites. They recruit through rape, they recruit through molestation, they recruit through violation”
“Our country is run by faggots. You know who was the man who was the architect of the bailout? His name is Barney Frank, he is a pedophile…”
“That’s who just sold our country into fascism. That’s who just sold our corporations to the government. That’s who sold out our country, a faggot!”
Among other sin-filled people Anderson calls to be executed is the POTUS, for his stand on reproductive freedom.
“God Hates Barack Obama, I hate Barack Obama. I hate Him. God wants me to Hate Barack Obama.” “Someone who commits murder should get the death penalty.”
Do you think he would be investigated by the Secret Service during Bush’s terms in office? Did he think Bush deserved the death penalty for executing all those Iraqi citizens in his unnecessary military action? Just asking.
Here he is, in all his homophobic God-hates-faggots-who-run-the-government glory. Note there is no camera pan to his flock.
This sermon exposes the queers for what they really are. All examples of the queers in the Bible they are raping people. In Sodom & Gomorrah they wanted to rape the angels, right off the Ark Noah was raped by his queer son, etc… The truth is God hates the queers & the Bible makes it clear they are reprobates who have lost their chance to be saved.
Leviticus 20:13 “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” The truth is our government should follow the Bible & enforce the death penalty for the queers & this world would be a much better place.
This is vile sh*t. You only have to watch a short bit of this to confirm that he has some “issues” related to temptation. He goes off on the idea of looking at men on billboards and the tempatation the images represent. Ummm…OK.
Have you made plans to attend or record this eye-opener? Caviezel’s making a career out of playing JC.
Internationally renowned actor Jim Caviezel, whose portrayal of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ has impacted millions of viewers around the world, will make a special guest appearance at Trinity Broadcasting Network’s Holy Land Experience August 29th.
Caviezel, who will be interviewed by TBN’s Chief of Staff Paul Crouch Jr. for an upcoming TBN special, is appearing at HLE in conjunction with the September release of The Word of Promise, a dramatic audio Bible produced by Christian publisher Thomas Nelson. Caviezel provides the voice of Jesus on the New Testament portion of the project.
In addition, the 79-CD, 90-plus hour project features portrayals of other key Bible figures by some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Richard Dreyfuss, Lou Gossett, Jr., Stacy Keach, John Rhys- Davies, Gary Sinise, Marisa Tomei, Jon Voight, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, John Schneider, Luke Perry, John Heard, Harry Hamlin, Lou Diamond Phillips, Joan Allen, Jason Alexander, and many, many others.
Holy Land Experience is an exclusive interactive theme park in Orlando, Florida that combines innovative music, drama, and historical exhibits to offer visitors a face to face encounter with the transforming truths of the Bible. Bringing together the sights, sounds, tastes, and feel of the Bible world, HLE is a uniquely educational and inspiring experience.
...Caviezel said the issue of truth was a key consideration in his decision to portray Jesus in The Passion as well as in The Word of Promise audio Bible. “Throughout my professional life, I have always been drawn to truth when selecting projects,” he said. “In the Scripture I find truth that has long been a source of strength and constant inspiration.”
He added that he hopes people will be transformed by the truth they encounter as they listen to The Word of Promise Bible. “People change so much when they know that they’re loved,” he said. “And I want them to know that they’re loved when they hear this.”
Visitors to Holy Land Experience are invited to join Jim Caviezel and Paul Crouch Jr. at the Temple Plaza on Saturday, August 29th, at 11:00 a.m.
This reminds me of the media coverage when JPII was on his death bed and Larry King was running out of things to say and guests to interview about JPII kicking the bucket. This was complete with Sanjay Gupta discussing the state of the Papal fluids. Anyway, King finally did a tease for the next night’s show and said he was going to interview the actor who played Jesus, Jim Caviezel. From that post as we were watching:
CNN’s coverage has been atrocious, fawning faux journalism. Wolf Blitzer was breathlessly and inappropriately failing to question the latest Vatican Press ReleaseTM that touted the Pope was conscious, serene, and “visually participating” in the day’s Mass. Just moments before, the photogenic Dr. Sanjay was doing a sentence-by-sentence “medical interpretation” of the litany of ailments that would discount the Pope had the ability to participate in anything - high fever, organ failures, septic shock and non-existent blood pressure.
...OMFG. CNN is out of control. Kate and I are sitting here now (around 9PM) with CNN on in the background as I am typing this and Larry King just came on to say he’s going to have Jim Caviezel on tonight. Of course, he just played Jesus for Mel Gibson, so I guess that would place him fewer degrees of separation from the Pope and thus a relevant guest.
Bring out the tiny violin…Joe at Amplify received a letter from a desperate Focus On Your Family begging for cash:
“Right now we’re facing a serious budget shortfall that threatens our ability to reach out to parents, families and married couples who count on our help. Income is down nearly $6 million from what we expected and planned for this year.”
Oh my, why isn’t God looking out for the organization founded by Daddy D to save America from the evils of ho-mo-sexuality, fornication and reproductive rights?! Damn, are they not praying enough? Oh that’s right, they are so busy peeping into everyone’s business that they forgot to drop on their knees to ask for protection of “the God-ordained covenant between one man and one woman.”
The other problem is the FOTF’s donor base is now probably on the dole and eating Alpo because of the sh*tty shape Holy Dear Leader left the economy in when he took off in the helicopter to fly back to Texas and away from the mess he made.
The Christian Civic League of Maine’s Mike Heath is gloating about reaching the number of signatures needed to put “the people’s veto” re: marriage equality on the ballot. He boasts even as he tries to make the anti-equality movement look like an underdog (via e-blast from his sidekick Mike Hein, whose email handle is “twofistedmanofgod”):
The Christian Civic League of Maine is encouraged and heartened by the presentation of petitions for the people’s veto. We view the presentation of the petitions as a significant step towards defeating the radical homosexual agenda in Maine. The people of Maine are to be congratulated for their efforts, in particular, our friends and supporters who signed the petitions or helped gather signatures.
We must take a sober and measured view of the meaning of the presentation of these petitions. It shows above all, that the people of Maine are overwhelmingly opposed to same-sex marriage. But we must not become overconfident. The people of Maine should be mindful that the presentation of the petitions is not the final victory. It is rather a milestone on the road to victory. Victory in November is not a foregone conclusion. Our opposition has unlimited financial resources, a clever propaganda campaign which plays on traditional Maine values, and that most powerful factor of all, the support of the media and the liberal establishment.
The Christian Civic League of Maine‘s Mike Hein calls Pam’s House Blend: “a leading source of radical homosexual propaganda, anti-Christian bigotry, and radical transgender advocacy.”
He is “praying that Pam Spaulding will “turn away from her wicked and sinful promotion of homosexual behavior.”
(CCLM’s web site, 10/15/07)
We must also be mindful that this is a struggle that has lasted twenty years. During these twenty years, the Christian Civic League of Maine, led by its Executive Director, Michael S Heath, has been a bulwark against the gay rights movement. Nonetheless, the opposition overcame the will of the people with their persistent, incremental efforts; and they have been absolutely relentless in their pursuit of their ultimate goal, gay marriage.
We must be just as determined, and match their every effort, step by step; and when they have done their utmost, we must do a little more. This war will be won in the hearts and minds of our neighbors. If the government imposes an unfair and unjust law, as the Maine Legislature and the Governor have done with the same-sex marriage law, and if the opposition deceitfully claims that homosexual marriage is a grassroots efforts by the people of Maine, then each citizen must have his say, through public comment, then at the ballot box.
If the government and the liberal establishment seek to silence the people on a matter of conscience, then it is the duty of each citizen to make his voice heard. During the past twenty years, the Christian Civic League of Maine won two referendums, only to see same-sex marriage passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor.
Experience tells us that our struggle will not be over with yet another vote. Our work will be finished when each and every citizen in Maine understands the false claims and insidious methods used by the homosexual rights movement. Our victory will be won when society no longer views homosexuality as normal, and same-sex marriage as desirable. To this end we must have true grit and unwavering persistence and fortitude.
The Christian Civic League will continue to stand by the people of Maine as they go forward to defend marriage, and together we will win the victory.
With his claim that each citizen has a right to have a say at the ballot box—regarding civil rights, mind you—does he really want that precedent set in his state? What else will he want to have a say on, hmmm…divorce…parental rights? Maybe the people of Maine will want to rise up and do something about the rights of fundamentalist busybodies who want to deny certain select groups of people rights.
BTW, watch out Heath and Hein (and the rest of these people), I may show up there to personally campaign against your hate initiative, see below the fold.
Keyboard protection on…look at who’s invited and who’s confirmed to attend the 2009 Values Voter Summit. It’s like the best of the Blend collection of wingers and fundies. Honest to god, did Stephen Baldwin think this head shot was a good idea to circulate? And lookee here—RNC head also-ran Ken Blackwell and Washington State’s fundie laughingstock Ken Hutcherson are on board.
Below the fold are more invitees…it’s too delicious.
I saw this linked a few places, but the one that inspired me to write about it was Cogitamus, so hat tip to them. It is this rantalicious piece by Ben Domenech waxing nostalgic about the America That Was, i.e. where non-white people had the boot firmly on their neck, and of course he blames the invention of sex for the downfall of white supremacy. Or contraception, really, though he doesn’t use the word, since he uses code language like “marrying later” and “narcissism” to refer to dramatic impact that contraception has had on our ability to fuck without getting stuck in loveless marriages, the only way to really build up a Great White Society, in his opinion.
But before I address his claims, as incoherent as they are, I’d like to point out an amusing contradiction that’s popping up in right wing rhetoric more and more often. Early in the rant, Ben says:
Easterbrook’s question can be summed up as: “We’re rich – so why are we so unhappy?” His subject may deserve reexamination these days – with the economic collapse of the last year, millions of Americans now have monetary excuses for their unhappiness, even if they can no longer afford the therapists needed to tell them why it’s their parents’ fault. But the inherent truth is still there: despite this downturn, despite rising unemployment, the vast majority of Americans have everything they could need and more.
Indeed, I’d like him to show up at one of the growing tent cities in our society of enough for everyone, and explain this to the residents. But that’s not funny. What is funny is the contradiction he coughs up just a few paragraphs later:
For the most narcissistic among us, the problem is even reaching a point in life where marriage and reproduction are viewed in positive terms.
As usual, the argument for getting pregnant at 17 and getting married ASAP is that you need to put the social demands of keeping the white race (assumed the only audience for this) numerous before your own personal happiness. Or else you’re a “narcissist”, which is a word that social conservatives use to disparage happiness. Hearing right wingers try to argue that their goal is increased happiness for anyone but a small and wealthy percentage of white men is always a hoot. They’re borrowing modern, liberal concepts to argue against them, and yet again, they don’t understand them. Right wingers are probably not as fun when they’re in the more comfortable zone, panicking over the idea that someone will steal a moment of pleasure in this world, but perversely they’re less effective. Indeed, I’m worried that the repackaging of old anti-humanist ideas in pseudo-humanist language might be effective. For instance, it’s effectively lulled some people with lingering doubts about women’s freedom to convince themselves there’s a way to be anti-choice and still progressive. Even though the evidence demonstrates that there’s really not. Sadly, I can see some suckers fall for the idea that in order to be happy, we have to stop being happy, though they probably won’t be convinced by Domenech’s ham-fisted rhetoric.
The argument that more freedom and more wealth and even more distracting entertainments (and certainly more sex) has made us less happy has a certain appeal, but only for the shallow reason that people are drawn to ironies. That the suggestion is ironic doesn’t make it true, though. Sure, people are often unhappy in modern times—-especially if they live in one of those tent cities that Domenech’s worldview doesn’t allow for—-but are we more unhappy? Conservatives conflate chaos, which there is more of in the lives of middle class white people than the idyllic 50s (though there was more of it then than they’ll allow), but I’m not sure that translates to more unhappiness. And if it does, wouldn’t it be due to the financial shifts that cause economic chaos and living paycheck to paycheck, things that Domenech and other conservatives applaud? Domenech and others want to believe that we’re unhappy despite our toys because someone had the bad taste to invent sex.
ROTFLOL. Well, Harry, you laid down in bed with these people and are just now realizing they also 
Come on Harry - you wrote a flipping book, 
it’s no surprise that the 2009 Values Voter Summit, launching on Friday, sponsored by the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Focus on the Family and a host of other professional anti-gay, misogynist, forced birth advocates, will entertain the attendees with a screening of Speechless: Silencing the Christians.
I was debating back and forth in my head on what order to share these links—-unbelievably disturbing before comical or vice versa?—-and I think I’ll do disturbing then comical. It’s less dramatic, but you folks need the relief. Do you know 
Well we can confirm one thing about this the fundamentalist who called for the execution of Barney Frank and the President (as well as all you Sodomites out there)—the Secret Service was right in paying LaBarbera Award-winner Steven Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona a visit. 
Back in 2007, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality was planning to hold one of its pitiful fundraising banquets at the Holiday Inn Select in LaBarbera’s town of Naperville. He told staff there that there that he expected the homophobia-laden event would draw protestors. Six weeks before the event, the hotel canceled on him, citing “potential negative publicity.”
"The sodomites are recruiters and you know who they are after? Your children. They are being recruited by the sodomites. They are being molested by the sodomites. They recruit through rape, they recruit through molestation, they recruit through violation"
Pastor Steven L. Anderson
BONUS! Little Teen Steven 
Internationally renowned actor Jim Caviezel, whose portrayal of Jesus in The Passion of the Christ has impacted millions of viewers around the world, will make a special guest appearance at Trinity Broadcasting Network’s Holy Land Experience August 29th.
Bring out the tiny violin…
I saw this linked a few places,