What a sad life this man leads. There was a time when Matt Barber had a career with Allstate. Now he’s just on wingnut welfare at the Liberty Counsel. Today, Barber is crying about the fact that people are being mean to Chick-Fil-A:

Forget about Bert and Ernie. I always thought Kermit the Frog was a little “light in the flippers,” if you know what I mean.

Matt Barber just called Kermit the Frog a faggot. This is what they have left.

Miss Piggy? Probably just cover (wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more).

Miss Piggy is a beard, much like the wives of many Religious Right leaders, he seems to be saying.

And, how about that perennial bachelor, Fozzie Bear? Wocka Wocka, indeed.

And then he called Fozzie Bear a faggot. This is the beginning of his column. This is what passes for humor on the Right.

Still, a recent move by The Jim Henson Company makes you wonder.

Makes you wonder if all the puppets are gay?

In a distinctly knee-jerk, anti-family development, the Muppet mogul has severed promotional ties with Chick-fil-A – the booming fast-food chain and American Cinderella story. The multi-billion dollar company has stirred the ire of left-wing extremists in recent days.

Chick-fil-A’s crime? Failure to obey the nauseating, mind-numbing dictates of political correctness.

No, it’s that they give millions of dollars to hate groups, the kind that you support, the kind whose work leads to kids committing suicide. But good try as to ascertaining the Muppets’ motives.

Dan Cathy – a devout Christian and CEO of the biblically based eatery –

The entire eatery is biblically based? Where in the Bible does it tell people to eat MSG-laden crap guaranteed to contribute to wingnut obesity?

recently made a few innocuous public comments in support of legitimate marriage

Statements which shed light on the fact that the corporation gives millions to hate groups.

sentiments the vast majority of morals-minded Americans happen to agree with.

Nope. The vast majority of wingnuts may agree with those statements, but anti-gay wingnuttery is being summarily bred out of the population. Evolution at work, y’all.

(I sent an email to Chick-fil-A corporate suggesting that, in reprisal, they add frog legs and ham hock to the menu. No reply, thus far.)

Matt Barber took the time to e-mail the top brass at an Obesity Provider to ask for help in sticking it to a few puppets that hurt his fee fees. This is why we call it “wingnut welfare,” as opposed to “a job.”

“We are very much supportive of the family – the biblical definition of the family unit,” said Cathy. “We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that. … We know that it might not be popular with everyone, but thank the Lord, we live in a country where we can share our values and operate on biblical principles.”

Or, at least we used to live in that country. No more. Not if we let the godless left have its way.

No, you still live in that country, but whining about how it’s being taken away by the boogeyman helps ensure that a portion of wingnut America’s Social Security checks will still come rolling into hate group coffers.

Cathy’s statement was all it took. The “progressive” establishment had a mouth-frothing, water-meets-Wicked-Witch-of-the-West meltdown. They’ve charged the battlefield with that characteristic slash-and-burn, seek-and-destroy style and grace we’ve come to expect.

Nah, we’re just better at planning successful boycotts than you guys are. The Religious Right comes up with something new to scream about and boycott approximately once a week and it affects exactly no one’s bottom line, because corporate America has done the cost-benefit analysis and determined that wingnuts simply aren’t their most valuable customers. Also, Cathy’s statement was more the straw that broke the camel’s back than anything else. People have been tracking Chick-Fil-A’s financial associations with hate group-Americans for a while now.

“Boycott Chick-fil-A!” shrieked the ever-tolerant, oh-so-enlightened sexual-anarchist troglodytes. “Bigots! Haters! Homophobes!” (You know; same pointless pap, different day.)

Ouch, give that thesaurus a rest, Bam Bam!

Demanding a public apology from Cathy, Chicago Alderman Joe Moreno pledged to prohibit Chick-fil-A from opening a restaurant in Chicago’s Logan Square because – well – because he’s a communist.

Communist? Words have meanings, Bam Bam. Liberals have actually been divided over whether statements like Moreno’s have been prudent. We’re having the discussion over here, at the grown-up table. You may continue flinging your poo while we talk, though.

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino told the Boston Herald that he, too, would block Chick-fil-A from the “Cradle of Liberty.” (Want some crackers with that rich irony chowda, Tommy?)

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel followed suit.

Now, of course, those three politicians went to different lengths in whether they said they would outright “block” Chick-Fil-A from opening or expanding in their cities. That doesn’t help Bam Bam’s narrative, though.

Now, I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but let me just say to these, um, gentlemen: Look here, you law-breaking, totalitarian, anti-American dolts. We have a thing in this country called the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. We will not sit idly by while you use this sacred document as potty paper for puppy. You may have sworn-off chicken, but keep it up, tough guys, and freedom-loving America will force feed you a Sears Tower-sized helping of crow.

Again, liberals have been arguing over the best strategies here, but I will simply point out that the Religious Right tramples on the Constitution on a daily basis as they try to create an America that has never existed, one which abides by the dictates of their fourth-grade interpretation of the pop-up edition of the Bible rather than the very secular U.S. Constitution, so it’s a bit quaint to hear them bitching about something they simply don’t understand.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Liberty Counsel civil-rights firm weighed in: “To deny business permits or zoning approvals to Chick-fil-A because the president of the privately owned family business expressed his biblical view of natural marriage is outrageous,” he said. “Any city trying to ban Chick-fil-A will not win this battle.”

I think the cities should simply ban fast food establishments that aren’t open seven days a week, as Matt Yglesias suggested. It’s content-neutral. Or just, you know, let them open and make them pariahs in your community.

“These government officials ought to be ashamed. For a public official to threaten denial of a right to do business because the president of a private company supports natural marriage is the height of stupidity and intolerance.

“Unfortunately, their response is typical of intolerant homosexual activists,” he continued. “They will go to any lengths to silence the majority of Americans who believe that children do best when raised in a natural family with one mom and one dad.”

Oh, Staver. It’s not a majority and nobody is silencing any of you. In fact, we like to quote your words verbatim, to wider audiences than you’d ever reach otherwise. It’s part of our strategy of bringing people over to our side.

Who would’ve thought that a major flashpoint for our culture war would involve waffle fries – evidently laced with some illicit, highly addictive chemical agent

Spoken like an addict.

and equally mouth-watering chicken-and-pickle sandwiches?

I’m sure there’s a twelve-step program out there. If you want to lose your lunch, imagine Matt Barber standing in front of a mirror saying the words “mouth-watering chicken-and-pickle sandwiches,” because that’s exactly where my mind went when I read that.

That’s the thing about liberalism – about political correctness. It exists in the realm of fantasy. It’s a barrier to truth. “Progressivism” comprises a farcical assortment of pseudo-utopian ideals that reflect how postmodern leftists wantthings to be, rather than how things actually are.

And that was the moment that the binding came off his grease-stained thesaurus.

They float the propagandist idiom “marriage equality” – choosing all the while to ignore objective “marriage reality.”

Which doesn’t exist, as the definition of marriage has been changing for eons, since long before the creation myth of the religion Bam Bam ascribes to was written down.

So-called “same-sex marriage”? A counterfeit. It’s like taking a rotten apple, spray-painting it orange, and then calling it an orange. “Gay marriage” is no more real marriage then a rotten apple is an orange.

Happy, committed same-sex married couples all over the world are, of course, the negation of that statement, and indeed, Matt Barber’s entire life’s work.

It’s unavoidable. Marriage is, by definition, the joining of two complementary opposites – two “others.”

Actually, no.

Consider Christmas lights

Oh for god’s sake.

When you string them together you necessarily “marry” the male end with the female end. It defies logic and physics to try and force a male-male or female-female connection.

I didn’t realize that “marrying” was the same thing as “penetration,” but then again, wingnut sex shame does tend to permeate everything they do, which is why they’re so pruriently focused on how we have sex. Anyway, keep going on about your gaudy Christmas displays:

There can be no real connection. Sure, you can employ some artificial mechanism – say, superglue or duct tape – to create a mock connection

I really don’t want to know how superglue or duct tape factors into Matt Barber’s conception of marriage.

but the lights don’t work, and the duct tape eventually gives out. Not to mention that it’s aesthetically off-putting.

Are we still trying to make an analogy between Christmas lights and sex? I can honestly say that I’ve never imagined what Matt Barber or any other wingnut looks like having sex, but I’m fairly certain it’s “aesthetically off-putting.” Why does he spend so much time imagining us having sex? Seriously. And wasn’t this supposed to be about marriage?

“Gay marriage” is mock marriage. It’s fantasy – a dead end.

You already said that. This is devolving into word salad, and fast.

Even a child knows this intuitively

Not unless they’re taught to hate. When they’re not, this happens.

and, in their heart-of-hearts, lefties and “gay” activists know it, too.

Ha, there’s that delusional thinking again. Part of the reason wingnuts act the way they do is that they truly believe that the beliefs their mamas and daddies indoctrinated them into, which they got from their mamas and daddies, and so on, are actually written on the hearts of every human being. It’s even in their religious texts. They really think that people are like them. We, on the other hand, live with the reality of knowing that we have to fight an uphill battle to break their cycle of thoughtless bigotry.

That’s why they respond so violently when people snicker at it or, as in the case of Dan Cathy, even respectfully acknowledge that it’s not grounded in reality.

“Violently?” I’m still waiting for a story about a fundamentalist Christian being a victim of actual violence as a result of these “culture wars.” Meanwhile, we’re still counting the bodies of LGBT people who have died because “pro-family” teachings taught them or their bullies that they’re unworthy and/or hellbound.

The wonderful thing about liberals is that they almost universally overplay their hand. They respond to “inconvenient truths” with hysterical, reactionary overreach. There’s been a magnificent backlash from their attacks on Chick-fil-A. They’ve picked a fight they cannot win.

It depends on how you define “win.” Maybe in the echo chamber of Matt Barber’s Liberty-Land, people are on his side, but educated young people in large cities (most of them straight) — you know, the future of this country — are swearing off Chick-Fil-A in droves because they reject the bitterness and hatred of the generations that came before. And it’s funny: a lot of those educated young people came from Evangelical Christian families. That’s why Barna does all those studies about “why do all our kids leave the church the second they have the first opportunity to do so?”

Gov. Mike Huckabee, never afraid to speak his mind, has waded into the fracas. He’s organized a “buy-cott” – a “Chick-fil-A Appreciate Day” for Aug. 1, 2012.

On that day, marriage-reality supporters – anyone who loves freedom and family values, really – are encouraged to patronize Chick-fil-A. I’ll be taking my family.

A list of venerable luminaries, including the Rev. Billy Graham, has joined the event. Millions are expected to participate.

Great. I’m sure all their future diabetes will thank them for eating more bigot chicken to expedite the process.

Here’s where he uses fact-free vitriol to call gays pedophiles:

In the wake of the Penn State scandal surrounding Jerry Sandusky’s homosexual assault on dozens of young boys

Nice. No, Bam Bam. You get to have the right to your own bigoted opinions, but not your own fact. Sandusky is a traditionally-married man who happens to be a pedophile. Normal people understand this.

 the Boy Scouts of America moved to protect children by re-affirming its prohibition against scoutmasters who live a homosexual lifestyle.

Yes, they’re bigots too, and Eagle Scouts gay and straight are turning in their badges as that accolade, from an ever-shrinking organization, is becoming meaningless and embarrassing.

Although they didn’t expressly indicate that Penn State influenced their decision, there can be little doubt it did.

Because Bam Bam says there’s little doubt. By that logic, we should ban anyone who’s ever been on Christian television from being around kids, due to that one guy in Florida who hosted a kids’ ventriloquist show, who, oh, by the way, had an elaborate plan to murder and eat children.

As with the Chick-fil-A debacle, libs lost their collective noodle. Apparently, the only thing they hate more than Chick-fil-A is a “morally straight” 12-year-old who strives for integrity and merit.

Um, the point was really more that that morally straight 12 year-old just might be gay, or have a gay brother or sister, and it’s shameful and evil to put kids in programs which teach them to hate themselves or their families. Also, it’s been proven that gays are no more likely than straight people to molest kids, multiple times, so the Boy Scouts’ decision (as we all know) was based on little more than pig-ignorant bigotry.

So here’s my proposal: Don’t let a bunch of uber-obnoxious, loud-mouthed liberal pansies intimidate you.

Oh yes, it’s the “gays are the real bullies” meme. All right. Again, call us when your side has a bodycount.

On Wednesday, Aug. 1, have your kids wear their Boy Scout uniforms to Chick-fil-A. Scoutmasters, bring ‘em all.

If your arteries don’t slam shut for Jesus on August 1, then the fags have won.

There’s still time to reverse America’s spiral down the moral toilet bowl of history. On Aug. 1, even if you don’t eat fast food, buy Chick-fil-A anyway. Then give it to some homeless guy and claim it as a tax deduction.

Heaven forfend a fundamentalist give to the poor without claiming it as a deduction…

That’ll really make ‘em squirm.

Not really. Why do they think their actions make us squirm? Oh yeah. They’re delusional. They need to believe they have a bigger impact than they do. They need to believe that in fifty years, they’re still going to be relevant, as opposed to confronting the reality that generations down the road, anti-gay bigots will be relegated to a KKK-style pickle stain in the history books and their grandkids will be wondering what in the hell ever made their ancestors so mindlessly hateful.