I guess all the pretense is gone now.

[h/t Blue Texan]

That is, if the gay voter wants to be treated with dignity in this society. Gingrich, who has a lesbian sister and would know better if he was focused on anyone but himself, will lose precisely because of this attitude. Voters simply don’t like people like him:

Newt Gingrich told a gay man and longtime resident of Oskaloosa here today that he should vote for President Obama.

“I asked him if he’s elected, how does he plan to engage gay Americans. How are we to support him? And he told me to support Obama,” said Scott Arnold, an adjunct professor of writing at William Penn University.”

That’s right. If you want to be supported as a gay person by the president, you should vote to re-elect Barack Obama. Newt Gingrich doesn’t need YOUR stinkin’ vote. I could comment, but I’ll just let another Iowa voter respond for me:

In case you are confused about what the man in camo called him, Google it.

The few people who have actual arguments against Barack Obama’s policies (most of the ones who speak in complete sentences are actually arguing against him from the Left) are able to articulate their disagreements without resorting to threats of violence.

Not so for the Tea Party. Meet Jules Hanson:

Facebook faux pas: California libertarian and Tea Party darling Jules Manson is caught calling for the assassination of President Barack Obama and his children.

On Sunday, many Facebook users were greeted by the shocking spectacle of a California libertarian and Ron Paul supporter by the name of Jules Manson advocating for the assassination of President Barack Obama. Manson, a failed politician, recently ran for and lost a seat on the City of Carson’s City Council last March.

Ooh, BIG politician! A failed City Council candidate! What’s lower than that?

Here’s what Manson said on Facebook [click to embiggen]:

You have to appreciate that Jules is too stupid to spell fuckin’ correctly, which puts him below most fifth graders.

Is this what the Tea Party really stands for? Is eliminating public officials what they mean by small government?

(Weekly Column)

Hillary Clinton’s soaring speech on international LGBT issues was game changing.  An historic address of this magnitude was desperately needed to counter the rising tide of backwards and barbaric nations that had recently been persecuting LGBT people to distract from their glaring problems.

“I want to talk about the work we have left to do to protect one group of people whose human rights are still denied in too many parts of the world today,” said Clinton to a packed auditorium of human rights activists who gathered in Geneva for International Human Rights Day. “I am talking about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, human beings born free and given bestowed equality and dignity, who have a right to claim that, which is now one of the remaining human rights challenges of our time.”

The list of countries that recently declared war on sexual minorities include: Russia, Nigeria, Cameroon, Uganda, Iran, and Zimbabwe.  For the contemptible despots who run these underachieving nations, fomenting homophobia makes political sense. By turning homosexuals into bogeymen these rulers can conceal their corruption and appear moral through the blessings of craven clergy.

If the worldwide attacks on LGBT people seem deliberate and coordinated, it is because they very well may be. In author Jeff Sharlet’s book, The Family, he reveals that ambitious American evangelicals are working to surround The United States, Canada, and Western Europe with fundamentalist regimes – using homosexuality as a key wedge issue to gain power. Researchers Rachel Tabachnick and Bruce Wilson have also documented that a radical and sprawling evangelical group, The New Apostolic Reformation, has infiltrated many countries and exported anti-LGBT hate.

It has been greatly disturbing to witness the war on LGBT people unfolding in recent weeks. I had privately fretted that these AHEM’s (American Hate Exporting Movements) were further along in their dubious and dangerous designs than people realized. I was also concerned that the American government would back off challenging international homophobia in an election year. After all, the Obama administration surely did not want to be browbeaten as anti-faith by phony martyrs and their false claims of religious discrimination.

However, something drastic needed to happen to turn back the tide of violence and discrimination that plagued these “loser nations.” The U.S. had to make it crystal clear that those exporting hate were not representing our government. Instead, these zealots were operating a shadow foreign policy that undermined America’s interests.

President Barack Obama boldly stepped into this bloody vacuum and provided desperately needed leadership and moral clarity. He issued an incredible memorandum directing all agencies to “promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons.” This was followed by Clinton’s moving speech that was as notable for its directness, as it was for its depth.

Usually in such addresses we get diplomatic drivel that satisfies no one and accomplishes little. But today’s actions by the administration and Clinton’s speech were different. The words were spoken with true vision and encrusted in values. There was clarity and passion, and no one was left wondering where our country stood on the rights of LGBT people.

This was one of those times where our nation demonstrated true international leadership and made me incredibly proud to be an American. It was stirring to witness our country act decisively as force for moral good. There was no patronizing that relegated the LGBT community to the role of liberalism’s unwanted stepchild. There were no carefully crafted and focus grouped code words that sugarcoated the abuses – just the honest truth spoken from the heart.

“It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave,” said Clinton in her speech. “It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished.”

The beauty of Clinton’s talk was that it was highly educational. It forcefully challenged the ignorant stereotypes and vicious lies disseminated by despots and their American evangelical patrons.

“Being gay is not a Western invention; it is a human reality,” Clinton said. “And protecting the human rights of all people, gay or straight, is not something that only Western governments do.”

Needless to say, the leaders of AHEM’s and anti-LGBT politicians went nuts. “This is just the most recent example of an administration at war with people of faith in this country,” said failing presidential candidate Rick Perry, who shocked people by putting a complete sentence together. Perry conveniently failed to mention that Clinton and Obama are both people of deep faith.

The stunning events in Geneva mark the moment Barack Obama secured a national LGBT vote for his 2012 re-election campaign. Today we felt hope – but more importantly, we witnessed monumental change.

BREAKING: Incredible news, via ThinkProgress:

Recognizing that America’s own record on LGBT equality is “far from perfect,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on nations around the world to recognize that “gay rights are human rights and human rights are gay rights,” during a speech in Geneva, Switzerland this afternoon. Clinton’s address builds on a memorandum President Obama issued earlier today directing all agencies to “promote and protect the human rights of LGBT persons.”

Clinton also announced that the administration is launching a $3 million global equality fund to support the work of civil society organizations working on these issues around the world. The fund will help human rights groups “record facts so they can target their advocacy, learn how to use the law as a tool, manage their budgets, train their staffs and forge partnerships with women’s organizations and other Human Rights groups,” Clinton said.

(A transcript of Secretary Clinton’s remarks can be found here.)

Wayne, Evan and I constantly write about the importance of electing LGBT people and allies to political office, and today’s historic speech should put an end to any skepticism about that point. After all, Secretary Clinton is articulating the official policy of the United States of America under a pro-equality administration. There’s absolutely no way she would have delivered a groundbreaking address to the United Nations, exclusively devoted to LGBT rights worldwide, had she not been specifically authorized to do so at the highest level of the executive branch.

Today’s speech should also serve to both galvanize the American LGBT community and throttle us out of any apathy anyone might feel about throwing our enthusiastic support, checkbooks, blood, sweat, and tears into electing pro-equality candidates.

Members of our nation’s LGBT community should make no mistake: apathy at the ballot box, or anything less than a full commitment to providing the maximum amount of support possible — of all kinds, on all fronts, and at all levels — to political leaders who explicitly support LGBT rights inadvertently helps to hand the country over to people who have specifically and repeatedly promised to do everything in their power to make sure advances like this are stopped for as long as possible, by any means possible, regardless of the consequences to millions of LGBT people around the world.

As Jeremy points out, this recent video from Bryan Fischer is notable in that he spends over seven minutes being as weird as he possibly can on so many gay subjects. This is truly a video of a man uncomfortable in his own skin. Let’s live-blog it!

0:15 – Barack Obama made out with world leaders in a Bennetton ad! The White House didn’t like it, and Bryan Fischer saw pictures of men kissing and immediately thought of anal sex, therefore these ads are calling Obama and Hu Jintao homoseckshul lovers, and furthermore therefore the fact that the White House didn’t like the ads means Barack Obama doesn’t like dudes in that way and is therefore a homophobe. QED, if you’re a moron!

1:00 – Bryan Fischer uses the phrase “homosexual clenches,” and because I can see the words coming out of his mouth, I start to gag a little bit. I may not make it through this video.

1:10 – There are some penguins in Canada who have been Doing The Gay together, and the fact that the zookeepers are trying to get them to mate with lady penguins means that they are ALSO homophobes, like Barry Obama! Of course, this is all just like unhinged liar Bryan Fischer, who is hateful/stupid enough to propagate the myth that the Nazis were a gay movement.

2:10 – Bryan argues though that the penguins are just buddies, and not gay at all! As we all know, it’s not gay if your vestigial wings don’t touch, and any X-rated-two-penguin tobogganing is simply “helping a buddy out.”

2:50 – Bryan is very, very dumb and thinks that the fact that the California Supreme Court ruled that the bigots have standing to defend Prop. 8 is good for their movement. He doesn’t seem to remember how much they embarrassed themselves every single time they have ever had to defend their dumbassery in court.

4:30 – If states don’t defend bigoted, unconstitutional laws, then they lied to God with their hands on the Bible when they were sworn i in! So saith the dingus.

4:40 – God, this video is long.

4:50 – Still grossed out by Bryan saying “homosexual clenches.”

5:10 – Bryan really, really, really wants the Jerry Sandusky crimes to be about homosexuality, even though they have nothing to do with homosexuality, but rather pedophilia. But that’s okay, because normal human Americans know that pedophilia and homosexuality have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Bryan also thinks that the media wants the Jerry Sandusky story to “go away” because of the gay angle that Bryan thinks is there. I guess in Bryan’s world, the media isn’t doing its job unless they burn Jerry Sandusky at the stake with a pink triangle affixed to his breast.

6:45 – Somebody on HuffPost wrote an article about Roman Polansky’s new movie, therefore liberals support men who rape little girls, but want the Sandusky story to go away, and now it’s over, oh thank god.

Truth Wins Out’s acclaimed Center Against Religious Extremism (TWOCARE), offers original, in-depth, and on-site reporting.

“Please, come join us,” insisted an attractive college student flashing her bright Aquafresh smile.

Before I was able to decline her friendly invitation I was gently pulled into a large prayer circle of thirty or so Charismatic Christians. “I’m sorry my hand is sweaty,” the girl said with a sheepish grin.

Those were the last words she spoke that I understood. We quickly surrounded a handful of young preachers who whooped and hollered before surrendering English for the unintelligible language of tongues.  The manic participants sounded like a cross between a prayer service and a Native American tribe preparing for battle.

Eventually, they raised their hands toward the sky pointing to God, which allowed me to escape and enter the seating area at Ford Field, where Lou Engle, founder of The Call, had gathered 27,000 fundamentalist Christians from across the nation on 11.11.11, a date that came to him in what he believes to be a divinely inspired vision. The majority of the crowd was Caucasian, however a significant number were African American. There was a large youth component, but the age of participants reached across the spectrum.

While I can’t speak for the entire conference, which was a 24-hour call to fast and prayer, I did spend 14 hours at Ford Field watching sermons, surveying sideshows, videotaping the gathering, and interacting with the hyped-up crowd. So, my observations, while not complete, do offer a significant snapshot of the 11.11.11 Detroit rally.

In a press release prior to the event I wrote that I expected 11.11.11 Detroit to be a “gay bashing” and “Muslim trashing” extravaganza. After all, The Call had chosen Detroit as its rally site in an effort to convert the region’s estimated 150,000 to 200,000 Muslims.

The Associated Press reported that Apostle Ellis Smith, Engle’s local “point person” for The Call, referred to Islam in a sermon leading up to the revival as a “false,” “lame” and “perverse” religion.

Engle had previously held an infamous event in Uganda that whipped up anti-gay hysteria. In 2008, the electrifying preacher organized a rally at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium in support of Proposition 8, a successful measure to prohibit marriage equality in California.

To my surprise, the festivities, which were aired on God TV, were appreciably toned down. Sure, there was red meat on the menu, but it was not the all-you-can-eat buffet that I had come to expect from Engle and other leaders of the 7 Mountains Movement (aka The New Apostolic Reformation) that he is a key part of.

Indeed, most of the aspersions on Friday evening and Saturday were deliberately cast though euphemism. Homosexuality was never explicitly mentioned, but was instead lumped together with other “sins” under the umbrella of “sexual immorality.” Other times, speakers camouflaged their anti-gay agenda by simply saying they supported “traditional marriage.” During the entire time I observed the event there was not one reference to healing homosexuality and no “ex-gays” were trotted up on the stage to tell tales of how they “prayed away the gay.”

However, the Detroit Free Press reported that Apostle Smith claimed that at the event, “a lesbian came from the homosexual community and said she has never experienced such love. And she is now working to change her lifestyle.”

(I’m sure this alleged lesbian was very stable and well adjusted because it is common for healthy and secure LGBT people to spend weekends attending revivals that consider them demonic.)

The conversion of Muslims was also downplayed and “Dearborn,” referring to the Detroit suburb with perhaps the nation’s largest Muslim population, euphemistically replaced the word “Islam.”

It took several hours to figure out what was really going on – but I gasped when the disturbing pattern finally revealed itself. This elaborate show had all the trappings of a modern religious revival – from the thumping music to the two gargantuan video screens suspended above the enraptured audience. But this ostensibly religious event was little more than a political front.

Its real aim was to peel African American support away from the Democratic Party in a swing state during a critical election year. Not only is President Barack Obama’s reelection at stake, Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow is locked in a tight race that includes social conservative and former GOP Rep. Peter Hoekstra. This cynical revival was not about “values” — it was about votes. It was not about worship, but winning office for Republicans by promoting what writer Ed Kilgore called in The New Republic, a “big-God, small-government creed.”

The amazing part was that the audience seemed totally unaware of the underlying motives and machinations. After all, the words “Democrat” and “Republican” were never spoken and there was only one local politician identified on-stage. It seemed that even some of the minor speakers might not have been privy to the overarching strategy. Nonetheless, a brilliant display of political subterfuge was unfolding as the oblivious crowd bopped to Christian rock with their hands swaying above their heads.

This is not the first attempt of white fundamentalists to lure black voters away from the Democratic Party. Immediately following the 2004 presidential election, social conservatives made a strong push to lure African-Americans. Rev. Lou Sheldon, founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center hate group, The Traditional Values Coalition, hosted a right wing meeting of 70 black religious leaders in Los Angeles.

“In 2004, the religious right was concerned about re-electing George W. Bush,” said Al Sharpton at First Iconium Baptist Church. “They couldn’t come to black churches to talk about the war, about health care, about poverty. So they did what they always do and reached for the bigotry against gay and lesbian people.”

Unbelievably, at the Los Angeles meeting Sheldon played an anti-gay video featuring disgraced Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. Remember, Lott had to step down as Senate Majority Leader after he publicly pined over Strom Thurmond not winning the presidency as a Dixiecrat. African-American columnist Leonard Pitts put Sheldon’s power grab in perspective:

“Whether the issue was slavery, segregation, lynching, voting rights or housing discrimination, social conservatives have always taken a position that history later judged to be ignorant and flat-out wrong….which leaves me at a loss to understand why any African American possessed of a functioning brain would give this atavistic bunch the time of day.”

Still, the attempt was gaining some momentum until Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, which badly frayed the burgeoning unholy alliance. The effort was further hampered by the emergence of Barack Obama as the Democratic standard bearer.

In this renewed effort in Detroit, Lou Engle and his minions were smart. They wisely figured out that direct attacks on the Democratic Party would not fly, nor would all-out verbal barrages against President Barack Obama, who still has strong African American support. They also understood that the baggage surrounding white Evangelical racism would have to be addressed and surmounted before real progress was made.

To overcome these obstacles and recruit African Americans to vote for the GOP they devised what seems like a five-part strategy.

1) Pick a key swing state with a beleaguered city that had an economically disadvantaged African American population

2) Create an emotional spectacle where tearful white people pleaded for forgiveness and repented onstage for past racism

3) Sharply define new wedge issue(s) and create a racially-based conspiracy theory that could ultimately be used against the Democratic Party

4) Exploit these emerging wedge issue(s) to the point they become more important than fixing the economy

5) Redefine voting criteria so candidates are primarily judged by where they stand on these wedge issue(s) – with the ultimate goal of leading many African Americans to conclude that they are best represented by the conservative GOP.

Lou Engle understands that much of Michigan is conservative. If he were able to peel off fifteen or twenty percent of Detroit’s black Democratic vote, he might be able to turn the state solidly red. The main wedge issue he selected to accomplish his plan is abortion. For good measure, he helped weave a conspiracy theory: Sinister white bigots who run programs like Planned Parenthood were using abortion to reduce African American birthrates.

“What Birmingham is to the civil rights movement, Detroit is to abortion,” bellowed Engle at the event. “Detroit has a calling…blacks and Latinos could lead the parade of history.”

Engle’s message was aided by a parade of socially conservative African American ministers.  One preached that black people must choose “BC (Biblical Correctness) over PC (Political Correctness).” The subtext was that the pro-life GOP is on the side of the Bible and thus should be the party of African Americans. Another pastor was even more explicit when he declared that African Americans had a choice: “God’s way or a political party’s way.” (Read More)

Wayne wrote this morning about last night’s victories for openly gay candidates around the country, which is fantastic. It was even more than that, though. Last night there were several crucial victories, messages sent to the whackjobs who have taken over the Republican party that “we are sorry, but the American people aren’t like you and won’t let you ruin our country.” Mississippi voted its infamous “personhood amendment” down, and in Ohio, voters told Republican governor John Kasich exactly where he could put his union-busting SB5 law. In this clip, Lawrence O’Donnell and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz [D-FL] discuss the results.

In the clip, O’Donnell mentions that Ohio voters also rejected the individual mandate in the healthcare law passed under this administration, but Schultz also points out that a very conservative Republican judge upheld the HCR law as constitutional yesterday, which is another smackdown to extremists.

As mistermix at Balloon Juice points out, the entire Dan Savage Salon interview is worth reading, but I would encourage readers to absorb his words on the Obama administration and embrace the circumspect quality of his words:

So how do I feel about the Obama administration? I’m really very pleased with what’s been delivered. I am not an idiot, and I’m not a Pollyanna sort of kumbaya type. I don’t doubt we wouldn’t have seen these things, that these things would not have been delivered, if we didn’t make it clear there would be a price to pay if they weren’t. Obama “isn’t there yet” on same-sex marriage — if you believe him. And, frankly, I don’t. I don’t think somebody who was for same-sex marriage in ’96 is against it in 2011. And I agree with Tracy Baim, the editor of Windy City Times, who did the interviews with Obama back in the ’90s when he was running for state Senate in Illinois, that we’re not going to listen to what he says anymore, because it’s too aggravating. We’re going to watch what he does. And he’s doing the right stuff.

[...]

So there are things that are frustrating and galling, still. But DADT, dropping the DOMA appeal, all the little fixes around the edges that they’ve done. All that adds up to something that has to be rewarded. The LGBT movement, I think, doesn’t do itself any favors if we convince our ostensible allies in the Democratic Party that we’re never satisfied. We won’t be fully satisfied until we have full civil equality, but these developments are satisfying and there has to be a payback. It’s a political process.

He points out that there are issues — serious issues — yet to be dealt with, but I pretty much agree with this assessment, and am a bit bemused by some who are shocked — shocked! — by the fact that Dan isn’t all Full Metal Firebagger about things.

File under “dog bites man” or “wingnut flings poo at protective glass.” Here’s Herman Cain explaining why the Obama administration’s decision to stop defending DOMA is, wait for it, an impeachable offense:

“That’s a great question and it is a great — it would be a great thing to do but because the Senate is controlled by Democrats we would never be able to get the Senate first to take up that action, because they simply don’t care what the American public thinks. They would protect him and they wouldn’t even bring it up,” Cain said, citing the administration’s position on the Defense of Marriage Act as an impeachable offense.

More from his answer: “So the main stumbling block in terms of getting him impeached on a whole list of things such as trying to pass a health care mandate which is unconstitutional, ordering the Department of Justice to not enforce the Defense of Marriage Act — that’s an impeachable offense right there. The president is supposed to uphold the laws of this nation … and to tell the Department of Justice not to uphold the Defense of Marriage Act is a breach of his oath. … There are a number of things where a case could be made in order to impeach him, but because Republicans do not control the United States Senate, they would never allow it to get off the ground.”

Says the man who spent his life being like tenth place at pizza delivery. Or whatever he did.

Please, attempt to argue with Barack Obama about The Constitution, Herman.  Seriously.

Oh wait, you can’t, because your chances of becoming the Republican nominee are somewhere between “slim” and “lol.”

[h/t Andrew Belonsky @ Towleroad]