Wayne posted below on how much Rick Santorum, AKA Ol’ Frothy Mix, loves earmarks. Also, the following things happened today involving the world’s most pathetic presidential candidate:
1. Maybe the reason Rick Santorum wants so badly to ban contraception and abortion and women being able to breathe without first asking permission has less to do with his morals and more to do with the fact that his wife’s super-sexy ex-boyfriend is an abortion provider. HUH. I don’t know, but it’s interesting news nonetheless.
2. Speaking of Mrs. Santorum, she would like all of you gays to please be nicer to her husband. You see, the fact that he doesn’t believe in your fundamental dignity as human beings enough to set aside his moral bigotry in order to support your equal rights — no, no, that would be too American of him — doesn’t mean he hates you. He just thinks you’re lesser than he is. That’s all. Here’s Karen Santorum, replying to the mother of a gay son:
“I think it’s very sad what the gay activists have done out there. They’ve vilified him and it’s so wrong. Rick does not hate anyone. He loves them. What he has simply said is marriage shouldn’t happen. But as far as hating, it’s very unfortunate that that has happened. And a lot of it is backyard bullying.”
Said Rick: “This is a public policy difference. And the problem is that some see that as a personal assault.”
He went on to reply that children deserve a mother and father and unless that is promoted there will be less of it,” adding: .. There’s all sorts of other relationships that people have, and they are valuable relationships — whether they are amorous relationships or friendship relationships or familial relationships — they’re all important, they all have value they all should be affirmed. But that does not mean that we should change the laws to order — to create an atmosphere where children and families are not being promoted.”
Of course, studies show that Rick Santorum, and his wife, are simply spouting off make-believe crap when they assert that children do best with tradishnully married couples. Indeed, some studies show the kids of gay and lesbian parents doing better than the kids of straight people, simply because our kids are much more likely to be planned.
“Increasingly LGBT people are empowered, not ashamed,” he said. “They’re attacking us, and we’re confronting them. We’re holding them accountable and calling them on their lies and their ‘pious baloney,’ to borrow Newt Gingrich’s phrase. America is waking up to the fact that we’re not bogeymen, and we’re not coming to do any harm, and that we’re your daughters and sons and neighbors, sometimes your parents, your co-workers, friends, colleagues. The Republican party, in this desperate [nod] to its dying evangelical base, is just ramping up the homophobia, and they’re doing themselves real long-term damage.
“What’s interesting is that, you look at who’s been doing the most hate speech: Bachmann? She’s out. Herman Cain? He’s out. Perry? He’s all but out. Santorum? He’s running fourth, he’s trailing even in conservative South Carolina,” Savage continued.
“It’s not winning them the election anymore. It’s not 1992; Pat Buchanan can’t get up and give a ‘gay rights never, family values forever’ speech at the Republican National Convention anymore. Times have changed.”
This is why, though, if we step back from the GOP primaries and look at the state of the whole movement, the Religious Right is becoming more extreme in their rhetoric against LGBT people. They are desperately trying to hold on to the last few clingers, as they’re well aware that the younger generations just aren’t replacing the older generations when it comes to anti-gay bigotry. They won’t admit it, but they know they’ve lost the overall war. In the piece above, we find Dan wondering whether the GOP will ever look the same again, once they truly realize that the bigot thing doesn’t play with the general population anymore. I wonder the same thing, because it’s really not like the current Republican party believes IN anything.
Rod Dreher is one of those writers I don’t mess with much, not because he doesn’t consistently churn out nonsense — he does — but simply because there are a lot of bloggers who really revel in messing with him, and they do it well. We have our favorites over here too.
But, to make an exception, here is Rod Dreher writing at the American Conservative about how he completely believes Rick Santorum when he claims that he would love a gay son just as much as a straight son. Frothy’s quote first:
“I’d love him just as much as I did the second before he told me.”
Well, that’s nice. Personally I’m quite sure Santorum is using one of the lesser definitions of “love,” but that’s neither here nor there for Rod:
I completely believe him.
That settles that. Wait, there’s more:
I found out that in my small, very conservative and churchgoing Southern town, there’s a lot of affection for Ginger Snap, a local black drag queen. Ginger Snap has her own float in the community Christmas parade. I guarantee that if you polled the people along the parade route, both white and black, nine out of 10 would say that homosexuality is wrong and that same-sex marriage shouldn’t be allowed. But they will also watch Ginger Snap roll by on her float and wave.
You see? These wingnuts think that Ginger Snap is a “morally wrong” person, and should not have the same rights as the parade-watchers, but they are willing to wave, and that is all you should be asking of fundamentalist Christians! I mean, it’s not like we live in a secular republic or anything or…oh, wait.
The idea that holding a critical moral position on homosexuality obliges one to hate this young gay man would strike most people around here as strange.
Sort of like how half of Mississippi still can’t get behind interracial marriage, but it doesn’t mean they hate the nice black lady who works at their kids’ school. It seems more to me, Rod, that what we are dealing with is Southerners who are ingrained with the notion that you can say or believe anything as derogatory or bigoted as you want about any human being or group, but as long as you begin all statements on the subject with “Now you know I’m not racist but…” and end them with “bless their hearts,” you remain officially in line with polite Southern decorum.
What’s strange is that Rod seems to notice that there is a Southern thing at play here, but draws asinine conclusions:
If you want logic to dictate social life, stay out of the South, and especially stay out of southern Louisiana.
That’s true, but when he next describes his town as a Love Your Neighbor kind of place, he doesn’t see that the people in his town don’t really love Ginger Snap, just like they don’t love the nice black lady who works at their kids’ schools, just like many wealthy white conservative Southern women are more than happy to have a gay interior decorator or hairdresser, but will vote against gay rights at the drop of a red hat, given the opportunity.
In short, this is the residue of the age-old Southern tradition of “diversity is great, as long as everybody knows their place.” Those of us who are Southern liberals tend to recognize this for what it is, because as the late, great Molly Ivins once said [I am paraphrasing], “Once you realize they’ve been lying to you about race, you question everything.”
But I reckon when you belong to a party for whom such meaningless platitudes know not the boundaries of dialect [refer to above Santorum quote], it’s a little bit easier to rationalize institutional bigotry and discrimination. After all, I’m sure Frothy Mix would wave at a drag queen if you asked him nicely, and Michele Bachmann’s husband might even add, “Oh that wig…bless her heart.”
Since Evan and I have been blogging about it for some time now, TWO readers are likely familiar with the attacks on marriage equality in New Hampshire.
In case anyone needs a refresher, New Hampshire’s entire legislature flipped from Democratic to Republican control in the Tea Party-fueled red tsunami of the 2010 midterms. One unfortunate result of that was that the state’s marriage equality law, which made New Hampshire the fifth state to grant same-sex couples the freedom to marry when it took effect in January 2010, came under assault from anti-gay extremist elements of that state’s GOP. Despite polls decisively showing widespread opposition to repeal among citizens of the Granite State and editorials from several of the state’s majornewspapers calling on lawmakers to end their mean-spirited efforts, Republican politicians have pushed ahead in their attempt to strip away existing rights from their LGBT constituents and spit in the face of the nearly 1,800 same-sex couples who have married there since the law was enacted. (So much for the whole “will of the people” thing, huh?)
According to the Nashua Telegraph, the state House of Representatives is expected to take a vote on the repeal measure very soon after the January 10 presidential primary. Just two years after New Hampshire lawmakers granted lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people the simple dignity of being able to marry the person they love, that precious freedom is in serious jeopardy.
Enter Craig Stowell. Craig is a Republican and a former Marine. He also happens to have a brother, Calvin, who is gay (and a Twitter phenom, but I digress). Bucking his party, Craig became the co-chair of Standing up for New Hampshire Families, the group working to preserve, protect, and uphold the state’s marriage equality law. He also launched a Change.org petition calling on the legislature to do the right thing and leave the law alone. Change.org always asks petition creators why their particular action is important, and Craig’s explanation brought tears to my eyes:
My brother and best friend, Calvin, was tormented all the way through high school because people knew he was gay. There were nights that I worried I may wake up and he wouldn’t be there any longer; crushed by the misery he was forced to endure. When New Hampshire extended marriage to gay and lesbian couples, two years ago, he finally felt accepted. He finally felt like he belonged. Since that day 1,800 loving and committed gay and lesbian couples have married.
Today, the right to marriage is under attack in New Hampshire. If HB 437 passes, same-sex couples will no longer be allowed to marry. This mean-spirited attack is nothing more than state sponsored bullying. The bill actually goes on to allow discrimination in employment and housing based on sexuality.
When I enlisted in the Marines, I took an oath to defend freedom and liberty. In 2004, I went to Iraq to do just that. As the co-chairman for Standing Up for New Hampshire Families, I am now defending my brother’s freedom here at home, and I hope you will help me by telling legislators to vote NO on HB 437.
Two recent polls have shown that Granite Staters overwhelming support marriage equality. One poll coming from the University of New Hampshire shows support at 62 percent. It should be obvious that the majority of New Hampshire believes this is a settled issue.
When my wife Berta and I were married, Calvin was right there by my side as my best man. I want the opportunity to be his best man when he finds the person he wants to marry. With your help, I know we can ensure that freedom will still be there when he does.
Once you can see your computer screen again through the tears and have swallowed the lump in your throat, please join me in heading over to Change.org and signing Craig Stowell’s petition. All of us at Truth Wins Out (along with so many others) have said for a long time that equality is not and should not be a partisan issue. The courageous and heartwarming actions of people like Craig Stowell give me hope that the day will come when that’s truly the case.
The House of Representatives in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico is likely to vote this week on an amendment to the island’s penal code that would strip sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression from the 2004 hate crimes statute, according to Michael Lavers of EDGE Boston.
The proposed changes, approved last week by the Puerto Rican Senate, would also eliminate hate crimes protections for people victimized on the basis of religious beliefs and ethnicity. Leaders of Puerto Rico’s LGBT and Dominican communities held a joint press conference yesterday to criticize the legislation, which is being considered in an extraordinary session convened by Governor Luis Fortuño.
According to Pedro Julio Serrano of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, LGBT-identified Puerto Ricans face violence on an “epidemic” scale. In July, Serrano reported that twenty LGBT people have been murdered in Puerto Rico since January of 2010. The 2004 penal code requires the authorities to investigate whether the killings were motivated by the victims’ sexual orientation or gender identity; however, Lavers writes that the Puerto Rico Department of Justice’s own reports reveal that “prosecutors have yet to convict anyone of a bias-motive crime on the island.”
Puerto Rico joins a growing list of places around the world where LGBTs face orchestrated legislative bullying, including Nigeria, Russia, Uganda, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.
Contact: Wayne Besen, Executive Director
Phone: 917-691-5118
E-mail: wbesen@truthwinsout.org
Contact: John Becker, Director of Communications & Development
Phone: 920-265-6023
E-mail: john@truthwinsout.org
Truth Wins Out Calls on Networks to Reject Reality Show Featuring Anti-Gay Televangelist Joel Osteen
A Show With Homophobic Preacher is ‘Not TV’s Best,’ Says TWO
BURLINGTON, Vt – Truth Wins Out strongly urged all broadcast and cable networks today to pass on a proposed reality television show featuring televangelist Joel Osteen, who preaches at a Houston megachurch. Osteen has made a number of demeaning comments about LGBT people over the years and is most notorious for saying ”I don’t believe homosexuality is God’s best.”
“We strongly urge all television networks to act responsibly and soundly reject giving a platform to an anti-gay preacher like Joel Osteen,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen. “A show featuring someone who dehumanizes LGBT people is clearly not TV’s best.”
Mark Burnett, best known as the man behind Survivor, Celebrity Apprentice, and Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?, has already agreed to partner with Osteen as the show’s producer, and is currently pitching it to television networks.
“Many religious leaders have Osteen’s charisma, without the anti-gay rhetoric,” said John Becker, TWO’s Director of Communications and Development. “Instead of glamorizing and lionizing religion-based bigotry, the networks should offer a show to a more tolerant and inclusive preacher.”
Joel Osteen and his wife Victoria are co-pastors of Lakewood Church, which is the largest congregation in the nation. Each episode of their reality show would feature the Osteens and several hundred church members flying to different parts of the country on miniature mission trips. Don Iloff, an Osteen family spokesman, explained: “We do these projects without the cameras rolling. But Jesus said, ‘Let your light shine. Don’t hide it under a bushel.’”
“With his huge multimedia empire of bestselling books, podcasts, and televised religious services, Joel Osteen is hardly ‘hiding under a bushel,’” said TWO’s Becker. “Further amplification of his already booming voice would be a slap in the face to LGBT people and is completely unacceptable.”
Truth Wins Out is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to create a world where LGBT individuals can live openly, honestly and true to themselves. TWO fights anti-LGBT religious extremism, monitors anti-LGBT organizations, documents their lies and exposes their leaders. TWO specializes in turning information into action by organizing, advocating and fighting for LGBT equality.
How many times have we heard from hardcore Tea Partiers that their cause “focuses on economic issues and doesn’t care about social issues?”
Of course, there’s an ample catalogue of evidence to refute that statement, but just in case we needed any more proof, look no further than the Tennessee Tea Party. They apparently missed the “social issues are verboten” memo when they released this tweet on Monday in reaction to news of Barney Frank’s impending retirement:
Some economic critique.
Tea Party Nation president Judson Phillips issued a statement condemning the tweet, but according to Daily Kos, the Tennessee Tea Party is steadfastly standing behind its bigoted views.
Say what you will about Maggie Gallagher — seriously, go ahead, say what you will — but you can’t say she doesn’t like to help, and isn’t that what the spirit of Thanksgiving is about?
Maggie knows that there are millionsthousands at least nine or ten NOM supporters out there who will be spending Thanksgiving this year with their families and that, apropos of absolutely nothing, they will feel the need to tell all their normal well-adjusted family members about how much they hate gays and the gay marriage and the whatsits and the Kids These Days. She also knows that it’s no fun for her minions when Uncle Dave looks at them over the decanter of giblet gravy and says something to the effect of, “Seriously, what’s wrong with you? Why do you spend so much of your time fixated on gay people? What the hell difference does it make to you whether or not my gay son and his partner are married? God, you need a hobby, and probably some therapy, you dumb bigot.” [Total Uncle Dave comment right there.]
So Maggie to the rescue, with this handy video about how to tell everybody that A. You super hate gays and B. It’s your special privilege as a weird fundamentalist of some sort and it doesn’t mean you’re a bigot. These are the three simple steps, after which I have provided example sentences in italics:
1. State your position briefly. [God hates fags.]
2. Refute the charge of bigotry. [No, I didn't say I hate fags, I said God hates fags. I'm not a bigot. Let me show you some verses in my pop-up Bible that I don't really understand.]
3. A call to tolerance. (Repeat as necessary… “or until they bring in the pie.”) [Why won't you tolerate my bigotry?! I only want to use my voting power to deny a minority their constitutional rights based on my pigheaded, hateful version of my religion, nothing more! I AM THE VICTIM HEEEEEEEEEEEERE!!!!!!!, etc. Oh, look, pie! NOM NOM NOM!]
Here’s the video:
Because Maggie is using such a time-honored template for defending bigotry, if you are a white supremacist or misogynist or any other kind of hate-filled goon, feel free to cut out words like “fag” and “gay” above and insert other epithets in Maggie Gallagher’s Handy Guide To Holiday Bigotry. It’s sort of like a Mad Lib!
For the rest of you who are not backwards, hateful oafs, HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM TRUTH WINS OUT.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is meeting in Baltimore today. According to NPR and the Associated Press, the main focus of this meeting will not be on poverty, income inequality, or economic justice, not on racism or immigration reform, not on feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, or healing the sick. Instead, the bishops’ primary focus will be on attacking loving same-sex couples and families and the freedom to marry that they deserve under our secular Constitution, and perpetuating the lie that marriage equality somehow represents a threat to religious liberty and an attack on Christianity. Not at all surprising, but nevertheless, absolutely disgusting.
UPDATE, courtesy of Igor Volsky at ThinkProgress: The bishops “unveiled a new website — MarriageUniqueForAReason.org — to compliment the [USCCB's] ongoing effort to enshrine their anti-LGBT religious bigotry into civil law ‘promote and defend marriage as the union between one man and one woman.’”
Furthermore, in a report delivered to the conference, Oakland Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, chairman of the USCCB’s “Subcommittee for the Promotion and Defense of Marriage,” stated that the Catholic Church’s fight against civil marriage equality “affirms the inviolable dignity of every human person.”
Remember Daniel Avila, the Massachusetts attorney who advises the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on marriage policy (AKA how to exclude same-sex couples from marriage using any means necessary)? The one who wrote an opinion piece in the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston calling homosexuality a “natural disaster” and saying that homosexuality is caused by Satan entering the wombs of unsuspecting pregnant women and wreaking havoc with their hormones?
Well, after Truth Wins Out and others got wind of his vile comments, the story generated a bit of a firestorm. Being a former member of the Catholic Church, I knew that Avila’s words went too far even for the flagrantly homophobic American bishops. Consequently, TWO made sure our press release condemning Avila was sent directly to both the newspaper that published his remarks (the Boston Pilot) and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops themselves.
Today, both the Boston Pilot and Daniel Avila issued statements apologizing for the publication of the piece, which was also removed from the newspaper’s website. Judging by the tenor of Mr. Avila’s remarks, it looks like the paper and/or the American bishops gave him quite the dressing-down. Both apologies, which can also be found here, are reprinted in full below.
From the Boston Pilot:
Editor’s Note: Daniel Avila issued the following “Retraction/Apology” Nov. 2 in regard to his opinion piece “Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction” which was published in our Oct. 28 edition. In addition to echoing Mr. Avila’s statement of regret, The Pilot also wishes to apologize for having failed to recognize the theological error in the column before publication. The Pilot has removed the column ‘Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction’ from its Website.
And the “retraction/apology” from Daniel Avila:
“Statements made in my column, ‘Some fundamental questions on same-sex attraction’ of October 28, do not represent the position of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the column was not authorized for publication as is required policy for staff of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The teaching of Sacred Scripture and of the Catechism of the Catholic Church make it clear that all persons are created in the image and likeness of God and have inviolable dignity. Likewise, the Church proclaims the sanctity of marriage as the permanent, faithful, fruitful union of one man and one woman. The Church opposes, as I do too, all unjust discrimination and the violence against persons that unjust discrimination inspires. I deeply apologize for the hurt and confusion that this column has caused.”
Truth Wins Out is proud to have played a part in stemming the tide of even greater anti-LGBT hostility from the leaders of the American Catholic Church.
Since Evan and I have been 
The House of Representatives in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico is likely to vote 
BURLINGTON, Vt – Truth Wins Out strongly urged all broadcast and cable networks today to pass on a proposed reality television show featuring televangelist Joel Osteen, who preaches at a Houston megachurch. Osteen has made a number of 
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is meeting in Baltimore today. According to NPR and the 
Remember 
