It amazes me how much the Christian press and fundamentalist leaders will just outright lie to their flocks.  LifeSiteNews is whining about the “Every Child Deserves a Family” act, introduced by Rep. Pete Stark [D-CA].  The main purpose of the bill is to address the myriad number of kids who go homeless in this country every year, in part by denying federal funds to adoption agencies that discriminate against qualified loving parents, i.e. religious organizations that won’t place kids with loving gay couples.  Here, let the Washington Blade explain:

The Every Child Deserves a Family Act, which has 33 original co-sponsors, would restrict federal funds for states that allow discrimination in adoption or foster care placement based on the sexual orientation, marital status or gender identity of potential parents — as well as LGBT children seeking homes. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is expected to introduce companion legislation in June in the Senate.

[...]

At the news conference, Stark billed the legislation as a means to ensure children living in the foster care system have access to a greater number of adoptive families — including households with single parents or same-sex parents.

“What’s in the child’s best interest is what the bill is trying to promote,” Stark said. “There is no information that shows that children raised by a single parent or gay or lesbian parent households have any more or less problems than all other children.”

According to Stark’s office, the U.S. government spends more than $7 billion each year on a foster care system against potential single and LGBT parents and allows around 25,000 children age out annually. More than 500,000 children are in foster care and 120,000 of them available for adoption.

See? It’s a two-fer. On the one hand, it’s about considering the children first, but it has the side effect of correcting an injustice for LGBT families.  As you can read for yourself [because you are liberals], the bill, again, denies federal funds to groups that discriminate.  It doesn’t force them to shut down.  It just says, “here, if you are a bigot, that is fine, but get off the government teat.”

So how does LifeSiteNews breathlessly report this to their mouth-moving readers?

Ominous House Bill would effectively ban US

Christian adoption agencies

Holy crap, they lie in the headline!

A bill reintroduced into the U.S. House of Representatives this month proposes federal-level punishment for states that ban homosexual couples and non-married individuals from adopting children. Effectively, the bill would ban all Catholic and Christian adoption agencies or forbid them from acting on faith beliefs.

And they lie in the first paragraph! That federal-level “punishment” is simply a withholding of federal support. If you need to be a bigot, and also run an adoption agency, get your own damn donors! It is that simple.

Later in the piece, LifeSite decided to contact a hate group executive for his opinion:

Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council, agreed. “It would have the effect of either banning Christian adoption agencies or forbidding them from acting on their faith convictions and their moral convictions in terms of what is in the best interest of a child,” he warned.

Sprigg said that Christian organizations, such as Catholic Charities are among the “most effective adoption agencies” which have an “outstanding record”. Additionally, he said, “unique problems” associated with homosexual couples and non-married couples indicate that these homes are “likely to be less stable than a married husband-and-wife household.”

Uh huh. First of all, Peter is lying about “unique problems” making gay couples’ households “less stable.” We know this. We know how the FRC lies with research. There is NO credible evidence that kids do any worse with same-sex couples. And his remark about “forbidding [bigot agencies] from acting on their faith convictions and their moral convictions in terms of what is in the best interest of a child” is not true either. Again, they’re just losing federal funding. If they rely on that in order to stay open, well, sucks for them. The problem — for the bigots — is that “what is best for the child” is not open to religious interpretation. “Religious interpretation” for Christian Scientists would suggest that the “best interests” of a child with leukemia involve prayer. Irrefutable facts about the “best interests” of that child, on the other hand, would lead the parents to head to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis as quickly as possible. Likewise, fundamentalist bigot interpretations of what is in the “best interests” of children who are in the system may exist, but that does not mean that they are actually correct, and really, in a nation as large as this one, with hundreds of thousands of kids In The System, we need to be supporting adoption agencies , on a governmental level, that truly look out for the best interests of those kids, ALL of them. So run around with your “religious interpretation” of the best situation for kids all you want, but if you want to receive federal money, if this bill is passed, you’re going to have to go with the grown-up, fact-based version of what’s best for those kids.

So sorry. Go cry about your religious freedom now. It’s abundantly obvious to the rest of us that you religious wingnuts care far more about upholding your easy-to-shatter misconceptions about the world around you than you EVER will care about actual kids in need.

Yep:

Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers — the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.

Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan. A letter describing the change in health benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District.

“We looked at all the options and implications,” said the charity’s president, Edward J. Orzechowski. “This allows us to continue providing services, comply with the city’s new requirements and remain faithful to the church’s teaching.”

Insane.

I’m not quite sure what they think they’re doing here. Do they think that if they take things away from their straight employees, they’re suddenly going to incite the mob to blame it all on the mean gays and lesbians? Do they think people are that stupid? I feel sorry for those spouses who might have health problems that need treatment, only to have it denied because of their employers’ bigotry. And if someone dies from lack of healthcare because the Catholic Church is unable to function in modern society? That would be shameful, and the family would have no one to blame but the Church.

I guess this is just another example of that “light of the world” behavior we’ve grown accustomed to from these very Christian people.

(h/t Joe Sudbay)

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington DC continues to show its true colors:

The Archdiocese of Washington has decided to drop its foster care program over a dispute on pending same-sex marriage law with the District of Columbia.

The decision, posted late yesterday on the archdiocese’ Web site, announced that the archdiocese had ceased its 80-year-old program Feb. 1, the day the city’ contract expired with Catholic Charities, the church’ social services arm.

(…)

Catholic Charities, which runs more than 20 social service programs for the District, transferred its entire foster-care program — 43 children, 35 families and seven staff members — to another provider, the National Center for Children and Families.

Priorities! It’s amazing to me that the Catholic Church still laughably considers itself the one true church, because they don’t seem to know their Bibles very well at all! The Bible mentions same gender marriage exactly, um, zero times, and gay sex six times. Even then, the condemnations involve rape, coercion, domination, and tribal practices, so it’s not really “sexytime” they’re talking about anyway. But that same book has a whole buncha verses about caring for the downtrodden, with a particular emphasis on orphans.

But then again, I guess if the Catholic church can’t keep the kids under close priestly supervision, they’d rather not deal with them at all.

Can we finally stop pretending they’re a moral authority on any subject?

I wrote the other day about Alan Chambers’ bizarre talk at the Liberty University G-H8 summit. In case that left you wanting more, here’s Rena Lindevaldsen of Liberty Counsel* speaking for almost ten minutes about how, if Fundamentalists have to abide by the law in our secular society, it’s somehow a violation of their freedom of religion. Uh huh. Just to clear things up: religious freedom doesn’t include the right to lord your beliefs over other peoples’ lives. Note that every complaint Rena has about non-discrimination laws involves conservative Christians feeling the need to use their religious beliefs as a club to hurt other people. THAT is the freedom our opponents fight for. They’re not fighting for the right to believe and worship as they please. They have that, and they’ll always have that, because no one has ever threatened to take it away!

No, these people are simply children who refuse to learn to play well with others, and if I was their preschool teacher, I’d have a really hard time passing them.

Anyway, Rena goes over the Religious Right’s Greatest Hits:

1. Catholic Charities wouldn’t abide by the law in Massachusetts, so they cried victim when they freely chose to close their doors, thereby throwing children under the bus.

2. The photographer in New Mexico who broke the laws of the state of New Mexico when she refused to photograph a same-sex wedding. Was she a photographer working in a religious institution? Oh hell, of course not! She just thought she should be able to deny her services to any groups/people she doesn’t like, much in the way restaurants denied service to African Americans before the law compelled them to do differently.

3. The couple running the bed and breakfast in Vermont who opened their space for weddings and parties, oh, except that one time when (!!!) a homosexshul couple wanted to have their wedding reception there, so they said no, and used their religious bigotry as an excuse to deny that service.

4. The YMCA had to allow gay couples to have family memberships! OH NO! The sky is falling, and it’s like lions are personally eating Rena Lindevaldsen’s flesh!

What tedious whiners!

Anyway, here’s the video, if you want to watch it. She moans and groans about transgender people, GLSEN, Kevin Jennings, PFOX and some other bullroar. But again, notice that NONE of the so-called “religious discrimination” she whines about involves their actual religious freedom. It’s ALL about religious people being denied the right to their own self-appointed moral pedestal over the rest of the population.

(h/t Good As You)

OH AND ONE TIME THERE WAS THIS BOOK CALLED KING AND KING! HAVE WE WHINED ABOUT THAT ONE TODAY? Yeah. She whines about King and King. Again.

Seriously, these fools need some new material.

*Lisa Miller, your client, is still a kidnapper on the lam. Just pointing that out.