In the middle of a breathless, stupid missive from the Family Research Council hate group [short version: give us money!], they use the defeat of Anthony Weiner to make themselves and their minions feel better:
Meanwhile in the heart of liberal New York City, pro-family Democrats helped elect a Republican for the first time since the 1920′s. A major deciding factor? The losing Democratic candidate, while in the state senate, offended many of his religious constituents by voting to redefine marriage to appease a small homosexual constituency.
Yeah, no. There is an anti-incumbent atmosphere right now [as there often is with American voters these days, but especially when the economy sucks], and oh, also, Anthony Weiner was a disgraced former congressman. That tends to contribute to whether a party keeps a seat in a special election, even though the Democratic candidate, in this case Weprin, is a totally different person. If this district votes for a Republican again, then we can start talking about “deciding factors” and whatnot. Of course, redistricting is about to, most likely, eliminate that congressional seat anyway, so I’m not sure why we’re even talking about this.
No, Family Research Council, the tide is not turning in your direction, and it’s not going to turn in your direction. I know it makes your followers feel better [and more likely to give you their bingo winnings] to assert such things, but to the rest of us it just looks sad.
Also, read Roy Edroso on this. Maggie Gallagher has had equally stupid things to say about the NY-9 election, and he makes fun of her right nicely.
Alvin McEwen has a great, very important petition at Change.org that you should all check out. In it, he is petitioning the United States Congress to subject Religious Right testimony on LGBT issues to a high level of scrutiny, based on their pattern of cravenly distorting actual research in order to further their anti-gay agenda:
In June of this year during a Congressional hearing on the Defense of Marriage Act, Sen. Al Franken exposed Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery’s attempt to inaccurately cite a study to defame same-sex households.
Earlier this year during another Congressional hearing on DOMA, National Organization for Marriage’s Maggie Gallagher committed the same distortion – i.e. inaccurately citing a study to defame same-sex households. Gallagher’s group (NOM) has also been called out twice by the Pulitzer Prize winning site Politifact for inaccurate negative statements it has made about the gay community.
The Family Research Council was declared as an official anti-gay hate group last year by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its tendency to spread propaganda about the gay community such as gays molest children at a high level and same-sex households harm children.
However, the head of the Family Research Council – Tony Perkins – is frequently called as a Congressional witness on many occasions from discussing issues of gay equality to the selection of Supreme Court justices.
That’s just three examples. Alvin points out at his blog that, though Tom Minnery was called out, Maggie Gallagher and Tony Perkins got away with it, and that this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Religious Right distorting the work of real, honest researchers. That petition, again, is at Change.org, so check it out and sign it.
The other petition comes from Kathy Baldock, and focuses on the pride celebration in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you’re not familiar with Kathy, she is a straight, evangelical woman who spends her days fighting for dignity and respect for LGBT people within the church. At Charlotte Pride, as usual, the vehemently anti-gay activist Michael Brown has planned a counter demonstration called “God Has A Better Way.” Brown has a distinct pattern of pretending that he is reaching out in love to LGBT people, and somehow managing to send some of the most grotesque, hateful messages possible to the gay community. Kathy explains a bit more about the message of the God Has A Better Way people:
The stated beliefs of the backers of GHABW * with respect to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are:
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are a deviation from God’s best, God’s intentions and His design.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people can change orientation and be heterosexual with no negative effects.
If they do not succeed in orientation change, they should remain celibate in order to identify as Christians.( “Gay Christian” is always placed in quotation marks to dismiss the existence of gay Christians.)
The majority of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people are inherently unhappy, unhealthy, sexually immoral or rebellious to the will of God.
Transgender people would best follow God’s plan by using hormonal therapy, prayer and counseling to overcome the issue of gender identity. Sexual reassignment surgery should never be used as an option.
Acting on same sex attraction is sinful and indicative of non-submission to God.
Same-sex attraction is a behavior, not an orientation.
In your face hateful, as usual. These people, of course, claim that they are bringing this message in “love,” but Michael Brown has shown repeatedly that his concept of “love” is warped at best.
Sign Kathy’s petition to ask the group to cancel their nasty little counter rally here.
As the new Congress is sworn in this week, there is no denying that pro-LGBT numbers have shrunk on Capitol Hill. A Human Rights Campaign analysis shows a pick-up of 53 House seats to anti-LGBT lawmakers as well as a 5 seat addition in the Senate. Not only do those opposing basic equality hold positions of power as House leaders and committee chairmen, their ranks have swollen to 225 – a solid majority of the chamber. This presents not just a roadblock to progress but also the threat of legislation that could be damaging to the community.
When anti-equality forces controlled Congress for a decade (1994-2005), they stymied any progress on LGBT issues, instead making attacks on our community part of their governing agenda. Among these were: attempting twice to amend the U.S. Constitution to deny marriage equality to same-sex couples nationwide; trying to strip federal courts of the authority to hear marriage equality cases; blocking DC’s local efforts to provide domestic partnership benefits to its employees; cutting funding for HIV prevention, research and treatment despite a growing epidemic, while pouring federal dollars into disproven abstinence-only programs that exclude or even denigrate LGBT youth; and standing in the way of openly-LGBT appointees.
At least their power is limited by the Senate and the President, but it’s going to be a stagnant couple of years.
On behalf of limited government conservatives everywhere we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement.
Poll after poll confirms that the Tea Party’s laser focus on issues of economic freedom and limited government resonated with the American people on Election Day. The Tea Party movement galvanized around a desire to return to constitutional government and against excessive spending, taxation and government intrusion into the lives of the American people.
The Tea Party movement is a non-partisan movement, focused on issues of economic freedom and limited government, and a movement that will be as vigilant with a Republican-controlled Congress as we were with a Democratic-controlled Congress.
This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue, nor should it be interpreted as a political blank check.
Already, there are Washington insiders and special interest groups that hope to co-opt the Tea Party’s message and use it to push their own agenda – particularly as it relates to social issues. We are disappointed but not surprised by this development. We recognize the importance of values but believe strongly that those values should be taught by families and our houses of worship and not legislated from Washington, D.C.
Here is the thing, though: one of the hallmarks of the 2010 Teabagger Candidate was that she was, among other things, extremely anti-gay. I understand the frustration that some Tea Party people must feel, those who really bought into the idea that their movement was somehow new and different and removed from the Republican party, but that’s mostly a media myth. And the fact that so many of these new legislators, besides being teabaggers, are anti-gay, has never been a secret. So this press release, to me, is kind of sad. If GOProud really feels they can have a positive impact in holding back the gnarled jaws of some of their candidates to keep them from hurting LGBT people, though, more power to them, I suppose.
Nancy Pelosi is running for House Minority Leader, and she’s sent a letter to her colleagues that, as Greg Sargent points out, can basically be translated as “The GOP is rolling back this Congress’s accomplishments over my dead political body.” It’s truly a thing of beauty:
As you know, Democrats have produced historic legislation in the area of health care, veterans’ benefits, women’s rights, Wall Street reform, and cutting taxes for 95 percent of the American people and millions of small businesses. And we have restored fiscal discipline to the Congress by making the deficit-cutting Pay As You Go rules the law of the land.
These accomplishments have begun the difficult work of recovering from the worst economic collapse since the 1930s and, according to independent reviews, prevented our country from plunging into another Great Depression. As a result, numerous congressional experts call this the most productive Congress in a half century. This was only possible because our Members had the courage of their convictions and put the interests of the Country first.
Our work is far from finished. As a result of Tuesday’s election, the role of Democrats in the 112th Congress will change, but our commitment to serving the American people will not. We have no intention of allowing our great achievements to be rolled back. It is my hope that we can work in a bipartisan way to create jobs and strengthen the middle class.
Many of our colleagues have called with their recommendations on how to continue our fight for the middle class, and have encouraged me to run for House Democratic Leader. Based on those discussions, and driven by the urgency of protecting health care reform, Wall Street reform, and Social Security and Medicare, I have decided to run.
Press release from the ever-fey leader of the Family Research Council:
Family Research Council President Tony Perkins reacts to comments President Barack Obama made at a press conference today calling for revoking the current policy on homosexuals serving openly in the military, commonly referred to as “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
“Last night millions of Americans went to the polls to express their strong disagreement with the change President Obama has brought to Washington . Out of control spending, government takeovers of health care and other private enterprise and an allegiance to a pro-abortion/anti-family coalition are all issues the American people said ‘Enough!’ to last night.
“When it comes to the homosexual agenda, the American people could not be clearer. The flipping of at least six state legislatures, the defeat of three justices in Iowa who imposed same-sex ‘marriage’ and the defeat of the House Member leading the charge to overturn the current military policy are all examples of how the American people have grown tired of the Democratic Party’s adherence to an anti-family coalition.
“I agree with the President that Congress should wait for the coming report from the military on changing the current policy. However, that does not mean Congress should rubber stamp any study. The study itself is likely to have problems, and the next natural step would be to have the new 112th Congress hold hearings on the issue.
“The arrogance of the President and his allies in Congress, many of whom will not return in the new Congress, to force such a drastic change on our military in the middle of fighting two wars is disrespectful of our troops, and should not be tolerated.”
Actually, Tone-bone, the American people, and the troops, aren’t bothered by DADT repeal, at all. To pretend that Patrick Murphy lost his job over DADT repeal is foolish. The Iowa situation is sad, but wouldn’t have happened if a busload of bigots with a bunch of donations from yokels’ maxed out credit cards hadn’t descended on the state with a fear campaign against those judges. It’s to be noted that the judges themselves actually respected their role as the judiciary and didn’t engage in campaigning to keep their jobs. Nope, Tony, the only reason that happened is because, instead of doing something Christ-ian like feeding the hungry or caring for the sick, y’all decided to waste a bunch of money punishing people smarter than you for interpreting the Constitution correctly. I wonder how many kids that money could have fed.
I know wingnuts are comforted right now, because they had their kind of election — the low turn-out, old white people kind. But there will come a day when even the low turn-out, old white people kind of election goes squarely in the direction of fairness and equality. People are only able to remain rubes on this issue for so long, before they either die out or become enlightened. Tuesday was a bump in the road, to be sure. But the road continues on.
Even if you don’t like your own personal Democrat, you should still be voting for the Democrats to retain control of Congress. Why? The simple numbers are out, and according to the HRC’s new scorecards:
Republican congressional opposition to gay issues, such as repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell,” strengthened over the last two years and will likely continue in the next Congress with more conservative GOP lawmakers being elected. The Human Rights Campaign, the top gay lobby, has issued a score card that graded 32 Republican senators and 139 House members with a zero on gay-issue voting. By comparison, 17 Senate and 91 House Democrats scored 100. Overall, the average score for all 435 House members was 50.8; among the 100 senators, it was 57.3.
Sounds like a no-brainer to me. Follow the above link to see the scorecards for yourselves.
I mean, by all means, if it makes you feel better to Teach Your Democrat A Lesson by handing power to bigots who have also proven their incompetence on most other issues*, knock yourself out, but if you’re a serious voter, those are the cold, hard facts.
Sean Bielat, who is running to unseat the openly gay congressman from Massachusetts, Barney Frank, was asked in the Boston Herald how he felt about gays serving in the military, and had this to say:
“There’s no absolute right to serve. Men under the height of 5 feet, 2 inches can’t serve – I don’t see anybody protesting. Where are the people standing in front of the White House, the short guys standing in front of the White House? You don’t see it,” Bielat said. “We understand that there’s no absolute right to serve in all these other areas.”
Unbelievably stupid or stupidly unbelievable? What is wrong with Bielat’s comparison here? Jim Newell at Gawker explains:
Yeah, where are all the lil’ fellas handcuffing themselves to the White House gates in protest? They know they’re too damn short to go about warring; why can’t gay people realize they’re too damn attracted to members of the same sex? Hard to argue with Bielat’s logic, as presented.
Except that one group isn’t physically able to serve, while the other is. It’s not like “gay” means, say, you have zero arms and charcoal for eyes. You just like banging people of the same sex, in your free time.
