The Religious Right hates Mitt Romney. We all know this. They do not want to vote for him under any circumstances. The trouble is that the “family values” wingnut crowd can’t seem to settle on which other primary candidate they hate the least — Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich? So some of them are digging their heels in for Santorum, others for Gingrich, and the infighting between the two camps is getting nasty:

Desperate to settle on one conservative alternative, Religious Right leaders backing Rick Santorum and those backing Newt Gingrich are now resorting to vicious attacks against what have long been seen as off-limits targets in presidential campaigns — the candidates’ wives.

Influential evangelical leader James Dobson set off the fireworks at this weekend’s Christian Right summit, giving a speech that lavished praise on Karen Santorum and asked whether Americans really wanted Callista Gingrich — “a woman who was a man’s mistress for eight years” — as their First Lady, according to sources who attended the meeting.

Translation: Daddy D called Callista Gingrich a whore.

One source described Dobson’s tone as “angry,” and said it seemed like Dobson was blaming Callista Gingrich for the couples’ affair, which began while the former House Speaker was still married to his second wife (this is Callista Gingrich’s first marriage).

“It was clear that, to him, the villian in this story is Callista Gingrich,” the source said.

Well, of course! In the fundamentalist Christian worldview, men are never responsible for their own behavior, which means Callista Gingrich must just be a vile temptress. Of course, that also means Newt’s second wife was also a vile temptress, as she lulled Newt into a sensual stupor, causing him to leave the bedside of his first wife, who was fighting cancer. Or maybe the problem is Newt?

The piece goes on to point out that the stories of Karen Santorum’s years-long love affair with An Abortion Doctor started circulating just after the big Religious Right confab in Texas where they were supposed to be deciding who to support, as a united front.

So basically, the religious conservative conversation has devolved to “slut slut slut slut slut!” and James Dobson started it. It’s nice to see them being a little more honest about their true beliefs.

Radical fundamentalist activists are meeting at a ranch outside Houston today and tomorrow hoping to line up behind a Republican presidential candidate that isn’t that dreaded Mormon guy. Currently their loyalties are divided between the peanut, the walnut, the Brazil nut, and the nut-job (Santorum). Such indecisiveness is giving Romney a decisive advantage in South Carolina.

The clandestine meeting has been endorsed by Focus on the Family co-founder James Dobson, the Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land and will likely be attended by American Values’ Gary Bauer, the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, the American Family Association’s Donald Wildmon, and Skyline Church’s Rev. Jim Garlow.

If the extremists can’t decide on one nut to rally behind, they will discuss how to extort promises and blackmail Mitt Romney at the expense of America. According to the New York Times:

The evangelical leaders say they will also prepare for the strong possibility that Mr. Romney wins the nomination. In Texas, they expect to discuss what promises — in the party platform, in the choice of a vice-presidential candidate and in judicial appointments — they should seek from Mr. Romney in return for their enthusiastic support.

It seems this collection of crazies is overreaching and inadvertently aiming to make Romney unelectable. Their message to Romney: “If you are not really one of us, pretend that you are and succumb to our demands or we will whine and stay home on Election Day.”

Of course, expect Romney to bow at their feet. It seems that the shape-shifting, oleaginous Romney will say or do practically anything to win the support of these dangerous zealots.

(Weekly Column)

When former Focus on the Family leader James Dobson told The Daily Oklahoman in 2004 that,“Homosexuals…want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth,” reasonable people dismissed him as a crank. And, for the record, six states have since legalized marriage equality and the earth is still here.

Now we learn that Pope Benedict XVI did his best Dobson imitation when he delivered a New Year’s address to diplomats representing 180 nations. According to reports, the pontiff said that the marriage was “not a simple social convention, but rather the fundamental cell of every society. Consequently, policies (such as gay couples marrying) which undermine the family threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.”

Really? Because I just married my same-sex partner in Vermont, a state that allows for such unions. South of us is Massachusetts and Connecticut, which both allow gay people to get hitched. To my east is New Hampshire, another state where gay couples get equal treatment under the law. In this cluster of states, marriage equality has had no visible effect on heterosexuals, unless you count the extra money their businesses have made from gay tourists who visited New England to marry. Meanwhile, for the LGBT people who live in the region, there has been an obvious increase in human dignity. Whatever evidence Joseph Ratzinger possesses to back his outrageous claim must be shrouded in more secrecy than a Pope-picking conclave.

As for the claim that the future of humanity is in jeopardy – it seems to be a figment of the Pope’s vivid imagination. Life in New England has not changed one iota since marriage equality was established and anyone who says otherwise is either a liar or a lunatic. Which camp is the Pope in?

It is time for people to be honest and admit that this pope is becoming a joke and his reign is an abject failure. He arrogantly swept into office and preposterously lambasted the secularization of Europe, as if the continent was more humane when ruled by the Church and its countless bloody religious wars.

Fortunately, his goal of turning back the clock has been unrealized. Once staunchly Catholic Spain now has marriage equality and the Vatican had to recall its ambassador to Ireland after the Irish prime minister lambasted the Roman Catholic Church over pedophile priests.

Why are we even listening to the pronouncements of a “moral leader” who presides over a church that has spent billions of dollars to settle child molestation cases? If a church and its leadership do not protect the interests of children and cover-up the misdeeds of monsters, they forfeit the right to point the finger and preach. The last thing hardworking, taxpaying, law abiding LGBT families need is to be scolded by the enablers of the child sexual abuse scandals.

The pathological homophobia of Pope Benedict XVI has filtered down the food chain. Last month, Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George compared the LGBT community to the Ku Klux Klan. After a huge public backlash, he finally apologized.

In Minnesota, Saint Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt recently posted a letter to the local diocesan website that infuses a prayer for marriage discrimination into the Catholic Mass. Nienstedt’s pathetic “prayer” was to “assist in the strengthening of our state-wide efforts to defend marriage in our civil constitution.”

Can you feel the spirituality?

Sadly, gay bashing is a way to ascend the career ladder in Rome. For instance, the Pope will promote New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan to cardinal next month. Dolan worked mightily, yet unsuccessfully, to keep gay couples from marrying in New York. Like the Pope, Dolan should either admit he was blowing holy smoke where the sun don’t shine or produce solid evidence that he was correct in asserting that gay couples marrying would harm society.

Of course, his attacks on innocent LGBT families are not the Pope’s only notable gaffes, which include:

• In 2006, the Pope enraged Muslims when he quoted a 14th-century Christian emperor as saying the Prophet Muhammad had introduced only “evil and inhuman” ideas into the world.

• In 2009, Benedict decreed that Anglicans who leave their Church because they believed it was too liberal could join the Catholic Church, which would allow them to keep some of their traditions.

• In 2009 the Pope revoked the excommunications of four schismatic bishops from the far right order, St. Pius X Society. One of the bishops the Pope embraced, Richard Williamson, is a conspiratorial holocaust revisionist who claims the extermination of six million Jews was a hoax.

The pontiff’s rule can best be described as insensitive, indecent, and intolerant, and his latest anti-gay comments should be put into context of his overall reprehensible record. While LGBT marriage equality does not threaten the future of humanity, the out of touch pronouncements and actions of Pope Benedict XVI may very well threaten the future of the Roman Catholic Church.

Didn’t I just write this same piece about a lesser wingnut? So, Jim Daly of Focus on the Family doesn’t like that Lady Gaga song the kids are listening to, especially when they are listening to it on his lawn, which they need to get off of:

I am not inclined toward celebrity psycho-analysis, and, candidly, find it strange to even write the word “Gaga.” But when millions of young people download her music and watch her videos, parents are wise to take note of what the hype and hoopla is all about.

In Born This Way, the claim is made that you’re born heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual or transgendered. Don’t fight it – simply accept and embrace it.

The problem is, researchers are not sure about what causes homosexuality. Many are concluding it is a complex combination of things, but it is not as clear cut as simply genetic material.

Yes, science is complex, science is confusing, yet no scientist has made any inroads in the “you should deny your sexual orientation” crusade advocated by bigots like Jim.

The pulse and pace of modern culture can usually be determined from its music and movies, not faith and reason. That a song advocating for a genetic determinative for homosexuality sits atop the charts is disconcerting, but not entirely shocking. From the outside looking in, two things strike me.

Can’t wait to hear what they are.

First, by Stefani Germanotta’s own admission, she’s built her entire persona and celebrity on a platform that’s anything but typical. She is playing a part, a role, and not living as she would outside the bright lights. Put another way, Lady Gaga was clearly not born this way.

Right, but she’s not claiming she was born wearing egg costumes, or meat dresses, or whatever it is that she does.

Second, and more importantly, the message found within the lyrics of Born This Way is in stark contrast to the message of the Gospel. All of us are born into sin, the Bible tells us, with desires and resulting actions that separate us from God and put us at odds with His blueprint for our lives. But the Good News is we’re not hopelessly trapped in our sin and failure. Despite the fact that we were “born this way,” each of us can be set free – from homosexuality, or heterosexual sex outside of marriage, or pornography, or greed, or gossip, or any other human shortcoming – to be the men and women God intended us to be.

Yes, but the Good News about homosexuality is a lie, so it fails. Lady Gaga: 1; Focus bigot: 0.

The new “kinder, gentler” Focus on the Family is just as lame as the pitchfork-fest led by Dobson. We can at least give Daly credit for one thing, though: he doesn’t abuse wiener dogs.

[h/t Brian @ Right Wing Watch]

(Weekly Column)

While the world focused on the tragic Arizona shootings, another horrific crime took place in New York City. The New York Post reported today that a Portuguese male model tortured and murdered his “sugar daddy” in a Manhattan hotel. For more than an hour, Renato Seabra, 20, beat Carlos Castro, 65, before he castrated the older fashion journalist with a wine corkscrew.

Seabra (pictured) said he murdered the jounralist “to get rid of Castro’s homosexual demons”. The suspect then declared, “I’m not gay anymore!”

Like the Arizona assassin, Jared Loughner, there is no doubt that Renato Seabra is profoundly disturbed. However, that does not absolve those who placed the dangerous idea that homosexuality is attributable to demons in Seabra’s head. Where might he have gotten such a notion?

We can start with the “ex-gay” organization Exodus International, where its President, Alan Chambers, once wrote, “One of the many evils this world has to offer is the sin of homosexuality. Satan, the enemy, is using people to further his agenda to destroy the Kingdom of God and as many souls as he can.”

Chambers also told a crowd of social conservatives, “We have to stand up against an evil agenda. It is an evil agenda and it will take anyone captive that is willing, or that is standing idly by.”

Given this harsh rhetoric, it is understandable that an unbalanced individual distressed about his sexual orientation might resort to violence. After all, Chambers clearly states that homosexuality is evil and then offers a remedy, which is to “stand up” against the perceived evil spirits and not stand “idly by”.

In Jeff Sharlet’s latest book, “C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy”, a Ugandan man justifies supporting the death penalty for gay people because, “They” – the gays – “are trying to end the human race.”

His comments sound strikingly similar to Focus on the Family’s founder James Dobson, who once told The Daily Oklahoman newspaper that same-sex marriage will “destroy the earth.”

This week, Pentecostal preacher Cindy Jacobs warned that the repeal of Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell has caused God’s wrath, including the “potential that there is something that actually happened in the land where a hundred thousand drum fish died and also where these birds just fell out of the air.”

It is irrelevant whether Sebra or Loughner were directly influenced by the “spiritual warfare” of these preachers or the Tea Party’s vitriol. What matters is that the constant demonizing of certain groups of people – whether minorities, liberals, or employees of the federal government – sets the stage for bloody reprisals.

Social conservatives would likely counter that sanguinary acts come from the hands of deranged individuals. Technically, this is true – however public figures generally understand that a small percentage of their audience is unhinged from reality. So, providing fiery rhetoric that can incite mentally ill people to take criminal actions is grossly irresponsible and an abdication of moral leadership.

A perfect example of this disconnect is Rush Limbaugh. Even as he defended right wing extremists today from accusations that their rhetoric led to the Arizona massacre, blogger Jim Burroway provided a photograph of a Limbaugh promotional billboard in Tucson painted with bullet holes and the headline, “Straight Shooter”.

Such violent imagery was in line with Sarah Palin’s infamous graphic targeting vulnerable Democratic legislative districts with crosshairs. As we now know, critically wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was one of the legislators in Palin’s gun sights.

Unfortunately, the media tries to draw a moral equivalence between the rhetoric of the left and right, which is inaccurate and unhelpful. This bogus media attempt at “balance” obfuscates the reality that the vast majority of alarming rhetoric comes from Republicans and Tea Party adherents.

The root of the problem is people like Sarah Palin who say, “Don’t retreat – instead reload.” It is people like Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) that inflame old passions by hinting at secession. It is the Republican Party that wins power by attacking immigrants, bashing Muslims, and using anti-gay marriage amendments to drive voters to the polls.

It is House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who allowed the healthcare bill to be portrayed as a step toward communism. It is former House Majority Leader Dick Armey who helped organize the bitter Town Hall healthcare meetings designed to intimidate legislators. It is the GOP that disrespects the office of the President by acting as though Bill Clinton and Barack Obama lack legitimacy.

My intent is not to say that most Republicans are bigots, nor are I implying that the names I’ve mentioned are directly responsible for causing deaths. However, they have soured the political climate in America by consistently catering to bigots, pandering to religious extremists, serving as apologists for militia kooks, and entertaining the wild fantasies of sick conspiracy theorists. Instead of restoring sanity, they have treated these crackpots as if they were legitimate, even respected, constituencies.

It is time America stops living in denial and considers the possibility that over-the-top bombast may lead to a body count.

Glenn Beck may not personally care whether or not gays can get married, but the wingnuts who form his worldview certainly do.  Media Matters has put together a handy little guide, which includes quotes and background on the following people in Beck’s sphere of influence:

David Barton
James Dobson
Randy Forbes
Jim Garlow
John Hagee
Terence Henry
Alveda King
Richard Land
Daniel Lapin
Patrick Lee
Richard Lee
Miles McPherson
Chuck Norris
Sarah Palin
James Robison
Charles Stanley

Read it all here.

[h/t Andy]

Leinaala Fruean spoke at the Religious Right’s May 1 rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, “May Day 2010: A Cry To God For A Nation In Distress.” I was at the event and videotaped what can only be describes as a zealously zany sermon by Fruean.

Fruean represents Island Breeze Ministries in Hawaii. The woman next to her in the yellow shirt is the infamous televangelist Cindy Jacobs.

Enjoy the show! It’s Nutapalooza!! (And they call us crazy??)

The majority of the “pro-family” movement is simply anti-gay. They do virtually nothing to assist parents with child rearing or creating marriages that last. The one organization that occasionally seemed to offer some value to Christian parents was Focus on the Family.

However, in recent years, the somewhat constructive work was largely overshadowed by the destructive, aggressively political agenda of the organization’ founder James Dobson. His addiction to bullying leaders in Washington, purification purges of the Republican Party and an obsession with attacking gay and lesbian people branded the organization as mean-spirited and intolerant.

“Dobson and his gang of thugs are real nasty bullies,” House majority leader Dick Armey (R-Texas) once complained.

Fortunately, Dobson recently left Focus on the Family and has been replaced by Jim Daly (pictured), who pledges to take the organization in a new direction. One of the first things he did was dump the group’ obnoxious “ex-gay” road show Love Won Out. Over the years, it became a fountain of fabrication and a mountain of misinformation on LGBT issues.

Daley claims to hold similar social views to Dobson, but he does not appear to want to shove his religion down peoples’ throats. At least that is the message he is trying to sell us. On the surface, he seems more open to dialogue and not quite as arrogant at his predecessor.

For example, instead of the propaganda-spewing Love Won Out conference, Focus on the Family actually participated in a Colorado Springs panel discussion where dissenting views were allowed. AOL News reports that some panelists were openly gay, while Focus on the Family provided “ex-gay” employee Jeff Johnston, who discussed his “journey out of homosexuality.”

Daly was out of town for the panel, but taped a welcome message. “We’re not always going to agree,” he said on the video, but added, “I’m not here to tell you what to do.”

The fact that Focus on the Family is still pushing the tired and tragic ex-gay myth is dispiriting. But, allowing openly gay people who actually live fulfilling lives to speak is a definite step in the right direction.

More important, Daly seems to be moving away from Dobson’ quest for Christian dominion over government. “The Christian label means a lot to me,” Daly said in the AOL interview. “We don’t want a theocracy. We want a government informed in moral principle.”

While we hold different viewpoints on marriage, Daly, seems to understand, on some level, that allowing gay couples to wed isn’t catastrophic.

“I’m not fearful that change will happen in America. It will happen. … I don’t know what will happen with same-sex marriage, but I’m not going to be discouraged if we lose some of those battles,” he said, noting that for “98 percent” of people, traditional marriage will remain relevant. “It’s going to be difficult in this culture and the way the demographics are going right now,” he continued. “You look at the under-35 age group. I think it’s splitting 60-40 support for same-sex marriage. There’s a lot of people in the U.S. [who] basically come to the conclusion that this is something between two adults. I will continue to defend traditional marriage, but I’m not going to demean human beings for the process.”

Compare this to the doomsday response to marriage equality from Dobson: “Homosexuals are not monogamous,” Dobson told The Daily Oklahoman on Oct. 23, 2004. “They want to destroy the institution of marriage. It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.”

Focus on the Family is also striking a different tone on abortion. It ran a controversial feel-good ad during the Super Bowl featuring football star Tim Tebow. Strategically, it seems like a wise move to persuade mothers to “choose” to give birth, rather than have angry zealots browbeating pregnant women in front of abortion clinics. (Of course, Focus on the Family would have more credibility pushing the “choose life” message if it actually weren’t cynically working to overturn Roe v. Wade.)

Additionally, Daly has started a program to reduce the number of legal orphans in foster care by recruiting families to adopt hard-to-place children. His Wait No More program has expanded to five states and has already halved the number of children in foster care in Colorado.

Daly’ cheerful style is particularly welcome at a time when many fundamentalist organizations are losing their marbles. For instance, Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition is running around Capitol Hill demanding that Congress defeat the Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) to keep “she-males” from becoming gym teachers.

Eugene Delgaudio the executive director of the anti-gay organization, Public Advocate of the U.S, sent out an insane fundraising letter this week. It warned that “Radical homosexuals will terrorize day care centers, hospitals, churches and private schools…Wedding-gown clad men smooching before some left-wing clergy or state official is just the beginning….You’ll see men hand-in-hand skipping down to adoption centers to “pick out’ a little boy for themselves.”

Still, not everyone is sold on the surface changes at the Colorado Springs-based mega-ministry.

“There is clearly a concerted rebranding effort within FOtF, with the communications team placing a focus on creating a nicer, sweeter, less hostile Focus on the Family,” wrote blogger Jeremy Hooper on his popular Good As You website. “But they seem to want this change in impression without actually creating any change within their own operation… We on the side of LGBT equality buy into the “nicer, softer” myth at our own peril!”

Hooper (pictured) points out that, “This is still the group that, just two weeks ago, declared that an openly gay SCOTUS nominee is automatically a non-starter, regardless of merit and qualifications. This is still the outfit that donates hundreds of thousands whenever gay rights are up for contention at any one of our state’s polls.”

Will Focus on the Family actually start helping real families rather than fixating on gay people? With Daly’ leadership, there is at least hope that the culture war will eventually turn into a civil cultural discussion.

But if this is all spin and no substance his plan will sow distrust and backfire. It won’t take long to know if Daly’ hugs are thinly disguised headlocks. While outspoken homophobes are unpleasant, they are always preferable to insincere hypocrites.

As she so often does, Amanda Marcotte has noticed something in the Christian conservative worldview that I’ve never seen pointed out before. The tabloids are apparently having a minor freak-out over the gender presentation of one of Angelina Jolie’s children, you see, and in order to present an “expert voice on parenting,” Life & Style Magazine went to Focus on the Family’s Glenn Stanton, of all people. Britney Spears was apparently otherwise tied up and didn’t have time to comment, I guess? Anyway, reacting to the fact that little Shiloh is going through some sort of tomboy phase, Stanton had this to say:

Says FotF’ Glenn Stanton, “Little girls have never been women before. They need help, they need guidance of what that looks like.”

Uh huh. I can’t top the reaction from Andi Zeisler at Bitch Magazine, so I’ll just quote that for you:

Oh, how right you are, Mr. Stanton! Let’ make sure this poor misguided tot gets to spend some time with a traditionally feminine woman‚Äîsay, one with long silky hair, pillowy lips, bountiful curves, perhaps even one considered the hottest sex bomb Hollywood’ ever seen! But where oh where are we going to find a woman like that for Shiloh to emulate?

Heh.

So anyway, off ran Amanda Marcotte’s brain, and she noticed that there is a huge, glaring contradiction in the teachings of Focus on the Family and similar groups on gender, gender presentation, and sexuality. I’m going to excerpt a good bit, and then you should read the whole thing:

[W]hat’ really interesting to me is that social conservatives want to have it both ways—they argue both that gender is innate and unchangeable, and that it’ learned. When feminists criticize domestic sexism, conservatives are all about how gender roles are natural and fixed—and in complete opposition to each other. That men are naturally boorish pigs and women are naturally nurturing, so women who resent being told to nurture people who can’t even be expected to show gratitude are bucking nature and need to learn to live with our debased roles. But then they turn around and say things like Stanton did, which is basically to admit that femininity (they also believe this about masculinity) is a learned behavior, and not only that, but it’ a long, hard process learning your gender. You’ll hear from conservatives that boys are naturally drawn to trains and girls to dolls, and then they’ll flip around and tell each other that it’ extremely important to steer your children towards the “right” gender roles.

Their homophobia is clashing with their sexism, and showing how intellectually bankrupt both positions are. Social conservatives portray homosexuality as a “choice”—which makes sense. They want gays to get in the closet, and they’re just portraying that as authentic heterosexuality. But in order to argue that it’ a choice, you have to position homosexuality as a serious temptation and gays as simply very weak people who give in. If you buy into that argument, then you start to see homosexuality as a temptation that preys on all people, and your job as a parent becomes about shoring your child up to resist that temptation. Focus on the Family has long taught its followers that homosexuality can be warded off with strict teaching of gender roles. In other words, they’ve been forced to make explicit what they’ve always pretended wasn’t true, which is that gender roles are learned and performed. The irony is that the one avenue where they’ll admit gender roles are learned is the one avenue where they’re not actually going to have as much influence as they think. Forcing a little girl who wants to be a tomboy into dresses is not going to make her not be a lesbian, and also that many lesbians prefer to present a feminine manner to the world. And a lot of little girls allowed to be tomboys grow up straight.

What groups like Focus are unable/unwilling to grasp is that concepts of gender and sexuality are actually unique for each of our lives, and they can’t handle that reality. Even if one were to grant that their “god” created us (I do not, obviously), they can’t stand the fact that the humanity they think he created simply doesn’t fit into artificially proscribed gender roles. I was talking to someone the other day, whose high-school aged son recently came out, and the father was apparently doing some of that all-too-typical “If I had only introduced him to more guy stuff, this wouldn’t have happened” thing, and I said, “Actually, even if he had, and the kid turned out to be the most talented football player in the state, he would simply be a gay teen who happens to be the most talented football player in the state!”

It’s ludicrous. The teachings of James Dobson and pals are so stupid, so completely unaccredited by any real parenting experts, that it’s obnoxious to have to spend time refuting them, but the sad fact is that lots of normal garden-variety Evangelicals read his titles for advice. In his book Bringing Up Boys, Dobson actually spends a significant amount of time talking about “preventing homosexuality” by enforcing strict gender roles. It’s laughable to us, because we know that homosexuality isn’t a disease to be prevented. It’s a simple fact that homosexuality exists, and it bears no relation to a person’s gender presentation, or how well they fit into societally proscribed gender roles. The only thing Dobson can really teach parents to do is to make their gay kids hate themselves so much that they’re driven to depression, general unhappiness, inauthentic living, and in some cases, suicide. (I’m never quite sure whether that’s not Dobson’s actual goal in the first place, the insipid dog-abusing monster.)

So yeah, Focus, etc., are wrong on all counts. In the world of actual human beings, most of us, if we’re honest, are sort of a composite of the characteristics ascribed traditionally to “male” and “female.” Likewise, there are many, many kids who go through experimental phases where they like to dress up like the opposite gender, and most of these kids just sort of outgrow it. Others, as they mature, find themselves to be transgender. Still others find themselves somewhere in between the two! And others, and others, and others… It’s the same with sexuality. All you have to do to realize this is to spend five minutes in a large gay or lesbian bar and do some people-watching. Sure, there are those who conform to stereotype. Others don’t. Still others find themselves somewhere in between. The point is that the reality of gender and sexuality is complex, and those like Glenn Stanton will always be wrong as long as they insist on interpreting the world though a disproven, black-white, good-evil, male-female dichotomy that doesn’t exist in the real world.

Anyway, three cheers to Amanda for picking up on yet another example of extreme cognitive dissonance in the Christian conservative worldview. There are so many, it’s hard to keep track sometimes.

The New York Times confirms details about the unholy reasons for James Dobson’s separation from Focus on the Family.

Dobson’s son, Ryan, is a 39-year-old adulterer who tells youth audiences to “Be Intolerant” of their peers — and whose response to the Haitian catastrophe was to say, in his surfer-dude lingo, that the nation was always kinda “gnarly.”

The senior Dobson views his adulterous and less-than-humane son as the answer for a nation “in a moral decline of shocking dimensions. I have asked myself how can I sit and watch the world go by without trying to help if I can. That is what motivates me at this time.”

Focus on the Family refused Ryan a leadership position due to his divorce and Biblically invalid marriage to a second woman. One may regard FOTF’s position as morally principled, but apparently the Dobsons view it as unforgiving of a vice that the Dobsons seem to think is proof of heterosexual masculine virility.

Under new leader Jim Daly, meanwhile, FOTF has moved toward a big-government philosophy: one that uses government and private social-service agencies to recruit rigid Christian Rightists to adopt children who might otherwise be adopted by better-qualified, more loving, less ideological gay and lesbian parents.

No longer restrained by FOTF, the Dobsons’ new radio program may reveal heretofore unseen levels of self-righteousness, according to the Times.

“The organization has been trying to moderate its image,” said D. Michael Lindsay, a sociology professor at Rice University who studies evangelical leaders, “and I imagine that Dr. Dobson will now speak out on public policy issues with a louder voice than his organization exercised.”

The competition may further depress FOTF donations.

Paul D. Nelson, a board member with Focus and former chief operating officer, said that he had seen many ministries survive the exit of their founders, but that this situation with Dr. Dobson created a “big unknown.”

“Focus on the Family is losing its icon, it’ losing its face and its voice,” said Mr. Nelson, formerly the president of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. “You have to reinvent yourself, but that reinvention is all about delivery, not about change of values.”

With these difficulties in mind, FOTF’s planned Super Bowl ads — expected to affirm perseverance and discourage abortion among couples with problem pregnancies — may be seen either as an effort to leap ahead of Dobson in the public mind, or as a $5 million act of desperation in a year when when the organization’s budget plummeted by $21 million.

Son Ryan was adopted as an infant — a curious development, since James and Shirley only have one other child, and they have devoted their lives to the idolization of procreative marriage.

Of Ryan’s book, “Be Intolerant: Because Some Things are Just Stupid,” Publishers Weekly said it had “all the subtlety of a two-by-four to the side of the head.”