Peter throws so many temper tantrums per week these days, it’s hard to keep up.  Yesterday, instead of reacting to the Mehlman Fever like everybody else, Peter decided to have a hissy fit at Michael Steele:

The Republican Party has a big and growing  ”gay” problem.

One might call it “tumescent.”

The latest GOP hypocrisy: Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Steele’s congratulatory words for former RNC chief Ken Mehlman, who has confirmed longstanding rumors that he (Mehlman) is a practicing homosexual.

Michael Steele should have staked Ken Mehlman to death, like Buffy!  Instead he is falling in love with the vampire with the soul!

Here’s what Michael Steele said about Ken, for the record:

‘I am happy for Ken,’ Steele said. ‘His announcement, often a very difficult decision which is only compounded when done on the public stage, reaffirms for me why we are friends and why I respect him personally and professionally.’”

That’s the way a friend would react. The problem, of course, for Peter, is that he doesn’t understand friendship or love, having fallen for the redefinition of those words favored by his religious cult.

Why couldn’t Mr. Steele just have kept quiet about this tragic revelation by which another sexually confused man seeks to rationalize his misbehavior (sin) by declaring homosexuality part of his inherent being?

Notice the inherent defeat in Peter’s question.  He knows it’s way beyond the pale to even wish that maybe Michael Steele might agree with him on things.  He can only hope for silence.

Michael Steele, of course, is showing support because they are friends, and also, because one of these days, Steele is going to reveal to the world that he is black, and he wants Ken’s support.

Nope, instead, like a three-year-old boy approaching a puddle, Steele just had to step in it.

OMG, and he made such a mess, what with the being nice to his friend!   If Michael Steele was a good Christian, he would’ve made sure to avoid his friend entirely, for fear of getting wet!

Next up in the piece, Peter gets out his phone and calls Laurie Higgins for a quote, so it appears that this episode of The Naperville Grunting carries more weight by being endorsed by two organizations.  Here’s what Laurie wants to know:

So, Steele is “happy” that Mehlman is homosexual and/or happy that he is public about it? Why would he be happy for a friend embracing immoral and dangerous practices or for a friend being public about his embrace of immorality? And why does he respect him for his “difficult” decision to announce his immorality publicly? What fecklessness or cowardice Steele’s comment demonstrates. And this from the leader of the Republican Party…

Oh, maybe Michael Steele is a grown-up and is thus not susceptible to the fever dreams based on dishonest “science” that support Laurie Higgins’ worldview.

It’s always amazing how delusional these people are.  They actually still think there are lots people inside the Beltway who think just like them on issues such as these.  Did the Bush administration teach them nothing?  With the exceptions of a couple of rabid wingnuts on C-Street, and whatever coffin Michele Bachmann lives in when Congress is in session, Republicans in Washington think of fundamentalists like Peter and Laurie as useful idiots!  It has been this way forever.  So no, Laurence, it’s not “cowardice” when Michael Steele speaks in support of his friend.  It’s him being supportive of his friend!  My god.

The rest of Peter’s piece is an asinine conspiracy theory about how Ken Mehlman was actually a plant, undermining “turd-ish-nul val-yews” from inside the GOP, or something.  No, Peter.  He was just a closet case, and closet cases, due to their internal shame (which is not caused by their sexuality), tend to be the most willing to bash gay people for their own personal gain.

Sounds like somebody we all know, doesn’t it?

Earlier today, Peter LaBarbera opened his Truth Academy confernece, a three day gay bashing extravaganza in a Chicago exurb. Despite weeks of flogging the event and several stories in right wing media, our spies tell us that the event was a major dud.

According to our sources, there were between 20-30 people in attendance. This was shocking, considering there was a large roster of notoriously anti-gay speakers:

Robert Knight, Coral Ridge Ministries

Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality

Ryan Sorba, Young Conservatives of California

Cliff Kincaid, Accuracy in Media

Prof. Rena Lindevaldsen, Liberty University Law School

Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel

Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute

Greg Quinlan, Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays

Prof. Rob Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary; see www.RobGagnon.net

Arthur Abba Goldberg, JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality)

Ironically, the Gay Liberation Network’s protest had more demonstrators (see below) outside the event than there were people soaking up the hate on the inside.

The event was not only homophobic and sparsely attended, it was painfully boring, according to one eyewitness.

“It was an exhausting 12-hour day,” said a spy. “The speakers were less charismatic than tree stumps. I would rather turn Bill Gates’ vast fortune into a giant mountain of pennies and count them, than endure one more tedious anti-gay seminar.”

Clearly, this disaster was a serious blow to Porno Pete’s already disintegrating career and showed that he is incapable of drawing support — even with a who’s who of anti-gay activists on-hand.

Maybe, it is time for him to give up his shtick and get a day job?

This is rich.  Peter LaBarbera, who has been integral in the placement of two organizations on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate-group list, and who openly associates with and defends the most obviously hateful anti-gay figures (Scott Lively, the buffoons at MassResistance, Linda Harvey, Laurie Higgins, etc.), seems to be taken aback by the fact that Kyle at Right Wing Watch labeled Peter’s “homosexual troof kamp” a “hatefest.”  Really, Kyle, why are you so mean?

Oftentimes when activists on the Left have no evidence that something they disagree with is actually ”hateful,” they just label as such anyway, and then repeat themselves ad nauseam so that we’ll all get the message that said conservative activity is, well, “hateful.”

No, Peter, actually it’s your words and deeds that get you labeled as hateful.  The evidence has already been compiled, so just click here for the Porno Pete archives at Truth Wins Out, here for the archives at Good-As-You, and here for the archives at Right Wing Watch.

Seriously, though, most people on the Left are not quite willing, yet, to define anyone who disagrees with homosexuality as “hateful” — although they might call them “homophobic” (an artificial construct whose elastic definition has evolved to meet the needs of pro-”gay” liberals).

There are only two choices:  knowingly hateful or woefully, fearfully misinformed on the subject.  This has nothing to do with “morality.”

I’m sure there are exceptions, but I suspect that most “gay”-affirming people would not automatically label anyone who believes that homosexuality is immoral — or that homosexual sex is unnatural – as “haters.”

Eh, we’re getting there, though.  Twenty years ago, it wasn’t the case, because people didn’t have as much access to correct information, so they could be granted a little more leeway/time to become more educated.  Nowadays, as the anti-gay segment of our society is dying off, those who cling to their discriminatory, bigoted views have a lot more to apologize for.  Hell, most Republicans I come across find anti-gay rhetoric to be distasteful and gross, because they know better.

However, if you reflect that moral opposition in the public square — if you defend the age-old position that homosexuality is wrong – then suddenly you become, yes, “hateful.”

Yes, because the fact that it’s “age-old” doesn’t make it right.  Slavery was “age-old,” and supported by the Bible.  It’s wrong, though, but you don’t arrive at the conclusion that slavery is wrong by reading an ancient religious book.  You have to look to a more reason-based system of morality and examine the harm done to sentient beings.  From there, it’s an easy jump to “owning people is not good.”  Likewise, you can excuse your bigotry in the pages of the Bible, especially if you don’t really understand words very well, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to reason that if two people love each other and are productive, contributing members of society, that they should not be discriminated against just because some loons with double-digit IQs can’t handle the genitals of the couple in question.  I know many of them secretly wish they could handle the genitals of the couple in question, but the sexual repression of the fundamentalist Christian church is not my problem.

Hard to win that argument: ME: pro-gay, loving and tolerant. YOU: anti-gay, hateful and intolerant.

To be fair, Peter, you’ve already lost that argument.

Give me the old-fashioned liberals who might disagree with AFTAH’s beliefs forcefully but who at least understand that name-calliing is no substitute for an argument.

Translation:  Give me the days when my worldview hadn’t been summarily disproven, the days when it wasn’t the laughingstock of educated people everywhere.

Morality is not “hate” and defending the historic Judeo-Christian sexual ethic is not “bigotry.”

He’s correct that morality is not hate.  His mistake is in continuing to believe that happy, healthy gays and lesbians falling in love is somehow a “moral” issue.  Defending patriarchal subjugation and sexual control is definitely bigotry, though.

Homosexuality is wrong, and a controversial moral and religious issue involving behavior.

You can keep saying that, Peter, but all credible scientists say otherwise.

…[T]here are thousands of former homosexuals — people like our Truth Academy instructor Greg Quinlan, who once considered himself “gay” before leaving the lifestyle.

Prove to me that Greg Quinlan doesn’t get a raging erection when he sees a naked man, and we’ll talk.

The evidence is overwhelming that homosexual practice — especially among men — is a big factor in the spread of diseases like HIV.

Wrong, dude!  Unsafe sex, poor education, and oftentimes, patriarchal sexual control, is what spreads HIV.  That’s why it’s growing among straight people, why it’s rampant in Africa, etc.  Meanwhile, lesbians have the lowest infection rates on the planet, so based on this twisted strain of LaBarberian logic, lesbians are the most moral of all!

Does PFAW hold that it is OK to crusade for acceptance of homosexuality, but “un-American” and ”hateful” to oppose it civilly?

Kyle can answer for himself, but I do, because real people are involved, real gay kids end up depressed, on the streets or dead because of the “loving opposition” (pure, unmitigated hatred) from people like Peter LaBarbera, who has spent his life working to make sure those kids’ pain is as intense as possible.

Is every American who opposes homosexuality hateful — or just those who defend that position in public?

I answered this above, but again, they are either:

A.  Actively hateful (Peter, etc.)
B. Woefully undereducated on the subject. (Peter also, and others)
C. Irrationally fearful of gays, especially gay men. (Peter, again, and others.)

When does moral disagreement become “hate”?

When your “moral disagreement” is predicated on denying an entire class of people their rights as Americans, against all facts and evidence, and hurting as many of those people as possible, and also when it leaves a body count.

Meanwhile, below are the Truth Academy curriculum and speakers, not one of whom has a hateful bone in his or her body.

I always suspected they weren’t made of human flesh and bone. Now we have confirmation.

UPDATE: Here’s Kyle’s response to Peter’s bullroar.

Excuse me, they’re calling it the “Americans For Truth Academy.” Kids and young adults ages 14-25 can go for only $99 and learn how to be stark-raving mad homophobes from these experts:

Tentative List of Instructors:

Robert Knight, Coral Ridge Ministries

Peter LaBarbera, Americans For Truth About Homosexuality

Ryan Sorba, Young Conservatives of California

Prof. Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary

Prof. Rena Lindevaldsen, Liberty University Law School

Matt Barber, Liberty Counsel

Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute

Greg Quinlan, Parents and Friends of Gays and Ex-Gays

Cool deal. Here’s the funny part:

Prospective attendees will need to be approved with references; this is not open to pro-homosexual activists but only to those who share AFTAH’ belief that homosexuality is immoral and that the GLBT movement is destructive to America and a direct threat to our religious freedom.

“Please write a double-spaced essay about how a-feared you are of gays, and get it signed by somebody we already know is a total bigot, because we’ve been burned recently by having people report our words verbatim when we think nobody else is listening.”

Also, this event is being billed as “rigorous,” which I can only assume means that Matt Barber, Ryan Sorba, Feats of Strength, and sweat will be featured prominently.

Fun for the whole family, sounds like.

Read it and marvel/vomit over the fact that this man runs free, still able to hurt little boys like the one described here:

What do you do with a little boy who likes cross-dressing and playing with dolls? If you’re George Alan Rekers, you “extinguish” the boy’s feminine behavior with a sometimes violent Pavlovian regimen while your scientific team observes through a one-way mirror.

(…)

In 1974, Rekers, a leading thinker in the so-called ex-gay movement, was presented with a 4-year-old “effeminate boy” named Kraig, whose parents had enrolled him in the program. Rekers put Kraig in a “play-observation room” with his mother, who was equipped with a listening device. When the boy played with girly toys, the doctors instructed her to avert her eyes from the child.

According to a 2001 account in Brain, Child Magazine, “On one such occasion, his distress was such that he began to scream, but his mother just looked away. His anxiety increased, and he did whatever he could to get her to respond to him… Kraig became so hysterical, and his mother so uncomfortable, that one of the clinicians had to enter and take Kraig, screaming, from the room.”

Rekers’s research team continued the experiment in the family’s home. Kraig received red chips for feminine behavior and blue chips for masculine behavior. The blue chips could be cashed in for candy or television time. The red chips earned him a “swat” or spanking from his father. Researchers periodically entered the family’s home to ensure proper implementation of the reward-punishment system.

After two years, the boy supposedly manned up. Over the decades, Rekers, who ran countless similar experiments, held Kraig up as “the poster boy for behavioral treatment of boyhood effeminacy.”

At age 18, shamed by his childhood diagnosis and treatment, Rekers’s poster boy attempted suicide, according to Gender Shock, a book by journalist Phyllis Burke.

I believe the scientific term for George Alan Rekers is “you sick, sadistic bastard.”

It’s one sort of evil to take your own seething self-hatred out on adults. It’s yet another to rape the innocence and identity out of a child whose only crime is that he doesn’t fit into the gender-binary construct that George Rekers, apparently, has never been able to attain for himself.

But let’s be clear about one thing: the reason organizations like Truth Wins Out exist, why Jeremy spends countless hours chronicling the anti-gay movement at Good As You, why Amanda Marcotte takes the time to analyze and explain patriarchy in words any can understand but few have heard before at Pandagon, why Pam Spaulding and her crew and Joe Jervis and the Box Turtle guys (AND SO ON) — and the reason why I make a point of mocking these people as dismissively as they truly deserve — is that this story, while grotesque, should not be shocking. Yes, it’s appalling, but it is only the natural result, taken to its extreme, of Religious Right teachings on sexuality and on gender. And these stories, in all their varying degrees, are myriad, but they all have one simple common denominator: the overarching, bellyaching desire of heterosexual religious men (and those who wish to God every night that they might one day be heterosexual) to control the lives, the gender expression, the sexuality, of all people they view as lesser. This includes women, children, racial minorities, and certainly LGBT people. Again, this is the natural conclusion of the notion of the junk science of “reparative therapy.” This is what happens when people who have been trained like show ponies to repress everything authentic about themselves in the pursuit of the lifeless, unhappy “ideal” of the fundamentalist worldview are allowed to flourish unhindered by modernity. (I mean, look at Saudi Arabia, for god’s sake. Yeah, it’s the same.) This is what happens when those people’s ideas are accorded an ounce of respect. We all have freedom of speech, at least in the United States, but part of that freedom is the responsibility for those of us who live in verifiable reality to do everything we can to ensure that the sadism of the Religious Right, and its concomitant junk science, are granted all the respect they deserve in the marketplace of ideas. (Hint: That would be “none.”) It’s our responsibility to do everything we can to help as many people understand that when people like George Rekers, Tony Perkins, Peter LaBarbera, the entire staff of Focus on the Family (including the chipper young cretins they’ve hired to “reach out to millenials,” a battle they’ve long lost), Matt Barber, Elaine Donnelly, Laurie Higgins, Maggie Gallagher, or any of their buttbuddies in bigotry open their maws and spew forth, their words amount to nothing more than long disproven, hateful, ignorant lies. It’s our responsibility to make sure that those who come across our words are armed with the resources (our side being the only one which actually relies on research and reason, citations, real science, etc.) to know the Religious Right is lying, only and always, and to know precisely how and why they’re lying.

This is a big part of why we do what we do.

Our adversaries hurt people. They drive their own to decades of depression and despair, and they drive their own children to substance abuse, rejection, depression and sometimes even suicide.

At the end of the piece quoted above, it’s stated that, even though George Rekers was caught in flagrante diddle-fingers coming back from Europe with a young male whore, that the brain trust at NARTH still stands by Rekers’ “science.” Of course they do. They will never let something like reality, or trails of blood leading to the bodies and souls of kids hurt by their “science,” get in the way of their obscene, wrongheaded, and wholly self-loathing vendetta against those citizens of the world who dare to survive, to love authentically, to dream, to fly, to fuck, to question authority, to laugh, to breathe, to celebrate, to mourn, to rage against the dying of the light…in short, to live, and to do so without asking the permission of the self-appointed religious police. NARTH and similar groups do not care about people. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that they have clear and palpable contempt for people, much as most right-wing organizations have clear, palpable contempt for their readers, knowing as they do that their intended audience is too stupid, too abused, or too brainwashed to know any better. They simply don’t care about the human beings involved.

So yeah. We do this to fight for the kids like Kraig, those many years ago, and those who still are vulnerable to an enemy which sees them not as people but as notches on their Culture War belts.

Can. I. Get. A. Witness?

Okay, I’m done spitting daggers now, so if anybody needs this soapbox…

(h/t Towle)

Last week I posted a piece which noted that the Illinois Family Institute, AKA Laurie Higgins’ Dog and Pony Show of Irrational Hatred, had been put back on the SPLC anti-gay hate group list. It made sense, as Laurie has spent the last year encouraging Christian children to bully gay kids and making scurrilous Nazi comparisons. But then in researching a piece a couple of days later, I noticed that IFI was missing again. Well, for the record, I got a response from the SPLC, and apparently the IFI is still flying just under the threshold of hate required to be designated as a certified hate group, and is thus not on the list. For the record.

Should she be? Probably. But the SPLC has specific criteria, and apparently Laurie has learned how to send her bile out into the world while playing just cute enough with language to sneak by.

Cliff Kincaid is a peach. Really. He’s one of the only Radical Christian Imams who is honest about the fact that he wants gay people dead. He made his original statements last week, and now he’s gotten on the internet again to flesh out his explanation for why gay people should be dead. He also has some harsh words for Senator Tom Coburn, who has joined up with Al Franken and Russ Feingold in drafting a Senate bill condemning the Ugandan legislation. (Absorb that last sentence before I go on, will you? Coburn has joined with Franken and Feingold. That’s how universal the disgust over this bill really is, among evolved, sentient human beings. Lambs are lying down with wingnuts, for god’s sake. Apparently Cliff Kincaid is not an evolved, sentient human being, at least not by any rational definition.) So let’s have a look at what Cliffy has to say:

Echoing the claims of liberals in the media, who have targeted Uganda for isolation and a denial of foreign aid for considering the legislation, Coburn has called it “an absurd proposal to execute gays” that somehow threatens progress against AIDS. Lesbian MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow has repeatedly referred to the legislation as the “Kill the Gays bill.”

But as AIM has reported in a series of articles, this is deliberate distortion. Maddow and her media collaborators, such as Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post, have tried to obscure the fact that the government of Uganda is considering passage of the anti-homosexuality bill because of the growing concern by officials and religious leaders that foreign homosexuals and special interest groups are trying to spread homosexuality throughout the country and undermine the country’s return to traditional moral values. Campaigns and groups promoting the rights of “sexual minorities” have emerged in Uganda and other African countries, with funding from billionaire George Soros, a major financial supporter of “gay rights” in the U.S.

Sadly, no. It’s too bad Cliff Kincaid is an unrepentant pathological liar, but he is. There is no distortion in the reporting. Any literate human being (sorry to exclude you, Cliff) can read the bill. The fact that certain Christian leaders in Uganda are fools who either truly believe that “foreign gays” are invading Uganda, or are deliberately manipulating the people in order to distract them from the real problems facing that nation is not a proof that the reporting on the legislation is any less than factual. What’s sad is that Cliff Kincaid apparently is just as easily spooked by gay people as the Ugandan religious leaders, what with all the factual information at his disposal.

Of course, you know you’re dealing with a nutcase when they bring an issue back to George Soros. The fact that this one billionaire who happens to support progressive causes (like the Right doesn’t have any parallel figures) has become such a villainous boogeyman for much of the American Right exposes just what scaredy-pants ninnies right-wingers really are.

Uganda emphasizes abstinence and monogamy in its fight against AIDS, in contrast to the reckless “safe sex” approach popularized by “progressives” in the U.S. who want to avoid finding homosexuality itself to be a dangerous “lifestyle.”

Uh, actually, the safe sex (scare quotes not necessary for things that actually exist, Cliffypants!) approach is the effective approach. Uganda used to be a model for HIV/AIDS prevention, but their numbers have actually plateaued (and may be rising) over the last several years, as the emphasis on abstinence began to overshadow a comprehensive approach. So, wrong again, Clifton!

The Ugandan bill does provide for harsh measures against homosexual conduct, including the death penalty for such practices as pedophilia, facilitating homosexual activity, and deliberately spreading AIDS. As such, however, Ugandan Christian ministers see the legislation as a necessary and continuing part of Uganda’s successful anti-AIDS effort.

Well, if Ugandan Christians think it’s necessary, far be it from us to question them, right, Cliff? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a little genocide, as long as the leaders have a rationale, right?

Conservatives were shocked to see Coburn, a conservative leader and medical doctor, jump into bed with Feingold and Franken and other liberals to attack Uganda’s legislative process and pro-family political leaders and activists.

Uh, what conservatives were shocked, Cliff? It’s not a good idea to refer to yourself in the plural, sir. It’s a good indicator of mental illness.

Uganda was once ruled by a homosexual pedophile King named Mwanga, who tortured and murdered Christian youth who refused his sexual advances. Their sacrifices are celebrated every June 3, Martyr’s Day in the nation. This terrible period in Uganda’s history has never been forgotten.

Relevance? The Mwanga thing has been repeated by Scott Lively as well. Here’s the thing: As usual, these men are lying. Even when they keep the general parameters of the story correctly intact, they lie. Here are the actual details of the Martyr’s Day history. The young men were killed for their Christian faith. The timeframe for this was 1885-1887. Mwanga was born in 1868. This means that his time of “pedophilia” happened when he was ages 17 to 19. The martyrs ranged in age from 18-25. There is no scenario under which sexual advances toward grown men can be considered “pedophilia,” especially when the supposed pedophile is younger than them!

The extent of Cliff Kincaid’s pathological lying is truly stunning.

Anyway, he goes on and on and on, and it gets boring after a while, but at no time does he express any personal problems with the idea of genocide against gay people, and he continues to condemn Coburn for speaking out against it, so we must only assume that Cliff Kincaid actively desires the death of gay people. I hope the Southern Poverty Law Center* is paying attention.

(h/t Right Wing Watch)

*Incidentally, we reported the other day that the Illinois Family Institute had been put back on the list of SPLC anti-gay hate groups, because they had. Jeremy Hooper also reported it. But now their name is mysteriously missing from the list again, and I’d like to know why. More when I find out.

We knew that, after unceremoniously being stripped of your designation as an SPLC-certified anti-gay hate group last year, you would take that as a signal that you simply hadn’t been applying yourself. Well, Laurie Higgins, you got that message, didn’t you, and you put in the necessary hours of abject, irrational hatred in order to retake your place on the roster of extremist hate groups. Brava, Laurie! You are now again officially recognized as the bona fide hate queen you always were in your heart, and have taken back your rightful place in the hallowed halls of organizations which are dangerous to the fabric of this great country! Now, go take your seat next to the Ku Klux Klan. They’ve missed you!

(h/t Jeremy)