As Joe points out, isn’t it amazing how every single “ex-gay” seems to have some kind of terrible sob story about how they used to be drug addicts, criminals, alcoholics, homeless, or god knows what else?  Or as Joe puts it:

Could it be that happy, well-adjusted, healthy people in control of their lives don’t need to run to Jeebus and blame their gayness as the source of their fucked-up existence?

It’s all scapegoating. This is the very same reason conservative Evangelicals have set up so many outposts in the Third World. It’s a lot easier to convince hungry people to worship your deity if you’re withholding a twinkie behind your back.  Likewise, you can’t sell the “ex-gay” lie to smart, happy, successful gays and lesbians, because we’re not vulnerable to being convinced that every problem in our lives is due to the fact that we are homosexuals.

Here’s the YouTube description for this video, which is described as God’s Relentless Pursuit of a Drug Addicted Demonic Drag Queen. Oy vey:

After an abusive and tortured childhood, and years of drug addiction and sexual confusion, Trace found fame in the gay community as the demonic drag queen named “COMA”. After years of ignoring God, Trace found himself living on the streets and dying from AIDS. Hear the inspiring story of God’s relentless pursuit of a drug addicted drag queen.

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??)

I know, I know, dog bites man, etc.

New Harris Poll:

On the heels of health care, a new Harris poll reveals Republican attitudes about Obama: Two-thirds think he’s a socialist, 57 percent a Muslim‚Äîand 24 percent say “he may be the Antichrist.”

Yeppers, 24 percent think it’s plausible that Obama’s the long foretold spawn of the Red Horned Boogeyman.* One out of four! Think about it. At an average Republican party event, every fourth person thinks the President could possibly be a demon spirit masquerading as a man. Also? Thirty-eight percent think Obama’s “doing many of the things Hitler did.”

Here’s more from John Avlon, the author of the book Wingnuts:

The full results of the poll, which will be released in greater detail tomorrow, are even more frightening: including news that high percentages of Republicans‚Äîand Americans overall‚Äîbelieve that President Obama is “racist,” “anti-American” “wants the terrorists to win” and “wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one-world government.” The “Hatriot” belief that Obama is a “domestic enemy” as set forth in the Constitution is also widely held‚Äîa sign of trouble yet to come. It’s the same claim made by Marine Lance Corporal Kody Brittingham in his letter of intent to assassinate the President Obama.

This poll is the latest and most detailed evidence of the extent to which Wingnuts are hijacking our politics. It should be a wakeup call to all Americans and a collective reminder, as we move past health-care reform, that we need to stand up to extremism.

Oy. I keep recommending that we provide them helmets, but that would just devolve into another stupid argument about whether the government should provide them the helmets or whether the free market should provide them, and then we’d be talking about damn mandates, and they’d starting barking and drooling about socialism (67% of them think Obama is a “socialist,” naturally), and then Tony Perkins would start telling people that helmets are laced with embryonic stem cells and Michele Bachmann would refuse to wear hers because the helmets would be used to identify and pick up the new residents of the FEMA camps, and Sarah Palin would start dropping malapropisms all over the place since she doesn’t have Meghan Stapleton to translate her emissions from Princess Moose Burger into English on her Facebook page, and Bryan Fischer by that point will have devolved completely into posting YouTube videos of himself weeping and slapping himself in the face and whatnot, so FINE, we won’t even try to help the poor dears.

Bless. Their. Hearts.

I post things like this because it’s useful to remember that the great majority of anti-gay, anti-woman, and anti-human sentiment comes from the Republican Party. We have to understand that the sorts of insane beliefs that motivate wingnuts like Tony Perkins, Peter LaBarbera, Matt Barber, Maggie Gallagher, and a host of others, don’t exist in a vacuum. Pull the thread of one of their idiot conspiracy theories, and a whole bag of black helicopter tinfoil hattery comes out. It doesn’t matter which side you pull it from, either. Start with a birther, you’ll probably end up with a deather. Start with an anti-gay demagogue and you’ll probably end up with a misogynist pig who believes that Planned Parenthood is perpetuating a black genocide. The fact that not every wingnut is infected with every conspiracy theory doesn’t change the central point. It simply exposes where their dominant fears are.

Anyway. Night night, wingnuts, sleep tight, don’t let the bed bu…

OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT SHADOW MOVING RIGHT THERE!

Shhhh, wingnuts. It’s just a branch. See, outside the window? On the tree? There there. No, there’s no monster. No. There’s no Nicolae Carpathia either. That’s just a story, and it’s not written very well either, so why do you keep reading it? Now just sleep. And if you bother the liberals again with your crying, there will be no Chuck E. Cheese tomorrow night, got it? That sound? It’s just the house settling. I promise. No, it’s not an illegal gay immigrant having a socialist abortion atop a stack of Bibles. Where DO you get these ideas anyway?

(h/t Blue Texan at FireDogLake)

*Poll did not ask how many Republicans think Obama is actually Darth Vader or possibly Zuul. Obviously an oversight.