From the American Family Association’s hilarious “news” arm, OneNewsNow:

A prominent pro-homosexual group isn’t satisfied with benefits already being offered by 337 major American businesses to their homosexual employees.

General Motors, Bank of America, IBM, Ford Motor, AT&T, Walgreen Co., Target, Citigroup — those companies (and scores more) got a 100-percent favorable rating on the 2010 Corporate Equality Index [PDF], an annual business ranking published by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the largest homosexual activist organization in the country. [Caution: The previous link goes to a pro-homosexual website]

OMG! Caution! What if the rubes who read OneNewsNow for informational purposes accidentally clicked a clicky and fell under the spell of gayness?!  Caution:  the above link goes to one of the most unintentionally funny websites on the entire internet.  Proceed with giggles, y’all!

But HRC is now demanding those corporations offer unlimited healthcare coverage for transgender employees — or lose the highest ranking offered under the Corporate Equality Index. Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality tells OneNewsNow the group is simply escalating “its blackmail campaign against businesses.”

“In order to get a 100-percent rating, you now have to provide funding for sex-change operations for transsexuals,” he explains. “So…they keep ramping up the demands to get the 100-percent rating, knowing that companies are bragging about having the rating.”

If companies brag about having the rating, that implies that they know it’s good for their business to have a good rating from the HRC, and Peter LaBarbera, as a conservative, should understand that businesses in the Free Market should never be criticized for doing things that influence their bottom line in a positive way.*

Here’s another funny part from the ONN piece:

In an interview with CitizenLink, the president of the National Association for Research and Therapy for Homosexuality urged caution regarding HRC’s costly new requirement. “Medical treatments for transgender issues are very risky procedures — and it’s an irreversible path to take,” said Dr. Julie Hamilton. “There should be a lot more research done before these types of procedures become the main path to take.”

Um, shouldn’t the president of NARTH be spending a little bit more time monitoring her board members’ for signs of Luggage Lifting and spending a little less time pretending she represents a respected medical association?  I mean, really, guys…

Joe Jervis got a response from the Human Rights Campaign on this issue:

The new CEI requirement is for insurance coverage to pay for medically necessary treatment for transgender people including sex affirmation surgeries. These surgeries are medically necessary according to the World Professional Association for Transgender Health and have been endorsed by the AMA among others. It is our hope that the new CEI criteria will make a difference in the lives of transgender people.

Funny, how their response cites endorsements from grown-up medical organizations.  Oh wait, no it’s not.  Science and medicine are always on our side in these battles.

*Oh, shush, you know I’m just playing Devil’s Advocate and pointing out how inconistent and stupid conservatives are when it comes to understanding their own purported ideology.

Sometimes the only thing you can do is laugh.  Since federal judge Virginia Phillips is signaling that she has no intention of staying her injunction on the enforcement of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the policy, at least for a few more days, remains unenforceable.  Despite the way DADT repeal has been screwed up at every step, it does appear that the policy will be history before too terribly long.

So let’s see what this wingnut at the AFA’s “news” source OneNewsNow is saying about DADT repeal.  Oh, he thinks it’s going to lead to a “homosexual-run military.”  Too funny:

Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), does not think the president cares about how unjust and discriminatory it will be for heterosexual service members when the military is taken over by radical homosexuals.

Don’t tell them about the secret amendment to Phillips’ ruling that makes Adam Lambert the commandant for life of a new military branch, intended to eventually replace the Marine Corps. That’s supposed to be a surprise.

“If you try to have a sergeant drilling

Two seconds in and this Richard Thompson dude is getting all homoerotic. It’s a family website!

and overseeing a bunch of young men, and that sergeant happens to be homosexual, you can just imagine what kind of coercion there is going to be,” he warns.

Uh. What? Is Richard Thompson aware that sergeants follow certain standards and practices, regardless of who they go home to at night? Anyway, file this comment under Richard Thompson Scared About Buttsex.

“If this ever happens, you’re going to see a lot of violence; you’re going to see a lot of young men leaving the military, and you’re going to have unintended consequences that can only be imagined today.”

I suppose it can only be imagined, because his fears are imaginary. Note, of course, that there are already lots of gays in all positions of the military hierarchy, and many of them are already open about their sexuality. And of course, every other mature nation in the world has gays openly serving, and none of them have these problems. What is it about American wingnut men that they assume that they’re some sort of prize for gay troops? Why would they possibly think gays are looking at them?! Seriously! Wingnuts aren’t sexy!

Anyway, going off on a tangent here.

Let’s look at the comments section, because that’s always the funniest part of OneNewsNow:

With homosexuals it is all about the orgasm and perverting society to buy acceptance from others when possible and force it when they deem necessary.

Haha, I can’t even do this.  That’s a real comment, left by a purportedly real human wingnut.  So is this:

Destroying the best most effective military in the world IS the objective of godless liberals. I am encouraging all my young family members to now avoid military service.

Man, they’re funny.

Last month, the Burlington County, New Jersey, public library director Gail Sweet — acting in violation of library guidelines – censored the book Revolutionary Voices: A Multicultural Queer Youth Anthology. She acted in collaboration with Christian Rightists who had succeeded in censoring the same book at Rancocas Valley Regional High School in May. Both actions were effected solely on the basis of antigay bigotry; in the view of the censors, all literature relating to youth and sexual orientation constitutes “child pornography.” Anti-censorship, free-speech, and pro-equality advocates mounted an ongoing resistance campaign.

Today, a few weeks later, the Cookeville Herald Citizen in Tennessee reported that the Alliance Defense Fund and local evangelical author Ilene Vick are suing the Putnam County Library for prohibiting the use of a public room by her evangelical book club.

The newspaper cites the library’s policies for room use:

* Library activities have priority over any outside pre-arranged or regularly scheduled groups or events.

* Bookings for meeting rooms are to be arranged through the reference librarian no less than 24 hours before the meeting.

* Meeting rooms are available for public gatherings of a civic, cultural or educational character. Rooms are not available for meetings of social, political, partisan or religious purposes; for the benefit of private individuals or commercial concerns; for the presentation of one side of controversial matters; or when in the judgment of the Library Board, disorder may be likely to occur.

* The rooms may be used by joint committees or associations from more than one church for business, educational, and cultural transactions when no religious services are involved.

Christian Right media outfit OneNewsNow joined the ADF in asserting that Christian Rightists enjoy a special right to bypass any usage restrictions and to evangelize wherever they please.

Should an atheist, Buddhist feminist, Jewish environmentalist, or gay conservative author seek to use the Putnam County library’s meeting room, I’m betting that ADF, OneNewsNow, and all of their friends will threaten the author — not the library. Censorship is great — until you’re not the one being denied access to the public.

The Liberty Counsel — the lawsuit-friendly organization that helps Exodus International and other Christian Rightists sue defenders of religious freedom — is defending the new president of the United Nations General Assembly, former Libyan Foreign Minister Ali Abdussalam Treki, who on Sept. 15 disagreed with a 2008 General Assembly statement by 66 nations urging decriminalization of homosexuality.

According to PrideSource, Treki said: “As a Muslim, I am not in favor of that. I believe it is not accepted by the majority of countries (and) it is not really acceptable by our religion, our tradition.”

In an Oct. 24 statement to American Family Association’s OneNewsNow propaganda service, Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel rose to defend Treki, who rose to his position at the U.N. through the sponsorship of Libya’s longtime terror mastermind Muammar al-Qaddafi. Barber said Treki’s views on criminalization were in tune with much of the world.

On that count, he may be right:

Private consensual homosexual behavior is punishable by imprisonment in 70 of 195 nations.

But Treki’s statement is contrary to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights Act.

Barber’s public support for imprisonment of gay people worldwide might be considered refreshing by cynics; his allies at Exodus continue to offer discreet support to vigilantism and imprisonment in Uganda and Barbados, and they refuse to offer an official public statement condemning imprisonment and vigilantism.

According to the AFA, Barber says that groups which voice disagreement with Treki and imprisonment…

“…are completely intolerant of other people’s belief systems [and] of other cultures,” says the Christian attorney. “We hear talk of cultural diversity — [but] there is no cultural diversity as far as the left is concerned and as far as homosexual activists are concerned. It’s either their way or the highway.”

Barber’s support for tolerance of terrorism, imprisonment, and vigilantism against LGBT people takes the Christian Right’s notion of “tolerance” to a whole new level.

Sexuality is not a right, according to OneNewsNow, which cites the Orange County (Calif.) Board of Education as its authority on the subject.

The Christian Rightists of the American Family Association’s media organ might make exceptions for you — if you’re an evangelical heterosexual Republican and you ask them nicely.

“Homosexuality is not a civil right,” board chair Alexandria Coronado emphasizes. Nor is heterosexuality, unless it is preapproved by a Christian Rightist authority.

Dan Gilgoff’s “God and Country” blog carries a guest column by pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton, who rejects accusations by the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (the ex-gay think tank and lobbying group) against the American Psychological Association.

NARTH falsely accuses the APA of advising therapists to lure their clients from antigay churches to gay-tolerant or gay-affirming ones. The American Family Association’s “OneNewsNow” propaganda service parroted NARTH’s accusation without offering the APA a chance to correct prior inaccurate reporting by the Associated Press.

As noted by TWO, Richard Cizik, Washington lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals, resigned his post last week because of controversy over his nationally broadcast support of gay civil unions. The NAE and right-wing political organizations are applauding his departure with words both questionable and unkind.

During a Dec. 2 interview on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air,” Cizik told host Terry Gross that he voted for Barack Obama in the Virginia primary and said Christians should not fear supporting pro-choice and pro-LGBT candidates. Cizik also said that his views on marriage were “shifting” and that he supports civil union.

The comments made by the lobbyist — formally known as NAE’s vice president for governmental affairs — caused a huge stir in evangelical Christian circles and the controversy led him to resign his job. In a statement to the organization’s board members, the association’s acting president Leith Anderson explained his departure, saying Cizik’s radio remarks caused “a loss of trust in his credibility as a spokesperson among leaders and constituencies.”

It turns out that Cizik’s views are evolving even more. For years, he has been one of the rare evangelicals banging the drum for addressing climate change. The DC-based Institute on Religion & Democracy’s Mark Tooley told OneNewsNow that “Cizik has been very outspoken and in some ways ‘off the reservation’ for the last five or six years in terms of his global warming activism, which the board of NAE had initially somewhat disavowed — but that had not discouraged him.”

Cizik’s civil-union support was an apparent step too far from the reservation. “The National Association of Evangelicals has official positions strongly supporting traditional marriage and opposing same-sex marriage, and certainly by implication same-sex civil unions,” Tooley said. “So it seemed to be a very clear case where Cizik was ignoring the very obvious and official positions of his own organization, for which he is supposed to be the chief spokesman and lobbyist in Washington.”

Evangelical support for Cizik’s resignation is voluminous, the criticisms harsh.

Ingrid Schlueter, co-host of evangelizing radio show Crosstalk America said, “Those who are at war with God, the author of life, should be publicly confronted by evangelical Christians. Instead, they are aided and abetted in their evil by craven leaders like Cizik.”

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council is expectedly meanspirited: “This is the risk of walking through the green door of environmentalism and global warming – you risk being blinded by the green light and losing your sense of direction. How else can you explain enthusiastic support for what will probably be the nation’s most pro-abortion, anti-family president in our nation’s 232 year history?”

Janice Shaw Crouse, director and senior fellow of Concerned Women for America’ Beverly LaHaye Institute, takes a broad swipe: “I think, perhaps, my dear friend Rich has been inside the Beltway for too long and has swallowed too much of the NPR and Vogue magazine Kool-Aid.”

I suppose the nasty talk has to be over-the-top. After all, Cizik has the ear of millions of Americans. People listen to him. You can see it in the responses on the FRC blog, where faithful Christians responding to Perkins’ statement wonder why caring about the environment or supporting Barack Obama contradicts their beliefs. Time magazine even named Cizik one of the world’s 100 most influential people this year. That’s a lot of clout to for the evangelicals to overcome.

Consider the response of NAE supporters of Cizik — and there are many of them. According to US News and World Report, “a coalition of roughly 60 evangelical leaders (mostly of the non-Christian right variety) has written to … Leith Anderson pushing for a successor [who, like Cizik, is] not beholden to the Christian right… [one] who embraces more progressive causes like combating global warming.” Read the full letter here.

David Gushee, a college professor and progressive evangelical activist who helped write the letter to Anderson, said this in an interview with USNWR:

I think Leith and the executive committee are going to take their time and let the furor over this die down. I personally think they need to find somebody who can promote all seven of the policy commitments in the NAE’s Health of Our Nation statement. There’s one on sanctity of life and one on climate change and one on poverty. There are always pressures from the right that the two fundamental issues of our time should be abortion and homosexuality. I think there will be pressure to hire somebody to make those the top priority.

I can tell you from some feedback that if the NAE makes the mistake of rolling back to the classic Christian right agenda, they would lose support of a lot of people who are currently happy to be working with them.

Yes, this comes from within the NAE.

The good news for Cizik, if he is sincere in his evolution, is that his message is being heard across the nation. It’s evident in the growing support for legal recognition of same-gender couples and for humane and just treatment of LGBT citizens. It is reflected in the fact that an increasing number of people are realizing that “gay” isn’t something that needs to be prayed away. Even the vote that passed California’s obnoxious and un-American Proposition 8 was a close one. Cizik is but one of many Americans who are slowly but surely understanding that being a Christian does not require denying compassion and equality to LGBT people.

Let’s hope this good man is snapped up by a progressive evangelical organization so that his vast influence — and his personal evolution — can continue. And let’s hope those questioning evangelicals continue searching their hearts and minds.

The religious-right propaganda service OneNewsNow today parroted an apparently false claim by Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays that the organization filed a lawsuit against the District of Columbia Office of Human Rights.

Heck — in today’s “conservative” political climate, ONN’s recklessness is not only logical, but moral.

After all… why fact-check a publicity-hungry claim by one’s right-wing allies when falsehoods are more effective in impressing one’s base of support and scaring taxpayers?

Addendum: Eugene Volokh of the conservative Volokh Conspiracy agrees with PFOX’s critics: Ex-gays are already covered under D.C.’s expansive anti-discrimination and human-rights law — and the National Education Association has the free-speech right not to allow its events to be commandeered by PFOX pundits who oppose its public policy positions regarding education.