It’s sad that Peter LaBarbera has been reduced to picking fights/starting one-man witchhunts against college professors.  It’s all he has left, apparently.  I never thought I would say this, but I feel sorry for Warren Throckmorton, that he’s having to learn the true character of his erstwhile friend Peter firsthand.  But anyway, the witchhunt continues with a letter written by some AFTAH reader (Matt “Bam Bam Right Hook Hunka Hunka Macho Smash Totally Not Gay” Barber, maybe?), reminding us that even if you’re not gay, if you act like a fag, you’re still going to hell:

Let us remember that the Bible not only condemns homosexual sex, but also plainly says that “the effeminate” will not inherit the kingdom of God (I Cor 6:9 KJV).  Sin extends beyond explicit, overt activity/behavior; the attitude and demeanor of homosexuality must be cast off as well as the practice itself.

Do you hear that, Every Ex-Gay Ministry Leader?  Still going to hell.  Sorry.

You should always pay attention when a fundamentalist says that the Bible “plainly says” something, because they’re about to come at you with something intellectually equivalent to “If ‘Anglish was good enough fer Jesus, it’s good enough fer me!”

Okay, do you want to know what that verse is actually about?  Well, it goes like this:  to translate the word malakoi as “effeminate” is incorrect, at least insofar as “effeminate” is understood in modern society.  The literal meaning is “soft” and it’s used elsewhere in the Bible and in other writings of the time to describe clothing, or wearers of certain kinds of soft, lush clothing.  I could spend a lot of time explaining, but this and this are helpful places to start.  In short, if you study the passage closely [a concept completely foreign to illiterate homophobes] in light of the culture in which it was written, the best translation is more of a concept of a soft, lazy, wealthy and well-fed ne’er-do-well sort.  The word also was used sometimes in relation to the practice of pederasty, but again, one has to understand what pederasty was and was not.  Lying bigots will tell you pederasty was just like our modern day concept of homosexuality, because they know that the people who listen to them are not well-read.  Pederasty was a strange cultural phenomenon practiced by heterosexuals wherein a younger man, as a rite of passage, was sort of mentored by an older man. Sometimes it involved sex, but sometimes it didn’t.  Here’s how Plato described it:

“When an older lover and a young man come together and each obeys the principle appropriate to him – when the lover realizes that he is justified in doing anything for a loved one who grants him favors, and when the young man understands that he is justified in performing a service for a lover who can make him wise and virtuous – and when the lover is able to help the young man become wise and better, and the young man is eager to be taught and improved by his lover – then, and only then, when these two principles coincide absolutely, is it ever honorable for a young man to accept the lover.”

But again, I emphasize that the word Paul used only sometimes referred to this practice, which does not remotely resemble a married gay or lesbian couple who are committed to each other in sickness and health, etc.  But unfortunately, you fast forward 2,000 years and rednecks who can’t tell the difference between “your” and “you’re” feel comfortable explaining that the Bubble sez if you ack like a fag yer goin’ to hey-ull.  It’s mindnumbing, I know.

Anyway, thus concludes your second Bible lesson from an atheist!

In ANY sense of the word.  Peter has posted a letter from some character he’s calling “Priscilla Smith,” who may or may not be one of Peter’s drag alter egos (allegedly!), rebuking a Grove City College student, David Bier, for his “unbiblical” perspective on gay people (i.e., he doesn’t hate us with the methane emissions of a million wingnuts).*  It’s all a part of Peter’s continuing torch-wielding-mob-of-two crusade against Warren Throckmorton, for daring to use his brain for thinking rather than as a paperweight, as the Christian Right recommends.  Here are fourteen of “Priscilla”’s words for Mr. Bier:

Please advise Mr. Bier that Jesus Christ does not “accept others as they are.”

Thank you for posting this, Pete.  It’s good to know that you’re now essentially admitting that you cannot claim the mantle of “Christian,” in any way, shape or form.  (Of course, neither can Priscilla, if she exists.)

Because, you see, though I deconverted from Christianity several years back, I happen to know quite a bit about the religion, and about the text of the Bible.  So, let’s see…

⁷Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son^[b] into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for^[c] our sins.¹¹Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹²No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

¹³We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. ¹⁶And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. ¹⁷In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him.¹⁸There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

¹⁹We love because he first loved us. ²⁰If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. ²¹And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

That would be 1 John 4:7-21.  (Emphasis mine, not God’s…)

²⁸“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. ²⁹Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Hmmm, nothing about “UNLESS UR A GAY” in Matthew 11:28-30.

³⁵Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. ³⁶But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. ³⁷All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.

Hmmm, nothing about “UNLESS I HAVE PICTURES OF YOU IN LEATHER ON MY SECRET EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE” there, in John 6:35-37.

⁶You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Huh!  So in Romans 5:6-8, it sounds like Christ died for people without precondition, without them making themselves “acceptable” in any way!  Crazy!  So what the hell are Priscilla and Peter talking about?

Obviously not any accepted form of Christianity.

Shall I go on?

Oh, all right, I’ll quote one more, since it’s POSSIBLY THE MOST FAMOUS BIBLE PASSAGE OF ALL TIME!!!!!

*Ahem!*

¹⁶“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,^[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.^[g]

Again, huh!  No, “unless u likey the same sexy in a sexytime way.”  No preconditions of any sort, except belief.  Huh!  By the way, Pete, in case you’re not familiar, that would be John 3:16-18.

You’d think for someone who prattles on ad nauseam about what a great and holy Christian he is, Peter LaBarbera would know the first thing about the Bible.  I guess he only knows six verses, the ones he uses because he thinks they give his malevolent bigotry a prettier face.

The jig is up, dude.

Thus concludes your Bible Lesson From An Atheist.

Q.E.D.

*Grove City College senior David Bier wrote a letter to AFTAH, which is pretty great, so click here to read that.

Peter LaBarbera and Linda Harvey are on their neverending Warren Throckmorton witchhunt again.  It must be one of the most painful things in the world to be the Last Bigots Standing, but Pete and Linda bring it upon themselves, so no pity!  Hold your nose, we’re going to have Linda time now:

A broad coalition of pro-family groups recommends that parents keep their children home on the deceptive, pro-homosexual “Day of Silence,” to be observed this year on April 16, 2010, but one “gay”-affirming counselor started what he calls the “Golden Rule Pledge” instead.

Yet, the “Golden Rule Pledge” actually functions as a disinformation tool and a divisive wedge in schools and among Christians. It is insidiously misleading and would bring harm to kids. It grieves me to take this position, but there’s no choice, because lives are at stake.

That’s right, Linda.  Lives ARE at stake!  Gay kids attempt and commit suicide at a much higher rate than the rest of the population because of the pig ignorant bile you leave everywhere.

[Warren Throckmorton] has expressed his preference for students remaining in school on the “Day of Silence” and hearing pro-homosexual propaganda, and learning to sympathize with those practicing these behaviors, rather than taking an unequivocal, biblical stand against these harmful practices by remaining home.

Refer to post title.

Throckmorton doesn’t even like the Exodus-sponsored “Day of Truth,” which encourages kids to remain in school and have a frank conversation, in love, with friends while presenting the biblical view of homosexuality. Throckmorton calls this “offensive.”

Well, why would he like the “Day of Truth,” since the people who sponsor it value actual, verifiable truth like pedophiles value children?

Throckmorton’s support of the “Day of Silence” will do incalculable harm to many young people. Misleading professionals like Throckmorton in positions of influence can make our sons and daughters become comfortable with entering into, staying in, or approving of homosexuality, bisexuality and gender change.

Wrong!  Again, we deal with actual truth, not “I hide my bigotry behind Bible verses I don’t understand” truth.  Helping make our sons and daughters comfortable with their biology, their sexual orientation, and helping them along the path of healthy development is a GOOD thing.  And guess what?  I can point to tons of high school kids who are living this reality right now.  Meanwhile, Linda continues to have nothing more than some bur in her nether regions that she inexplicably blames on gay people.

If I were a parent who discovered my minor child had been counseled in this way, I’d bring the largest and most aggressive medical malpractice suit I could launch against this counselor at Grove City.

Well, to be fair, no one accused you of being a good mother, Linda.

Jesus would never make a person feel more comfortable about:

• Young males having sex with males, the incidence of which rose over 12 % per year between 2001 and 2006 among males ages 13 to 24 1;
• Young “lesbians” choosing a fatherless life for any future children, since they can never conceive children with female partners;
• Hoping in such relationships for a false “marriage” in violation of Matthew 19:4-6 and Mark 10:6-9, where Christ told us that “from the beginning” people were created male and female, and that one man and one woman form a marriage;
• Teens and even younger children believing they should change genders. As with homosexuality, we should be doing everything possible to counsel these kids and prevent these behaviors among youth.

I could swear up and down that because Curious George doesn’t refer to the Man in the Yellow Hat owning any other color hats, that’s because other colors are evil, and I could swear up and down that Curious George was written by a supreme deity, but I’d still be a malevolent bigot, hiding behind a book.

And yes, it’s the same.  For that matter, you don’t know what Jesus would say, because he ain’t here, and he didn’t see fit to discuss these subjects.  Although there’s a strong case to be made that he was confronted with men he knew to be in a sexual relationship with each other, and didn’t have a word to say about it.  AND, there were gender variant people all over the Bible, and Jesus didn’t seem to have an issue with that either.  AND, since medical science is indeed figuring out that people are born with brains that are gendered in a way that doesn’t match their physical gender, AND since medical science should theoretically be considered by Christians to be the study of God’s wondrous creation, Christians should be the first to get on board with its findings.

Game, set, match, crazy cat lady.*

As the piece continues, Linda takes issue with the Golden Rule itself:

Hmmm. “…The way I want to be treated.” So, if a student is about to enter, or has entered, a high-risk practice that is called an abomination by our Lord, and has shared this with classmates, a “true” Christian should attend school to support a day that affirms this behavior and scorns any warnings to that student? Some friendship!

Here’s a biblically-based alternative: “Friends don’t let friends do homosexuality!”

Uh, actually, Linda, since you have no proof for anything you say (not the high-risk part, not the abomination part), actually you’re just a malevolent woman who feels she has a right to impose her backwards worldview on innocent children.  Perhaps the admonition should be “Friends don’t leave their children with lying Fundamentalists.”

I wouldn’t leave my kids with a deranged imam, and I certainly wouldn’t leave them with Linda Harvey.

No, the “Day of Silence” is about propaganda. The goal is to shame and label Christians and tradition-minded students and teachers, silence their authentic witness, and even silence any public health warnings. Real safety would be to scream from the rooftops about the harm homosexuality or gender change will bring to these young lives. And since no one is born homosexual, these desires are demonstrably changeable, so no one is left without a positive alternative.

My god, these people never show their work.  Show me how monogamous sex between two same gendered individuals is harmful, please?  Show me how safer-sex practices work for straight people, but not for gay people?  And then show me how transgender people expressing their appropriate gender in whatever way they choose is harmful.  And then show me your proof that people aren’t born gay.  (And don’t give me that unscientific crap about how no “gay gene” has been found yet.  A first year student of genetics, even from a Christian school, could explain how stupid that argument is.)  And then show me all the people who have “demonstrably changed” their sexual orientation.  I mean, even John Smid is now admitting that he’s still into dudes.  They all do, eventually.

This is such a travesty that if we were all ancient Israelites, we’d be rending our clothing and putting on sackcloth and ashes!

Really, she just said that.  But since Linda’s not an ancient Israelite, she’s going to stick with the frumpy separates and wild and crazy pink headband she got at TJ-Maxx last week.

Please join me in praying for Warren Throckmorton, for his repentance, and also for his duplicitous dealings to be revealed so no further harm is done to our precious and impressionable kids.

And please help me pray that the emotionally manipulative “Day of Silence” is revealed for what it is — adults exploiting precious kids.

Uh, no thanks.  We’ll stick with the reality-based world that Warren is becoming more of a part of every single day.

*No, I do not have any personal knowledge of how many cats Linda Harvey has.  My educated guess is “47.”

This is presumably not a joke:

My name is Peter LaBarbera. I am a 47-year-old, happily married father of five living in Naperville, and I am asking for your vote to serve as Republican State Central Committeeman for the 13 Congressional District of Illinois.

I entered this race as a strong fiscal and social conservative in the model of Illinois’ own Ronald Reagan. I believe that the IL-GOP is badly in need of reform and that we can be better served than by our current leaders – including my opponent, Roger Claar — who have put power over principle and lost sight of the greatness that a conservative Republican Party can achieve.

As a Reagan Republican, my dream for the Illinois Republican Party is that it would return to the standards of conservatism, decency, integrity and high principle of the man who grew up here, in Dixon, and who as President restored American greatness and accomplished what many said was impossible: to force the demise of Soviet Communism, an “Evil Empire” (as Reagan called it) and the most murderous political system ever created.

He tacks through his “beliefs” or whatever, and somehow doesn’t see fit to share all the amazing work he’s done over the years going to leathersex festivals and taking hundreds of pictures for his personal collection!  And honestly, I think that’s important!  The constituents of the Illinois 13th should know about Peter’s mad skillz as a nude male photographer!  Also, he is an expert on military themed gay porn!  Who knows, maybe the denizens of Illinois 13 have been having trouble finding military themed gay porn!  Well, here you go! Peter knows where it is!  And if you have a friend or family member who’s gay and getting married, Peter will write them an insane personal letter condemning their love.  How many people in America would do that to for a person they’ve never met?  Peter will.  That’s the kind of guy he is.

Anyway, exciting!

As Kyle said, this is weird, even for Peter LaBarbera:

Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is preparing a first-ever study of alleged housing discrimination against homosexuals.

Federal officials are brainstorming with residents of New York, Chicago, and San Francisco on how to conduct the study that is to begin next year. Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, believes the purpose is to gather data to advance the cause of homosexual activists. “But beyond that,” he adds, ”this is the classic attempt to equate homosexuality so-called ‘discrimination’ with other traditional civil rights discrimination.”

The president of the conservative group also believes the government is manufacturing a crisis because there are very few reports of attacks on homosexuals, and that that begs the question as there are apartment projects and residential neighborhoods throughout the country owned by homosexuals who bar heterosexuals.

“I’ve heard of cases where people who are sort of driven to sell their homes because all the homes are being sold to homosexuals,” he accounts. “So is the Obama administration going to investigate discrimination against people who are not homosexuals?”

What huh?

Okay, first of all, housing discrimination does exist, and the study is basically trying to find out where and to what extent.  My guess is that it happens in rental properties a lot more than anywhere else.  But his contention that straight people are being discriminated against because gays are buying in their neighborhood is truly bizarre.  First of all, it’s not discrimination, in any sense of the word, if the house across the street sells to a gay couple, or a straight couple, or a fundamentalist couple, or whatever.  It’s actually just a house changing ownership.

But I find this particularly strange because when a neighborhood gets gayer, the property values tend to go way up!  The neighborhoods get safer, the houses get fixed up, the neighborhood looks better, in general!  Seriously, go to any major city in the nation and find the neighborhoods with the highest concentrations of gays.  Compare the price per square foot in those neighborhoods to, say, something in the suburbs where the Peter LaBarberas live.

Or here, I’ll do it for you.  According to Peter’s dark little corner of the internet, Americans for Truth and Peter are based in Naperville, Illinois, a whitebread suburb of Chicago.  Here’s what’s on the market in Naperville right now.  Some of it is all fancy dan, but it’s mostly cookie cutter McMansions, which are boring.  If you want to live in Naperville right now, you’re going to pay between $144 and $176 per square foot, on average.  Let’s compare that to Boystown, on the north side of Chicago, where there are um, lotsa gays.  Right now, if you want to live in Boystown, you’re going to pay between $220 and $254 per square foot.

Good taste is more expensive, you see.  But Boystown didn’t used to be that way.  It wasn’t until the gays started moving in that the neighborhood started to turn into the high value cultural center it is today.

It’s not just in Chicago either.  It’s happened in Tampa, Midtown Atlanta, Logan Circle in Washington, the Cooper-Young District in Memphis (hey-o!), etc.  The phenomenon has even been studied, by science!  Not only do we make neighborhoods better qualitatively, we give you more return on your investment by putting down roots in your neighborhood.

And here’s Stephen Colbert talking to Richard Florida about the “Bohemian-Gay” index, which shows the correlation between interesting people slash gay people moving in and rising property values.  Because, as Stephen says, people these days want a “house with a view of some goateed beatnik playing his bongos while he smokes a clove cigarette and chisels a sculpture of k.d. lang.”

Exactly!

So really, is this what Peter is complaining about?

To any fundamentalist mouthbreathers who have been “forced to sell their houses” because of all the gays moving in, we can only say this:  Take the profit from your increased-by-gays property value and run away to Wal-Mart Hell if that makes you feel better, and oh, by the way, YOU’RE WELCOME!

Folks?  Folks, folks, folks…

Folks!

Folks, Peter LaBarbera has taken to posting right wing e-mail forwards.  In this case, it’s a letter, written by a Navy captain who served starting in 1947, when homosexuality was not understood, when knowledge wasn’t readily available, before gays started coming out…in other words, back in the days when pesky reality didn’t interfere with the biases of a man like Peter LaBarbera.  Oh, for the world to be ignorant again!  Anyway, the letter was written to Admiral Mike Mullen, by a man named Lawrence “Jim” Jefferis.  Here are a few quotes, along with what emotional needs the quotes fulfill for Peter.

This quote allows Peter LaBarbera to continue believing that he’s a stronger man than the valiant gay and lesbian servicemembers who could, in actuality, overpower him physically with one hand tied behind their backs:

During my enlisted service, homosexuals seemed to be a clumsy lot.  They had a tendency to repeatedly fall headfirst down an engineroom ladder.  Some were even known to trip on deck and “fall” overboard.

This quote allows Peter LaBarbera to pretend that being gay is somehow a limiting factor, like lack of education or a criminal record, and keeps him from confronting the fact that gay and lesbian West Point graduates like Dan Choi not only could physically overpower him with one hand tied behind their backs, but also could intellectually overpower him in the first seconds after they wake up, before they’ve even had their coffee:

The Navy, today, does not willingly accept GED [General Equivalency Diploma] holders for enlistment.  Minor criminal records are a bar to enlistment.  Visible tattoos and piercings are not permitted.  Are these aberrations more damning than sodomy?  Personnel may be denied reenlistment if they fail to meet obesity standards.  The young men and women denied naval service because of these exclusionary conditions may also want to defend their country and might also be able to satisfactorily operate a radar, or a gas turbine, or a gun.  But you are only advocating the acceptance of homosexuals!  Why is that, Admiral?

This quote allows Peter LaBarbera to make the lazy, dishonest comparison of homosexuality to pedophilia.  Strangely, the writer thinks that pedophiles would be better servicemembers than gays.  That was a glance into the man’s psyche that I frankly did not need:

If we get to pick and choose which laws we uphold, which laws are next on the line to ignore?  Carnal Knowledge?  I would think a service man or woman who has sex with a minor (Carnal Knowledge) could perform military duties as well, if not better, than a homosexual.

This quote allows Peter LaBarbera to continue promoting strange right-wing myths that most or all gays actually want to change genders.  I have never understood this bizarre myth.  I suppose it’s just another way to scare their stupid sheep:

And have you considered the likelihood that some of the homosexuals will request sex-change procedures?  I know for a fact that a significant percentage of my Law School class was undergoing sex-change therapy or surgery.

“A significant percentage”?!  Ah yes, the famous transgender class of Hastings College, where 1 out of every 2 students was undergoing gender reassignment therapy.

WTF, Peter?  Are you really willing to believe anything a right-wing nutjob tells you?

This quote allows chickenhawk Peter LaBarbera to believe he understands military stuff better than actual military leaders:

I hope that you recognize that we are irreconcilably opposed on this issue, but I think I have given it more thought than you.

And finally, this quote allows Peter to gaze at the words “anal fixation” for hours on end without his wife questioning his “research”:

In retrospect, I now realize that of all the officers I served with on active duty, Naval Academy graduates were the most tolerant of homosexuals.  It may only be coincidence, but was there something in the curriculum that created such tolerance?  I am aware that there have been numerous scandals regarding drug use, academic cheating, and heterosexual misconduct, but had never before given much thought to their acceptance of homosexual behavior, despite my awareness that there was a tendency toward an anal fixation.

Anal fixation, Peter.  Anal Fixation.   Anal fixation.  Anus anus anus anus anus.

I think we all know that there is only one side in this argument that truly has an anal fixation.

It seems like a gay conservative at CPAC, Alex Knepper, got into a little personal altercation with the little gay sex-obsessed wingnut who calls himself Ryan Sorba.  Here’s his account, via Andrew Sullivan:

My recollections are not perfect, of course, but Nate Gunderson should be able to help me fill in the details. The exchange is roughly as follows.

“So, you’re the infamous Ryan Sorba,” I said.

“Yep!”

“You’ve made quite a name for yourself.”

“Haha, yeah. Where are you from?”

“I go to college around here, American University.”

“What are you studying?”

“I was double-majoring in Political Science with a political theory focus and International Relations with an Islamic Studies focus, but I think I’m going to drop the latter. I can’t take the relativistic preaching, the whitewashing of the burqa, Sayyid Qutb, the entire religion.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. So what did you think of my little tirade, then?”

“Oh, I thought it was quite evil, actually. I’m gay.”

“You mean you think you’re gay.”

“No, I’m gay. Do you think it’s a choice?”

“I think it’s the result of a complex process of social and environmental factors, but that it’s reversible.”

“So, like, why is it that over one hundred animals have been observed engaging in homosexual sex in nature?”

“Well, only 0.2% of animals are known to do that — ”

” — I mean, mammals, obviously, not ants, birds — ”

” — you know, animals masturbate, your dog humps your leg. Does your dog talk with a lisp?”

“Do I talk with a lisp?!” I yelled.

“A little bit.” (I later asked a couple of gay friends if I have a small lisp; both of them said I have no lisp whatsoever. Aron, who is straight, has said my voice is sometimes theatrical, but that I don’t have a lisp.)

“Rudy Giuliani has a lisp — is he gay?”

And then he went off on what he affectionately called “his tirade” — giving the same mangled pseudo-Aristotelian spiel about how natural rights have to be grounded in natural law, meaning substance, and the final result of the reproductive organ must be a reproductive act, and all of that.

“Yeah, yeah, I get your argument, I understand it, ” I tried to interrupt, But he said that I didn’t, and he finished.

“But the vast majority of married couples partake in sodomy — oral sex, anal sex, fetishes. Hasn’t your girlfriend ever given you a blowjob? I think the government should just get out of the whole marriage business!”

Everyone around us agreed with that statement. Sensing some momentum, I went on: “I’m the one who says that my values shouldn’t have anything to do with government. It’s you who wants to impose his own biases upon the rest of the world!”

Nate Gunderson pondered why it was such a burning issue for Ryan.

“Because conservatives should not be upholding groups who support homosexual marriage and sodomy.”

I said something I don’t quite recall, and he mentioned something about how he could “take me on” physically if he needed to, to which I mentioned that his quick resort to force and threats said a lot about his political philosophy.

He said at around this point that he needed to go, and put out his hand to say goodbye. I stared at him, refusing to shake his hand, and he said “Well, I don’t really want to shake your hand, you’re intrinsically evil.”

We all started walking away, with him talking to his girlfriend, and me talking to Nate, blasting Sorba more.

Someone who was with him asked Sorba: “Really, though, he had a point: why do you care about this so much when the economy is in shambles and the debt is growing and spending is out of control?”

“Because it corrupts the youth and the culture,” he replied.

When we reached the area near the escalator downstairs, he turned on his camera. I put out my arms, striking a mocking pose, but realized he kept holding the camera at me.

“Wait, are you recording or taking a picture?” He was recording.

“Ah! OK…Well, I’d like to say, then, that the person behind the camera is a Hitler Youth waiting for a fuhrer to sweep him off his feet into a grand national project so he can sacrifice individuals like stock-fodder to his own biases.”

He turned off the camera and approached me. I told him he should get his girlfriend to give him a blowjob so that he could experience the joys of sodomy. He put two of his fingers an inch from my face and said that he’d want to fight me if a girl wasn’t around. “Ah, the use of force!” I said again.

It essentially ended, there.

Hot damn!

Alex adds some thoughts of his own at the end of his post:

It’s pretty clear that this kid is deep in the closet. When he says he’s never had a blowjob, I’m not sure what would be more pathetic: if he’s lying to me, or if he’s telling the truth. But any young guy so obsessed with homosexuality, so obsessed with maintaing that it’s reversible, is clearly a closet gay guy. Imagine when this closet case marries and his wife wants to make love to him: “Sorry, honey! Sex is only for reproduction, after all!” I’d feel somewhat sorry for the poor boy, but alas, he’s making everyone else’s lives more difficult in the meantime. So, screw him.

*Snaps!*

It should come as no surprise to any of you that overgrown man-child Peter LaBarbera watched Sorba’s speech with pride. One day maybe you’ll be that well-spoken, Peter! One day!

Here’s Ryan Sorba’s little poopypants tirade again, if you missed it the first time:

Peter LaBarbera is very confused as to why conservatives like Kathleen Parker, Dick Cheney, Liz Cheney, et al., support repeal of DADT.

Um, because beltway conservatives never actually cared what fringe religious people thought in the first place, and they don’t really like you?  Because y’all are just stupid votes to them?  Always have been, always will be?

This has been Simple Answers to Simple Questions.

Also:  Staff Sergeant Major Corporal Queen of the Tuff Guys’ Privates Laurie Higgins of the loathsome Illinois Family Institute is mad about the eventual repeal of DADT, because she only wants to protect the Fundamentalist Christian Cowards who are so scared of gay people that they wouldn’t re-enlist if they had to serve alongside openly gay soldiers, sailors, airmen, etc.  Also, she thinks people are more accepting of LGBT people these days because “intellectual conservative voices” (HA HA HA) have been silenced on the issue.  I say:  If they’re such shivering pansies that they can’t handle openly gay servicemembers, then they’re obviously not brave enough to be defending our freedom in the first place, especially considering the fact that most servicemembers are already comfortable with gay people in general, and a lot of them already know for sure that they serve with gays.  It doesn’t bother them.

I guess the majority of our military just has a wee bit stronger spine than fundamentalist cowards like Laurie Higgins.

And may I add:  USA!  USA!  USA!

Love it or leave it, Higgins.

Over the past week or so, it’s been reported that Vaughn Walker, the judge in the Prop 8 trial, is gay.  This shouldn’t matter, because those of us who understand how the judicial system works know that judges are charged with interpreting the law in light of the Constitution, and nothing more.  Cries of “judishul activizms” from the Religious Right in gay rights cases are ringing more and more hollow, as straight white Republican-appointed judges around the nation are ruling in favor of our equality in increasing numbers.  So, if Vaughn Walker rules in the plaintiffs’ favor in the Prop 8 trial, he’s simply joining a growing group of Republican appointees who agree that equal protection means equal protection for ALL American citizens.  But of course, the Religious Right doesn’t see it this way.

So let’s tack off the Religious Right reactions to this revelation:

1.  Matt Barber issued a hysterical press release, suggesting that Walker’s behavior during the trial has been “bizarre,” and that his (overturned) decision to allow cameras in the courtroom contributed to a “circus” atmosphere, which hurt the anti-gay side, because, like the cowards they are, they imagine themselves “victims” in the wake of the Prop 8 vote.  Barber calls the judge’s sexuality a “conflict of interest,” because Matt Barber stubbornly and childishly clings to definitions of sexuality that have been disproven for decades.  If I were being charitable, I would suggest that maybe all those years he spent groping and being groped by men in tight shorts resulted in some sort of long lasting head injury.

2.  Brian Brown attempted to take a gentler approach, saying that regardless of whether Walker is gay or not, he’s still an “activist” judge, and that the deck has been stacked against the anti-gay side from the beginning.  Apparently it hasn’t crossed his mind that the deck might have been stacked against bigotry and discrimination because reality is stacked against bigotry and discrimination.

3.  Rick “Frothy Mix” Santorum farted out some sort of jumbled words where he claimed that Prop 8 voters had been harassed and blacklisted over their votes. The hysteria surrounding the aftermath of the Prop 8 vote would lead an uninformed observer to think there was some sort of bodycount among the Religious Right after that vote, but reality, of course, knows otherwise.  Santorum also accused the judge of “rigging the trial.”  Uh huh.  TS at Instaputz replies, “It’s not every day that a former Senator accuses a Reagan and Bush-nominated federal judge of ‘rigging’ a trial.”

4.  Peter LaBarbera, predictably, soiled his everloving panties over the revelation:

One need not rely on this disturbing item from NRO to conclude that American jurisprudence is in big trouble given the expanding number of judges who are, to use modern parlance, “openly gay” (which is to say: proudly practicing or inclined to practice perversion). If they regard their homosexuality as (part of) “who they are” and, by extension, view foes of homosexuality as akin to racists, it is difficult to imagine them being truly impartial on “gay”-related cases.

Having said that, given the ferocity with which many straight liberals promote homosexualist ideology today, there surely is plenty of left-wing judicial bias to go around without laying all or even most of the blame at the feet of America’s homosexual judges. A straight liberal who regards homosexuality as a pure “civil rights” issue is just as capable of being a reactionary, anti-religious bigot in his approach toward moral opponents of homosexuality as an openly homosexual judge.

Waaaah.  Peter’s comment does start to expose the obvious problems with the Religious Right’s logic on this (he’s good for that, because he’s just not put together correctly).  The NRO piece Peter links to is from Ed Whelan, and if you know NRO, you know it’s a fairly hysterical analysis, itself.  These are the people, after all, who pay Kathryn Jean Lopez to fawn over 15 year old boys at anti-choice rallies and to mangle the English language on a daily basis, while Jonah Goldberg continues to suck at the teat of wingnut welfare, riding his mother Lucianne’s coattails all the way to the bank, writing columns about how global warming isn’t real because hey look, meteors!  (For instance.)

Anyway, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.   I’m sure there are many more Religious Right luminaries going through the roof over this, and if you really want to know, may I suggest Google, but I personally can take only so much of their garbage before my brain cells start feeling threatened.

If you have a working brain, you already know the obvious flaw in the Religious Right’s logic.  If being part of a minority group disqualifies a judge from presiding over any cases involving that minority group, then judges would have to recuse themselves from so many cases that our system would fall apart.  For instance, Scalia would have to shut it, forever, about anything involving the Catholic Church.  And again, this betrays a willful refusal to understand what the judicial system IS.  I have no idea whether or not these Religious Right figures actually do understand what judges do — I mean, come on, we’re dealing with people who think Liberty is a real law school, for god’s sake — but their public stance is obviously to misinform an already civics-stupid culture about the role of judges in our society, because Religious Right figures don’t value the American system of governance like the rest of us do.

I could go on, but John Aravosis already smacked them all down quite thoroughly, so I’ll just excerpt what he said, and then you should click the clicky to read the rest:

If a gay judge is unfit to rule on a case involving gay people or the religious right, then using the far right’s logic, a straight judge would be just as biased towards straight people in any anti-gay discrimination case. But it’s worse than that. African-American judges would never be able to rule on civil rights cases – well, no one would really, since every human being is a member of at least one race, thus, under the religious right’s logic, we’d all either be a minority or the majority, making us a party to any civil rights suit. (Or perhaps Latino judges would be able to rule on discrimination cases involving African-Americans, it’s not entirely clear.) And Republican judges clearly couldn’t rule on political cases, nor could Democratic judges. Which means the entire Supreme Court, the entire federal judiciary, and really any judge who ever voted or who has any political views whatsoever, is ineligible from any case that involves politics. And female judges couldn’t preside over cases involving women, or men I guess, and so on.

And in fact, the religious right’s logic, to its illogical conclusion, means that conservative Christian judges also would not be permitted to preside over any case involving gays, non-Christians, Christians who aren’t members of some religious right sect, cases involving politics (since the religious right became a de facto subsidiary of the Republican party decades ago), cases involving discrimination (since the lead religious right groups routinely promote bigotry – in fact, their raison d’etre is to promote bigotry), any case in which a black person is involved (the religious right used to use the Bible to justify slavery (and still think slavery was a good thing for blacks), and the Mormons excluded blacks from the upper levels of their church up until the 1970s), and lots of other issues. And let’s not forget that the Southern Baptists were formed because they split with the north over slavery – the SB’s were for it. But hey, they apologized…. in 2009.

But see, they don’t actually believe that.  The Religious Right, incorrectly, thinks that they should have an elevated place in society. They have done nothing to deserve that place, and in fact, have been a solid stain on American history, but they’ve convinced themselves otherwise.  There is no “logic” to speak of in their statements.  No, they believe, in general, that they should be the final arbiters of all law in this country, in direct contravention of the actual American system, which guarantees us freedom from the tyrannical notions of bigoted, white male supremacist fundamentalist religion.  And as their numbers continue to decrease with each passing year, pronouncements of this sort will become more and more extremist.  The good news is that the American public is greeting these statements more and more with a collective yawn of boredom.

Crazy, I know!

Peter put up another one of his trademark misinformed, ill-educated, unscientific posts this evening.  This one is of the “I’m going to describe transgender people using the same dehumanizing words as a confused little Damien might use” genre.  As juvenile as it is petty, you can almost see a young Peter nudging a young Bam Bam (covered in dried peanut butter and spittle, both)  as they laugh together and say “EW, gross!” at people they don’t understand; or alternately, you can imagine on his face the confused stare of an Idaho toddler upon visiting a town with black people for the first time.

Read the piece if you want.  It’s not worth rebutting because, you know, come on.  There comes a time when it’s just like “Okay, Mary, say something new.”

But the part I find funny is the tagline in red, below the post title.  He inadvertently describes the exact nature of his bigoted little post, through the eyes of a normal, open-minded human being who doesn’t need a pee pad between the mattress and the sheets:

Why yes, Peter, your post is precisely that.  Offensive content, indeed!  The bigoted scribblings of a man unwilling/unable to understand that everything isn’t as simple as his limited, anti-intellectual worldview would suggest, a man unwilling/unable to feel/express real love for his fellow man, who instead goes through the motions of a counterfeit love that uses the name of Jesus Christ as a club to knock down anyone who deviates from whatever Dark Ages norm has been unfortunately imprinted on his psyche.

Regardless, thanks for the moment of honesty, Pete.

I assume we can expect another one in a year or so?