I guess all the pretense is gone now.

[h/t Blue Texan]

You see, if gay guys stop having sex and using poppers, all the AIDS will go away. Because that’s the problem with sub-Saharan Africa.

It happened just before the black-out, but no less than Rick Warren sharply rebuked Bryan Fischer for his HIV/AIDS denialism. Apparently the American Family Association has chosen to isolate itself further, even within the conservative Evangelical world. They’re earning their hate group label, yes indeed.

[h/t Joe]

Jim Burroway has done the hard work of reading and summarizing a variety of cables exposed by WikiLeaks and posted in The Guardian.

One cable I found particularly interesting came after Rick Warren was forced to distance himself from the Ugandan bill and its proponents, because it so completely captures how and why anti-gay sentiment is being used to distract the people’s attention from what’s really wrong in that country.  It happens all over Africa every day, and in many other countries around the world.  Indeed, it happens in our own [see: Tea Party movement], and it’s what happens when ruling classes learn how to train their citizens to react like peasants, ready to scapegoat a minority at a moment’s notice.  Here’s what the US diplomat had to say at that time:

Recent condemnations by Warren and other U.S. based individuals have further isolated Bahati. His homophobia, however, is blinding and incurable. Bahati, Buturo, and particularly Ssempa’s ability to channel popular anger over Uganda’s socio-political failings into violent hatred of a previously unpopular but tolerated minority is chilling. XXXXXXXXXXXX described Ssempa as an anti-homosexuality “extremist.” XXXXXXXXXXXX said he opposes the legislation not because he favors homosexuality, but because legalizing persecution of homosexuals is the first step toward state sponsored persecution of other minority groups.

Emphasis mine. But doesn’t that sound familiar? Think back to every Republican “family values” campaign in the past thirty years, as they have scapegoated gay people, who have nothing to do with the admitted failures of the patriarchal “family” model in the United States. I have said many times that we should be careful not to simply think of Uganda as “over there,” but, especially with the influence American Evangelicals have had on the process in that nation, understand that patriarchal, “pro-family” forces will simply do what they can get away with in a given society. They know that their views are increasingly socially unacceptable in modern, civilized nations, but when they go to Uganda and other places, it’s a far different story.

The full cables and more analysis are over at Box Turtle Bulletin.

There certainly is a direct line to be drawn between the work of American Evangelicals like Scott Lively and the brutal murder of Ugandan LGBT activist David Kato.

Joe Jervis points us to last year’s New York Times profile of Lively’s work in Uganda:

The three Americans who spoke at the conference — Scott Lively, a missionary who has written several books against homosexuality, including “7 Steps to Recruit-Proof Your Child”; Caleb Lee Brundidge, a self-described former gay man who leads “healing seminars”; and Don Schmierer, a board member of Exodus International, whose mission is “mobilizing the body of Christ to minister grace and truth to a world impacted by homosexuality” — are now trying to distance themselves from the bill.

[...]

Mr. Lively and Mr. Brundidge have made similar remarks in interviews or statements issued by their organizations. But the Ugandan organizers of the conference admit helping draft the bill, and Mr. Lively has acknowledged meeting with Ugandan lawmakers to discuss it. He even wrote on his blog in March that someone had likened their campaign to “a nuclear bomb against the gay agenda in Uganda.” Later, when confronted with criticism, Mr. Lively said he was very disappointed that the legislation was so harsh. Human rights advocates in Uganda say the visit by the three Americans helped set in motion what could be a very dangerous cycle. Gay Ugandans already describe a world of beatings, blackmail, death threats like “Die Sodomite!” scrawled on their homes, constant harassment and even so-called correctional rape.

Then Joe ties it all up with a bow:

Yesterday Scott Lively’s “nuclear bomb” against Ugandan gays went off in the form of the iron bar which crushed the skull of David Kato. In some countries, it’s possible that Lively would be under arrest today. Also complicit in this murder is Peter LaBarbera, who for years has worked to publicize and praise Scott Lively’s evil agenda. Then there’s Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council, who last year paid lobbyists $25,000 to convince members of Congress to block a planned resolution denouncing Uganda’s gay death penalty bill. And let’s not forget Pastor Rick Warren, who supported, funded, appeared with, and publicized the work of Uganda’s leading anti-gay activist, Pastor Martin Ssempa.

Rhetoric matters. And as much as hate group leaders like Lively and LaBarbera bitch, moan and try to create false equivalencies wherein the Left are the “Real Haters,” the fact of the matter remains that there is a bodycount on just one side. Meanwhile, Christian Right stories of victimization are usually somewhere between tall tales and melodramatic crying about having to play by the same rules as everyone else.

Hotty toddy godalmighty, we haven’t visited Peter in a while, have we?

Let’s jump in the crazy pool:

The Homosexual Activist Movement, aided and abetted by liberal straights, currently is the greatest threat to religious freedom in the United States.

“Homosexual Activist Movement” is capitalized because Peter accidentally found out that we’ve replaced “LGBT” with “HAM.”  It’s easier, because people kept adding letters to LGBT, and you really can’t add letters to “ham.”

Already, we in the USA are seeing the same sort of persecution for opposing homosexuality as is occurring in Great Britain, only on a lesser scale.

Yes, we haven’t quite reached the level of anti-Christian mass murder and knife crime that’s currently being inflicted on the violent, lawless nation of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

It will only get worse if homosexuality- and transsexuality-based special “rights” are federalized under the proposed “Employment Non-Discrimination Act.”

Yes, that would be so terrible, because then fundamentalists who hate gay people would have to abide by the rules of everyone else who owns a business, and they couldn’t fire a gay person from the Country Kitchen, or whatever greasy malcontented businesses they own.

(A Note on “Islamophobia”: the effort to push for acceptance of Islam — insofar as it becomes official government policy — is also a threat to liberty; however, unlike in the U.K., state punishment of “Islamophobia” in the United States has not reached a fever pitch. But isn’t it interesting how activist Muslims, who utterly reject homosexuality as sinful and bemoan Western promotion of homosexuality, have nevertheless copied the manipulative “gay” tactic of accusing opponents of possessing an irrational “phobia”?)

It was awkward when the mullahs started signing up for classes at the gay and lesbian community center.  At first we just thought they were particularly unkempt Bears from a far off land, but when they started draping burkhas over the drag queens, we knew there was a problem.

Anyway, note the competing hatreds in Peter’s tiny mind:  The radical Islamists, who hold to an ideology that’s pretty much identical to his, nonetheless inspire an insane fear in him, just as gays do, so he mentally contorts himself into a position where the Islamists are just like gays, so there, nanny nanny boo boo.

Another key difference between the USA and Britain is that biblical Christianity is much more vibrant and common here, although of course its strength varies geographically. That is why homosexual activists are struggling to “re-interpret” the Word of God and turn it into a “gay”-affirming text.

Whatever.  That’s not my department.  Anyway, he’s talking about the UK so that he can bitch about Tony Blair, who is apparently one of his boogeymen:

Not only did Mr. Blair make Britain safe for same-sex immorality, as it were, but he helped establish a legal “anti-discrimination” system that led inexorably to Christians and moral-minded British citizens being investigated and even jailed for “anti-gay” discrimination. See this recent case of a Dale McAlpine, a British evangelist who was arrested for preaching against the sin of homosexuality (the charge against him was ultimately dropped).

And WHY was it dropped, asked I to the dingus?  Oh, this is why:

A spokeswoman said: “We keep cases under constant review and following a further review of all the evidence in this case we were no longer satisfied that there was sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction and we have therefore discontinued the proceedings against Mr Mcalpine.”

Veteran gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell condemned the arrest and urged the home secretary to issue new guidelines to the police.

He said: “Although I disagree with Dale Mcalpine and support protests against his homophobic views, he should not have been arrested and charged. Criminalisation is a step too far.”

Oh my god, even Peter Tatchell agreed that it was over the line!  Perhaps Peter is soiling both ends of his Duckheads for no reason.  Has Peter LaBarbera ever even been to the United Kingdom?

Blair with his New Age-ish brand of (c)hristianity certainly has “led” on homosexual rights — but doesn’t that mean that he utterly failed to model godly, biblical leadership?

Well, since he was the prime minister of a nation, rather than a radical Christian theocracy…

It’s so funny watching people like Peter caterwaulering about persecution when all that’s being asked of them is to recognize that not everybody holds their illiterate backwoods beliefs, and not to impose them on the rest of halfway intelligent society.

Once again it’s that pesky homosexual issue — if we publicly agree with the God of the Bible on this issue, there is a price to pay in worldly fame — one apparently too great for many who still claim the mantle of moral leadership. Just ask Rick Warren, or Dr. Laura Schlessinger, or Tony Blair.

HARLOTS, all of them!  Especially that Rick Warren character!  Might as well braid his natty gray chest hair into an ‘A’ and dye it red!

(I am very sorry for using the phrase “natty gray chest hair” in reference to Rick Warren.  If you need to close this tab and cleanse your palate, I will understand.)

Anyway, that’s basically it.  To summarize the parts I left out:  Peter’s trying to start a jihad against Bill Hybels, the pastor of the Willow Creek Community Church, which is basically a big pit of Evangelicals, and they honored Tony Blair, and Tony Blair scares Peter because Tony Blair is a heterosexual man who isn’t deathly afraid of gay men.  I find inter-Christian squabbling to be tiresome, pathetic and ultimately, more boring than watching paint dry.

Until next time, then?

Rick Warren, on the Twitter Machine:

Yay, they’ve convinced 40,127 starving, homeless people to pray a special prayer!

Now, um, how about their actual needs?

And no, this is not about religious belief, this is about priorities. However much time it took to give 40,127 starving, homeless people the religion spiel and close the deal so that they’d utter the magic words for salvation, could have been spent better with a hammer and a freakin’ nail.

As TS said, in a post titled “Why They Hate Us”:

For a guy whose book begins “It’s not about you,” why is it always about him?

Uh, because he’s an egomaniac.

Influential Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker wrote an excellent column today, calling on Rick Warren and other evangelicals to do more to stop Uganda’s heinous Anti-Homosexuality Bill. According to Parker:

The proposed law is a case study in the unintended consequences of moral colonialism….If we (Rick Warren) decide that genocide is too political for interference, then what good is moral leadership?…

….Other evangelical Christians operating in Uganda are less easily excused from responsibility in the country’s increasingly hostile attitudes toward gays. Often cited as having stirred the pot are pastors Scott Lively, Caleb Lee Brundidge and Don Schmierer, who last March worked with Ugandan faith leaders and politicians to help stop the “homosexualization” of the country….

…In a “Meet the Press” interview last November, Warren said he never takes sides, but one wishes he would. To borrow his own words, it is in certain cases extreme, unjust and un-Christian not to.

Parker is correct to say that Warren and other evangelicals have not done enough, considering their deep involvement in Uganda. At Truth Wins Out, we warmly welcomed Warren’s denunciation of the hate bill, however, that was merely covering his behind.

If Warren and others (Alan Chambers, James Inhofe, and Doug Coe – I mean you) are serious about stopping the persecution, imprisonment and murder of innocent people, they will board planes to Kampala this week and speak directly to the people and lawmakers of Uganda. They helped cause this horrific mess, so it is their duty to clean it up.

I just checked Orbitz and confirmed that flights still fly to Kampala. Will any evangelical butts fill the seats? Or, do they only light fires in places like Uganda and then butt out when there is too much heat in the kitchen?

The world is watching….and these “moral leaders” will be judged by their action — or inaction.

An Open Letter from Soulforce to Jan and Paul Crouch, founders of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, and the Evangelical Christian broadcasters who are featured on Lighthouse Television, TBN’ affiliate in Uganda, including: Matthew Crouch, Joyce Meyer, Andrew Wommack, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, and Franklin Graham:

By now you are well aware of the anti-homosexual bill pending before the Parliament of Uganda. We urge you to denounce this bill. Use your personal friendships with President and Mrs. Museveni, with MP David Bahati (your Christian colleague who proposed this bill) and with Stephen Langa, (the Ugandan Christian organizer behind the bill) to take a public and passionate stand against it.

The media are blaming the visit to Uganda by three of your colleagues for this despicable and truly un-Christian law. In fact, for years you have used your Lighthouse Television programs, your radio broadcasts and your massive public meetings to warn Ugandans of the so called “threat homosexuals pose to Bible-based values and the traditional African Family.”

In no small part, you are already responsible for the current call by Ugandan leaders to enforce the old law condemning lesbian and gay Ugandans to up to 14 years in prison. This new law increases that sentence to life imprisonment and even death by hanging. Denounce this new bill or the blood of lesbian and gay Ugandans will be on your hands.

It isn’t just the “liberal media” who are condemning the bill. (Read More)

Jamie Kilstein is one of my very favorite comedians. He and his wife Allison Kilkenny (who I link here from time to time) run Citizen Radio, and they’re one of the few duos I’ve seen who truly bridge the gap between politics and comedy, without either side suffering. Jamie’s insanely funny, but he actually knows his stuff. And if he doesn’t, he can always ask Allison, because she’s scary smart.

ANYWAY.

The other night, Jamie performed in Chicago, and he just cold went off on Rick Warren, Ted Haggard, anti-gay fundamentalist bigots, and made one of the boldest, most raw arguments for LGBT equality I’ve ever seen.

So! You should watch it. But not at work. Unless you have headphones. Because it’s, as Jamie just said on his Facebook wall, “beyond offensive.”

So here’s your warning, in red, in case you missed the last paragraph:

DIRTY LANGUAGE IS AHEAD!!!

Okay, that all clear? Oh, and handling the objection before I get it, in the parts where Jamie’s talking about God, we should all remember that the construction is “IF God is like they say, THEN we should…”

I won’t ruin it.

Enjoy!

At The Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal calls the Obama administration on the carpet for affirming Rick Warren and allies’ efforts to deny access to condoms and prevent Africa’s heterosexual and LGBT people from protecting themselves against HIV/AIDS.

Blumenthal notes that Warren has never been required to prove the efficacy of his anti-condom program. Instead, independent investigation into Warren’ involvement in Africa revealed alliances with Christian Right clergy who sidelined science-based approaches to combating AIDS in favor of abstinence-only education.

These clergy sabotaged Uganda’s once highly successful initiative to combat HIV/AIDS. Comprehensive sex education — consisting of lessons in abstinence, monogamy, and condom use — slashed HIV infection rates during the 1990s and up until 2003, when Christian Rightists in the Bush State Department and Congress began to sabotage the initiative. By 2005, Blumenthal notes, federal aid was being redirected to deny access to condoms and to discourage their use. Progress against HIV infection rates then halted. (Read More)