We all know that the Teabagging movement, in general, is not all that bright. We also know that they’re less of a “movement” and more of a repurposed rebranding of the same old wingnut rage-gasm that has been the base of the modern Republican party for several decades now. Sometimes they say horribly offensive things, but more and more, I’m dumbstruck by how utterly disconnected from reality they are. Consider this quote from Tea Party Nation CEO Judson Phillips, one of the most racist ones they have:
I will tell you ladies and gentlemen, I detest and despise everything the left stands for. How anybody can endorse and embrace an ideology that has killed a billion people in the last century is beyond me.
Uh. Like I said: too stupid, can’t get mad.
What the hell are they even talking about?
Related: If you missed Bill Maher’s brilliant suggestion for a liberal counterweight to the Tea Party, please catch up by clicking this clicky.
One of the funniest moments of last week was when an intern in teabagger Rep. Allen West’s office retweeted a tweet from Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters, which said that if Tracy Morgan has a gay son, he’s free to come live with her. It was an obvious mistake, coming as it did from West’s Twitter account, but it was funny.
Well apparently expressing support for a gay person is just too much for Allen West, as he has now fired that intern:
Rep. Allen West (R-?FL) has just fired an intern for opposing Tracy Morgan’s anti-?gay rant, by re-?tweeting a pro-?gay tweet. The unnamed intern, through the Congressman’s Twitter feed, re-?tweeted a tweet from the gay pop music group Scissor Sisters, that read, “Dear Tracy Morgan’s son: if you are gay, you can TOTALLY come live with me. We’ll read James Baldwin & watch Paris is Burning. xxANA”
How sad that Allen West is so disturbed and afraid of gay people that he would fire an intern for merely expressing support for a gay person. Is West tacitly suggesting that he’s closer to agreeing with Morgan’s remarks than he is with those of Ana Matronic? This may seem like a silly question, but no civilized person should have any difficulty siding with the Scissor Sister here.
Teabaggers are having a lot of fun overreaching in state legislatures around the nation right now. In Minnesota, an anti-gay marriage amendment just passed the state Senate, but it seems that most of those who voted for it are too ashamed to speak up and defend themselves:
Reaction to the passage of a Republican anti–gay marriage amendment in the Minnesota Senate on Wednesday was swift. “They have made a grave, grave mistake, and I think they will see that soon,” Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, the only member of the LGBT community in the Senate. The bill’s author, Maple Grove Republican Warren Limmer, dodged questions by Dibble and reporters about whether he thinks same-sex marriage is immoral and whether the measure was really about morality. Though he didn’t answer, Limmer has made his opposition to homosexuality very clear in his 20 years in office.
Dibble chastised Republicans who seemed shy to speak on the Senate floor in support of the amendment. During three hours of debate, only Limmer and Sen. Paul Gazelka, R-Brainerd, spoke in favor of the amendment.
“I think they are ashamed of themselves. I think they know they are wrong,” Dibble told reporters after the vote. “I think the order from their operatives and party handlers was, ‘Be quiet, because what we are doing is not where Minnesotans are at.’ They are responding to the pressure of a very vocal minority.”
The piece goes on to detail how, in past years, Warren Limmer has been a foaming-at-the-mouth sort of anti-gay wingnut, which implies that his reticence in defending his views is a new thing. Perhaps Republicans around the country, clinging to anti-gay bigotry as they are, are yet still figuring out that the nation is moving on, relegating their antiquated fears to the dustbin where they belong. It’s too bad none of them will simply grow up and vote for equality.
Igor Volsky went to a Tea Party rally in New Hampshire and asked the people there if they had seen any changes in the state since marriage equality passed. It doesn’t seem to have affected them.
Here is your caveat, though: This is New Hampshire. Gay wingnuts are already crowing, seemingly because they think they have a point to make, that “See, I told you the Tea Party weren’t bigots!” Again, this is New Hampshire.
It’s got to burn the Religious Right, though, seeing videos like this. At least in some places, even the craziest of the wingnuts aren’t riled up by the gays anymore.
Next time, go ask Alabama Teabaggers what they think about marriage equality, and you’ll get a very different set of responses.
Last night on Facebook, I gave Jan Brewer a hair of credit for vetoing a birther bill that would require candidates to prove their US citizenship, either through a birth certificate or perhaps, a circumcision record [really], to Arizona’s Secretary of State before being allowed on the ballot. Apparently even Jan Brewer is weirded out by the idea of a candidate bringing his ritual penis cutting certificate to the State House.
But let us not get too excited, please? Jan Brewer is still one of the world’s worst wingnuts, and the goalposts of “too crazy” have been moved so far to the right in the past several years that she really deserves no credit for doing one sane thing. Moreover, on the same day she vetoed that birther bill, she signed this one:
Yesterday, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) signed Senate Bill 1188, requiring state-funded and private adoption agencies “to give primary consideration to adoptive placement with a married man and woman, with all other criteria being equal.” This doesn’t mean that gay couples wouldn’t be able to adopt in the state, but they would have to fall to the back of the line simply because of their sexual orientation.
Absent any evidence that straight adoptive parents are better than gay adoptive parents [religious dogma is not evidence, fools], and flat against the needs of her state’s children, she decided to go ahead and sign this bigoted bill which simply seeks to make gay and lesbian couples’ lives more difficult.
“The governor’s action today is harmful to children in foster care and group homes who are seeking a permanent home and the support of a loving, caring family,” Mann said. “SB 1188 takes the focus off of what’s in the best interest of a child when adoption decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis, according to what’s in a child’s best interest. Each case is unique. For example, adoption authorities may have the choice between placing a child with a beloved single aunt — or complete strangers. The only consideration should be determining what’s in the best interest of the child.”
Yesterday, Teabagger Republican Representative Kristen Hansen introduced HB516, which would repeal all statewide or local ordinances which protect LGBT citizens in any way, shape or form. At the hearing for the bill, legislators refused to allow anyone opposed to the bill to be heard.
Yesterday, Teabagger Republican Representative Kristen Hansen introduced HB516, which would repeal all statewide or local ordinances which protect LGBT citizens in any way, shape or form. At the hearing for the bill, legislators refused to allow anyone opposed to the bill to be heard.
[...]
According to my source, Hansen will be outed at an upcoming meeting of University of Montana students.
We’ll have to see how this all unravels, but it must take an astonishing level of self-hatred to be such a hypocrite.
I’ve only seen the Glee program once, because I am a bad gay and my card is going to be revoked, but Kathy Griffin guest-starred last night, playing a Sarah Palin/Christine O’Donnell anti-gay teabaggerista, or whatever the correct term is. Enjoy!
Oh, and also some boys kissed, on the Glee program last night.
It’s a good question, and it’s something that everybody can see, except, of course, White Evangelical Christians. It’s sort of amazing to liberal believers, atheists, agnostics, etc., that these people, who so fervently scream about how they’re the Real Christians, the ones who really have been Saved By The Blood Of Jesus, often have little to nothing in common with the deity they claim to worship. A new study has come out which addresses this very topic:
The results from a recent poll published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life () reveal what social scientists have known for a long time: White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture. Evangelical Christians, who most fiercely proclaim to have a personal relationship with Christ, who most confidently declare their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, who go to church on a regular basis, pray daily, listen to Christian music, and place God and His Only Begotten Son at the center of their lives, are simultaneously the very people most likely to reject his teachings and despise his radical message.
Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give one’s money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nation’s poor — especially poor children. They hate anything that smacks of “socialism,” even though that is essentially what their Savior preached. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training — anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.
Oh, but here is the thing, and it is a lightbulb moment:
Evangelicals don’t exactly hate Jesus — as we’ve provocatively asserted in the title of this piece. They do love him dearly. But not because of what he tried to teach humanity. Rather, Evangelicals love Jesus for what he does for them. Through his magical grace, and by shedding his precious blood, Jesus saves Evangelicals from everlasting torture in hell, and guarantees them a premium, luxury villa in heaven. For this, and this only, they love him.
In other words, conservative Evangelicals react to Jesus the same way they react to everything else: “What is in it for ME?”
Now think about it. This sort of selfish mentality also informs their reactions to things like marriage equality, because people who are only concerned with themselves tend to play victim when somebody else threatens to outdo them in quality of life, love, happiness, etc. They have so long convinced themselves that they are The Elect, and that their system of morality is the best one, so it really messes them up to consider that the rest of the population has no use for their patriarchal system, for their rigid shame-inducing lifestyle, or anything else about them, really. It’s the same mentality that has retirees on Medicare joining the anti-union pitchfork-fest in Wisconsin. That’s why it’s really not surprising that conservative, fundamentalist Christians are the most likely demographic when it comes to supporting selfish, awful policies that do nothing but hurt people.
Indeed, in my Evangelical upbringing, there was an inordinate focus on the idea of grace, but not in a humane sort of way. It was a sort of grace that was offered to Evangelical Christians for no reason other than that God had chosen us. There were always banal ramblings from the pulpit about how this inherently meant we weren’t better than anyone else, because we weren’t elect by our own merit. But at the end of the day, just the same, we were the elect. We got ours. This was a Calvinist tradition, but it’s much the same in the more Baptist, Arminian framework. The only difference is that the Baptists knew well enough that they’d better accept Jesus Christ into their hearts, thus making them elect. The others who didn’t? We got ours.
It’s useful to remember these sorts of things, when considering the fight for equal rights. We’re dealing with people who have been trained to be selfish, to view this life as merely a stepping stone to a magical paradise fantasy land, the entry into which they have not earned, but that they have nonetheless received.
In other words, screw the rest of y’all, you’ll be sorry when we’re all in Heaven!
Last night, Michele Bachmann [Wingnut-MN] gave the Tea Party response to the Republican response to the State of the Union address. But before that, Michele Bachmann told a group in Iowa that our Founding Fathers worked to eradicate slavery and that all immigrants were treated equally, which is not only not true, but is an astonishingly ignorant statement for an elected official to make. Watch as Chris Matthews and Joan Walsh tear apart Bachmann and one of the Teabagger mouthpieces, Sal Russo, who was tasked with defending the indefensible on the program.
Indeed, Teabaggers and their defenders keep claiming that their movement has nothing to do with social issues, gays are welcome in the teabagging tent, etc. Really?
COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa — About 35 people gathered for a Tea Party rally in Council Bluffs calling for a ban on gay marriage and stricter abortion laws in Iowa.
Republican legislator Kim Pearson, of Pleasant Hill, was among the speakers at Saturday afternoon’s gathering at the Mid-America Center. The Daily Nonpareil reports that Pearson said a ban would be quicker to pass than a constitutional amendment.
Etc.
Same old Religious Right, just fitted with tri-cornered hats now!
