Dan Savage to Tony Perkins - Bring it On!

Via the Stranger - I am Reposting Dan Savage's  brilliant  response to  Hate Group  Leader Tony Perkins'  latest outrage over being  called out for the hateful death-mongering  bigot that he is.
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Is Tony Perkins Threatening to Sue Me?

posted by DAN SAVAGE on WED, OCT 3, 2012 at 3:46 PM

• Happier times.

The robustly heterosexual head of the Family Research Council went on Mike Huckabee's radio show today to respond to my recent comments. Huckabee said I was rude and vile and unhappy—please, Rev. Girlfriend, I listen toGypsy when I'm at the gym (unhappy gay men listen to Passion at the gym)—and then it wasTony Perkins' turn:

As my teenagers would say, he has some issues. He is a man with some real deep-seated issues ... and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he's a hundred and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It's wrong and I will tell you this,we are pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control.... This is the bottom line, Mike: is that if you don't embrace and celebrate homosexuality and everything associated with it, then you are intolerant. And the truth of the matter is, let's just be very, very truthful, and that's what we deal in is the truth, that even is society embraced homosexuality, there would never be that sense of self-fulfillment because it's outside the way God created man and woman. And that's the bottom line. They cannot erase that, even if they get every law on the books changed, it will never change that.

Yes, Tony, I have issues.

I have issues with people who would deny me and other LGBT people our full civil equality for no legitimate reason. I have particular issues with high-profile haters who encourage parents to reject their LGBT kids, doubling their already quadrupled risk for suicide. I have issues with people who say that LGBT people are "pawns of the devil." I have issues with people who compare LGBT people to terrorists. I have issues with people who falsely link homosexuality and pedophilia. I have issues with people who suggest that a law calling for the execution of gay people merely "upholds moral conduct."

But having issues with you, Tony, isn't quite the same thing as "having issues." Please make a note of it.

And during your chat today with Huckabee you didn't address the issue I raised. You and Mike called me names—because you were angry that I called you names?—but you didn't address my issue. So here it is again:

LGBT kids are four times greater risk of suicide. Tony Perkinsadvises the parents of LGBT kids to reject their children. LGBT kids who are rejected by their parents are at eight times greater risk of suicide. Perkins is aware of these studies and yet heactively encourages the parents of LGBT kids to do what Perkins knows will push those kids closer to suicide.

Sue me, Tony. I'd love to see you talk about my "issues" on a witness stand.

I realize that this isn't how you think the world is supposed to work, Tony. You believe—and you're old enough to remember a time when—people like you were free to say vile and disgusting things about people like me without anyone objecting. Certainly people like me weren't allowed to call people like you out. You still believe you should be free to lie about me and other LGBT people with absolutely impunity—we're all pedophiles and terrorists and Satanists—and that we should have to shut up and take it because... well, I'm not sure why you think we're not allowed to respond when you lie about us.

Maybe that's something we could get to the bottom of during the depositions.
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I truly hope that Tony Perkins is deluded enough to actually try taking Dan Savage to court. As usual, Savage hits the nail on the head. Tony Perkins is really angry, because he cannot grasp that LGBT Americans are not going to just sit by and allow him and those like him to spew their hatred and lies with impunity.

Poor Tony, is used to being the bully whose victims are never supposed to fight back. So it is hardly a surprise to see that the reality of having his lies challenged has really ticked little Tony off.

 Welcome to the 21rst Century Tony. Let me explain how things work here. You don't get to spew your bigotry without having to face the consequences. 

Tony Perkins is REALLY not happy...

Everyone's  favorite oddly effeminate white supremacist   has not been having a good month.   Perkins is  head of the  "Family Research Council".  An organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center  has certified  as an extremist  hate group .

First  there was his recent  disastrous appearance on MSNBC's  Hardball with  Chris Mathews.  Where after numerous past guest spots where he was faced with nothing more than softball questions.   Mathews apparently  noticed  he had been giving  free network airtime to hate mongering  nutjob, and decided  to do an actual interview based on real facts.   Perkins, came on the Mathews' show to vent his standard faux-Christian  outrage over  President Obama's statements  in support of  Marriage Equality.  Instead, he got his anti gay talking points served back to him with a big side order  reality.  The result was not pretty.

Then today, a double whammy.   First  the U.S. Government  released a new  international television ad to  encourage  tourism to the United States.  The Ad shows  a diverse range of people and sights from all over the  USA.

What  could  Perkins possibly find offensive about that ad?   Well if you look carefully at the  0:34 mark,  for less than a fraction of second,  the  ad shows  (gasp!)  a  GAY COUPLE!!!  Aiiiiirrgghhh!   The horror!  The Gays are going to come to America and spend their filthy pink money!   The website  Right Wing Watch  has Perkins'  hyperventilating in all its wing nut glory.

In 236 years, America's never had an international tourism ad. So when Congress passed the Travel Promotion Act, people thought it'd be a great chance to highlight American attractions. What they didn't know is that it would highlight same-sex attractions. That's right. The commercial invites people to America-not to see the Grand Canyon, but to celebrate homosexuality. In one scene, a gay man is sleeping on his partner's shoulder in a trolley. 

Really??

Then if that wasn't enough,   the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that declared Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act -- the federal definition of "marriage" and "spouse" -- as unconstitutional. (Hat tip to Metro Weekly)

Writing that "Supreme Court review of DOMA is highly likely," the appeals court has stayed, or put on hold, the implementation of its decision pending any appeal.

Judge Michael Boudin, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, wrote for the court: "[M]any Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today. One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest."

I have blogged regularly and extensively about Tony Perkins and his hate group the FRC. So there really isn't much more I can add to everything I have already said. I know I should not be surprised by Perkins' hysterical rantings in light of today's events. But I find his whining about a split second image of a gay couple in a thirty second television ad , to be over the top, even for him. Yet it's in that I find a refreshing honesty for a change.

Perkins' whole shtick is to go on television and pretend to be this reasonable guy who doesn't "hate" gay people, he just doesn't want them to have any rights.... at all. Now we see that it's not just rights for Gays and Lesbians that sticks in Tony's craw, it's the idea that Gays and Lesbians are visible in anyway that bothers him. He doesn't just think LGBT Americans don't deserve equal rights, he honestly believes Gays and Lesbians don't deserve existence. The idea that Gays and Lesbians should be visible like any other group of Americans really bothers him.

Whether by chance, or by design, the issues of LGBT Rights has been put center stage in the 2012 Presidential race. With Mitt Romney desperate to show the American Talibangelicals like Perkins, just how much he hates the gays. 

All the while desperately hoping people won't remember things like, then Gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney promising the people of Massachusetts that he'd be more pro-Gay Rights than the late, great Senator Edward Kennedy.

So once again we will see the idea that all Americans should be treated equally under the law portrayed by Tony Perkins and his assorted ilk, as the greatest threat to the country, and to American Families. Desperate to find something they can get scared, angry racists teabaggers to vote against, the GOP will jump on the "Be afraid! The Gays are gonna get you! Aiiiiighh!" bandwagon and try to ride it to a 50.1 % electoral victory this November. 

The bad news for Tony, Mitt, and all the other bigots is the arc of history is clearly bending in the other direction. The trend in  Gallup polling on the issue is not going to make Tony Perkins feel any better .

The ridiculously mis-named  "Defense of Marriage Act", is going to end up in front of the United States Supreme Court.  Maybe not this year,  But certainly  next year.  As the  legal issues  are not different from those in the case of  Lawrence v. Texas,  it would be unusual for the  court to violate its own precedent.   Combine that  with  the likelihood that  President Obama will  more than probably  win  re-election  and  2012 is shaping to be Tony Perkins' own annus horribilis.

Generally, I take no delight from the misfortunes of others, but in Tony Perkins' case, I am more than happy to make an exception.

The Family Research Council is Still a Hate Group...

I debated posting about this. I really did. Part of me really wanted to be the "grown up" here, and just let it go. Ignore it and move on, the little voice of reason inside my head said, there is nothing to gain by engaging with these people. And that little voice of reason is probably right.

But you know what?   Screw it.  There is nothing  reasonable  about any of this.   So let's start with the facts.

Yesterday in  Washington DC, a man named  Floyd Lee Corkins,  walked into an office building.  Allegedly voiced  his opposition to the business that was head quartered there,  pulled out a gun and  fired at a security guard, wounding him in the arm.  The wounded security guard then  disarmed Corkins and held him until Police and FBI agents  arrived on the scene.

In the wake of yet another shooting incident  in a public place in the United States,  you would think the story here would be about another disturbed individual  who  was able with little or no trouble, acquire an incredibly dangerous firearm, along with ammunition and then commit an act of domestic  terrorism.    But in this case,  the who, what  and when  are  just the background for the much bigger issues of  where this happened and the possible reasons  why.

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I have blogged extensively about the Family Research Council, and specifically about its President, Tony Perkins.   Yet  before  we  take hold that  that particular  thread of this story,  it is  important to make one thing perfectly clear.    Domestic Terrorism  is a crime against  the  very  heart and soul of America.  Our right to  the "pursuit of happiness",  the  ability to  go about our lives without living in fear.


Should it be proven that  Floyd Corkins, was not just a crazy guy with a gun who wandered in a random building and opened fire;  Then it would make him  no different than the sick twisted madmen who recently  shot up a Colorado movie theatre, and a Wisconsin  Sikh Temple.  Or for that matter,  no different  than  the sick and twisted men who blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building, or  assasinated  Kansas Doctor George Tiller as he sat in Church one Sunday Morning.

Terrorism is Terrorism. The idealogical motivation is irrelevant.

We all can wish for the speedy recovery of the wounded FRC employee, and hold him, his family and his co-workers in our thoughts and prayers. Also we all can agree that any act of Domestic Terrorism is a tragedy and the gunman who attacked the FRC offices should face as swift and fair a prosecution as we would do with any domestic terrorist.

Literally moments after reports of the shooting  went out over the airwaves and  internet,  various surrogates and  supporters of the  FRC  began to suggest that this attack on the offices  of  a Social Conservative Advocacy Group  was a Liberal Hate Crime, and  it was  rhetoric critical of the FRC,  by groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, and  LGBT Rights organizations that  had perhaps motived Corkins to commit this act of  terrorism.

We do not yet know what  Corkin's motives for this were.   Fox News has cited un-named witnesses who claim Corkins  made statements  about his personal dislike for the mission and positions of the FRC before he opened fire.

Sources told Fox New that after guard took away his gun, the suspect said, “Don’t shoot me, it was not about you, it was what this place stands for.”   Authorities were treating the attack as a case of domestic terrorism, although James McJunkin, the head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said authorities do not yet know the gunman’s motive.

I have in the last few hours read blog posts and comments where friends of mine, people who I have known and respected for decades; have put forward the notion that this is an example of the "violent radical gay left". The Conservative media and blogosphere has jumped on the "left wing hate crime" narrative with gusto.    Speculating that  "Left-wing hate speech against  Christians " motivated Corkins to do what he did.

The Southern Poverty Law Center,  after careful examination of the words, policies, and actions of the FRC recently added them to their list  of groups that promote hatred and violence against minorities. (From the SPLC Website)

The Family Research Council (FRC) bills itself as “the leading voice for the family in our nation’s halls of power,” but its real specialty is defaming gays and lesbians. The FRC often makes false claims about the LGBT community based on discredited research and junk science. The intention is to denigrate LGBT people in its battles against same-sex marriage, hate crimes laws, anti-bullying programs and the repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

To make the case that the LGBT community is a threat to American society, the FRC employs a number of “policy experts” whose “research” has allowed the FRC to be extremely active politically in shaping public debate. Its research fellows and leaders often testify before Congress and appear in the mainstream media. It also works at the grassroots level, conducting outreach to pastors in an effort to “transform the culture.”

Now in the wake of yesterday's shooting, FRC President Tony Perkins, and numerous surrogates have fanned out across the media claiming, that it was the designation by the SPLC that is to blame for what happened. Brian Brown from the anti-civil rights group the "National Organization for Marriage" went on CNN to try to make the case that it was the FRC being criticised for its hateful speech, rather than the hateful speech itself that was to blame



It is insanity to blame a victim of a crime for the actions of the criminal who committed it. Yet, the Family Research Council  is quite happy to excuse the criminal when the victim of a hate crime or act of terrorism is Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual or Transgender. The FRC in fact, believes the victim had it coming.   So if we are going to talk about hateful rhetoric then fine. I will allow the Family Research Council speak for itself. - in their own words:

” Gays are like a gun to the head of America. That’s what we’re talking about whenever you’re talking about gay rights. You’re talking about giving somebody a gun to put at the head of anybody who disagrees with them, whether it’s the Boy Scouts, whether it’s a local dry-cleaning establishment or a giant corporation like Shell Oil.” – Robert  Knight, FRC http://www.frc.org/net/st96d2.html  

Let's be very clear here.  If Gay Rights advocates ever used the same language  when talking about Conservative Christians,  Tony Perkins  and those like him would be screaming for marshal law and suspension of the First Amendment.   No LGBT rights group has EVER called for conservative Christians to be rounded up, imprisoned and killed. Yet  Perkins and the  FRC have publicly called for exactly that, for  Gay and Lesbians  through their support  for efforts to make simply being Gay a capital crime in places like Uganda.   

I don't know what motivated Floyd Corkins to attack the offices of the Family Research Council.   Latest news reports indicate Corkins has been arraigned, charged, and ordered  held without bond for a mental health evaluation.   Police and  the FBI are not  saying what motive, if any,  Corkins has revealed  for his  actions.   Yet the idea that there is some  pervasive cloud of anti-Christian hatred in America, created by the Political Left, and sustained  through  hateful and violent rhetoric against Christians by LGBT rights groups;   is a load of opportunistic, hypocritical nonsense of such proportions as to truly boggle the mind.

On this very blog,  I have often used strong language when talking about the Family Research Council, and its President, Tony Perkins. Many times I have referred to the FRC as being the "American Taliban" , and made the sarcastic suggestion that Perkins himself may be a closeted Homosexual. Is it possible that the words I have used could be taken to heart by someone like Floyd Corkins, and used as justification for acts of violence against Social Conservatives?  It's possible, but highly improbable.

But having said that, I will make Tony Perkins a deal.   I will own every thing I have ever written or said about him and his organization and its allies. I will accept that my words and writings may have contributed to a member of  the FRC  staff getting shot in the arm. I will concede Perkins'  point that rhetoric critical of  his  point of view and policy efforts may have  directly lead to the events of yesterday. I will agree to it all, but that means the same standard applies to Tony Perkins and the entire FRC as well.

If we all accept the idea that calling the Family Research Council a "hate group" has resulted in a a climate where Floyd Corkins felt it was ok to shoot a member or its staff, that means Tony Perkins and the FRC can and must be held directly accountable for the impact of more than twenty years of their own campaign of hatred and dehumanization of Gays and Lesbians.

So  I am more than willing to  personally apologize to the FRC's wounded staff member and his entire family, If in  return,  Perkins does the same to the families he and his organization have harmed.  Starting with these.

I am willing to stand up, apologize and say I own my own  words, and  the possible role they may have played in what happened at your offices yesterday, but then Perkins and the FRC own all of theirs    At the time these horrific crimes and tragedies against  LGBT people  happened,  what was The response from the Family Research Council? - Silence.

Actually,  I take that back.   Tony Perkins did go on Television to fight  against ANY efforts to address bullying of LGBT kids in schools. Going on to say that it was not the bullies who drove those kids to their deaths, or anti gay hatred that the problem, but rather, "gay activists" who in his view were “exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda."    

Ironic, when you watch Tony Perkins on Fox News yesterday, trying to  do exactly that.

I don't know of anyone who isn't condemning the attack on the FRC. We ALL wish the brave security guard who was wounded, a speedy recovery, and look to see  Floyd Corkins  justly charged and tried for his actions.    Yet the it is hard to get past the glaring hypocrisy here, Tony Perkins wants to create a false equivalency and avoid all accountability for the role of the Family Research Council in the massive litany of violence committed against LGBT Americans on regular basis. While at the same time, demanding those who disagree with him, own the events of yesterday.

What's in a Name Anyway?

Conservative Out Blogger Andrew Sullivan writes on his site today that Evangelical Conservative Tony Perkins over at the "Family Research Council", had indicated he would have "no problem" with Civil Unions in California that provided Gay and Lesbian couples with the same rights as marriage,but just a different name for it.

Interesting...

I will confess that for the longest time I held a very similar view. I would get frustrated with marriage equality activists who seemed to be so hung up on the terminology. If calling it "Marriage" is the problem why not call it Civil Unions or Domestic Partnership or call it "Fred" for that matter. As long as all rights are the same why did it matter it was called?

The counter argument has always been that this would be agreeing to something that was "separate but equal" and history has clearly shown that separate structures for civil rights are never equal, just separate. Racial segregation in the decades before the civil rights movement proved this. Whites and Blacks had separate things like drinking fountains, restrooms and schools that were anything but equal.

Yet the argument could be made that this was hardly the same thing. If both a gay and straight couple had the exact same hospital visitation rights, as long as both couples had access to the same hospital and quality of care, how is calling the basis for those visitation rights by different names unequal?

I found myself thinking that by insisting on the word marriage the LGBT community was just being stubborn and more interested in the symbolism of labels than actual equality.

I was thinking about this while I was voting last Tuesday. I was reading in the newspaper and on the web of various spots around the country that were experiencing voting problems. Things like long lines at polling places, out of date registration lists, etc. The media was rightly focusing on these problems with the emphasis that the right to vote was such a fundamental part of our democracy that states owed citizens every form of assistance if they encountered difficulty in exercising their rights to vote.

It suddenly occured to me to wonder how Tony Perkins would feel if California passed a law saying that evangelical conservatives would longer have the right to "vote" but instead anyone who was of the same religion as Perkins would have the right of "electoral choice". They would go to the same polling place as everyone else, use the same ballots, and have the same choices. Their choices would count just as much as everyone else', but for them, and only them it just wouldn't be called "voting".

The right would be exactly the same but it just would be called something different. Since there would no difference in the actual ability to make their choice at the ballot box, the name shouldn't matter right? As long as an "electoral choice" counted the same as a "vote", why should the name make a difference?

Well you can bet Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Pat Roberson and every conservative from Sacramento to San Diego would be rioting in the streets claiming discrimination.

I can practically hear Newt Gingrich railing how "electoral choice" was NOT the same as voting. Because symbolism DID matter, calling voting by a different name is sending a message that Evangelicals were not as important as other Americans. The change in terminology would even result in evangelicals feeling like they shouldnt participate in our democratic process. The fact that rights were the same was irrelevant. To call voting by a different name for just one group of Americans was unacceptable.

So what is in a name? Isn't a civil right by another name just as equal? If you think so, ask yourself this question; If your family, and only your family's right to make your choice at the ballot box was called "electoral choice" and everybody else had the right to "vote", how would you feel?

Separate but equal suddenly doesn't feel so equal does it?

A Response to an "Evangelical Conservative" who is Sorry...

Seattle Columnist  and Civil Rights Activist  Dan Savage  (The brain behind the amazing  and powerful  "It Gets Better" Project.)  Received this letter this past week:
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Dear Dan,
I was listening to the radio yesterday morning and I heard your interview with Beth McDonald. I have been thinking about it a lot since then and I feel compelled to share my thoughts with you. I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bulling. As someone who loves the Lord and does not support gay marriage I can honestly say I was heartbroken to hear about the young man that took his own life after being humiliated by people who should have known better. I think you need to be aware of your own prejuduces and how they might play into your thinking. At best I think your comments were hypocritical.

If your message is that we should not judge people based on their sexual preferance, how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)? There is no part of me that took any pleasure in what happened to that young man and I know for a fact that is true of many other people who disagree with your viewpoint. Please be aware that your words are powerful and people are listening to you.

To that end, to imply that I would somehow encourage my children to mock, hurt, or intimidate another person for any reason is completely unfounded and offensive. Being a follower of Christ is, above all things, a recognition that we are imperfect, fallible and in desperate need of a savior. We cannot believe that we are better or more worthy than other people. I have never in my life know someone who loved the Lord who wished ill will on other people and certainly not death "so that [we] can perpetuate [our own] agenda."

Please consider your viewpoint and please be more careful with your words in the future.

L. R.

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When I saw this letter  reprinted on  Savage's  website,  I so wanted to post my own  "response" to it, but  Dan Savage's  response sums things up far better than I ever could...

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I'm sorry your feelings were hurt by my comments.

No, wait. I'm not. Gay kids are dying. So let's try to keep things in perspective:fuck your feelings.

A question: do you support atheist marriage? Interfaith marriage? Divorce and remarriage? All legal, of course, and there's no Christian movement to deny marriage rights to atheists or people marrying outside their respective faiths or to people divorcing and remarrying. Why the hell not?

Being told that they're sinful and that their love offends God, and being told that their relationships are unworthy of the civil right that is marriage (not the religious rite that some people use to solemnize their civil marriages), can eat away at the souls of gay kids. It makes them feel like they're not valued, that their lives are not worth living. And if one of your children is unlucky enough to be gay, the anti-gay bigotry you espouse makes them doubt that their parents truly love them—to say nothing of the gentle "savior" they've heard so much about, a gentle and loving father who will condemn them to hell for the sin of falling in love with the wrong person.

The children of people who see gay people as sinful or damaged or disordered and unworthy of full civil equality—even if those people strive to express their bigotry in the politest possible way (at least when they happen to be addressing a gay person)—learn to see gay people as sinful, damaged, disordered, and unworthy. And while there may not be any gay adults or couples where you live, or at your church, or at your workplace, I promise you that there are gay and lesbian children in your schools. You may only attack gays and lesbians at the ballot box, nice and impersonally, but your children have the option of attacking actual real gays and lesbians, in person, in real time.

Real gay and lesbian children. Not political abstractions, not "sinners." Real gay and lesbian children.

The dehumanizing bigotries that fall from lips of "faithful Christians," and the lies that spew forth from the pulpit of the churches "faithful Christians" drag their kids to on Sundays, give your straight children a license to verbally abuse, humiliate and condemn the gay children they encounter at school. And many of your straight children—having listened to mom and dad talk about how gay marriage is a threat to the family and how gay sex makes their magic sky friend Jesus cry himself to sleep—feel justified in physically attacking the gay and lesbian children they encounter in their schools. You don't have to explicitly "encourage [your] children to mock, hurt, or intimidate" gay kids. Your encouragement—along with your hatred and fear—is implicit. It's here, it's clear, and we can see the fruits of it.

Oh, and those same dehumanizing bigotries that fill your straight children with hate? They fill your gay children with suicidal despair. And you have the nerve to ask me to be more careful with my words.

Did that hurt to hear? Good. But hearing it couldn't have hurt nearly as much as what the boys in the photo above had to listen to—day-in, day-out, for years—at schools filled with bigoted little monsters created not in the image of a loving God, but in the images of the hateful and false "followers of Christ" they call "mom and dad."

P.S.: The religious right points to the suicide rate among gay teenagers—which the religious right works so hard to drive up (see above)—as evidence that the gay lifestyle is destructive. It's like intentionally running someone down with your car and then claiming that it isn't safe to walk the streets.

Which is why I argued that every gay teen suicide is a victory for the religious right. Because, you see, your side does use those suicides to "perpetuate [your] agenda." Tony Perkins and all those other oddly effete defenders of "Chrisitian values" and "traditional marriage" will point to this recent spate of gay teen suicides to argue against gay marriage, anti-bullying programs, against allowing gay people to serve in the military—basically, they'll gleefully use these tragedies to justify what they like to call the "Christian, pro-family agenda."

But right now Tony Perkins is being strangely silent. Why is that? Could it be that even Tony Perkins has a conscience? Nah, couldn't be that. He must be away on vacation.

I wonder who's lifting his luggage.

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Thanks Dan,  people like Tony Perkins,  James Dobson,  Maggie Gallagher  all have  blood on their hands  this week.  

The American Taliban Picks Their "Anti-Romney"

The  wingnuts of the  America Taliban.  (the ultra religious conservatives who form the power brokerage of the base of the  Republican Party.  The folks who want to take their religious beliefs and  turn them into civil law and inflict them on the rest of us.).  Apparently these people can't bear the idea that  a Mormon who once supported mild, timid steps towards  equal rights for  Gays and Lesbians might end up as  the 2012 Republican Presidential nominee .

So  the nuttiest of the nutty  all gathered in Texas this past week  to  anoint their preferred uber-evangelical  alternative to  former  Massachusetts  Governor Mitt Romney.


So  more than 150 ultra religious conservatives met at a Texas ranch this past Friday and Saturday. Among the bigger names: Tony Perkins of Family Research Council; Gary Bauer, a former presidential candidate; James Dobson, who used to head Focus on the Family; and Don Wildmon, who once ran American Family Association.

The mission of this "emergency meeting" was to unite behind someone who  they feel is a  true-blue religious conservative for the Republican nomination. This group is  desperate to defeat President Obama, but  they distrust Romney on key issues such as their desire  to ban reproductive rights and  marriage equality.  In addition,  many of them feel Mormonism is not a true Christian religion, and  as a result, Romney isn't  "one of them".

Add to this  the problem that despite his  best efforts to  run from  his  pro-gay rights past,  Romney's  past statements  in favor of basic civil equality  for  Gays and Lesbians,  are regularly coming back to haunt him as he has sought to  woo social  conservatives.

One of the problems of living in a digital age, if you happen to be Mitt Romney, is that  his  pro-gay rights past  keeps cropping up in archived footage and  flyers.   Which makes it  kinda awkward when you are trying to show the American Taliban base of the GOP   that you  hate Gay Americans, and love Jeebus  as much as they do.  (Cue Rachel Maddow with the details...)

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Tony Perkins,  the  head of  the ridiculously misnamed  Family Research Council.  (A group the  Southern Poverty Law Center  has certified as a Hate Group),  tried to lower expectations  going in to the meeting down in Texas this past week.  Perkins  claimed that  the meeting was not "anti-Romney" but rather  pro-issues that mattered to social conservatives.

Yet earlier today  Perkins triumphantly  tweeted the  Texas  bigotfest  has crowned  former Pennsylvania Senator and gay sex obsessed nut job Rick Santorum as their preferred  choice  for replacing President Obama and thus bring their brand of  Sharia law to the country starting on January 20,  2013.

Which is actually  pretty funny given  what  Rick Santorum's  name is a euphemism  for.

For those of you who are not aware of the definition of word "Santorum", you can google it. It stems from the former Senators personal obsession, (and yes that is the right word,) with gay sex. Rick Santorum is consumed by thoughts about gay sex. It is what he talks most about. 

Jobs? National Security? The environment? Nope, none of those issues even come close to being what turns Rick Santorum's crank the fastest. Seattle advice columnist and activist Dan Savage is responsible for  the former Senator's name taking on a new meaning...

So now we have Senator Frothy Mix  as the  official "not Romney"  candidate of the  American Taliban.   What is  most interesting about all of this,  is not  the crazy stuff  Santorum regularly  says, or even the entertaining spectacle of  Mitt Romney  desperately trying to run from every  position he ever held prior to 2004.

The real story here is  how at least on the front end of the GOP primary process,  the 2012  Presidential race is largely a bizarre  repeat of what happened  at this point in 2008.  (cue Rachel).

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The Republican Party faces a tough choice.  Go with  Romney  and  face a  campaign that from an electoral standpoint would be a replay of  2008, and  risk alienating  the only  real core  constituency they have left.  Or,  go with  Santorum and  be saddled with a candidate and a campaign that  is  completely  removed  from  the issues  the vast majority  of  Americans  actually do care about.  Namely, jobs and the economy, which would  take a far back seat to  Santorum's preferred  crusade to ban birth control and  forcibly  divorce  thousands  of American couples currently  married under state laws in places like New York, Iowa and  Connecticut.

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I say the GOP should follow their hearts, embrace the bigotry and start uh.... spreading the Santorum message!

 I have made no secret of my disappointment with President Obama. I have found him to be an ineffective centrist corporate apologist, rather than a bold progressive leader. But what is now crystal clear, is that while President Obama may be largely ineffectual, he is not, like ALL of his potential Republican challengers, completely insane.

Marriage Equality Comes to 5 More States

The United States Supreme Court today, declined to hear legal appeals from 5 states seeking to overturn lower court decisions that ruled their respective bans on same sex marriage unconstitutional.    By declining to hear the appeals, the High Court essentially ruled marriage equality to be the law in the US States of   Wisconsin, Indiana, Oklahoma, Virginia and Utah.

The ruling is a massive blow to proponents of writing bigotry and discrimination into state constitutions. The tired outdated bigoted call of “States Rights” is being shrieked from various corners of the Right Wing Nuttysphere. The typical sad cast of bigots have thrown themselves in front of whatever microphones and cameras they can find, to wail and nash their teeth. Lamenting how horrible it is that they are no longer allowed to deny basic civil rights to people they don’t like.

Fox News’ favourite white supremacist and certified hate group spokes-bigot Tony Perkins all but stamped his feet and threatened to hold his breath until he turned blue demanding that Congress pass a federal marriage discrimination act , enabling states  to decide what minorities get equal rights and which ones don't.   Cue the frantic whining...

"Congress should respond to today's announcement by moving forward with the State Marriage Defense Act, which is consistent with last year's Windsor ruling and ensures that the federal government in its definition of marriage respects the duly enacted marriage laws of the states."

All across  Teabagistan the rage  over what is seen as  "judicial activism" is in full throated  cry.  

You know what Tony?   Good.   Go ahead,  scream, cry,  rend your garments  and say the world is coming to a horrific end.    Nobody cares.    You are full of shit, and  pretty much have nothing left but the same cries of states rights that your buddies in the  Klu Klux Klan spewed with faced with the reality of equal rights for  African Americans.     You even have had your day in court... repeatedly;   Every time you  and your assorted ilk have had to prove under oath in a court of law your lies about  LGBT Americans  you have lost. 

Then we have your favourite old refrain  that  my marriage is somehow an "attack" on the institution of marriage.   A claim you can't back up with any evidence whatsoever.  Whenever subject of equal rights for gay and lesbian couples is part of our national discourse, self proclaimed  social conservatives always claim it is an "attack" on marriage and the family. 

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines that word as:

Attack
Pronunciation: &-'tak
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle French attaquer, from (assumed) Old Italian estaccare to attach, from stacca stake, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English staca
transitive senses
1 : to set upon or work against forcefully
2 : to assail with unfriendly or bitter words
3 : to begin to affect or to act on injuriously
4 : to set to work on
5 : to threaten (a piece in chess) with immediate capture
intransitive senses : to make an attack
6: the act or action of setting upon with force or violence

Hmmm… to set upon or work against forcefully huh? Ok, so if we take that argument seriously, to give gay couples the same rights as straight couples; Not more rights, not any new rights that straight couples do not currently have, but ONLY the exact SAME rights,  has somehow injured, damaged and potentially will even destroy heterosexual marriages and families.

Again... Wow. I guess I only have one question then. How?  It is worth pointing out this was the same question you were asked in Court, and were completely unable to answer.

Does today's ruling   mean that straight couples will  lose any of the 1,100 federal benefits and protections that they currently have? Does legal gay marriage mean straight couples can’t file joint tax returns, have, adopt or raise children, pass on social security survivor benefits, or make medical decisions for each other? Does the legalization of marriage for gays and lesbians mean that straight people can no longer marry, and those who are married must get divorced? 

In these 5 states will the marriages or families of any heterosexual change in any way?  

The answer of course is no they won't But bigots are never interested in facts. When faced with them ,Tony Perkins and his ilk generally fire back with the only arguments they can come up with. The tired and completely discredited idea that States have the right to put the civil rights of a minority group up to a vote. When they lost that argument, they fell back on their old favourite; That gay marriage cheapens or lessens the value of the institution of marriage .

But since none of the marriage rights or benefits that straight couples have will change now that Gays and Lesbians are able to marry, what opponents of gay marriage are really saying is that letting gay couples marry cheapens their own marriages in their own eyes. Letting gays and lesbians get married means they now have a right that only heterosexuals had. And for some people that is unacceptable.

It's not just that some people want to prevent gays and lesbians from having equal rights, they want make sure that gays and lesbians have no rights at all. They see equal rights for everyone as an attack on them.

That's interesting. Even though the rights and benefits afforded to couples in “traditional marriage” clearly would not change in ANY way, some people firmly believe that their own marriage would lose value, and might even come to an end, if gay couples are given the same rights.

There is another word for someone who is irrationally fixed on the artificial preservation of inequality that they feel is in their favour. Merriam-Webster's dictionary has the same word for it.

Bigot
Pronunciation: 'bi-g&t
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French, hypocrite, bigot
1: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices

This irrational nonsensical argument against equality in civil marriage is nothing more that the fear of losing what is seen as a civil superiority, coupled with the desire to take religious beliefs and codify them into civil law. It is bigotry, pure and simple.   And the courts have agreed.   

The last gasp argument from these hate mongers is that somehow, they  are the real victims of oppression. That they have a right  to  deny civil rights to people they  don't like, and  that right  has been 'attacked' by  activists judges.

People like Tony Perkins,  Brian Brown, Brian Fischer, and  Julaine Appling,  have made careers picking and choosing from the bible to justify their hatred.  Now they  are very very  upset to find that  they cant pick and choose from the US Constitution as well

Holy Crap!! Perkins Gets KO'd

American Talibangelical Nutjob and  White Supremacist  Tony Perkins  gets  the nonsense kicked out of him on live television.  Grab some popcorn and watch as  this  lying bigoted  hate monger discovers that reality and facts, are not his friends.   (HUGE hat tip to JoeMyGod)

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MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell gets today's last word on the flying freak circus of hatred and  hypocricy that is Tony Perkins

DOMA - The WingNut Freak Out Continues...

In the wake of  the Obama Administration's announcement that  it would no longer defend  in court section three of  the  Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the collective hysteria by  the 'Social Conservative' residents of  Teabagistan continues.



Over on the PoliFi Network er.. I mean  FOX News,  they  managed a  hit a double.  Not only did they get the facts wrong, (the Obama Administration will still enforce DOMA,  they just won't defend it in court). But they also managed  to tie the DOMA decision to their whole "Obama is a secret Muslim" narrative. Wow...



Then there is  the sad, pathetic spectacle of  former Arkansas Governor, Mike Huckabee.    Sigh... where to even begin with this.   I actually had a bit of a soft spot for Rev. Mike.    During the 2008 Republican primaries  he was one of the few candidates who would speak in complete coherant sentences.  Granted,  the stuff he said  was bat-sh*t crazy, but  he said it with charm.  Even when he said stuff like, he  "wasn't sure" about  the earth being older than  6000 years.



Mike Huckabee,  like former Republican Senator Rick Santorum,  and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, desperately wants to be  President.   To win the  GOP Nomination  you have to basically out-crazy everybody else who is running.   So  this past week,  Huckabee along with  his fellow 2012 hopefuls  went berserk  over  President Obama's decision  not to defend DOMA.   Huckabee went on FOX News  saying he opposes gay marriage on the grounds that, according to him, it destroys traditional families.

"There is a quantified impact of broken families," Huckabee said. "[There is a] $300 billion dad deficit in America every year...that's the amount of money that we spend as taxpayers to pick up the pieces because dads are derelict in their duties."  

Of course Mike didn't give any evidence, of exactly how traditional families are destroyed, nor did the talking bobble heads on FOX ask him how America's crisis of deadbeat heterosexual dads, is the result of same sex marriage.  Because why would you want to ruin a talking point by bringing facts or, gee.. I dunno, reality into the discussion.

Rev. Mike wasn't the only member of the WingNuttia   who was desperately  trying to show  how much he "hates the homos" this week.    Tony Perkins over at the  certified hate-group the "Family Research Council"  has all but  lost his mind over the past two days.  Ranting hysterically how this is an all out  "assault" on marriage and the family, that  President Obama was in cahoots with  Ted Olsen and David Boies.  The lawyers in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the pending lawsuit to overturn Proposition 8 in California.   

One interesting side bar to Perkins' reaction is his claim that GOP leaders have assured him that; "DOMA is safe on their watch". Which raises in interesting question. What if the hysteria on the Right is exactly what President Obama wanted?

 

The fact is,   the American Conservative Movement  is obsessed with  Homosexuality.   From same sex marriage, to Gays serving in the military, to same sex parents raising children. The Right Wing in American just can't help themselves. Any thing 'Gay', drives them into a bible thumping, scripture misquoting,  frenzy.

Congressional Republicans, many of them with one eye on the 2012 GOP Presidential primaries, won't be able to resist. Wave the rainbow flag in front of these people, and they'll charge like a bull in Pamplona. Completely ignoring all the other issues they claim they were sent to Washington to address, and it's starting too look like President Obama knows it.

Linda Hirshman over at Salon.com has a very interesting op-ed this week on exactly this topic.  In a piece entititled;  Obama sets a marriage trap -- for Republicans,  Hirshman examines  the risks  to the GOP should they not be able to control themselves and  rush into the DOMA issue, by mounting a Congressional  defense of DOMA in court. 

"Republicans and their lawyers will have to step into federal court and prove -- subject to cross-examination -- how the republic would be damaged if same sex spouses can get, say, federal railroad retirement benefits. As Boies said after dismantling that disqualified expert in the Proposition 8 trial, "the witness stand is a very lonely place."

Tony Perkins got a small taste of this, when he tried to use his usual talking points against David Boies when discussing the Perry case.

Hirshman  also points out in her Salon piece,  that having to defending DOMA  in court, would be very different from just braying about it on talk radio, or on FOX News where nobody cross examines you, and you never have to provide any evidence or proof.

It's very easy to go on Sean Hanity's TV show and say same sex couples are "attacking families". It's quite another thing to have to prove that  ridiculous claim in a court of law, where lying under oath has real consequences.

Given that  in 2010, when voters were polled to list  the issues they cared most about,  Same Sex Marriage came in dead last,  you have to wonder if Hirshman might be on to something.   The GOP led House of Representatives  already has shown their "laser focus on  economy",  is easily abandoned in favor of hot button social issues like abortion. 

So pop some popcorn kids!  It should be interesting to see if  the GOP can resist the  siren call of Gay bashing long enough to keep  all their  2010 promises of  "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs".     If the past 48 hours are any indication,  I'm guessing probably not.