Saturday, April 4, 2015
When we state that the modern GOP is anti-gay...
that's not an attack, it's the truth:
Rafael Cruz: States Should Defy Gay Marriage Rulings
Mississippi Legislature Passes ‘Religious Liberty’ Bill That Legalizes Discrimination Against Gay People
Mitch McConnell And Ted Cruz Join Republicans In Urging SCOTUS To Reject Gay Marriage
Republican-Dominated North Dakota House Resists 21st Century, Rejects LGBT Equality Again
Mike Huckabee: Gay Community Won't Rest Until 'There Are No More Churches'
Ted Cruz: Banning Anti-Gay Discrimination In Public Services Like Forcing A Rabbi To Eat Pork
Mat Staver: Gays Just Like Hamas Terrorists
Klingenschmitt: Within A Hundred Years, Twenty Percent Of Americans Will Be Recruited Into Homosexuality
Fischer: If Christian Businesses Must Serve Gay Customers, They Should Deliver Anti-Gay Sermons The Whole Time
Matthew Hagee: The Fight Against Gay Rights 'Is A War Between Good And Evil'
Alan Keyes: Gay Rights May Lead To The 'Extinction Of Humanity'
Those are just a few. The list is almost endless.
Here are more anti-gay, anti-marriage equality statements by leaders of the GOP.
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20 comments:
I don't know why the Dems don't ram home the fact that the GOP is more concerned with what gay people do in the privacy of their homes than what the hate mongers do publicly. The hate mongers in their party make the GOP look like an organization of maniacs. It's obvious the leadership doesn't care how they look.
Their continuing bashing and discrimination against gays will hurt them nationally. You can get homophobes elected locally. Let's see how that works out in a national election, huh, Teddy boy?
Frank J: It's a less effective issue than one might think because the anti-gay minority tends to be fervent and agitated on the subject, whereas the pro-gay majority (except for those who are gay themselves) generally doesn't feel strongly enough about the issue to vote primarily on the basis of it. So the bigotry doesn't hurt the Republicans electorally as much as you might expect.
The exception is when that bigotry is visibly extreme, bizarre, or obsessive. That's why the Indiana law provoked such a backlash, and why quotes like the ones in this posting are useful. The fact that right-wingers don't much like gays is hardly news to anyone, but to be fixated on it to the extent of passing hostile laws or making all these bizarre accusations -- that just comes across as disturbingly weird. And voters don't like putting disturbingly weird people in positions of power.
Freedom means what the right says it means, and government and the people shall become one. It is a narrow world they are constructing.
Their governors, legislatures, U.S. senators and representatives all want to make LGBT people second-class citizens because their religion thinks they're sinners.
These are the same sort of conservative thinkers who tried to use the government to prevent interracial marriage, to make prayer in schools mandatory, and to erect the ten commandments all over government property.
It's interesting to know that every session of Congress is begun with a prayer, but the right wingers who promote and want to enforce religion in government see nothing wrong with that. Why should a secular government begin each session with a religious rite?
We are one of the most religious soaked countries in western democracy, and yet the right wingers claim victimhood at every attempt to make this country true to its secular foundations.
God is not mentioned once in our Constitution, but the religious right insists god is the foundation of our laws.
They'll continue to ride their anti-gay, anti-women, anti-science, anti-civil rights horse all the way off the cliff.
Anonymous @ 12:50 - God is not mentioned once in our Constitution, but the religious right insists god is the foundation of our laws.
Isn't some of our body of secular law based in Judeao Christian ethics? Even though the Constitution doesn't mention God.
Like all theories on religion, the Judeo-Christian ethic is not a universally accepted concept.
The Myth of a Judeo-Christian Tradition
The wingers need to pay attention to the supreme leader who declared that America is not a christian nation.
It is wrong for the governors of those states to go with the will of the majority because minority rules.
Anonymous obviously doesn't know anything about American history. We're not surprised:
"Unlike most governments of the past, the American Founding Fathers set up a government divorced from any religion. Their establishment of a secular government did not require a reflection to themselves of its origin; they knew this as a ubiquitous unspoken given. However, as the United States delved into international affairs, few foreign nations knew about the intentions of the U.S. For this reason, an insight from a little known but legal document written in the late 1700s explicitly reveals the secular nature of the U.S. government to a foreign nation.
Officially called the "Treaty of peace and friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, of Barbary," most refer to it as simply the Treaty of Tripoli. In Article 11, it states:
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."
Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed, and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.
Is that the "supreme leader" you refer to? John Adams?
If you, however, meant Mr. Obama, you, like many of your ilk are either dishonest or willfully ignorant:
Q: Did Obama say we "are no longer a Christian nation"?
A: He said we are no longer "just" a Christian nation, but a nation of many other faiths as well.
A chain e-mail drops that key word and thus changes the meaning.
Dishonesty seems to be what you wingers excel at.
Obama, June 28, 2006 (prepared remarks): Given the increasing diversity of America's population, the dangers of sectarianism have never been greater. Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
That quote appears also on Obama's campaign Web site. Unfortunately for Obama, he stumbled just a bit when he delivered the actual quote, as can be seen in this video of his speech, posted on YouTube by the Obama campaign. The way it actually came out was:
Obama, June 28, 2006 (as delivered): Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation – at least, not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.
That wasn't as smoothly stated as he had intended, but the meaning remains clear to any reasonable person. Saying that the U.S. is not "just" a Christian nation carries the sense that it is both a Christian nation and more: a nation of Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and nonbelievers as well. Furthermore, any survey of religious beliefs held by Americans will show that to be a factually correct statement.
You expect honesty from wingnuttia?
LOL!
Shaw,
The Right's more-accurate name is Hypocrisy.
And Inconsistency.
They have no problem with fornicators and adulterers being served but cringe at the idea of two people of the same sex loving each other.
You can't make this crap up. But the right wallows in it up to their holy chins.
Newt Gingrich and the woman he fornicated with were married in a Roman Catholic Cathedral in Washington DC by bishops and prelates of the RCC. No prob there. They probably said "I'm sorry I fornicated and committed adultery." And SHA-ZAM! All is forgiven!
Nice work if you can get it, and the kinds of Christians who find gays disgusting have no problem with serial adulterers like Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh. In fact, they're heroes to the holy rollers.
These Right wing Christians have always questioned the sincerity of President Obama's faith, but have they ever questioned Gingrich's. Of course not. He's one of them.
Inconsistency and hypocrisy at its best.
We are, above all else HUMAN . Thus we are predispoded, hard wired if you will, to accepting that which makes us most comfortable or that which our peers (those who think like us) find acceptable. For many it is almost impossible to step from out of the box and consider alternative "truths".
It is questionable at best whether criticism and attempts to embarrass changes many minds on the hard right or left. Having said this often the effort us worth the few converts.
Inconsistency and hypocrisy is the exclusive domain of NO particular political dogma or ideology.
"For many it is almost impossible to step from out of the box and consider alternative "truths"."
Was there an alternative truth to the evil of slavery? Or can we agree on the truth that owning, being brutal, even killing a human being is evil? Is there an alternative "truth" to that statement?
Is there an alternative truth to the concept of ensuring that people who pay taxes should be allowed to vote? What would the alternative truth to the African-Americans who were deprived of voting in the Jim Crow era be? Was there one?
Was there an alternative truth to not allowing interracial couples to marry? Was it not truthful that religious sects passed laws in states based on their holy book that affected people who were not of their religion and prevented them from marrying the person they chose?
So now what's the alternative truth on equality of marriage? That some religious people are offended by it, so states have to pass laws to prevent equality in business transactions and have gay people treated as second class citizens because religious folks have deeply held beliefs? Should we grant exceptions to all religions for their deeply held beliefs? Why just religions that believe gay people are sinners?
Sometimes people have to see eternal truths. No fudging and using "everyone is inconsistent and hypocritical" as an excuse to be neutral and not stand up for justice.
Sometimes people have to be brave and say something is wrong when it is so clearly wrong.
Someone on a right wing blog said that if gay people wont be served by religious people who run certain businesses, then those gay people should go somewhere else. (How does that work in small towns where there aren't several cake bakers or florists?)
We should turn that suggestion around and say that if religious people are in businesses that cater to weddings but are unwilling to sell their services to gays, then why don't they find another business that doesn't have to deal with these matters?
My point in a nutshell is this... Truth is there for all to witness, the alternative truth is for those who have chosen to overlook it by choice.
States or the federal government have no business whatsoever meddling in the sexual orientation of individuals nor should they be influenced by religious considerations in passing legislation.
Uppers, sometimes people have to be brave and speak up. I have. I'm also realistic enough to know change in attitudes take time and constantly slamming those with a different view will generally not change their minds. Gentle posirive logical arguments over time is more effective in acheiving long term lasting results.
But the really important deal is to lead your life as you believe ethical. The only person one can really change is themselves.
RN: I'm also realistic enough to know change in attitudes take time and constantly slamming those with a different view will generally not change their minds.
This is true, but I'm sure you can understand that many people are not willing to wait out that time. I sometimes see the argument on conservative sites that gays would have won the civil rights argument and even marriage eventually, by referendum and legislation, if judges had not forced the issue more quickly, and that this slower process would have produced a broader consensus.
But justice delayed is justice denied, and part of the courts' job is to strike down fundamental injustices when they become apparent, whether the majority of the voters are on board yet or not. If blacks had been convinced to wait until a majority of voters in each Southern state had agreed to repeal Jim Crow and outlaw discrimination, they might still be waiting today.
I know that tough tactics like the boycotts directed at Indiana are not changing many fundies' minds. If anything, it's deepening their fury. But it got the desired result -- the malignant law is being gutted. It might take ages to change those people's minds; it might well be impossible. But that doesn't mean we have to wait so long for practical results. If we can intimidate them into silence and into abandoning their bullying practices and dominionist ambitions, that's enough, in practical terms. I'm less concerned with getting them to agree than with getting them to stop harming people.
I'm still trying to understand what the far right has learned from this incident.
First Spence fosters a law which legalizes bigotry.
He doesn't expect the backlash and Indiana writes sexual orientation into their anti discrimination law.
Glenn Beck deflects all this by ginning up some incident at a pizzeria and the fringe blogs run with it.
Walmart tells Arkansas to cut the crap and ditch the bigotry.
This all seems like a pretty solid win for gay writes despite how Glenn Beck tries to spin it.
Did I miss something?
It is a win, Ducky. I spent the weekend with my niece and her boyfriend who attend college in Manhattan. They came to Boston for the Easter weekend, and I took them to lunch here in the North End.
They are what the media call "millennials." We talked about the recent law passed in Indiana and the other anti-gay laws being considered in other states.
These two 21 year olds have no understanding whatsoever of why people are so upset over gay marriage and why they would discriminate against gays at all.
Both of these young people were raised in a religion, BTW. One of them, the young man, in a somewhat conservative religion--both his parents are from America's heartland.
They don't, as they said, "get it," meaning what the antagonism is against gays. They explained that many of their their friends are gay, and many of their professors are as well.
These young people, and other millennials I personally know, do not hold the religious prejudices against the LGBT community that their parents and grandparents do, even though they've been raised in the same religion.
In another generation, this will not be an issue. The young people like my niece and her friend, and others I know, are certain of this.
And now so am I.
The kids are alright.
Infidel753,
Absolutely. Here's the entire quote from MLK's Letter From a Birmingham Jail:
"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor;
it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that
was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.
For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity.
This "Wait" has almost always meant “Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished
jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."
And; the point regarding time and changing attitudes was just made quite well Shaw.
"But the really important deal is to lead your life as you believe ethical."
That is a great idea for people who have similar ethics to our own. However, I suspect that most terrorists believe they are being ethical also. The problem is that they have different ethics from ours, not that they are unethical in their own minds.
Yeah Jerry, but since neither I, you, or any other ethical American can control the life of another we are powerless to change the terrorists definition of ethical. I was specifically referring to ethics as what most USA citizens consider as ethical. In consideration the post dealt primarily with US politicians.
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