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Amanda Marcotte analyzes the faux controversy over Dan Savage's "bullshit" remarks:

The manufactured outrage over Dan Savage's remarks about the Bible that inspired what appears to be a staged walkout at a high school journalism conference may appear on its surface mostly to be a last stand of the anti-gay movement to regain ground by attacking one of the most compelling pro-gay activists in the country. [...]

[The Right] claims that Savage is a "bully" because he accurately recounted what is in the Bible. It's an attempt to redefine acceptable discourse so that statement of uncomfortable facts is considered off-limits, and, in fact, is redefined as "bigotry."

She concludes that "taking umbrage [at Savage's remarks] is, at best, nonsensical, and at worst, some kind of weird ax-grinding that has no respect for the truth:"

Which is basically what this entire Savage dust-up is about. The American right is undertaking a huge project of trying to put right-wing politics beyond criticism by shouting "religious bigotry" any time someone gets in the way of their political agenda. [...] Sounds ludicrous? Well, consider that we're currently debating whether or not it's oppressing Christians to accurately state what's in the Bible. Anyone who is actually supportive of gay rights shouldn't be playing along with this feigned umbrage, because it sure isn't going to stop until it's considered completely off-bounds to oppose anti-gay actions on the grounds that it's an attack on religion.

Here's a straightforward welcoming video from Believe Out Loud, a group working toward LGBT inclusion within mainstream churches:

One would expect that Sojourners (a group of progressive-minded Christians) would be naturally allies of this effort, but Rev Robert Chase observes at Religion Dispatches that "Sojourners refused to run our ads:"

In a written statement, Sojourners said, "I'm afraid we'll have to decline. Sojourners position is to avoid taking sides on this issue. In that care [sic], the decision to accept advertising may give the appearance of taking sides." [...]

I called the folks at Sojourners and asked what the problem was, what the "sides" in question might be. The first response was that Sojourners has not taken a stance on gay marriage (the ad is not about gay marriage); or on ordination of homosexuals (the ad is about welcome, not ordination); that the decision, made by "the folks in executive" (why such a high level decision?) was made quickly because of the Mother's Day deadline. The rationale kept shifting. The reasoning made no sense.

I, too, am disappointed by Jim Wallis and Sojourners. Although he and his organization are allied with liberals on many issues, this is a big failure for them.

If you want to be a progressive ally, you've got to be fighting on the right side.

update (5/10):
After receiving bad press over refusing to run the Believe Out Loud ads, Jim Wallis made a statement about Sojourners' mission and LGBTQ issues, writing that Sojourners' calling "is much more focused on matters of poverty, racial justice, stewardship of the creation, and the defense of life and peace:"

Given the time Sojourners is now spending on critical issues like the imperative of a moral budget, the urgent need to end the war in Afghanistan, and the leadership we are offering on commitments like immigration reform, we chose not to become involved in the controversy that such a major ad campaign could entail, and the time it could require of us.

When Wallis writes that "this is an issue we want to openly discuss on and through our editorial pages and not through our ad space," one could be forgiven for wondering if this reluctance is partially due to a desire to avoid alienating the well-funded anti-LGBTQ fundagelical bigots and their potentially lucrative ads.

Friendly Atheist isn't satisfied either, calling Sojourners' position "a cop-out:"

There's nothing "controversial" about the ad -- if anything, by publishing them, you're making the issue less controversial. Who knew promoting tolerance and inclusivity was such a timesuck from the rest of their mission...

Rick Santorum stirred up a bit of frothy controversy with his campaign slogan "Fighting to make America America Again," which is rather similar to the title of Langston Hughes' famous poem "Let America Be America Again." The Union Leader reported that the slogan's similarity to the words of a gay black poet was a bit much for the former Senator, as evidenced by his testiness when a student questioned him about it:

"No I had nothing to do with that," Santorum said. "I didn't know that. And the folks who worked on that slogan for me didn't inform me that it came from that, if it in fact came from that." [...] When asked a short time later what the campaign slogan meant to him, Santorum said, "well, I'm not too sure that's my campaign slogan, I think it's on a web site."

This screencap from Santorum's website certainly makes the phrase "Fighting to make America America Again" appear to be his campaign slogan:

links:
Think Progress
Salon

British émigré Andrew Sullivan writes movingly about finally receiving his green card:

It has been a journey of 18 years - the promise of a new life and a new start for a jejune, precocious kid from England somehow always coming with an asterisk, the shame of my illness conflated with this crushing fear that I still did not belong and would probably never belong to the country I had fallen in love with. [...]

I do not know right now what to do or say. Except to express my love and gratitude for my family and friends and husband who lived through this with me; and to those who helped lift the HIV ban; and to my lawyer who was simply magnificent; and to those who did what they could - and they know who they are - to keep this show on the road.

But I do know this. America remains the great dream, the great promise. For all its dysfunction, it remains an ideal, a place where the restlessness of the human mind and soul comes to rest in a place it constantly reinvents and forever re-imagines. I know this in my bones, perhaps more than many who take this amazing mess of a country for granted. But for the first time in my life, I do not feel somewhere in my psyche that I am displaced, unwelcome, an impostor.

What's missing from the acronym LG_T? That's right: the B!

Pam Spaulding mentioned a new report from the San Francisco Human Rights Commission on "Bisexual Invisibility: Impacts and Recommendations" (PDF) that examined many health implications of the institutional focus on either/or sexuality:

• One in two bi women and one in three bi men have attempted or seriously considered suicide. This is significantly higher than the rates for heterosexuals, lesbians, and gay men.
• Bisexuals experience higher rates of hypertension, depression, poor or fair physical health, smoking, risky drinking, and other mood or anxiety disorders.
• Bisexual men were 50% more likely to live in poverty than gay men, and bisexual women were more than twice as likely to live in poverty as lesbians.

As the report notes:

Despite the overwhelming data that bisexuals exist, other people's assumptions often render bisexuals invisible. Two women holding hands are read as "lesbian," two men as "gay," and a man and a woman as "straight." In reality, any of these people might be bi―perhaps all of them.

Here is the last paragraph of the report's "Recommendations" section:

Many assumptions lie at the core of bisexual invisibility: assumptions about a person's sexual orientation based on her/his partner's gender; about bisexuals people's reliability, honesty, or commitment to the LGBT movement; about bisexuals' health concerns and needs; and about the world as an "either/or" place rather than one of infinite variety. Any long-term solutions must dispel these assumptions to make room for those whose lives exist beyond binaries.

Not to be too flippant about it, but one of the "Other Forms of Biphobia" phrases caught my eye--the complaint that "bisexuals just want to have their cake and eat it too."

What's the point of having cake if you're not going to eat it?

Anti-gay wingnut Sally Kern (R-OK) wrote a book (h/t: Good As You) entitled The Stoning of Sally Kern: The Liberal Attack on Christian Conservatism--And Why We Must Take a Stand. For reference, here's part of the infamous anti-gay tirade for which Kern is now known:

"Studies show that no society that has totally embraced homosexuality has lasted more than, you know, a few decades. So it's the death knell of this country. I honestly think it's the biggest threat our nation has, even more so than terrorism or Islam, which I think is a big threat... If you got cancer or something in your little toe, do you say, well, you know, I'm just going to forget about it because the rest of me is fine? It spreads. OK? And this stuff is deadly, and it's spreading, and it will destroy our young people, it will destroy this nation."

Did she get stoned for those remarks? No, but she did get criticized--and her reactions to being called out as a bigot and a liar is to pretend to be persecuted, to present herself as a martyr.

Simply pathetic.

When the Justice Department announced this week that it would no longer defend the constitutionality of a specific section of DOMA (see AG Eric Holder's letter to Speaker Boehner), it was a given that the wingnuts would start furiously spinning fantastic tales and making outrageous claims. Holder wrote that "classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a heightened standard of scrutiny [and] Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional." Regardless of this determination, Section 3 will continue to be enforced by the Executive Branch:"

To that end, the President has instructed Executive agencies to continue to comply with Section 3 of DOMA, consistent with the Executive's obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, unless and until Congress repeals Section 3 or the judicial branch renders a definitive verdict against the law's constitutionality. This course of action respects the actions of the prior Congress that enacted DOMA, and it recognizes the judiciary as the final arbiter of the constitutional claims raised.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick observed that Obama "seems to have finally acknowledged a truth played out at the Proposition 8 trial in California last summer:"

Virtually all of the arguments advanced to deny gay couples the right to marry are based on moral animus and junk science, rooted in discredited cases like Bowers v. Hardwick and in unfounded bias that is increasingly hard to defend in open court. [...] The main consequence of today's decision is that the people who actually believe in Bowers v. Hardwick, moral animus, and junk science will get to defend it in court, if they can. The president no longer has to.

EqualityMatters did its usual excellent job of debunking conservatives' talking points, but two comments stood out from the Right's breathless blizzard of bullshit. First was Newt Gingrich's claim that Congressional Republicans "should strike back and even consider impeachment proceedings" against Obama. Newt backtracked afterward, having a spokesperson make the blatantly false--and easily disprovable--claim that "Gingrich never raised impeachment."

Not surprisingly, the anti-Obama lunacy found its most extreme expression at WingNutDaily, where birther extraordinaire Alan Keyes [who, you may remember, disowned his lesbian daughter and claimed two years ago that Obama's economic plan will "lead to the collapse of our economy"] concluded this borderline nonsensical paragraph on DOMA

Government doesn't endow people with the ability to procreate the species. The Creator takes care of that. Like all unalienable rights, those associated with the natural family exist in consequence of this endowment. [Marriage is an inalienable right?! That's great news!] A couple that cannot, by nature, procreate has no claim to those rights. [False; marriage is not predicated on procreation.] Nor can government grant them a semblance of it without impairing the claims of one or both of the parents biologically implicated in the physical conception of the child. [Marriage equality would impair straight couples?! How?] The DOMA simply makes more explicit the government's obligation to secure the Creator-endowed unalienable rights of the natural family. This obligation precludes government from fabricating other rights that impair them. [Again with the "impairment" claim? Keyes needs to realize that repeating a lie doesn't make it true.]

with this non sequitur analogy:

In this respect, granting homosexuals the right to marry is like granting plantation owners the right to own slaves. [This would only make sense if straight couples had been treated as second-class citizens for hundreds of years, with their rights systematically violated by an oppressive LGBT overclass...Keyes is suffering from a particularly virulent case of Republican reality inversion.]

If the anti-marriage arguments of Gingrich and Keyes are typical of the Right's legal acumen, which they appear to be, then the DOJ doesn't have t worry too much about defending DOMA--conservative complainants are incapable of mounting a substantive factual assault on the impending wave of equality.

Watching a live feed of the DADT repeal signing at Towleroad was a nice pick-me-up on a rather meh kind of morning. It was only a few months ago that a group of veterans was arrested for protesting DADT. Today, one of the protestors (Dan Choi) was present at the ceremony where Obama consigned this discriminatory policy to obsolescence.

It's a shame that Randy Shilts isn't still alive, because his classic book Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians and Gays in the U.S. Military, Vietnam to the Persian Gulf could now have a happier ending.

update:
Here are a few passages from Obama's remarks at the signing:

I want to speak directly to the gay men and women currently serving in our military. For a long time your service has demanded a particular kind of sacrifice. You've been asked to carry the added burden of secrecy and isolation. And all the while, you've put your lives on the line for the freedoms and privileges of citizenship that are not fully granted to you. [...]

There can be little doubt there were gay soldiers who fought for American independence, who consecrated the ground at Gettysburg, who manned the trenches along the Western Front, who stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima. Their names are etched into the walls of our memorials. Their headstones dot the grounds at Arlington.

And so, as the first generation to serve openly in our Armed Forces, you will stand for all those who came before you, and you will serve as role models to all who come after. And I know that you will fulfill this responsibility with integrity and honor, just as you have every other mission with which you've been charged. [...] I hope those soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen who have been discharged under this discriminatory policy will seek to reenlist once the repeal is implemented. (Applause.)

The right-wing reaction to DADT's repeal has been a steady drumbeat of bullshit. AFA's Bryan Fischer, the epitome of Chicken-Little conservatives, claimed that our military "will now be feminized and neutered beyond repair, and...[w]e have been permanently weakened as a military and as a nation:"

If the president and the Democrats wanted to purposely weaken and eventually destroy the United States of America, they could not have picked a more efficient strategy to make it happen.

Rarely can you point to a moment in time when a nation consigned itself to the scrap heap of history. Today...was that moment for the United States. If historians want a fixed marker pointing to the instant the United States sealed its own demise, they just found it.

History will prove them wrong.

Again.

(Not they'll ever admit it.)

Rob Boston at Americans United quotes Richard (Southern Baptist Convention) Land's fulmination that "Homosexual behavior cannot be normalized without rejecting God's moral standards." Land's unspoken assumption is wrong: our military is neither specifically Baptist nor Christian, but American. It exists not to support the particular and peculiar beliefs of a specific religion or sect, but to protect the United States and its freedoms--not just the "free exercise" clause of the First Amendment, but the "no establishment" clause as well. (Land and his fellow bigots are free to form an Army of God is they wish, but--oops!--another group of Christian terrorists is already using that name.)

When debunking the Christianists' bogus worries about the "religious freedom of chaplains and Service members," Boston writes:

For those chaplains who absolutely can't deal with this change, I have two words: private sector. If you don't want to do the job the government has hired you to do, if you can't overcome your personal bigotries and provide services and help to every member of the military, then maybe it's time to get out.

Barney Frank enumerated the contents of the so-called "radical homosexual agenda" (h/t: Towleroad) here:

"It's to be protected against violent crimes driven by bigotry, it's to be able to get married, it's to be able to get a job, and it's to be able to fight for our country. For those who are worried about the radical homosexual agenda, let me put them on notice. Two down, two to go."

In case you haven't heard, the Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell repeal has now passed the Senate, and will reach Obama's desk next week for signature into law. Andrew Sullivan contrasts Obama's slow progress on DADT with what would have been no progress under McCain:

We also know now what a McCain administration would have done: nothing. The disgraceful bitterness and rancor and irrationality that the Senator has shown these past few months reveal just how important it was to defeat him and his deranged, delusional side-kick in 2008.

Sullivan also wonders about McCain's bizarre assertion that "Maybe it will require another election" to reinstate the bigoted DADT policy. (I rather doubt that. Southern racists united behind Nixon in 1968 without leading to the repeal of any Civil Rights laws; even a full wingnut takeover of the government wouldn't reverse support for DADT repeal among both civilian and military majorities.) Jen McCreight's summation looks ahead to the next step toward liberty and justice for all:

So, now that we think it's okay for gays to be open about their sexuality when they're getting shot at fighting for our rights, will we actually extend those rights to them and let them marry when they come home? Or is that too much to ask?

Oh well. Baby steps.

Paul Waldman discusses the fall of John McCain, writing that "Not too long ago, John McCain was one of the most admired people in Washington:"

He was held in esteem by both Republicans and Democrats. His legion of admirers in the press painted a picture of a heroic figure working to clean up the political system, fighting against overwhelming odds, pushed on by courage and principle. [...] And over the last few years, McCain has fallen further than most politicians ever imagine they could.

His fall isn't just because he gave us Sarah Palin, either. In the Congressional arena, there is also his moving-goalposts opposition to LGBT military service:

We don't know whether "don't ask, don't tell" will end this year or next, but we all know it will end, and gay people will be allowed to serve their country in the military, just like they do in almost every other Western nation. And when this debate is remembered, John McCain will be the symbol of fear and bigotry, abandoned by even his wife and daughter, the military's answer to George Wallace circa 1963, a bitter old man standing in the recruiting office door, shouting, "Discrimination now, discrimination tomorrow, discrimination forever!" That will be his legacy.

It's almost enough to make you feel sorry for him. Almost.

James Fallows writes about McCain's mystery, asking "how did he end up this way?"

I have been trying to think of a comparable senior public figure who, in the later stages of his or her career, narrowed rather than broadened his view of the world and his appeals to history's judgment. [...] John McCain seems intentionally to be shrinking his audience, his base, and his standing in history. It's unnecessary, and it is sad.

Even more devastating, though, is Jon Stewart's comparison of McCain to Monty Python's Black Knight (h/t: Towleroad):

In a post on reaction to the (impending?) repeal of DADT, Andrew Sullivan quoted a Special Forces member:

"We have a gay guy [in the unit]. He's big, he's mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay."

Sullivan then responded:

"Manhood is neither straight nor gay. It's male."

Sorry, but this sexist rebuttal to homophobia is a failure.

Courage is neither male nor female. It's human.

The Point magazine has an interesting interview with Harvey (Manliness) Mansfield. He candidly admits to the anti-intellectualism of the conservative base, but sweeps much else under the rug. For example, Mansfield falls back on the 40-year-old archetype of liberals as radicals with totalitarian inclinations when the truth is quite the opposite:

I don't think that conservatives believe that they can do away with liberals; they have enough realism to see that this will always be a temptation, and that makes them more tolerant as people, I think, and as citizens. Whereas liberals really think conservatism is based on prejudice and not principle--it's not respectable, and so, also not necessary to exist. They really have greater confidence that they can do away with their opponents, that permanent victories can be attained.

It isn't a position that one takes up from the beginning but only when one is threatened by people who want to take away or harm things that deserve to be conserved. I think today that the principle task of conservatism is to save liberalism from the liberals. They misinterpret their own doctrine; pervert it and render it dangerous to freedom and peace alike.

Mansfield doesn't mention any concrete examples of these dangerous misinterpretations and perversions--but when the interview veers into same-sex marriage, he wonders "why would the gays, who pride themselves on their own unconventionality, want to submit to this bourgeois convention?" and continues:

It seems to go against the pride they take in being outlaws. [...] ...they should be asked why they desire to do something really contradictory to their way of life.

As if the "way of life" (the conservative intellectual way to avoid saying "lifestyle") of the LGBT community is all that different from that of straights. As if those gaffes weren't bad enough, Mansfield also praises the debunked stingy-liberal thesis of Who Really Cares? and speculates even further along the same lines.

I had been curious about his book The Spirit of Liberalism, but I'm wondering how worthwhile a read it would be given the number of errors in this interview.

This video by George Takei (h/t: Buffy at Gaytheist Agenda) gave me just the laugh I needed on this depressing morning:

(Check Towleroad for details of the McCance scandal if you're not already familiar with it...)

The website FCKH8.COM (h/t: Mojoey at Deep Thoughts) has an f-bomb-laden attack on all the anti-LGBT bigotry out there:

I fucking love it!

In the wake of a Last week, Dan Savage addressed the recent rash of LGBT teen suicides:

Another gay teenager in another small town has killed himself--hope you're pleased with yourselves, Tony Perkins and all the other "Christians" out there who oppose anti-bullying programs (and give actual Christians a bad name).

Billy Lucas was just 15 when he hanged himself in a barn on his grandmother's property. He reportedly endured intense bullying at the hands of his classmates--classmates who called him a fag and told him to kill himself. His mother found his body.

Nine out of 10 gay teenagers experience bullying and harassment at school, and gay teens are four times likelier to attempt suicide. Many LGBT kids who do kill themselves live in rural areas, exurbs, and suburban areas, places with no gay organizations or services for queer kids.

This assessment prompted not despondency, but resolve:

Today we have the power to give these kids hope. We have the tools to reach out to them and tell our stories and let them know that it does get better. Online support groups are great, GLSEN does amazing work, the Trevor Project is invaluable. But many LGBT youth can't picture what their lives might be like as openly gay adults. They can't imagine a future for themselves. So let's show them what our lives are like, let's show them what the future may hold in store for them.

Savage and his husband created the It Gets Better Project to tell this vulnerable population that, indeed, life does goes better after high school. Their inaugural video has since been joined by many, many, others--and has now spawned an anti-bullying PSA called It Gets Worse (h/t: Lindsay Beyerstein at Big Think) to let the bigoted bullies know that the trajectory of their lives will not be aided by driving other teens to suicide.

Pointing out homophobia's religious roots didn't sit well with the sanctimonious crowd, and Savage's letter of the day last Friday played the poor victimized Christian card:

I was saddened and frustrated with your comments regarding people of faith and their perpetuation of bulling. [...] I think you need to be aware of your own prejuduces [sic] 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, [sic] how do you justify judging entire groups of people for any other reason (including their faith)?

Dan trumped it quite forcefully:

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 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. [...]

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.

links:
The Trevor Project
Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN)

In the NYT, Stanley Fish writes about the film Howl. Based on the life and most famous work of poet Allen Ginsburg, (which I discussed here) Howl has a multi-layered narrative structure that affords viewers "a chance to hear the same lines and passages twice and even three times:"

...as a result, we experience the effect of deepening understanding that is produced by the classroom teacher who circles and surrounds a poem with information, references and multiple points of view.

Interpretation in still another register is provided by the amazing animation -- part-biographical, part-metaphorical, part-imagistic and largely hallucinogenic -- that seems to flow upward from Ginsberg's mouth as he reads. The phrase "teaching moment" is now overused, but this film earns it and leaves us wanting more, not more of Franco (who is terrific), not more of the plot (which is less than minimal), not more of the trial (you get just enough), but more literary criticism. Mirabile dictu!

AO Scott's review echoes this point, writing that Howl "does something that sounds simple until you consider how rarely it occurs in films of any kind. It takes a familiar, celebrated piece of writing and makes it come alive." However, Scott flags the animation sequences as "sincere, visually adept and nearly disastrous, the one serious misstep in a film that otherwise does nearly everything right." (Eric Drooker's animations from the film are published in Howl: The Graphic Novel, and Drooker's previous book of Ginsberg's Illuminated Poems.) The trailer looks pretty good:

update (10/12):
Greta Christina reviews Howl at Carnal Nation and writes that "I do have to respect Allen Ginsberg:"

I have to respect him for writing candidly about sex, at a time when writing candidly about sex could get you arrested. I have to respect him for being an out gay man in the freaking 1950s. I have to respect him for breaking the ground that I'm casually strolling on today.

Allen Ginsberg lived in a world that was much, much shittier about sex than the world I live in today. And the world I live in today is better, in part, because of him: because of the things he wrote, and the fights he fought, and the life he lived out loud.

A lot of things drifted into my mind when I was watching this film. But the idea that kept drifting into my head, again and again, gently and relentlessly, was this:

Thanks.

The big news last night for Congress-watchers was the victory of Christine O'Donnell (Teabagger) over Mike Castle (RINO) in Delaware's Senate primary. It doesn't look good for O'Donnell in the general election--Castle has declined to endorse her, the state GOP chair has said that "She's not a viable candidate for any office in the state of Delaware...She could not be elected dog catcher," and Karl Rove (!) busted her for saying "a lot of nutty things." Following in Sarah Palin's neologistic footsteps, though, O'Donnell fired back that Rove was being "unfactual" in his criticism.

The weeks until the election could be quite entertaining, as O'Donnell's hilarious anti-masturbation rant from her 1996 appearance on MTV suggests:

My favorite part is when O'Donnell says that, in marriage, "you're going to be pleasing each other--and if he already knows what pleases him and he can please himself, then why am I in the picture?"

Why indeed? With any luck, your fifteen minutes will be over very quickly.

update:
ThinkProgress noted that O'Donnell blamed school shootings on secularism, and TruthOut mentions O'Donnell's revealing reaction to a LGBT Pride parade in 2000:

They're getting away with nudity! They're getting away with lasciviousness! They're getting away with perversion! [...] They're getting away with blasphemy!

It must be so difficult for her when other people don't live their lives according to her opinions--it just sounds so awful!

According to recent polling, Nate Silver mentions at 538 that support for marriage equality appears to be "shift[ing] at an accelerated pace:"

It's kind of a follow-up to his post last Spring (which I mentioned here) about the state-by-state situation and his analysis that "Marriage bans...are losing ground at a rate of slightly less than 2 points per year:"

...by 2012, almost half of the 50 states would vote against a marriage ban, including several states that had previously voted to ban it. In fact, voters in Oregon, Nevada and Alaska (which Sarah Palin aside, is far more libertarian than culturally conservative) might already have second thoughts about the marriage bans that they'd previously passed.

By 2016, only a handful of states in the Deep South would vote to ban gay marriage, with Mississippi being the last one to come around in 2024.

Silver finds "acceleration in the rate of support for gay marriage," noting "a 4-point gain over the past 16 months, faster than the long-term rate of increase, which has been between 1 and 1.5 points per year:"

Something to bear in mind is that it's only been fairly recently that gay rights groups -- and other liberals and libertarians -- shifted toward a strategy of explicitly calling for full equity in marriage rights, rather than finding civil unions to be an acceptable compromise. [...] ...it seems that, in general, "having the debate" is helpful to the gay marriage cause, probably because the secular justifications against it are generally quite weak.

Generational differences are a consideration in this analysis (see page 11 of this CAP report, h/t: DemFromCT at DailyKos):

As younger (and LGBTQ-positive) voters replace the Fred Phelps generation, progress toward marriage equality seems destined to continue. Conservatives' attempts to smear Judge Walker as "openly gay" [smearing only works if the alleged characteristic is a negative one, which homosexuality clearly isn't--but that's a point for another time] is a tactic which will continue to lose effectiveness. By the way, there is some disagreement over Walker's alleged openness, in addition to the appropriateness of the revelation:

Shay Aaron Gilmore, an associate attorney at a San Francisco law firm, said, "The entire line of inquiry is pretty offensive. What the question suggests is that it's impossible for a gay judge to render an unbiased opinion because the only judges who are qualified are the 'normal' ones -- and those would be the straight ones." The only reason Walker's sexuality is up for debate now, he argues, is that "the right wing isn't happy with shining the light of justice on their bigotry."

update (4:35pm):
Judge Walker has extended the stay until next Wednesday evening, allowing more time for an appeal.

Certain anti-Islamic wingnuts are proposing that the (not at) Ground Zero mosque be welcomed into its Manhattan neighborhood with the opening of various other business establishments. Faux's Greg Gutfield suggested a gay bar:

I am planning to build and open the first gay bar that caters not only to the west, but also Islamic gay men. To best express my sincere desire for dialogue, the bar will be situated next to the mosque Park51, in an available commercial space.

This is not a joke. I've already spoken to a number of investors, who have pledged their support in this bipartisan bid for understanding and tolerance.

As you know, the Muslim faith doesn't look kindly upon homosexuality, which is why I'm building this bar. It is an effort to break down barriers and reduce deadly homophobia in the Islamic world.

National Review's Jonah Goldberg followed up with pork products and free puppies:

Numerous readers say they wanted to open a strip club across the street. Others: A pork store (like Satriales in the Sopranos). I for one don't see why you have to pick just one. A strip club/gay bar with many pork dishes on the menu (and elsewhere) might work just fine. Bonus: They could give away puppies!

Andrew Sullivan (usually a voice of reason on the Right) has begun a Name That Bar contest, calling the idea not facetious, but "fantastic:"

That's exactly the right response to an expression of religious freedom: the expression of freedom for gay people as well. In fact, it's such a great idea that it could be followed across the country: gay bars right next to churches and mosques that condemn homosexuality

The alliterative punster in me suggests "Burqas, Booze, & Bacon" or "Eat Pork and Get Porked" as suitable--if snarky--names.

The idea that we could build Planned Parenthood clinics next to Catholic cathedrals or a brewery next to some Baptists brings to mind a recent news story where the Columbus Dispatch reports that strippers are counter-protesting a bunch of busybody Bible-thumpers. Pastor Bill Dunfee of the New Beginnings Ministries church offers the conciliatory declaration that "The word of Jesus Christ says you cannot share territory with the devil."

Every weekend for the last four years, Dunfee and members of his ministry have stood watch over [Tom] George's [strip] joint, taking up residence in the right of way with signs, video cameras and bullhorns in hand. They videotape customers' license plates and post them online, and they try to save the souls of anyone who comes and goes.

One hopes that New York's Muslims will be more agreeable to living in a pluralistic society than Ohio's Christians.

update (8/11 @ 9:46am):
Pandagon's Amanda Marcotte points out that there are already gay bars in the vicinity of Park51, although it's unclear whether or not they cater specifically to an Islamic clientele:

If you look at this picture, and you're not too stupid to breathe (sorry, wingnuts!), you should immediately see two things that make this whole "let's put a gay bar by the Cordoba House and see liberal heads explode!" wishful thinking look even stupider than it is on its surface: 1) There are three gay bars within .1 mile of the Cordoba House and 2) They are all as close or closer to the Cordoba House than the WTC is.

So, wingnuts, remember this when trying to craft "jokes" in the future. Just because you're so uptight and repressed that the mere idea of seeing the front door of a gay bar makes your blood pressure rise in a combination of bigotry and sexual excitement that you fear ever speaking aloud doesn't mean that everyone else shares your freakishness. Especially not in New York.

Two great TV clips of the Prop H8 lawyers are making the rounds today (Thanks to Pam's House Blend for the transcripts). The first is Ted Olson being interviewed by Faux News' Chris Wallace:

Wallace: ...where is the right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution?

Olsen: Where is the right to interracial marriage in the Constitution, Chris? [...]

Wallace: Mr. Olsen, you are against judicial activism, how do you define what is judicial activism and what isn't?

Olsen: Well, most people use the term "judicial activism" to explain decisions that they don't like. [...] ...what the court decided here, what the Supreme Court, as I said, of the United States has 14 times decided the right to marry is an important constitutional right. The judge applied that right, that existing right, that fully determined and repeatedly determined constitutional right, to some tens of thousands of those in California who are being harmed by discrimination. That is not judicial activism, that is judicial responsibility.

The second features David Boise squaring off against Tony Perkins of the (Anti-) Family Research Council:

Perkins: ...he ignored a lot of the social science in--in his opinion. [...] So there is certainly not only based upon the social empirical data that's out there, but on the legal basis this is a flawed decision. And, and, as I said, it's far from over. [...]

Boies: Well, it's easy to sit around and debate and throw around opinions appear-- appeal to people's fear and prejudice, cite studies that either don't exist or don't say what you say they do. In a court of law you've got to come in and you've got to support those opinions. You've got to stand up under oath and cross-examination. And what we saw at trial is that it's very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens the right to vote, to make all sorts of statements and campaign literature or in debates where they can't be cross-examined. But when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross-examination, those opinions just melt away. [...] We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.

[...]

Perkins: ...we hope that sanity will reign when it does make its way to the United States Supreme Court.

So do we, Mr Perkins--and this is what sanity looks like:

(Clay Bennett/Chattanooga Times Free Press)

Liberty and Justice belong together, and no man should put them asunder.

Ted Olson's Newsweek piece on "The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage" is worth reading; I'm glad to see conservatives making sensible arguments, as this pretty much leaves any opposition in the reactionaries' hands. Andrew Sullivan gets this much, at least, right in his response to anti-marriage activist Maggie Gallagher. "If this ruling is upheld," writes Gallagher:

...millions of Americans will face for the first time a legal system that is committed to the view that our deeply held moral views on sex and marriage are unacceptable in the public square, the fruit of bigotry that should be discredited, stigmatized and repressed. Parents will find that, almost Soviet-style, their own children will be re-educated using their own tax dollars to disrespect their parents' views and values.

Sullivan ignored the "Soviet-style repression" hyperbole and pointed out that "Unlike the far right, we gays believe in total freedom of religion:"

You are free to tell your children that the earth was created 6,000 years ago and that they must not eat shell-fish or mix fabrics and that gay people are condemned to hell. You are free to preach this from the rooftops. You can encourage your children, even the gay ones, to marry opposite-sex wives and husbands; you can disseminate information that stigmatizes gays; etc etc. But you cannot disenfranchise your fellow citizens in a civil institution because of your religious beliefs.

You cannot erect a Christianist legal version of Dhimmitude vis-a-vis gay people. Not in America.

Not that they won't try--but in the long run, they will lose. Marriage equality is coming.

update (8/10 @ 8:27am):
Here's an earlier version of the same idea, from illustrator Mirko Ilić (h/t: digby at Hullabaloo):

(Village Voice, 2004)

As tempting as it is to simply mock wingnut pundits for wanting to deny same-sex couples the right to marry, the Right's anti-marriage forces do occasionally make something that appears (on the surface, at least) to be an actual point. (For example, serial adulterer/divorcee Newt Gingrich wrote: "In every state of the union from California to Maine to Georgia, where the people have had a chance to vote they've affirmed that marriage is the union of one man and one woman," but neglected to add the personally relevant codicil "at a time.") Another observation, trumpeted far and wide in allegations of judicial bias, is that the judge in the Perry case, Vaughn Walker, is gay.

The laughably-named Christian Anti-Defamation Commission railed that "Judge Walker cannot comprehend the self-evident rational basis for prohibiting homosexual marriage" [which is neither self-evident nor rational] and then cowers in fear over the idea of "homosexual marriage [being] forced on us by a despotic judiciary." [OH NOES...we're all going to get GAY MARRIED whether we want to or not!!1!!!!]

Even more frightening, the CADC wrote about "Sexual anarchists" who "won't rest until, like in Sodom, they can surround your house and demand you offer up your children to be abused." [Hilariously, he gets the Biblical reference (Genesis 19:1-8) wrong. The mob outside Lot's doors didn't demand his daughters, but rather his visitors (who were angels in disguise, although Lot didn't know this). Lot offered his daughters to the rapists as a compromise in an early example of religious family values.]

John Avlon from The Daily Beast points out that, far from being a stereotypical "judicial activist," Judge Walker "is a Republican who was first nominated to the bench by President Ronald Reagan:"

The unexpected ironies do not stop there. His nomination was stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee over accusations that Walker was too conservative. [...] Walker's defenders included Ed Meese and Strom Thurmond. The outcry at the time was so considerable that it fell to Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush, to re-nominate Walker to the federal bench.

ThinkProgress has a few examples of conservative over-reaction. According to some on the Right, Judge Walker has "declare[d] the Constitution unconstitutional" and "should have recused himself from this case, because his judgment is clearly compromised by his own sexual proclivity." Even more outrageously, one wingnut said that "The majority of Californians...have just had their core civil right -- the right to vote -- stripped from them" Cato's David Boaz supplies the hyper-hyperbole winner: Coral Ridge Ministries' Robert Knight, who is worried about "the criminalization of not only Christianity but of the foundational values of civilization itself."

Marc Ambinder says that "the facts, not the law, matter" in Walker's ruling, and Paul Rosenberg discussed facts-vs-fears at OpenLeft:

Proposition 8 was overturned because of the facts--including the facts surrounding the resort to unfounded fears, which do not provide a rational basis for discriminatory state action under our Constitution (about which, the right as a whole understands virtually nothing).

(He also quotes Andrew Koppelman from the NY Times: "Proposition 8 lacked a rational basis, because the 'facts' that were invoked in its defense were manifestly false.") Slate's Dahlia Lithwick calls the ruling not simply "brilliant," but also "factual, well-reasoned, and powerful." She continues, "It's hard to read Judge Walker's opinion without sensing that what really won out today was science, methodology, and hard work:"

Had the proponents of Prop 8 made even a minimal effort to put on a case, to track down real experts, to do more than try to assert their way to legal victory, this would have been a closer case. But faced with one team that mounted a serious effort and another team that did little more than fire up their big, gay boogeyman screensaver for two straight weeks, it wasn't much of a fight. [...]

Is that the end of it? Oh, no. Judge Walker is already being flayed alive for the breadth and boldness of his decision. The appeals road will be long and nasty. Walker has temporarily stayed the ruling pending argument on a stay. [...] Any way you look at it, today's decision was written for a court of one--Kennedy--the man who has written most eloquently about dignity and freedom and the right to determine one's own humanity. The real triumph of Perry v. Schwarzenegger may be that it talks in the very loftiest terms about matters rooted in logic, science, money, social psychology, and fact.

Paul Waldman looks ahead to the case's probably destination after the appeal to the Ninth Circuit, writing that "We can say for sure that there will be four solid No votes on the Supreme Court against marriage equality - Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia:"

We're less certain about the Yes votes, but let's assume that the Court's four liberals - Breyer, Ginsberg, Sotomayor, and Kagan - come around. That leaves Kennedy, something trial judge Vaughan Walker seemed to be well aware of. As Dalia Lithwick noted, Walker's decision included "seven citations to Justice Kennedy's 1996 opinion in Romer v. Evans (striking down an anti-gay Colorado ballot initiative) and eight citations to his 2003 decision in Lawrence v. Texas (striking down Texas' gay-sodomy law)."

Congratulations to California's LGBT couples! May the decision's stay be uneventful, followed by successful rulings by the Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court--and, at long last, equality before the law.

California's anti-marriage law Proposition 8 (called "Prop H8" for its attempt to enshrine bigotry in the state constitution) has been declared invalid. Here's part of the ruling by US District Court Chief Judge Vaughn Walker:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

Amid a flurry of posts on the ruling, Andrew Sullivan writes that he is "increasingly confident that when this case eventually gets to the Supreme Court, the logic of equality will win:"

Once you have conceded that gay people are a class, and that their sexual orientation is integral to their lives and immutable, and that they are not defined by sex acts that can be performed by gays and straights alike, then the ban on marriage equality is left without anything but an amorphous claim to heterosexual supremacy - or a judicially irrelevant appeal to simple custom (already invalid in five states and many countries) - to support it.

Walker is right. What this comes down to is whether gay people are inferior to straight people, and whether their citizenship is thereby to be deemed inferior as well. The entire weight of the American tradition stands athwart the imposition of a second-class group of people and declares: No!

In congratulating the California couples, I'd like to quote Dr Martin Luther King Jr:

"Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice." ("Where Do We Go from Here?" 16 August 1967)

correction:
The "arc of the moral universe" quote from King is actually a paraphrase of these words from Theodore Parker in 1853:

"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one. . . . But from what I see I am sure it bends toward justice."

See here for more details.

Despite its name, the National Organization for Marriage is an anti-marriage group; their only seemingly purpose is to prevent lesbian and gay couples from getting married--or to deny legal recognition to existing same-sex marriages. [I mentioned NOM a few times last year: here, here, and here.]
Andrew Sullivan posted this disgusting anti-marriage placard from a NOM rally:

ThinkProgress interviewed Larry Adams, the NOM supporter whose sign is shown above. AlterNet's steved notes "How often have we heard that extreme right wing Christian groups love gay people. It's only the 'sin' of gay sex that they hate," and observes that "at least some NOM supporters don't love gay people so much as they would like to implement a 'final solution' to the gay problem based on their version of 'Biblical Law.'"

NOM's current logo looks like this,

and someone combined with the Leviticus-lynching image (h/t: Towleroad) to reflect its Biblical principle:

This just goes to show that atheist/liberal/LGBT opponents don't need to exaggerate religious beliefs--they are quite repulsive enough on their own.

This Craigslist note has gotten some online attention (see Gaytheist Agenda and Truth Wins Out), and deservedly so. Read it and laugh:

To the Straight Guy at the Party Last Night

A mutual friend of ours threw a big party for her 30th birthday, tons of people were there and it was a lot of fun. Somewhere along the line you and I ended up on the balcony for some fresh air at the same time. We started chatting; we talked about sports, books, tv - discovered we both are about to start our masters degrees and spent some time debating the pro's and con's of the educational system. We talked about hanging out sometime, and you wanted to meet my girlfriend.

I understand how upsetting it was for you when I blinked mildly in surprise and said I was here with my husband. I know it was a shock to your system, if your face had turned any paler I might have called 911. You made a good recovery though - that hurried mutter of "I'm not like that" was very polite and you only knocked over two drinks and one vase in your hurry to rush to anywhere other than near me. I can't blame you - I forgot how delicate you straight boys are. So I wanted to give you a few helpful hints about where you went wrong last night.

1) As a general rule we don't walk around with big signs around our neck proclaiming our sexuality. No scarlet letters, no scent of hellfire and brimstone... sorry about that.

2) We do not generally assume that everyone within 5 feet of us must also be homosexual - it was nice of you to immediately reassure me that you are hetero, but it was really unnecessary.

3) Homosexuality is not infectious. While I am sure you meant no disrespect with your hasty departure; in the future you can rest assured that taking a few extra seconds in your mad dash for safety will not result in you being turned gay. It will however keep you from destroying expensive vases and knocking over senior citizens.

4) This next one may come as a surprise; but you are not, in fact, irresistible. The fact that you have a dick does not instantly turn me into a bundle of uncontrolled lust. Contrary to popular opinion, being in the same room with a straight man does not cause a gay man to instantly lose all common sense and basic common courtesy. Though I am not so sure about the reverse.

5) Homosexuals in general get a little irked when people treat us like some sort of leper. Rushing to another mutual friend of ours and advising him of my sexuality, so he could be "forewarned" was really uncalled for.

6) Upon being told (by said mutual friend) to stop being an idiot and that you were not my type anyway... it generally confuses the issue when you then proceed to become upset that I DON'T find you attractive. Three seconds ago you were running through a crowd of people with your hands cupped protectively over your junk as if I might attack you at any moment with a blowjob. See hint number 4.

7) We homosexuals have an odd sense of humor - I can't help that. Something about watching you freak out as if all the demons of hell were after you just struck me as vastly amusing.

8) While being pissed at me for dissolving into uncontrollable laughter might be understandable... gathering a couple guys together to "teach the fag a lesson" is not.

9) You might also want to drink a little less and be a little more careful about the guys you approach for your little proto-hate-mob.

10) Assuming the two tall muscle-bound bruisers must be uber-hetero and just as appalled by my presence as you was your first mistake. It was an understandable one though. How were you to know that pflag tshirt the first guy was wearing wasn't a sports team? Also the rainbow ring the second guy was wearing could have meant anything I am sure.

11) In retrospect I suppose that upon hearing your not very subtle hate-talk and seeing who you were heading for; I could have said something instead of just laughing harder. I apologize for that. I should have just introduced you to my husband instead of letting you walk up to him and ask him if he wanted to help you teach "that fag over there" a lesson. I hope that broken nose heals up cleanly.

Fact? Fiction? I don't know, but it's funny as hell regardless.

Six military veterans handcuffed themselves to a White House fence today in an attempt to pressure Obama into ending the cowardly Clinton-era "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy:

Lafayette Park was then inexplicably closed, thereby preventing the media from properly covering the protest:

John Aravosis, Pam Spaulding, and Andy Towle have all registered their disappointment, wondering why the Obama administration has chosen to behave in such a Bush-league manner.

Obama, you promised to end this discriminatory policy.

It's time to show some leadership and fulfill your promise.

Timothy Kincaid's piece at Box Turtle Bulletin about how conservative Christians "don't get it" (h/t: Evan Hurst at Truth Wins Out) notes that while their "love the sinner, hate the sin" tactics have failed, a "new face of conservative Christianity is arising calling for more tolerance and seeking to share a loving God with their gay neighbors, to welcome them and love them rather than loudly condemn them:"

And almost without exception, they get it entirely, completely, and miserably wrong.

Rather than see gay people as people, we are seen as a mission field, lost and desperate sinners trapped in a sinful and dangerous lifestyle hopelessly searching for acceptance and grace. And they come into the discussion with the assumption that their understanding of Scripture is not only true, but universally accepted.

As churches from the Unitarian-Universalists to the United Church of Christ to the Metropolitan Community Church demonstrate, a gay-positive theology is possible; Christian writers such as Bishop John Shelby Spong (Episcopal) have isolated the strains of fundamentalism and literalism that cause homophobia, but conservative church hierarchies seem resistant to the vaccine of critical thinking. Thus, they continue to insult the LGBT community that they claim to be trying to "save." Here's the conclusion of Kincaid's message to conservative Christians:

...for as long as you continue to be part of the movement to deny civil equalities, you will never, ever "reach gay people for Christ". If your Christ compels you to take away my health insurance, then your Christ is my enemy. If His message of love is to take my children away from me, then I'll do without that kind of love, thanks.

If your position on my personal freedoms is exactly the same as that of the Phelps family, then you really have nothing to share with me or my community. If your voting pattern is identical to Peter LaBarbera, then your gospel is nothing but a sounding brass or tinkling cymbal.

Don't get me wrong. I do appreciate that you aren't calling us abominations and perverts. I really do. Setting aside the language of condemnation and revulsion is a step in the right direction.

But it isn't as big a step as you think it is.

And as long as you come to us with the message that God wants us to live a love-less life of aloneness and think that we are going to see this as good news, don't be surprised that we are not impressed. [...] And until you come up with a theology that reveals God as something other than a bigot or a bully, you can be sure that your "mission to the homosexuals" will not be fruitful.

Bravo!

That's about all I have to say about this (h/t: Andy Towle at Towleroad):

The prom the school district promised at the country club in Fulton was a ruse. Only seven kids, Constance, and her date showed, and at the same time, everyone else held a "real" prom at a secret location out in the county. [...]

The school represented that Constance was invited [to a parent-sponsored prom] in court filings, testimony, and representations by the school district and its lawyers. In reality, Constance had not been invited, but, based on the representations by the district and its counsel, Judge Davidson denied Constance's request for a preliminary injunction that she could go to the prom.

The school reneged, or possibly didn't ever intend to follow through on its representations to the court.

If you're not familiar with Constance McMillen's battle against discrimination at her high school, visit the ACLU. The Advocate has an update from her:

"They had two proms and I was only invited to one of them," McMillen says. "The one that I went to had seven people there, and everyone went to the other one I wasn't invited to."

Some people are demonstrably unfit to be involved in educating children. Members of the Itawamba County School District should be ashamed of themselves.

Southern Poverty Law Center's new report " Rage on the Right" talks about--what else?--the tendency of extremist reactionary groups to espouse hatred. As shown in this NYT graph of SPLC data, hate groups (in red) are growing slowly, while "patriot" (tan) and "nativist extremist" (green) groups are experiencing dramatic growth:

Notorious homophobic bigot Matt Barber got all upset about this, calling the SPLC "partisan hacks," which is quite an accusation from one of the hackiest right-wing hacks in all of hackdom; for instance, consider his reliance on the discredited "research" of Paul Cameron.

Speaking of homophobic bigotry, Barber's ideological associates at Americans for Truth [sic] about Homosexuality may wish to consider themselves a "well-respected Christian organization," but they're not. Far from being "arbitrarily tagged as an official 'hate group,'" there isn't anything arbitrary about that designation--they've earned it by lying to maintain second-class citizenship for the LGBT community. (Peter "Porno Pete" LaBarbera, President of AFTAH, has some remarks about AFTAH being recognized as a hate group; his comments are amply debunked by Truth Wins Out.)

I'm glad to see purveyors of homophobia publicly shamed for peddling the same hatred as racists and xenophobes. Different bigots may target different groups, but their goals (and their tactics) have always been disturbingly similar.

What is it with anti-marriage conservatives and bestiality?

It seems as if they bring up inter-species relationships whenever they contemplate same-sex marriage. It's ludicrous the think that an animal is either logically or legally equivalent to an adult human being, but their ridiculousness has quite a pedigree--just ask former Senator Rick "man-on-dog" Santorum. The latest conservative to betray his innermost thoughts on the subject is McCain's primary challenger JD Hayworth (h/t: Alex Koppelman at Slate). Hayworth's inappropriate comparison makes me wonder if he secretly idolizes "Mr Hands:"

You see, the Massachusetts Supreme Court, when it started this move toward same-sex marriage, actually defined marriage -- now get this -- it defined marriage as simply, quote, "the establishment of intimacy." [...] Now how dangerous is that? I mean, I don't mean to be absurd about it, but I guess I can make the point of absurdity with an absurd point -- I guess that would mean if you really had affection for your horse, I guess you could marry your horse.

Koppelman noted that--surprise, surprise--Hayworth was making things up: the phrase "the establishment of intimacy" does not appear in the text (PDF here) of the Goodridge v. Department of Public Health decision as a definition of marriage. Hayworth was a guest on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show last night, and she called him on it:

MADDOW: [W]hat you said about "the establishment of intimacy" being the definition of marriage in Massachusetts, I don't think it's true, sir.

HAYWORTH: Well, that's fine. You and I can have a disagreement about that.

MADDOW: Well, it either is true or it isn't. It's empirical.

HAYWORTH: OK. OK.

MADDOW: All right.

HAYWORTH: Well, I appreciate the fact that we have a disagreement on that.

Hayworth's "disagreement" isn't just with Maddow, but with the discrepancy between his manufactured quote and the actual, factual document. Steve Benen delivers the coup de grace to this disturbingly familiar attitude:

And this is why conversations with conservatives never seem to go well. Reality is an inconvenient detail that can be twisted, manipulated, and frequently ignored.

In a normal, sensible debate, one side might make a provocative claim. The other side can challenge the claim, and provide evidence. If it's proven false, the first side moves on to some other claim. Lather, rinse, repeat.

But that's not how Republicans work. They make claims that aren't true, and after being corrected, either repeat those claims again anyway, pretend the matter is subjective, or both.

It's genuinely painful to listen to clowns for whom reality is meaningless.

That reminds me very much of Kenyan socialist death panels.

update:
Check out Candace Chellew-Hodge's piece at Religion Dispatches, where we speculate in the comments that Hayworth is in a "stable relationship."

After the anti-gay comments of beauty-queen wannabe Lauren Ashley (AKA "Miss Beverly Hills") started to draw some fire online, Faux News removed the "abomination" remarks from the original article. Google cache to the rescue:

"The Bible says that marriage is between a man and a woman. In Leviticus it says, 'If man lies with mankind as he would lie with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death and their blood shall be upon them.' The Bible is pretty black and white," Ashley told Pop Tarts.

"I feel like God himself created mankind and he loves everyone, and he has the best for everyone. If he says that having sex with someone of your same gender is going to bring death upon you, that's a pretty stern warning, and he knows more than we do about life."

That's nothing more than standard fundamentalist Bible-banging bullshit, but it's the inconsistency that mystifies me. Shellfish, blended fabrics, and inaccurate balance scales are also called abominations in the Bible, but for some reason I don't see any fundies getting worked up over people eating lobster or wearing cotton/poly slacks. I assume that none of Ms Ashley's future interviews will be held in churches, because (as a good Biblical literalist) she would have to cover her head and stay silent.

There was enough online outrage earlier this week that the city of Beverly Hills repudiated her remarks (h/t: Bruce Garrett at Truth Wins Out):

In a statement Wednesday, the city said it was "shocked" by Ashley's description of herself as "Miss Beverly Hills." The city "does not sponsor a beauty pageant and has no association with Miss California USA," the statement said. "As such, there should be no individual claiming the title of Miss Beverly Hills."

The city's statement said Ashley lives in Pasadena and "does not represent Beverly Hills in any capacity."

Aside from the "false witness" problem, I found one of Ashley's later remarks interesting:

"I have a lot of friends that are gay, and ... I have a lot of friends who have different views, and we share our views together," she said. "There's no hate between me and anyone."

I doubt that she really has any gay friends, although she may believe so. Would you think someone didn't hate you if they believed you should be killed for your sexual orientation? Would you still consider someone a friend who believes that you are an abomination?