Listen, I hate to beat up on Pat, especially since he’s not sounding too good these days, but this is more for those folks like Christy (his co-host in the video) than anybody else. Because this kind of nonsense needs to go away once Robertson’s generation passes. Otherwise, you will not be taken seriously.

I’m not saying Christians need to stop believing in evil, the Devil, etc. But this folklore is silly and the more the next generation of the devout focus less on it and more on helping those in need, the better.

Flipping through the channels last night, I happened upon this programming masterpiece and lingered because two attractive, lingerie-clad women were making out on a bed. The scene ended and the show was REALLY bad so I moved on.

My beautiful wife looked up from her laptop and said something to the effect of “WTF is wrong with our society that ‘hot girl-on-girl’ action is practically shoved down our throats while gays have to fight tooth and nail to get married?”

She’s right, there’s an interesting dichotomy there – and I’ve been thinking about it all day because I live in NJ and listen to the radio at work. I’ve heard this anti-gay marriage commercial thirteen times today. I despise these commercials and feel sorry for the people desperately clinging to such hate and fear in the name of God. I’ve written to the radio station and my representatives, I vote my conscience and do what I can for change. Now I’m just sharing my frustration with the good folks at Donklephant.

Doug points this one out, and if true, well, no wonder France took a pass on backing us in Iraq.

French journalist Jean-Claude Maurice recounts the tale in his book release in March, Si Vous le Répétez, Je Démentirai (If You Repeat it, I Will Deny).

From Secular Humanism:

President George W. Bush told French President Jacques Chirac in early 2003 that Iraq must be invaded to thwart Gog and Magog, the Bible’s satanic agents of the Apocalypse.

Honest. This isn’t a joke. The president of the United States, in a top-secret phone call to a major European ally, asked for French troops to join American soldiers in attacking Iraq as a mission from God.

Now out of office, Chirac recounts that the American leader appealed to their “common faith” (Christianity) and told him: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East…. The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled…. This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.”

This bizarre episode occurred while the White House was assembling its “coalition of the willing” to unleash the Iraq invasion. Chirac says he was boggled by Bush’s call and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs.”

Again, if true, I think it speaks for itself.

And given Bush’s insistence on saying he was chosen by God, etc., we have every reason to believe that something like this is not only plausible, but also highly likely.

Ugh.

So their argument is basically, “Because Universal Health Care brings about more diversity, it’s more likely to attract terrorists because Muslims will fit in and not be noticed. Best to have private practices where white, Christian doctors make up the majority. That way they’ll spot the Muslims who are likely to be reading jihadist web pages at work.”

Fox News: Breeding Ground For Morons?

This is an incredibly significant step because it paves the way for an actual revolution.

From Times Online:

Iran’s biggest group of clerics has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election to be illegitimate and condemned the subsequent crackdown.

The statement by the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qom is an act of defiance against the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has made clear he will tolerate no further challenges to Mr Ahmadinejad’s “victory” over Mir Hossein Mousavi.

“It’s a clerical mutiny,” said one Iranian analyst. “This is the first time ever you have all these big clerics openly challenging the leader’s decision.” Another, in Tehran, said: “We are seeing the birth of a new political front.”

This has a few practical effects.

1. It puts the Supreme Leader in a nearly indefensible positions and calls into question his authority.
2. These clerics can now claim the moral high ground and possibly unseat the Supreme Leader
3. It’s unlikely that Mousavi will be arrested at this point, even though Khamenei has called for it.

Also, let’s not forget that even though the protests were quashed last week, folks will be coming out in about 20 days to mourn the deaths of the protesters who died during the first round. And this could lead to more deaths, which will lead to more protests, etc. And that’s how the revolution in 1979 happened, so there’s a possibility it could happen again.

More as it develops…

So says a commenter who posted this a couple of hours ago…

“We are from god and we will return to him”

Great people of Iran

It is with extreme sadness that I have learnt of the massacre of the people who had gathered peacefully to defend their rights. I am deeply concerned about these events, and hereby declare Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as national mourning days. I support the people’s pacific acts in order to defend their rights in respect of our republic, and forbid any act which can harm it.

All my brothers and sisters are bound to help the nation in this fight, and I declare any resistance, specially any violence against the people, against the principles of Islam and “Haram”.

The blogger says that he found the letter on Moussavi’s Facebook page, but I can’t find it there. Obviously the news if flying fast and furious right now, so take this with a grain of salt until it’s confirmed. However, the blogger did translate the previous letter from Montazeri, so that lend some additional credibility to the post.

Still, if this is true, it’s a pretty significant step forward from merely condemning the violence and the validity of the election. Because, this sounds like the first whispers of real revolution, especially since he’s saying this is against Islam.

“Whatever titles we give these murderers, both deserve our attention. Violence like that is no way to solve a political dispute nor a religious one. And the fanatics on all sides do great disservice when they confuse dissention with rage and death.”
- Sarah Palin on the similarities between the Tiller and Long shootings

Credit where credit is due. Palin calls this one right.

Thoughts?

Transcript:

Terry: The point that must be emphasized over, and over, and over again: pro-life leaders and the pro-life movement are not responsible for George Tiller’s death. George Tiller was a mass-murder and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed.

Q: So who is responsible …

Terry: The man who shot him is responsible …

Q: … because that makes it sound like you were saying that he [Tiller] is responsible.

Terry: The man who shot him is responsible.

Q: What did you mean by “he reaped what he sowed”?

Terry: He was a mass-murder. He sowed death. And then he reaped death in a horrifying way.

And after this clip makes the rounds, maybe Randall Terry and the group he started will reap a lot of really bad press and lose any shred of credibility.

Fingers crossed.

Anybody who reads this blog knows where I fall on the gay marriage issue, but the Supreme Court of California wasn’t reallly deciding the validity of gay marriage itself, so the ruling was actually dead on in my opinion.

This article from Bloomberg points out why…

The court legalized gay marriage a year ago before California voters overruled it in November. Fifty-two percent of them approved the ban, amending the state constitution to recognize only marriages between a man and a woman. The court ruled 6 to 1 today in favor of upholding Proposition 8, saying it was ruling only on the ability of voters to pass a ballot measure rather than whether gay marriage should be legal.

“The principal issue before us concerns the scope of the right of the people, under the provisions of the California Constitution, to change or alter the state constitution itself through the initiative process,” the court wrote, “not to determine whether the provision at issue is wise or sound.”

Yes, it’s the law and it’s specific. And if they ruled against that provision, it would harm the citizens’ rights to amend the Constitution. That’s not a precedent the courts want to set just to prove a point.

But here’s the most important part of this entire argument…all the marriages that happened before the ban are legal!!!

The court ruled unanimously that the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed before the ban remain valid. The November ban sparked protests across California and led activists to create Web sites that identified individuals who donated money to support the measure and boycott donors’ business. The ballot measure overrode the court’s May 15, 2008, ruling that laws barring same-sex marriages were unconstitutional.

So to all of you gay marriage advocates, I know this seems like a loss today but it’s not.

Actually, this is a VERY big win as it signals continuous positive movement. Because you know there will be another ballot initiative to overturn Prop 8 at some point and it’ll pass and California will join the growing number of states where marriage is equal for all. But you have to get out there and fight for it if you want it to happen.

More as it develops…

It appears as if evangelical Christians inside the military could be urging troops to give out bibles in Afghanistan…which is strictly forbidden by both the military’s code of conduct and Afghan law.

Here’s the report…

Now, the military denies that the bibles were ever distributed, but there’s no way to really prove if they were or weren’t. But what this brings up is the idea that the religiosity of some in the military is starting to get in the way. Because the faithful seem to have way too much influence right now since blatant prosteletyzing has been happening much too often right out in the open.

For instance, take the Mikey Weinstein situation at the Air Force Academy…

In recent years, accusations of evangelical line-crossing have piled up. In 2005, Fisher DeBerry, then the Air Force Academy’s football coach, was ordered to remove a “Team Jesus Christ” banner from the locker room. Senior officers who were filmed in uniform at the Pentagon for a Christian promotional video were reprimanded. Then in February, again at the academy, three professed exterrorists and reformed Christians were accused of putting a “Jesus saves”
message in a presentation to cadets. Richardson, quoted three years ago in The New York Times as saying chaplains “reserve the right to evangelize the unchurched,” was cited in a lawsuit against the Air Force that claimed there was widespread proselytizing at the academy.

The suit was brought by Mikey Weinstein, a former Air Force attorney and longtime critic of alleged coercive Christianity within the military. (As a result of the suit, a private chaplain association’s code of ethics retaining the “right to evangelize those who are not affiliated” is no longer passed out at Air Force Chaplain’s School.)

And let’s not forget the seriously mixed messages our former POTUS sent…

Mr Bush revealed the extent of his religious fervour when he met a Palestinian delegation during the Israeli-Palestinian summit at the Egpytian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, four months after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One of the delegates, Nabil Shaath, who was Palestinian foreign minister at the time, said: “President Bush said to all of us: ‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did.”

Mr Bush went on: “And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.”

Listen, I have nothing against religion in general or members of the military practicing their faith responsibly. That’s their business.

But strict lines between religion and military must be maintained so our armed forces are not seen as Christian forces. And if that means harsh punishments for those who violate these rules, so be it. Because we can’t allow a cadre of the faithful to undermine our credibility.

What do you think?

“I’ve had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn’t have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they’re people, and they’re going to do their thing.”
- Joe Wurzelbacher sharing his views on friendship

Now, does anybody here think that Joe actually has gay friends? No, me neither.

But wait, there’s more!

Because in an interview with Christianity Today, he also let slip yet another misguided, bigoted pearl…

In the last month, same-sex marriage has become legal in Iowa and Vermont. What do you think about same-sex marriage at a state level?

At a state level, it’s up to them. I don’t want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it’s wrong. People don’t understand the dictionary—it’s called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It’s not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we’re supposed to do—what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we’re supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins.

And this is a guy who has a book deal, is being paid to speak and covered the situation in Gaza for Pajamas Media.

Good times.

Take a look at the following at see how many of these you agree with.

From ABC:

Support for gay marriage, legalizing illegal immigrants and decriminalizing marijuana all are at new highs. Three-quarters of Americans favor federal regulation of greenhouse gases. Two-thirds support establishing relations with Cuba.

But hold tight.

If some views that may be perceived as liberal are ascendant, so are some conservative ones: Opposition to gun control is also at a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. There’s continued broad support for tighter border controls. And contrary to President Obama, half of Americans wouldn’t flatly rule out torturing terrorism suspects.

I agree with every single one of those views except ruling out torture. I don’t think that should be in our playbook, and I’m sure the readers of this blog know exactly why so I won’t get into it.

But everything else I’m on board with. And, yes, I oppose gun control and I want tighter border security.

The first because it’s not our guns that are making us less safe, it’s our drug laws and prison systems that breed criminality. And look at any study where you have conceal and carry. Crime goes down. Sorry folks, but when more people have guns, society gets more polite.

Turning to illegal immigration, in this new, post 9/11 world, it only makes sense to have much tighter border control. And if we want to begin legalizing illegal immigrants, we’re going to have to lock the border up tight. There’s no other way. You can’t have one without the other, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling you snake oil.

What this tells me is that we’re definitely a moderate nation, and probably leaning a little bit more towards being center left. And after 30 years of being center right, that’s to be expected.

So, how do you compare?

I’m telling you, it’s going to happen one way or another, and now it seems to be tipping away from civil unions and towards full marriage rights.

In fact, a new NYTimes/CBS poll reveals that…

• In March, 35% thought same sex couples should have no legal recognition. That numbers has dropped 7% since then.
• 69% of liberals support gay marriage, while only 28% of conservatives support it. But when you add that 28% with the 28% who favor civil unions, well, 56% of conservatives are for some sort of recognition.
• While only 31% of those over 40 support gay marriage, 57% of those under 40 support it. And that’s really all you need to know to realize this will happen sooner or later.

But hey, Republicans should keep fighting it and see if that’ll work.

OR…they could realize that this issue is over and move on.

More as it develops…

And so we have the inherent problem with every single argument coming out of the religious right wing opposing gay marriage…none of them can be defended by anything other than distorted facts or personal opinions. It was the same with the anti-miscegenation laws back in the 60s.

By the way, isn’t it insane to think that we actually had laws against interracial marriage less than 50 years ago?

In any event, I know I sound like a broken record, but it’s only a matter of time before gay marriage is legal across the country. It might take another decade for it to be legal everywhere, but it’ll happen nonetheless.

This is why I’m telling folks that the marriage between the social conservatives and the fiscal conservatives is done. Because this next generation of voters favors progressive social policy in bigger numbers than any other generation in history. And fiscal conservatives ignore this at their own peril.

A genuine surprise from the Hawkeye State today because the ruling was unanimous.

Expect more of this type of thing to happen in the next couple years and challenge Obama’s opinion that gay marriage shouldn’t be legal…

“The Iowa statute limiting civil marriage to a union between a man and a woman violates the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution,” the justices said in a summary of their decision.

The court rules that gay marriage would be legal in three weeks, starting April 24. [...]

The ruling is viewed as a victory for the gay rights movement in Iowa and elsewhere, and a setback for social conservatives who wanted to protect traditional families.

So what does this mean for 2012?

Well, since Iowa is the first state in the primary cycle, this puts folks like Huckabee and Palin at the head of the pack. Because you know this will be THE issue.

UPDATE:
Here’s the opinion and an excerpt…

We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective. The legislature has excluded a historically disfavored class of persons from a supremely important civil institution without a constitutionally sufficient justification. There is no material fact, genuinely in dispute, that can affect this determination.

We have a constitutional duty to ensure equal protection of the law. Faithfulness to that duty requires us to hold Iowa’s marriage statute, Iowa Code section 595.2, violates the Iowa Constitution. To decide otherwise would be an abdication of our constitutional duty. If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification, they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded.

More as it develops…

For years I’ve been arguing that the government should simply get out of the institution of marriage all together, and some folks in Cali are trying to put that idea into motion.

From The Herald:

California’s top election official gave two Southern California college students the go-ahead Tuesday to start collecting signatures for a proposed ballot initiative that would end marriage as a state-sanctioned institution.

Ali Shams, 22, a senior at the University of California-San Diego, and Kaelan Housewright, 21, a student at the California Institute of the Arts, want all couples to be eligible only for domestic partnerships, the designation now reserved for elderly couples and same-sex couples who can not legally wed.

The two friends, who say they are straight, submitted their proposal to the secretary of state in late December in response to the gay marriage ban that California voters approved in November.

Their constitutional amendment would repeal the ban, known as Proposition 8, and strike the word “marriage” from licenses, tax forms and other state documents while retaining the rights and responsibilities of marriage for domestic partners.

“The purpose of which is to provide equality amongst all couples, regardless of sexual orientation, without offending the religious sect,” the pair wrote in their application for an initiative title and summary. “Legally speaking, ‘Marriage’ itself would become a social ceremony, recognized by only non-governmental institutions.”

This is the type of compromise our country desperately needs on this issue. After all, the idea that government is essentially sanctioning a religious ceremony has always been a slippery slope, and this initiative addresses it a direct and honest way. And yes, there are some other laws that would need to be changed, but the ball needs to get rolling and solution has to be found. Now more than ever.

The initiative needs almost 700,000 signatures by August 6th so if you’re in Cali and you believe in this, try and find out how you can add your name to the list or volunteer.

Although I agreed with the diagnosis, I could not concur with the treatment. The toxic side effects of Single Party Rule presented a greater risk than the potential benefit of curing the Bush/Cheney unitary executive disease. In particular, the prospect of the new President inheriting the expanded Bush/Cheney presidential power while his party held even larger majorities than enjoyed by George W Bush and the Republicans was particularly frightening. Those fears were confirmed last week, when Obama steamrolled a very bad stimulus bill over a neutered Republican party, handing future generations more debt and putting the economic future of the country at risk.

That said, I expected to enjoy a couple of civil liberty consolation prizes with the Obama victory. First and foremost, balance would be maintained in judicial appointments and on the Supreme Court, and second – Obama would indeed roll back some of the worst offenses of the Bush administration. While I still have high hopes for the first consolation prize, early indications are not promising for the second. Not promising at all.

I know it has only been a month, but Obama works fast. It is not too early to checkpoint how President Obama is progressing on “undoing the damage” of the Bush/Cheney Imperial Presidency. The most egregious offenses of the Bush/Cheney administration fall under the umbrella of expanding executive branch power at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches, with a commensurate erosion of constitutional protections. There are some positives. The executive order to close Guantanamo in a year or so is great news. The executive order on torture sounded great, as long as you ignore the loopholes. But on balance – So far… all is not so good.

The Obama administration supports Bush era invocation of state secrecy to protect rendition and torture.

The Obama administration supports Bush era state secrecy claims to deny torture victims their day in court.

The Obama administration supports Bush era state secrecy claims to protect executive orders for illegal wiretapping and domestic surveillance.

Out of fairness, I should point out that this last should not be a surprise. It is completely consistent with the July, 2008 version of Barack Obama who voted against the rule of law and in support of immunity for the Telecom companies that cooperated with illegal government wiretap requests. OTOH it is a complete flip-flop from the January 2008 version of Barack Obama who promised to support a filibuster to prevent granting immunity to Telecom companies.

The Obama administration opposes torture, but not all the time.

The Obama administration continues Bush era faith based initiatives undermining the principle of Separation of Church and State.

White House Political Office, Politicizing the White House Counsel, Executive Privilege – The more things change…

Other early items where the Obama administration appears to moving closer to the style and substance of the previous administration include: Obama continues the much reviled White House Political Office – former home of Karl Rove; Obama appointed a political hack to the office of the White House Counsel, further opening the administration to comparisons with the Bush/Rove White House and charges of politicizing the office; – and – as long as we are on the topic of Karl Rove; The Obama administration will apparently not challenge the constitutionally questionable Bush administration claims of “executive privilege” shielding Karl Rove from testimony before the legislature in the matter of U.S. Attorney General firings

There are more than a few liberals who have not hesitated to to call BS, most notably Glen Greenwald, as he takes to task those whose loyalty is not to principle but to a personality:

Greenwald’s analysis is instructive. It explains why so many on the left greet Obama’s support and active defense of the Bush/Cheney model of the unitary executive with a yawn. It is not the principle of checks, balances and constitutional protections that inform their view of the world. For some on the left, it is about blind loyalty to a leader and a party. From their perspective, the Bush/Cheney model of executive power is not a problem if Obama is in the White House. Apparently, with the ring of power in Barack Obama’s benevolent hands, the Bush/Cheney executive power will only be used for good. So – just put your trust in Barack – not in the rule of law – not in the Constitution – but in the man. These Obama supporters resemble nothing so much as the right-wing apologists for Bush administration excesses.

Greenwald says it best:

Under the current incarnation of One Party Rule, the Republicans are impotent in the face of Obama and his large Democratic majority. The only hope for any moderation of the power of this presidency, must come from principled Democratic legislators in Congress (Feingold, Feinstein, and Leahy are stepping up). The only hope for economic sanity, must come from Democratic fiscal conservatives like the few Democratic representatives in the House of Representatives that voted against stimulus porker.

It’s only been a month.

Obama still has plenty of time to correct course.

That is my (faint) Hopeâ„¢.

^{Excerpted from “Divided We Stand United We Fall“}

“We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus and Non-Believers.”
- Barack Obama in his inaugural address today

I forgot to include this in my thoughts about his address, but it was so refreshing to hear somebody finally say those words. They’re long overdue and it signals yet another way Obama is seeking to unite us.

“In 2006, when then-Sen. Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment, he said, “Decisions about marriage should be left to the states.” He was right then; and as I have come to realize, he is right now in concluding that DOMA has to go. If one truly believes in federalism and the primacy of state government over the federal, DOMA is simply incompatible with those notions.”
- Bob Barr today arguing against the Defense of Marriage Act in an LA Times editorial