Rick Warren's Message to Gays - Obama Endorses This?

This page from Saddleback Church's web site pretty much says it all. Plus, according to Warren, even if sexual orientation is genetic/biological, it still doesn't matter. He apparently knows more than the God he claims to believe in I want to hear Obama's response to all of this since Warren is being documented to be a nastier piece of work by the hour.

USA Fails to Back U.N. Declaration on Decriminalization of Homosexuality

In the fury over the Rick Warren selection by Obama, another huge slight to LGBT Americans has occurred as a parting shot from the Chimperator's failed regime: The USA has failed to support the United Nations declaration introduced by France that would call for the decriminalization of homosexuality. The Chimperator may condemn Iran, but by refusing to back this declaration, Bush/Cheney are implicitly endorsing the torture and execution of gays in Iran and other extremist nations. Here are highlights from the Associated Press:

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Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. In all, 66 of the U.N.'s 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration — which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with any-gay discrimination. More than 70 U.N. members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.

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"It's disappointing," said Rama Yade, France's human rights minister, of the U.S. position — which she described as in contradiction with America's long tradition as a defender of human rights. . . . Gay rights activists nonetheless were angered by the U.S. position. "It's an appalling stance — to not join with other countries that are standing up and calling for decriminalization of homosexuality," said Paula Ettelbrick, executive director of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. She expressed hope that the U.S. position might change after President-elect Barack Obama takes office in January.

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The European nations backing the declaration waged their campaign in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Dutch foreign affairs minister, Maxime Verhagen, said countries that endorsed that 1948 document had no right to carve out exceptions based on religion or culture that allowed discrimination against gays. "Human rights apply to all people in all places at all times," he said. "I will not accept any excuse."

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I agree with the Dutch minister, but unfortunately, human rights do not equally apply to gays in the USA, certainly not in Virginia, and based on Obama's selection of Rick Warren, I am not holding my breath that Obama will do any of the things he said to bait gays into supporting him.

More Friday Male Beauty

GM Close to Bankruptcy Filing

While General Motors and the other big three automakers have made plenty of insanely stupid decisions over the years and in some ways deserve to fail as a result, the impact on the larger economy will be severe if GM goes under. But what will be a bad recession for the larger economy will be a down right depression for many areas that rely on auto plants for their livelihood. The Washington Post has a story on one such area of Ohio and what could happen is terrifying to the local populace. Never in my life time do I remember economic matters so dire, and I was born when Truman was still president. GOP senators either do not get the picture or, more likely, do not care - after all, many of these folks are evil union members. Here are some highlights:

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LORDSTOWN, Ohio -- Elsewhere in the country, the question of whether the government should bail out U.S. automakers unfolds as a debate over political principles of free-market ideas and corporate responsibility. But here in the Mahoning Valley, people wonder: If General Motors goes down how will we get by?

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The GM plant in Lordstown is one of the few pillars propping up the sagging Rust Belt economy in the small towns and cities in this area of northeastern Ohio. In Lordstown, the plant accounts for more than 70 percent of the tax base. It employs 4,250, paying people some of the best wages around, and sustains an additional 10,000 or so jobs in the companies that supply the GM plant. And as in other places where an auto plant is an economic engine, it's not just auto workers who are worried, but restaurateurs, bar owners, grocers and nearly every merchant in town.

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"Not having GM here would be catastrophic," said Herb Washington, a former star base-stealer in Major League Baseball, who owns 21 McDonalds in the area. "You take that out of here, and what do we have to survive?" . . . We talk about leaving," said Bruce Thomas, 40, who puts in windshields at the Lordstown plant, "but everything I ever had came from GM." His wife works at the plant. So did his dad and her dad. So did two of her brothers. Her oldest brother worked at a supplier.

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The other issue: Who would buy the homes of retreating employees if the plant goes down? "My wife talks about picking up and moving," said Russ Pinkard, 41, a team leader in the trim department. "But no one can sell a house as it is. It will only get worse if the plant closes -- a lot worse."

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This week, Forbes magazine ranked Austintown, the Youngstown suburb that is home to the largest share of GM employees, as the fifth-fastest-dying town in America. In neighboring Warren, home to the second-largest contingent of plant employees, Mayor Michael J. O'Brien said 4,000 of 21,000 houses in the city are vacant.

Racists Are Cheering Warren Pick

As Pam Spaulding has noted, it is perhaps telling in who is applauding Barack Obama's selection of Rick Warren to give the inauguration invocation. Who you might ask? Well for one, Tony Perkins at the Family Research Council. The same Tony Perkins with a history of dealing with Klu Klux Klan leader, David Duke. Now there's an example of being inclusive. Imagine if Obama invited David Duke to join him on inauguration day. How many black Americans would be beyond a little peeved? Yet Obama had no problem inviting someone who to the LGBT community is just as radioactive. Again, what the Hell was Obama thinking - assuming he was thinking? Here are a few highlights from Pam's House Blend:

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How's the whole fundie outreach thing going, Team Obama? Look at who's giving you praise for giving Rick Warren the mic at the inaugural -- Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, the man who paid former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke $82,500 for his mailing list.

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Here's some of Perkins' gushing over the Warren selection:
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President-elect Obama has asked the Reverend Rick Warren, pastor of California's Saddleback Church and bestselling author of The Purpose-Driven Life, to deliver the invocation at Obama's inauguration next month. I'm heartened by his choice of one of America's leading evangelical pastors-who is pro-life and pro-marriage-for this honor.

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Rev. Warren spoke out vocally in support of Prop 8 in California saying, 'there is no need to change the universal, historical definition of marriage to appease 2 percent of our population ... This is not a political issue -- it is a moral issue that God has spoken clearly about.' . . . Let's hope that Rick Warren will use his channel of communication to the new President to press him for more pro-family policies-rather than simply being used by Mr. Obama to make political inroads with evangelicals.

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Gee, thanks so much Barack!

Friday Male Beauty

Plaintiff Awarded Millions in Priest Sex Abuse Case

The Roman Catholic Church just cannot seem to keep out of the news when it comes to paying out money to victims of sexual abuse by priests. The Vatican has time to oppose the United Nations proposal calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality, but it never has enough time to clean out its own house. This time the money award is to a former altar boy in the Vermont Catholic Diocese. As seems to be all too typical, members of the Church hierarchy knowingly left minors at risk with known predator priests. Interestingly enough, the plaintiff has announced that he'd return the money if the Church took action to identify and remove known pedophile priests - something not likely to ever happen. Here are some highlights from WCAX-TV 3:

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A former altar boy won a multi-million dollar jury verdict against Vermont's Catholic Diocese Wednesday. . . . The verdict: the diocese should pay former altar boy David Navari nearly $3.6 million in compensation and as punishment for failing to protect him from a known pedophile priest Edward Paquette 30 years ago. But Navari says he is willing to give his portion of the $3.6 million back to the diocese if it finally takes action against Father Paquette and other known pedophile priests the Diocese hired and then protected for decades.

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"By putting the names, assignments, and the pictures of all credibly accused pedophiles on their website," Navari said. "If the diocese defrocks the priests, where there's credible evidence that they were pedophiles, and terminates all of their retirement benefits, I will take all of the award money from this case and put it into a trust for needy parents to send their kids to Catholic schools in the Burlington area."

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Navari's lawyer Jerry O'Neill said, "I don't understand the diocese's strategy. The most wonderful thing it could do for these men is to end these cases. It has the power to do it. It chooses not to. It chooses to go forward with its strategy which appears to be beating on them as it can, to try to belittle them personally in some respect. And it doesn't care from what we can see notwithstanding the words that are spoken about these people as individuals."

A Gay Secretary of the Navy?

Given the hell raging over Obama's pick of Rick Warren to give the inauguration invocation, this story may be just a balloon floated as a distraction to try to make the LGBT community shut up, but the Washington Times and some other news outlets are reporting that William White, chief operating officer of the Intrepid Museum Foundation, an openly gay man, is being backed by some to be the next Secretary of the Navy. In light of all the gay Navy boys around here (home port of the Atlantic Fleet), it might be rather appropriate. Not surprisingly, Elaine Donnelly is near having an orgasm at the mere thought of such an appointment of a gay Secretary of the Navy. Here are some highlights from WT:

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Some top retired military leaders and some Democrats in Congress are backing William White, chief operating officer of the Intrepid Museum Foundation, to be the next secretary of the Navy -- a move that would put the first openly gay person at the top of one of the services.

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"He would be phenomenal," said retired Gen. Hugh Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1997 to 2001, pointing to Mr. White's extensive background as a fundraiser for veterans' and military causes. Retired members of the Joint Chiefs have contacted Mr. Obama's transition team to urge them to pick Mr. White, and members of Congress said he would be a good choice for a service secretary.

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Supporters of the ban [on gays in the military] said nominating Mr. White would send the wrong signal. "It's a matter of judgment, and I think that would be very poor judgment on the part of the commander in chief," said Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, which opposes gays serving in the military. "It would be very demoralizing to the troops."

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But Mr. Nadler said the military policy that says gays are a threat to unit cohesion is "nonsense," and it shouldn't apply to Mr. White anyway because as secretary "he's not in the foxhole, he's not on the ship."

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Not surprisingly, some of the comments posted on the Moonie run Washington Times article sound like something James Dobson and Rick Warren would say.

More Thursday Male Beauty

More on Rick Warren and What it Says About Obama

Andrew Sullivan has two posts which go to underscore the foul hypocrisy of Christianist, Rick Warren, and which further make my blood boil that Obama invited this viper to give the inaugural invocation. The first deals with the fact Rick "I love gays" Warren's church runs what is tantamount to ex-gay programs through something called "Celebrate Recovery" that occurs every Friday night at Saddleback Church. So now we know that Obama has invited an ex-gay advocate to give the invocation. It truly doesn't get much more insulting to LGBT Americans than to have a hate filled bigot like Warren (although a polished one at that) given such an honor. As I sad yesterday, why didn't Obama just take out a TV ad telling LGBT Americans to go f*ck themselves? Here are some highlights from Andrew's first post:

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As a longtime reader of your blog, I have to say that I respectfully dissent from your conciliatory tone on the Obama/Warren debacle. Most people probably don’t know this, but Warren’s Saddleback Church has a Friday night program called Celebrate Recovery. On the whole the program is modeled after the twelve steps, albeit with an evangelical supplement to it. There are subgroups in the program that cater to men with “addictions” to pornography, recovery alcoholics, and women with codependency issues. There is also a group for those who struggle with “same sex attraction”, the discourse of which is directly borrowed from the ex-gay movement. I know this, of course, because I was involved with the group in Spring of 2007.

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It’s obvious what Obama is trying to do by having Warren give the convocation at his inauguration, and it is understandable – but for me as a human being who was personally damaged by Warren’s theology and his church specifically, it is unforgivable. And to cover it over with vague rhetoric about a politics of inclusion and unity is similarly unforgivable. Some friends have told me that my “personal issues” make me too emotionally involved with this issue, and of course they do – but perhaps that is precisely what gives me the right to be upset about this decision.

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The second post makes a great case of just how dishonest the Warren/Christianist argument that CIVIL law gay marriage would threaten the religious freedom within church denominations. I have not heard the analogies made before, but they are 100% on point. Yet further proof that Rick Warren is a disingenuous liar. Here are highlights:

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[T]here is no conflict whatever between religious liberty and civil same-sex marriage. . . . The biggest single denomination in America - Catholicism - denies the existence of divorce, does not recognize the sacred status of re-married couples, and has life-long marriage at the core of its definition of the institution. Has the Catholic church's religious liberty been infringed by the ubiquity of divorced couples? Are Catholic priests denied their First Amendment rights because they occasionally have to interact in the civil sphere with married couples whose marriages they deem invalid? Was the late Archbishop O'Connor of New York giving up the First Amendment by treating Ronald and Nancy Reagan's marriage as a precious thing?

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Or take the Catholic church's insane position on the ordination of women. Gender equality is much more deeply embedded in the law than orientation equality. Has anyone actually sought to prosecute the church for being a deeply sexist institution? Have women brought lawsuits against priests because a parishioner went out and raped someone - or discriminated against them in employment? I mean: please. The whole idea is fueled by [people like Rick Warren and] pure panic at the thought of having to live in a society in which gay citizens are treated like everyone else.

Why the Rick Warren Thing Matters

Two articles help discuss why Barack Obama's incredibly insensitive selection of anti-gay evangelical pastor, Rick Warren, to give the invocation at the inauguration on January 20, 2009, does indeed matter. The first is a post by Jeremy Hooper at Good As You -I met Jeremy at the Blogger Summit - that sums up why Obama's selection of Warren is unacceptable. Here are some highlights:

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For us this choice highlights how lacking in understanding even our supposed Democratic allies are when it comes to the personal nature of anti-gay actions and rhetoric. For so many of our would-be, could-be, should-be supporters, gay matters are just political issues that they can think about, debate on, campaign with, and then put out of their minds when such is more expedient to their lives or careers. If they want to be seen as bridge-builders, they can earn brownie points by reaching out to those who have wronged LGBT people in one way or another. After all, why should they care? Where the hell are the majority of LGBT people gonna run off to in this two-party system that we call American government? To the party that still makes "smear the queer" part of its platform? No, not in mass numbers they won't. And since the Dem leaders know this, too many of them are too willing to sell us out too often. Principled stands be damned.

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So back to Warren: Here we have a dude who campaigned fervently for Proposition 8, saying many offensive things about gays being outside of God's vision for marriage. He also bore false socially conservative witness by using tired lines about CIVIL marriage equality threatening RELIGIOUS pastors' free speech. Then there are the aforementioned links to incest/polygamy/pedophilia that Pastor Warren was quite willing, even eager to affirm in a recent BeliefNet interview. And if that weren't enough, this is a theologian who cites "tone" as the only difference between himself and Dr. James Dobson.

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For those of us who live, breathe, laugh, and love within LGBT bodies and souls, these sorts of things are not simple points on partisan politic playing field. For us, these are targeted bits of bigotry that cut us to the core! They are they cruel ideas that rob us of sleep. They are the dangerous teachings that keep gay kids scared, depressed, and vulnerable. They are daggers that wound us in ways we could never fully put into words. But yet out of all the religious folks he could have embraced, Barack Obama, a candidate who filled so many of us with hope, has chosen this man to send forth word on his life's most important day?

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Joe Solmonese likewise has a column in the Washington Post that takes Obama to task for his selection of Warren. Like Jeremy, Solmonese is at a loss as to how Obama could not realize the message sent to the LGBT community by picking someone as rabidly anti-gay as Warren. In fact, the selection implies that perhaps Obama doesn't even care. Here are some highlights:

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He [Warren] was a general in the campaign to pass California's Proposition 8, which dissolved the legal marriage rights of loving, committed same-sex couples. For that reason, inviting Warren to set the tone at the dawn of this new presidency sends a chilling message to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans. It makes us uncertain about this exciting, young president-elect who has said repeatedly that we are part of his America, too.

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More recently, he [Warren] even compared same-sex marriage to incest, pedophilia and polygamy. He may cloak himself in media-friendly happy talk that plays well on television, but he stands steadfastly against any measure of equality for LGBT Americans.

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So, are we angry about Rick Warren? You bet we are. And including a gay marching band in the inaugural festivities doesn't heal this wound. It only serves to make us question the promises that Barack Obama made in his historic quest to be president. We pray we weren't misled.

Thursday Male Beauty

Blackwater May Lose License in Iraq

The rumblings are that Christianist controlled (Erik Prince's momma was a huge donor supporting Proposition 8) Blackwater USA which is based in Moyock, North Carolina, may lose its gravy train contract in Iraq. I suspect that but for Prince's Christianist ideology and the big dollar amounts that Prince's family has given to the GOP over the years, Blackwater would not otherwise have received the contract in the first place. With the Chimperator's regime, what was best for cronies and political contributors was always more important than anything else. My view of this development is good riddance. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post:

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WASHINGTON -- An internal State Department report says Blackwater Worldwide may lose its license to work in Iraq and recommends that the agency prepare alternative means to protect its diplomats there. . . . It is not clear how the State Department would replace Blackwater. It relies heavily on private contractors to protect its diplomats in Iraq, as its own security service does not have the manpower or equipment to do so. The report suggests that one way to fill the void would be for the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service to beef up its presence in Iraq.

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The official said later that such a recommendation would not be made until after an investigation of last September's incident in Baghdad's Nisoor Square in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqis is complete. Five guards have been indicted on manslaughter and other charges stemming from that incident.

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Terminating the North Carolina-based company's Iraq contract will be difficult for incoming Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton because no other private security contractor has its range of resources, particularly its fleet of helicopters and planes.

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Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrell declined to comment, saying the company has not yet seen the report. The company has said in the past, though, that it plans to largely get out of the security contracting business to concentrate on training and other projects. Blackwater has won more than $1 billion in government contracts under the Bush administration, a large portion of which has been for work in Iraq, where among its duties is protecting diplomats based at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

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U.S. investigators have linked Blackwater guards to 70 shooting incidents involving civilians before Nisoor Square and only two since then.

What the Warren Pick Tells Us All

(click for larger view) BTW, my Obama bumper stickers and signs went out to the curb with the trash today.

Final Wednesday Male Beauty

Mohler Still Foaming at the Mouth Over Newsweek

Baptist homo-hater and professional bigot, Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, still has his panties in a knot over the Newsweek article I discussed in a prior post which made a biblical case for gay marriage. Of course, one of Mohler's arguments against the Newsweek approach is that it would mean that Christians have basically been wrong for the better part of 20 centuries in understanding the Scripture. As if Christians have much of a record for being right over the centuries. And it is folks like Mohler who still do not accept the theory of evolution.

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Moreover, these are the same folks who for centuries said the Bible justified slavery, argued that the earth was flat, held that the Sun and universe revolved around the earth, etc. Yet Mohler would nonetheless have us believe that this time the Christianists' interpretation of the Bible is absolutely correct. Let's face it, the Catholic Church and other reactionary Christian elements including today's Southern Baptist Convention - which came into existence when the Baptist Church split over slavery so that Baptists in the South could own slaves - have largely never been right and it has taken science and the passage of centuries for them to concede they were wrong on a host of issue. Mohler suffers from insufferable hubris and acts as if he thinks HE is God most of the time. As with most rabid anti-gay wingnuts, one has to wonder why Mohler is so fixated on gay sex. Here are some samples of Mohler's whining:

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Newsweek’s recent cover story which seeks to make a “biblical case for gay marriage” runs directly counter to 2,000 years of Christian history that interprets Scripture as rejecting same-sex relations, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said Monday on National Public Radio’s program “Talk of the Nation.” Mohler, who serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, appeared on the show with Lisa Miller, senior faith reporter for Newsweek, who wrote the article in which she argues that the Bible is mostly silent about same-sex marriage and, therefore, does not condemn it.

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“Let’s face it, what the sum and substance of this cover story really attempts to do is to say that Christians have basically been wrong for the better part of 20 centuries in understanding the Scripture and that the vast majority of believers in this country are wrong in believing that same-sex marriage is prohibited by scriptural injunction,” Mohler said. “And that’s no understatement.

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“She (Miller) said you either believe…that [the Bible is] more or less a human book marked by history, and we correct it by our contemporary understanding,” Mohler said. “Or you believe as I believe, and as evangelical Christians and the most conservative believers in the Judeo-Christian traditions have always believed, that we have to understand and interpret the Scripture with the goal of obeying it.

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“There is no biblical case for gay marriage,” Mohler said. “The Bible knows what marriage is. And when she (Miller) says the issue is who can get married, you have to turn around and say, ‘You can’t possibly talk about that until you talk about what marriage is.’ And when you look at the Bible, you can’t make a case for marriage being anything other than heterosexual other than by turning [the Bible] on its head, which is what Newsweek tried to do in this cover story.

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As I have said before, Mohler and other gay obsessed self-hating Christianist homophobes like him need to get themselve a good male escort and satisfy their fixation on gay sex once and for all and then join the ranks of fraudulent preachers with Ted Haggard.

Chrysler Closing All 30 Plants for One Month

Just as in the real estate industry the inability to obtain loans is causing a melt down of unsold homes and foreclosures to continue unchecked, so to the credit freeze is also killing the auto industry with USA based companies faring the worse. Even though the U.S. government has poured billions of dollars into supporting lenders, the lenders are NOT passing along credit to qualified would be borrowers. Personally, I think it's about time that the lenders receiving bailouts be told that they either get back into the lending business or else the supports will be withdrawn and they will be closed down. Adding to the egregiousness of the situation is the greed of incompetent CEO who ran their companies into the ground yet who want to walk away with big bonuses. They need to be fired as a condition of bailout assistance. Here are highlights from the Washington Post on the Chrysler shut down:

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Chrysler announced today that it will close all 30 of its auto manufacturing plants for at least a month starting at the end of shifts on Friday as it tries to conserve cash and avoid bankruptcy amid plunging demand for its vehicles. . . . It blamed its current difficulties largely on customers' inability to obtain financing to purchase new vehicles and said tight credit markets were discouraging would-be buyers.

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Chrysler's decision follows a 47 percent drop in U.S. sales in November. Because of customers' difficulties in obtaining car loans, Chrysler dealers say they are increasingly unable to close deals and that sales volumes have plummeted. For the first 11 months of this year, Chrysler sales are down nearly 28 percent from the same period last year. Now, Chrysler says, it is approaching the minimum level of cash it needs and will have trouble paying its bills after Jan. 1.

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I am not a fan of the Big Three's refusal to build cars that are more fuel efficient and friendly to the environment. Nonetheless, the credit debacle is inexcusable.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Rick Warren Pick is an Insult to LGBT Americans

FURTHER UPDATED: John Aravosis has a good run down as to why the Rick Warren pick is detestable over at America Blog. I truly do not know WTF Obama was thinking. To me, Warren exemplifies all that is wrong with religion in this country. The post also shows the ad in support of Proposition 8 that Warren did. I am beyond disgusted.

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UPDATED: Here's a portion of what Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin had to say about the the Rick Warren selection:

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This is the same Rick Warren who recently said that the relationships of his “many gay friends” are no different from child rape, incest or polygamy... Warren himself has acknowledged that the only difference between himself and Focus On the Family’s James Dobson is just “a matter of tone.” So given President-elect Obama’s stated commitment to bringing the country together, it’s hard to fathom the reasoning behind choosing such a divisive figure.

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Huffington Post and many other news outlets are reporting that the Barack Obama transition team has selected Christianist Rick Warren (pictured at left - note that he looks like he is living VERY well and missing few meals while making a living peddling bigotry) to give the inauguration invocation on January 20, 2009. Personally, the selection is equivalent to Obama running a paid television ad telling all LGBT Americans to go f*ck themselves. Warren is nothing more than a less crazy version of Pat Robertson, James Dobson, et al, and his selection suggests that all of Obama's remarks in campaign speeches about equality for gays were aimed at securing our money and our votes but totally insincere. I think I will take the Obama bumper sticker off my car first thing tomorrow morning, in fact. Why didn't Obama pick Fred Phelps while he was at it if this is the type of religious bigot he wants at the inauguration? Here are some highlights from Huffington Post:

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On Wednesday, the transition team announced that Rick Warren, pastor of the powerful Saddleback Church, would give the invocation on January 20th. . . . the announcement is being greeted with deep skepticism in progressive religious and political circles.

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"My blood pressure is really high right now," said Rev. Chuck Currie, minister at Parkrose Community United Church of Christ in Portland, Oregon. "Rick Warren . . . his position on social issues like gay rights, stem cell research and women's rights are all out of the mainstream and are very much opposed to the progressive agenda that Obama ran on. I think that he is very much the wrong person to put on the stage with the president that day."

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And for the gay and lesbian community in particular, the choice is a bitter pill to swallow. "Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance," read a statement from People For the American Way President Kathryn Kolbert. "He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion."

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"Picking Rick Warren to give THE invocation," wrote John Aravosis on AmericaBlog, "is abominable." "Let me get right to the point," Joe Solomnese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said in a harsh letter to the president-elect, "Your invitation to Reverend Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at your inauguration is a genuine blow to LGBT Americans."

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Have complaints to share? Email Parag Mehta is Obama's LGBT liaison on the transition team - parag.mehta@ptt.gov.

Madrid Protest Against the Vatican

A reader in Spain sent me a note and a link to a protest that he and others put on against the Vatican for its opposition to the United Nations Resolution being introduced by France for the decriminalization of homosexuality. Here's a portion of his message to me and the video of the demonstration:

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I love your blog. It's a first hand source to know how things are going in the U.S., and the strange (for me) ideas of the "Christianists" as you call them. All religious fanatics are similar and they should be very distrusted.

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We organized a demonstration in Madrid against the Vatican position relating to the United Nations recommendation to decriminalize homosexuality. It was a cold, rainy day, but we thought it was worth it.

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The large banner in the video clip calls the Vatican homophobic and accuses it of being an accomplice to murder.

Wednesday Male Beauty

The Selective Morality of Christianists

I am frequently stunned by the mind set of Christianists who have blindly acted as cheer leaders for the Bush/Cheney regime even thought it is increasingly obvious to anyone with more than a borderline retarded IQ that Bush and Cheney are guilty of war crimes under the standards applied after World War II. The fact that Bush claimed to be an "born again" Christian and that his regime pushed an anti-abortion and anti-gay agenda apparently trumped any other moral considerations. But then again, in my opinion, the Christianist care NOTHING about what is done to innocent non-Christians who can be slaughtered indiscriminately without one pip out of the Christianist leadership. These folks are morally bankrupt and are anything but true Christians. Rick Warren is a case in point as highlighted by Andrew Sullivan:

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Rick Warren, Torture And Bush. Warren says he believes that the Bush administration engaged in torture, as is now indisputable. But in his many conversations with the president, he never brought it up:

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BELIEFNET- Did you ever talk to President Bush to try to convince him to change his policy?
WARREN - No. No.

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BELIEFNET- Why not?
WARREN -- Never got the chance. I just didn't.

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But he managed to discuss abortion with Obama, and, so far as I know, Obama has never aborted any fetus. But Bush has authorized the torture - even to death - of many, many prisoners. Warren says that Bush would have had to have brought the subject up to earn his moral censure. But even now, Warren refuses to say that the president is guilty of a moral failure.

Gay is NOT the New Black

At the Blogger Summit on the weekend of December 5-7, I had the privilege of meeting Rev. Irene Monroe (pictured at left) who was one of the summit attendees. Rev. Monroe is a Ford Fellow and doctoral candidate at Harvard Divinity School. One of Monroe's outreach ministries is the several religion columns she writes - "The Religion Thang," for In Newsweekly, the largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender newspaper that circulates widely throughout New England, "Faith Matters" for The Advocate Magazine, a national gay & lesbian magazine, and "Queer Take," for The Witness, a progressive Episcopalian journal.

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As a black minister she had some unique perspectives on what the larger LGBT community needs to do to build a more cohesive coalition to further the cause of LGBT rights. While I do not necessarily subscribe to all of Irene's views, she is on point on some issues and her views are worth considering. Pam's House Blend has a diary written by Irene and here are some highlights:

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The Proposition 8 debate has brought much consternation and polarization between white LGBTQ communities and African Americans. . . . . But here's an example that defused the tension in much of the heterosexual African American community when it was publicly arguing that same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue: In commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Loving v. Virginia in the June 12, 1967 historic Supreme Court decision that advanced racial and marriage equality in this country, the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc., marked the anniversary by stating the following: "It is undeniable that the experience of African Americans differs in many important ways from that of gay men and lesbians; among other things, the legacy of slavery and segregation is profound. But differences in historical experiences should not preclude the application of constitutional provisions to gay men and lesbians who are denied the fight to marry the person of their choice." And in April of 2006, NAACP LDF filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case brought by New York same-sex couples challenging their exclusion from marriage.

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But the Marriage Equality movement neither extends its reach beyond its concerns within its community nor outside of it. How the marriage debate should have been framed -- in a way that speaks truth to various LGBTQ communities of color and classes -- has not been given considerable concern.

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And with no public language to adequately articulate the unique embodiment of LGBTQ communities of color and classes within the same-sex marriage debate, this has become contentious. The dominant white queer languaging of this debate, at best, muffles the voices of these communities, and, at worst, mutes them. In other words, in leaving out the voices of LGBTQ communities of color and classes, the same-sex marriage debate is hijacked by a white upper class queer universality that not only renders these marginalized queer communities invisible, but -- as it is presently framed -- also renders them speechless.

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If African American LGBTQ people are not included in the history and in the decision -making issues involving queer life, how then can the movement expect our participation, let alone the rest of the African American community? Sadly, if racism continues to go unchecked in the Marriage Equality movement it won't only cost California's LGBTQ community the right to marry, it will cost us all.

Final Male Tuesday Beauty

Vatican Could be Sued Over Sex Abuse Cover Up

Back in 2003 it came out that the the Vatican issued a directive 40 years ago instructing senior Catholics to cover up cases of sexual abuse or face excommunication. The order, written in Latin, was sent from the Vatican in 1962 and is marked with the seal of Pope John XXIII. The document states: "Matters should be pursued in a most secretive way . . . they are to be restrained by a perpetual silence . . . and everyone pertaining to the tribunal in any way . . . is to observe the strictest secret, which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office . . . under the penalty of excommunication." Now that document may be about to bite the Vatican in its big, corrupt, swishy queen ass. As the UK's Telegraph is reporting, the Vatican may be forced to come clean - or at least cleaner than it ever has to date - and face the music on its conspiracy to cover up the sexual abuse of children.. Here are some story highlights:

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Three men who claim they were abused by priests in America have succeeded in naming the Vatican as the only defendant in a lawsuit, The Guardian reported. The men hope that Pope Benedict XVI, who headed the Vatican department charged investigating abuse by clergy for 24 years, will give evidence in the case.

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The plaintiffs are allowed to proceed with their case that Vatican officials covered up evidence of sexual abuse by American priests after the 6th US circuit court of appeal ruled that they could.
Previously, the Vatican has been immune from most lawsuits because it is seen as a sovereign state.

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William F McMurray, who represents the men, said the document makes the Vatican liable for any crimes that were kept secret because of the directive, The Guardian reported. The men allege that they were abused between the 1920s and 1970s and are seeking class action status on behalf of all US victims, it was reported. The Catholic Church in America has already paid out more than £1.3bn since 1950.

Chairman of Joint Chiefs and DADT

In this area with its huge number of military personnel, one much needed change on the gay rights front is the elimination of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," a ridiculous policy that forces people to live a lie or double lives in order to protect their military careers and which allows a disgruntled service member to retaliate against those they do not like by alleging that they are gay. The policy serves no purpose other than to appease the Kool-Aid drinkers of the Christianist camp and homophobic "old school" members of the military who likely have their own unresolved issues concerning sexual orientation. A new article in the New York Times suggest that the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff may be the man to help move DADT to the garbage heap of history. Here are some highlights:

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As President-elect Barack Obama convened the first meeting of his national security advisers on Monday, there was just one person at the table whom Mr. Obama did not choose to have there: Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Admiral Mullen, who was selected by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates for a two-year term, has been on the job for a year.

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Admiral Mullen, the son of a former Hollywood press agent whose clients included Anthony Quinn and Julie Andrews, has a world view that friends say is closer to that of Mr. Obama than to President Bush.

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In preparation for his new commander in chief, Admiral Mullen is overseeing the final stages of a comprehensive military strategy review of the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan — one of four such studies in the government — to guide Mr. Obama in his first days as president. More quietly, he has also had initial conversations with his top commanders about potential changes in the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law that allows gay men and lesbians to serve in the military as long as they keep their sexual orientation secret.

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Mr. Obama has taken a strong stand against the law as a moral issue, although his team has signaled that he will not push for its repeal in the early months of his administration to avoid the kind of blowup that engulfed President Bill Clinton when he sought to lift an outright ban on gay men and lesbians in the military in his first days in office.

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Fifteen years later, Mr. Obama is of the view that “don’t ask, don’t tell” is long out of date and that it is time for gay men and lesbians to serve openly. “The president-elect’s been pretty clear that he wants to address this issue,” Admiral Mullen said in the interview. “And so I am certainly mindful that at some point in time it could come.”

More Tuesday Male Beauty

Biological Traits Tied to Homosexuality

More bad news for the bat shit crazy Christian fundamentalist and Mormon set as yet more evidence shows that sexual orientation is not a choice. Daddy D's dishonest "Love Won Out" snake oil show and Exodus International can peddle all the lies they want, but the day is coming when hard scientific evidence will confirm what every LGBT individual already knows - one's sexual orientation is NOT a choice. I sincerely hope that as the deliberate lying of these "ex-gay" organizations and those organizations that fund them eventually becomes widely know both groups will wither a die as they justly deserve. Here are some highlights from a Ft. Meyers News-Press article:

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SAN JOSE, Calif. — Compared to straight men, gay men are more likely to be left-handed, to be the younger siblings of older brothers, and to have hair that whorls in a counterclockwise direction.Researchers are finding common biological traits among gay men, feeding a growing consensus that sexual orientation is an inborn combination of genetic and environmental factors that largely decide a person’s sexual attractions before they are born.

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[S]cientists say the political and moral debate over same-sex marriage frequently strayed from established scientific evidence, including comments by vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin that homosexuality is “a choice” and “a decision.”

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“In the past decade, I think the pendulum has swung more toward biological theory and biological causes,” said Richard Lippa, a psychology professor at California State University-Fullerton. Sven Bocklandt, a geneticist at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, is bewildered by the argument that people choose their sexual attraction. He said that virtually every animal species that has been studied has a small minority of individuals who demonstrate homosexual activity.“I really believe the reason most humans are straight is the same reason that most crocodiles are straight, and the same reason most whales are straight,” Bocklandt said. “Nature would not leave something so important for reproduction, for the survival of the species, to coincidence.”

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Long discredited are theories that parenting — one mid-20th century theory held that boys raised by a domineering mother with a distant father were more likely to be gay — has anything to do with sexual orientation.

High-Ranking Catholic Priest Faces Sexual-Misconduct Charges

In what seems to be nearly a weekly occurrence, yet another Roman Catholic priest is facing sexual misconduct charges. This time, however - unlike so many others - the priest is being excommunicated (something that should have happened to many bishops and cardinals who covered up or enable the sexual abuse of minors). Unfortunately, he was ex-communicated not because of the sexual misconduct charges, but because he held non-denominational services. It certainly is telling in terms of where the priorities are within the Catholic Church - or at least in the Phoenix Diocese. Here are some highlights from The Arizona Republic:

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Dale Fushek, who was one of the highest-ranking Catholic priests in the Phoenix Diocese and later faced legal charges over sexual-misconduct allegations, has been excommunicated from the church. Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted excommunicated Fushek last week but announced his ruling Monday, saying that it was needed because Fushek now holds non-denominational religious services.

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[I]n 2004, Fushek was accused of watching while another priest abused a boy. The case was settled out of court. Fushek was suspended, and a year later, he was arrested and accused of 10 misdemeanor accounts of sexual misconduct. The number was reduced to seven when one of the victims died. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge is considering whether the trials in those cases should be heard together or separately.

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Public excommunications are rare. During the priest sex-abuse cases of recent years, no convicted pedophiles among the clergy have been publicly excommunicated. Nationally, several people, including a priest, recently were excommunicated for their roles in an organization promoting priesthood for women.

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Olmsted, in his statement, said he is concerned that Catholics "may be misled or confused" by the men's actions. "We encourage Catholics to refrain from supporting the Praise and Worship Center," Olmsted said. "We remind Catholics that the ultimate form of praise and worship is and always will be the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and we urge them to keep the Mass as the center of their lives."

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The Church's message: screw kids literally, and you remain a member of the Church. Conduct alternate services and you're out the door. WWJD?

Free Michaelinnorfolk Fund

Today I had another hearing in my divorce case with the ex-wife with her trying to have me held in contempt of court for not being in a position financially to pay all lump sum amounts due under the terms of my discriminatory final divorce decree (in my view, I was basically tried and crucified for being gay). The fact that the country is in a severe recession and the real estate industry - on which I rely for the majority of my work - is in a near depression doesn't matter. Moreover, as seems to always be the case, her attorney brought up the issue of this blog and in addition to subtle gay bashing - there ALWAYS has to be some comments about my "lifestyle" in the hopes the judges are homophobic - makes the allegation that I must not be working hard enough if I have time to post articles. Never mind that I typically post between 9:00PM and 1:00AM.

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In her attorney's next breath, she then complains that the blog ought to be making money advertising - which, of course I could then pay to the ex-wife. The reality is that (1) I do not have enough daily traffic to command high advertising fees and (2) not being a computer geek, I do not even know how to set up advanced advertising options on the blog.

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PROPOSAL: Anyone who can advise me on how to enhance the blog for advertising purposes, please contact me and let's figure out how to enhance the blog. More importantly, I am starting a collection for a "Free Michael Fund" and any donations received will be used to make payments to the ex-wife. I will report from time to time on any funds actually received. Donations can be sent to 520 W. 21st Street, Suite J, Norfolk, Virginia 23517. I know it sounds crazy, but it would perhaps end the attacks on me maintaining this blog.

Tuesday Male Beauty

GOP Lemmings

Eugene Robinson's column in today's Washington Post looks at the mentality - or one might say lack of thought process - of the Senate Republicans who seem hell bent to hasten the demise of the Big Three automakers and the demise of the larger U.S. economy as well. Their motivation? Revenge on the pro-Democrat United Auto Workers' union and helping the foreign owned automakers with plants in their own home states. I'm not necessarily a fan of the UAW, but at some point one needs to put down the Kool-Aid and look at the larger picture of what's going on. True, that's hard for the today's GOP - remember John McCain stating that the economy was fundamentally sound even as the bottom was falling out on Wall Street. The GOP has run the economy into the ground and wildly expanded the national debt , but the Senate Republicans apparently do not believe they have yet wrought sufficient financial destruction. Here are some column highlights:

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Despite the popular belief, lemmings don't really hurl themselves off cliffs to reduce their numbers. That sort of behavior is seen only among Republicans in the Senate, who gave us a demonstration when they torpedoed legislation to bail out the auto industry.

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It may be that General Motors, Chrysler and Ford are lumbering, Jurassic beasts that deserve their looming extinction. But only a free-market fundamentalist, a lunatic or a Senate Republican -- perhaps that's redundant -- would conclude that now is the moment to hasten Detroit's demise.

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To recap: We're in the midst of a global financial crisis. The housing bubble has burst and prices have collapsed. The economy has been in recession for a year. Unemployment has risen to 6.7 percent, and if "marginally attached" workers are included -- those who have given up even looking for jobs -- along with those who want to work full time but are forced to accept fewer hours, the rate is 12.5 percent.

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[I]t would be insanity to throw hundreds of thousands of auto company employees, and maybe a few million others in the supply and sales chains, out of work -- leaving them and their families at the mercy of an economy that has no replacement jobs for them. Public funds would end up supporting these people anyway, except that we would have lost our domestic auto industry -- which, despite its many failings, is the only domestic auto industry we've got.

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Some of the most vocal critics of a Detroit bailout -- Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), for example -- happen to have foreign-owned auto plants in their home states. This has led to accusations that they are deliberately trying to sabotage the Big Three to help foreign automakers, but I think it's more likely that they're just being doctrinaire and ultimately self-defeating.

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They have managed to position their party as being against unions, against America's domestic industrial patrimony, against the blue-collar working class -- and also, incredibly, against the Rust Belt states, such as Michigan and Ohio, that are home to UAW-represented auto plants and that also regularly tip the balance of presidential elections.