GOP Senators Prove They Actively Support Homophobia

In yet another nasty display of just how vile the Republican Party has become under the puppet strings of the Christofascists who now more or less control the Party, the U.S. Senate on a party line vote blocked the appointment of Mari Carmen Aponte (pictured at left) as the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador. Apone's great crime? She wrote an op-ed that opposed homophobia and violence against LGBT El Salvadorans. This heresy was just too much for asshole extraordinaire Jim DeMint who led the charge against Aponte. No doubt DeMint is patting himself on the back for being a "godly Christian" even as he has made a mockery of the Gospel message. As I have noted before, it's folks like DeMint that make me want to have nothing to do with Christianity. Yes, there are "good Christians" but they seem content to sit with their thumbs up their ass as the haters are allowed to carry the day without opposition. CNN looks at this lynching of Aponte solely because she opposed mistreatment of other human beings. It's beyond sick. Here are highlights:

Citing an op-ed she wrote condemning violence against gays and lesbians, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) for weeks led the charge in the U.S. Senate to block the nomination of Mari Carmen Aponte to be the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador.

At issue for Senator DeMint and the 48 Republicans (and one Democrat, Senator Ben Nelson [NE]) was Aponte's op-ed titled “For the Elimination of Prejudices Wherever They Exist” in the El Salvadoran daily La Prensa Gráfica on July 28th this year. The offending op-ed declared that everyone has a responsibility to “inform our neighbors and friends about what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender” and praised El Salvador for signing - along with the U.S. and 80 other nations - a U.N. declaration for the elimination of violence against gays and lesbians.

Never mind the fact that Ambassador Aponte - posted in El Salvador for the last 15 months on a recess appointment - was only implementing the administration's initiative in support of Gay Pride Month, which really means this is a policy issue better taken up with the President. The larger issue should be whether making locals uncomfortable on issues of human rights should be the way we gauge our policy and diplomats. Would we pursue the same course in other civil and political rights? Human rights in Syria? Voting rights in Russia? When did homophobia or violence against the LGBT community become a matter of local culture that deserves respect?

Sadly, though, with the exception of Scott Brown (MA) and Susan Collins (ME), 39 Republican senators and Senator Nelson voted against the nomination. None registered even the slightest objection to the reasoning that the nominee was unfit for office because she had written an anti-homophobia essay that had “stirred controversy and was rebuked throughout Latin America,” as claimed by the Republicans . . .

they cast doubt on the U.S.’s commitment in opposing violence against homosexuals and LGBT rights. For Republicans who have actively fought homophobia here and gay Republicans, I couldn’t help wondering this morning how they felt. Proud that they had scored a victory against the Democrats? Or scared that the rights many uphold and enjoy overseas had been attacked without a word of objection?,

I suspect that some day - if there is a God - DeMint and his GOP cohorts will join many, many other "godly Christians" like Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, etc., in Hell for the evil they do while patting themselves on the back for their piety.