Trump Punts on Anti-Gay "Religious Freedom" Executive Order

While the news of the House of Representatives vote on Trumpcare yesterday was depressing.  On a more positive note, the "religious freedom" executive order signed by Der Trumpenführer, while troubling, failed to include the license to discriminate demanded by Christofascists and their political prostitutes in Congress.  To say that the Christofascists and professional Christian class (who live well by peddling hate and division - think Tony Perkins and Brian brown as but two examples) are livid livid is an understatement.    Here's a taste of Brian Brown's shrieking:

This is the second time that President Trump has backed away from signing a comprehensive order protecting religious liberty after LGBT groups complained about the proposed actions. We cannot accept this capitulation on such a critical issue and must fight back. Will you help us insist that President Trump fulfill his repeated promises to protect the religious liberty of people of faith?

By "help us" Brown means send money so that he can continue to make over $500,000 a year. Brown was far from alone in his wailing and lamentations over Trump's failure to exempt Christofascists from non-discrimination laws and ordinances.  American Family Association hate monger Bryan Fischer was equally peeved and blamed Ivanka Trump and her Jewish husband for Der Trumpenführer's betrayal:

These are essentially hollow promises on the president’s part. No church has ever been deprived of its tax exempt status using the Johnson Amendment. . . . the gravest concern is aroused by what the president did not say. The draft of this executive order that was leaked to the liberal media in February contained robust protections for Christians engaged in business from being compelled by government to violate their own values and consciences in showdowns with the radical, vitriolic, and virulently aggressive LGBT lobby.  This morning’s empty and symbolic action on the president’s part most likely betrays the hidden hand of the president’s uber-liberal daughter, Ivanka, who likely leaked the February draft to a liberal rag (The Nation) in order to stir up enough intense outrage from the LGBT community to strangle this baby in the cradle. It worked. Ivanka wore out her red pencil eviscerating the original order, leaving us with today’s order which has very nice language but is virtually entirely lacking in substance. 

While Trump has delivered on some of his promises made to Christofascists, today's failure to include the much demanded anti-LGBT provisions underscores the reality that Christofascists and evangelical Christians are Motivated by two things: racism and homophobia.  In their strange bubble detached from objective reality and moral decency, they believe that the rest of society harbors similar hatreds.  That bubble is about to burst.  A full one-third  of the under 30 generation has left organized religion and many older Americans are following suit.  A piece in Sojourner looks at this reality.  Here are excerpts:

Last Friday, Jerry Falwell, Jr. took to Fox News to proclaim that in Donald Trump, “evangelicals have found their dream president.” Two years ago, this statement would have made virtually no sense, at least on the surface. To many outside the white evangelical world, it seemed — and still seems — inconceivable that a thrice-married serial adulterer, ultimate materialist, casino owner, habitual liar, and unprincipled deal-maker could ever become the standard bearer for a group that professes to base their vote on “family values.”

In the two years since Trump announced his candidacy, we have seen a remarkable moral unmasking of white Americans who call themselves Christian, and in particular those who claim the “evangelical” label. Eighty-one percent of white evangelical voters cast their vote for Donald Trump, and the most recent Pew Research poll puts Trump’s support after his first 100 days in office at 78 percent among white evangelicals (and 80 percent among white evangelicals who attend church once a month).

In supporting Trump’s crackdowns and, in Trump's words, “big" and "beautiful” wall that will keep immigrants out, Falwell is explicitly and proudly saying that white evangelicals voted for Trump not in spite of his racist and xenophobic rhetoric about undocumented immigrants, but because of this rhetoric. How that relates to Christians, including evangelicals, who are in direct relationship to the undocumented immigrants and refugees that Trump wants to deport or keep out of our country, Falwell didn’t say.

Falwell also didn’t mention that Trump’s agenda and proposed budget would brutally cut off vital support to all “the least of these” that Jesus asks us to protect in the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s gospel. . . . . Jerry Falwell Jr. has once again shown himself to be nothing more or less than a Republican political operative, interested in advancing his preferred policy agenda much more than examining what it means to be a Christian.

This is about the moral hypocrisy of white American evangelical religious right leaders like Jerry Falwell Jr. causing a crisis in the church, dividing American Christians on racial lines, and astonishing the worldwide body of Christ — the international majority of evangelical Christians who are people of color — and whose leaders keep asking many of us what in the world is going on with white American evangelicals.

That number, 81 percent, has become an international symbol that tragically now represents what white American evangelicalism stands for. It dramatically and painfully symbolizes the white ethno-nationalism that Donald Trump appeals to and continues to draw support from among white American evangelicals. It is the most revealing and hurtful metric of what I will call the racial idolatry of white American evangelical Christianity . . . . .

Racism is not a gospel issue to the Falwells, and never has been. That Donald Trump began his political career with a racist lie about America’s first black president isn’t an issue for Falwell, Jr. That Trump opened his campaign by demonizing immigrants in calling them “rapists” and “criminal” doesn’t matter to Jr. either. And Trump’s xenophobic assaults on Muslims seems to be something that Falwell. also agrees with, as his comments at the Liberty University convocation in 2015 indicate. 

That Trump is the dream president for people like Falwell and such a nightmare for the vast majority of evangelical, Pentecostal, and Catholic Christians around the world, and our brothers and sisters of color in the United States, really says it all.

This stark contrast reveals white evangelical Christianity in America as a bubble — a very destructive one, and one that is about to burst.

I hope the bubble bursts soon and that it accelerates the de-legitimization of conservative Christianity as a positive moral force in society.  Conservative Christianity is a pestilence that needs to be removed from society.  No deference is deserved and the media needs to cease providing a platform to Christofascist leaders and granting a false equivalency to their beliefs. 

NOM's Brian Brown Applauds Russia's Persecution of Gays

I am of an age that I remember when applauding Russia and its dictatorial government caused one to viewed as a possible traitor.  Indeed, during the reign of terror pushed by Joe McCarthy, even rumors that one supported Russia and/or communism ended careers and ruined lives.  Now, Russia is ruled by a former communist KGB officer and the country has moved from a flirtation with democracy to a  dictatorship headed by the aforesaid former communist KBG officer, Vladimir Putin.  So who has been to Russia cheer leading for Putin's vile and corrupt government and policies?  Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage.  Right Wing Watch has details on Brown's disgusting support for Putin's efforts to make Russian gays the modern day equivalents of Jews in early 1930's Germany.  Here are highlights:

[W]e recently discovered that the website for the international conference of social conservatives hosted at the Kremlin in September has posted a number of English transcripts of speeches given at the event, including those of a handful of American activists.

One of those activists was Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, who had previously testified before a Russian parliamentary committee in favor of tightening the country's laws  preventing the adoption of Russian orphans by same-sex couples.

Brown warned the audience in Moscow that “[i]n the West especially there is an attempt to silence those of us who stand for the truth of marriage” but claimed that Americans in general oppose LGBT rights. Lamenting that “there’s a picture that is sometimes painted of the United States as if all of us in the U.S. are somehow embracing this new and false vision of the family,” Brown said that it is “unelected judges” who are “coming and simply throwing away the votes” of Americans who oppose LGBT equality, violating “our civil right to have our vote counted.”

Brown told the conference attendees that he was hopeful for the future of the “international pro-family movement” that would “stand in a united manner against the attempt to redefine the very nature of what it means to be a human being:

It is a great blessing to be with all of you here, in Moscow. . . .  There are three things I want to discuss today. I want to focus primarily on what the future of the international pro-family movement is. Because what is occurring here, and what is occurring around the world, with leaders coming together, and meeting, and thinking, and discussing, and planning, and organizing, is a historic moment. We have an opportunity, we have been placed here to make a change.

It is a testament to how far the Republican Party has fallen that someone like Brown would not only be welcomed but with allies like Tony Perkins aids in setting the GOP's virulently anti-gay agenda.   The irony of it all is that I suspect Vladimir Putin doesn't give a damn one way or another about gays.  But in order to rally support from the heinous Russian Orthodox Church, he is willing to persecute and ruin the lives of Russian gays solely for the purpose of maintaining his own power.  That said, it speaks volumes about what a vile low life Brian Brown is - as are his "godly Christian" allies.

National Organization for Marriage: Deep in Debt and Donations Plummeting

If one wonders why the National Organization for Marriage is increasingly involving itself with overseas anti-gay efforts, look no farther than NOM's plummeting income and deep debt.  As the war for marriage equality increasingly is lost by NOM and its allies in America, outside of Christofascist circles (and it would seem the Vatican's minions in bishoprics), more and more people simple yawn and ignore NOM's theatrics.  Even more tellingly, they've stopped giving the hate merchants art NOM their hard earned money.  Hence to keep the money flowing so that Brian Brown and other similar leeches can live the good life, NOM has been forced to look for ignorant and bigoted audiences overseas foolish enough to make financial contributions.  A piece in Salon looks at NOM's increasingly desperate financial position where two individual donors gave half of its total monetary support.  Here are highlights:

The National Organization for Marriage — once touted as an anti-gay marriage political powerhouse — finds itself on the brink of financial collapse, new figures show.

The indispensable Mark Joseph Stern runs down NOM’s dismal numbers:

On Wednesday, the viciously anti-gay National Organization for Marriage finally released its 2013 tax filings—two days late, in direct violation of federal law. The results are nothing short of brutal. NOM raised $5.1 million last year—a 50 percent drop-off from its 2012 earnings. Two donors accounted for more than half of that money. And the group’s “Education Fund,” which churns out anti-gay propaganda and homophobic calumny, raised less than $1.7 million, a 70 percent decline from 2012. NOM closed out the year more than $2.5 million in debt.

How did the nation’s leading anti-marriage equality organization land itself here? Stern offers three theories:

• donors recoiled when NOM devolved into increasingly visceral anti-gay rhetoric that proved so offensive even some true believers couldn’t help but he embarrassed; 
• supporters are less likely to contribute funds for fear they’ll be exposed (nobody wants to go the way of former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich); and 
• that amid a wave of marriage equality victories, NOM’s supporters just aren’t all that interesting in throwing money at a lost cause anymore.

I’d add a fourth factor: the group has shown itself to be woefully politically ineffective.

NOM’s ideal world looks a lot like the world of 2003-2004.  But that isn’t the world NOM is dealing with. Fast forward 10 years, and Democratic politicians show near-universal support for marriage equality, and public polling shows that a majority of Americans share their view.

Determined to reverse the tide of growing support for marriage equality, NOM has spent big on electing anti-gay primary challengers and general election candidates. . . . In 2013, NOM went all in trying to elect Virginia GOP gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli, who had endorsed reviving Virginia’s anti-sodomy law, and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Steve Lonegan of New Jersey, only to watch both candidates lose.

Underscoring the sad state of affairs with which NOM President Brian Brown is grappling, the group this year endorsed two pro-LGBT Democratic congressional candidates on the sole basis that their GOP opponents were gay . . . the poor track records of prominent anti-gay candidates NOM has backed in hotly contested races should give donors pause before they open up their checkbooks to help keep hate afloat.

Hence, as I said, NOM's move overseas where cretins, morons, bigots and dictators like Vladimir Putin and the leaders of certain African nations are still inclined to give NOM money.  It is instructive that the despicable (and in my view, mentally disturbed) Maggie Gallagher left NOM when she apparently realized that the cash cow was mortally ill. 

6th Circuit Issues Batshit Crazy Opinion Upholding Marriage Ban

6th Circuit Panel - Judge Daughtrey is at left.  Assholes are at center and right

Because the Supreme Court left intact rulings by the 4th Circuit, 7th Circuit and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals striking down same-sex marriage bans in those five states, those appeals courts’ decisions applied to six other states in those three circuits: West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. In a ruling that ought to terrify minorities of all stripes, by a 2 to one ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has held that minority rights can in effect be granted or denied based on the vote of the majority through the "democratic process."  Under the Court's reasoning, state constitutions - and by extension, the Federal Constitution - can be amended to strip the rights of minorities.  Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Hispanics, and so forth all should be very concerned by the reasoning of the Court.  Their rights, like gay rights are according to the majority ruling subject to the whims and prejudices of the majority of voters.  While the Christofascists are jumping for joy at the ruling - hate merchants Brian Brown and Tony Perkins seemingly are near orgasm - longer term they should be quaking: the day is coming when whites and Christian (certainly conservative Christians) will be in the minority.  Applied to its logical limits, the 6th Circuit ruling would allow the non-white, non-Christofascist majority of the future to strip the "godly folk" of their civil rights and treat them as they have so foully treated others (talk about Karma being a bitch). The ruling is so insane that it's hard to know if the majority wanted to be remembered in the same category as those judges that decided the Dred Scott ruling in the 1800's or if they are seeking to force the U.S. Supreme Court to make marriage equality nationwide.  Metro Weekly looks at the bizarre ruling.  Here are highlights:

In a 2-1 decision, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that same-sex marriage bans in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and Tennessee are constitutional. The decision reverses rulings by federal district courts striking down same-sex marriage bans in those four states.

“In just eleven years, nineteen States and a conspicuous District, accounting for nearly forty-five percent of the population, have exercised their sovereign powers to expand a definition of marriage that until recently was universally followed going back to the earliest days of human history. That is a difficult timeline to criticize as unworthy of further debate and voting,” wrote Circuit Judge Jeffrey Sutton for the majority. “When the courts do not let the people resolve new social issues like this one, they perpetuate the idea that the heroes in these change events are judges and lawyers. Better in this instance, we think, to allow change through the customary political processes, in which the people, gay and straight alike, become the heroes of their own stories by meeting each other not as adversaries in a court system but as fellow citizens seeking to resolve a new social issue in a fair-minded way.”

Under Judge Sutton's reasoning, schools would perhaps still be segregated and interracial marriage bans might still exist.   One judge dissented and called out the majority for their closed mindedness and, I would argue, bigotry.  Here's more from Metro Weekly:

Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey dissented.

“The author of the majority opinion has drafted what would make an engrossing TED Talk or, possibly, an introductory lecture in Political Philosophy,” Daughtrey wrote in her dissent. “But as an appellate court decision, it wholly fails to grapple with the relevant constitutional question in this appeal: whether a state’s constitutional prohibition of same-sex marriage violates equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Instead, the majority sets up a false premise—that the question before us is “who should decide?”—and leads us through a largely irrelevant discourse on democracy and federalism. In point of fact, the real issue before us concerns what is at stake in these six cases for the individual plaintiffs and their children, and what should be done about it. “

“The legacies of Judges Deborah Cook and Jeffrey Sutton will forever be cemented on the wrong side of history,” said Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin in a statement.

The decision by the 6th Circuit marks the first time a federal appeals court has upheld a state ban on same-sex marriage and presents a split among the circuit courts, which could encourage the Supreme Court to once again take up the issue of same-sex marriage and decide whether the Constitution guarantees same-sex couples the right to marry. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in September that if the 6th Circuit allowed same-sex marriage bans to stand “there will be some urgency” for the Supreme Court to step in.

Because the Supreme Court left intact rulings by the 4th Circuit, 7th Circuit and 10th Circuit Courts of Appeals striking down same-sex marriage bans in those five states, those appeals courts’ decisions applied to six other states in those three circuits: West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming. 

The Right's New Strategy After Gay Marriage Loss

While still reeling - and thrashing around in spittle flecked convulsions - over this weeks tidal wave of new marriage equality states, some in the Christofascist ranks, especially the professional Christian crowd which sees its lucrative livelihood seriously threatened as marriage equity spreads,  are seeking new approaches to keep their income streams alive and to work to denigrate and discriminate against LGBT citizens.  In a column at Huffington Post, Michelangelo Signorile calls this effort "Finding the Gay 'Partial Birth Abortion'."  Here are column highlights:

A little over a week ago at the Values Voters Summit (VVS), I spoke with Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), and he was positively certain that the Supreme Court would take one of the marriage cases it rejected yesterday  . . . . Not only that, he was pretty sure that, since the high court had stayed decisions and stopped gay marriages from proceeding in Utah and Virginia after lower courts had rule those states' bans unconstitutional, marriage equality opponents would prevail after the court took the case, upholding gay marriage bans all across the country. 

Instead, the court not only brought marriage equality instantly to five states by not hearing the appeals of the lower court rulings; in short order another six states in the circuits affected will likely have marriage equality. And today, Brian Brown is furious and stunned at the decision. But he and Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and others are vowing to fight on. They are delusional if not just doing fundraising -- claiming they can still win at the high court -- but they're also being pragmatic, looking to the future. And it's on that last note that we had better pay attention.

The plan now is to turn themselves into the victims, persecuted as their "religious liberties" are under terrible assault, and to use the dangerous Hobby Lobby decision from the Supreme Court to discriminate in the name of religious liberties. We've of course seen some of this rhetoric both before and after Hobby Lobby. Expect it just to intensify big time.

On a panel at VVS titled "The Future of Marriage," Frank Schubert, the mastermind strategist of the Proposition 8 campaign and other marriage ban campaigns across the country, said that if by chance marriage equality opponents lost at the high court, as pretty much happened yesterday, they would have to go the route they did with abortion after Roe v. Wade. They'd have to seek "incremental" wins, he said, as they did then, chipping away slowly at abortion rights, which of course has been very successful. Schubert then said they'd have to the find the gay "version" of "partial birth abortion." I almost fell off my seat on that one.

[H]e talked about "conscience clauses" and "religious liberties," which brings us back to Hobby Lobby, businesses that don't want to serve gays, adoption by gay parents, and lots of other issues. Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association told me at VVS that they aren't giving up and, persistent as he is, he tweeted that to me last night as well. 

Nobody should think that they won't regroup and find different ways to attack LGBT people and other groups, armed with a new plan. It's simply what they do.

HRC Slams NOM's Whining Brian Brown

Like many of the parasites of the Christofascist and professional Christian set, Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage makes a very plush living peddling hate and division.  And, true to form, even as he seeks to export hate and homophobia overseas in light of NOM's losing battle in America, Brown plays the role of the persecuted victim.  It's as if by playing the victim he somehow isn't accountable for the number of damaged lives he leaves in his foul wake.  Recently, Brown whined about being persecuted  in the right wing Washington Times after HRC did an expose on the foul activities of NOM and its Christofascist allies.   Thankfully, HRC hits back at Brown's bullshit and batshitery.  Here are excerpts:

In an opinion piece for The Washington Times, Brian Brown spreads more anti-LGBT hate and venom as an Exporter of Hate.

Last month, Brian Brown, the president and co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the leading anti-LGBT equality group in the U.S., was featured in HRC’s Export of Hate report. And to say the least, he’s not happy about it.

Brian Brown and NOM have tried – and failed—to block the national momentum for marriage equality. After losing the fight at nearly every turn, NOM is now taken its mission abroad, and has targeted HRC and other pro-equality groups in the process.

What’s worse is that Brown is proud of being a leader in a movement that could endanger people and families worldwide. He writes, “I am proud to have played some small role in this emerging global movement.”

Since 2012, Brown has publicly supported anti-LGBT movements and traveled to France, Russia, Australia, Spain and Trinidad and Tobago.

Brian Brown is one of many Americans taking the mission of anti-LGBT hate and bigotry abroad. It’s time for American extremists like Brown to be called out for their actions. It is unacceptable to fight against the freedom and liberty of LGBT people worldwide.  Sorry we’re not sorry, Brian Brown. It is time for you, and other exporters of hate, to end the spread of bigotry and lies.

All of us need to call out hate merchants like Brown, NOM, and here in Virginia, The Family Foundation.  These individuals and their organizations need to become outcts and unwelcome in decent society and social circles.  Hatred of others is not a family value or an American value.

Are Anti-Gay Christofascists Unpatriotic/Guilty of Conspiring with Foreign Governments?

Brian Brown in Russia conspiring with anti-gay forces

I have often maintained that the Christofascists ultimately seek to establish a theocracy in America and rewrite - if not overthrow - the U.S. Constitution, they are technically guilty of sedition and/or treason.  Equally disturbing is the willingness of some "godly Christians" to conspire with foreign governments and/or legislators to push for foreign laws at odds with the rights guaranteed by the U. S. Constitution.  Sadly, too many in the media fail to call out the mouth pieces of the Christian Right who would overthrow the First Amendment, if not the entire Constitution, and who willingly deal with foreign governments to further their theocratic agenda. A case in point (and exception to the rule) is when Mike Huckabee said some years ago on Morning Joe, that he thought the U.S. Constitution should be replaced with the Bible as the nation's governing document.   Thankfully, Joe Scarborough challenged Huckabee, but too many "journalists" and news anchors don't do so.  Another example is NOM's Brian Brown working with the Putin regime to pass anti-equality laws. Now, Congressman Adam Schiff has called these foul individuals out for what they are.  FrontiersLA.com has details.  Here are highlights:

[O]n Sunday, he [Congressman Adam Schiff] went so far as to question the patriotism of anti-gay religious leaders such as Brian Brown, the President of the National Organization for Marriage, who seem to place their own ideology over the best interests of America.

Told that Brown had attended a forum in Moscow despite forum sponsors (billionaire Vladimir Yakunin, a senior advisor to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the forum’s funder and parliament member Elena Mizulina) being on the Treasury Department’s list of sanctioned individuals, Schiff said:

“I think it’s awful and whether it’s people going to Russia to help propagate these discriminatory laws that are increasing in places like Russia and East Europe and Africa or whether it’s some of our captains of industry that are going to Moscow and trying to seize of business opportunities like this. It really calls into question their commitment to our country and its ideals. So I think it’s horribly counter-productive and only a further incentive to the belligerent, dangerous, backward policies of Putin and his cronies.”

Schiff’s comments come a day before the Human Rights Campaign released a major expose entitled “Global Advocacy of American Anti-LGBT Extremists Exposed,”  HRC opens the report saying:

There is a network of American extremists who work tirelessly to undercut LGBT people around the world at every turn. They spew venomous rhetoric, outrageous theories, and discredited science. Some claim that LGBT people are responsible for the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Others argue that LGBT people are luring away children, and that acceptance of LGBT people will lead to the destruction of families around the world. Some even suggest that the death penalty could be an appropriate punishment for simply being LGBT.

Last October, Fred Karger of “Rights Equal Rights” wrote Sec. of State John Kerry  and Attorney General Eric Holder asking that they investigate whether  Brown violated the Logan Act, a “federal statute making it a crime for a citizen to confer with foreign governments” against US interests. Karger notes that Brown testified before Russian Duma officials—including a subcommittee chaired by Mizulina, who then helped write the anti-gay propaganda and adoption laws—and asks in Brown did so without prior authorization of the US government.

Schiff thinks the criteria for American investment in other countries should include non-discrimination laws. He said:

I definitely think it should be a factor and if you look at the Millennium Challenge Corporation—it evaluates levels of corruption and whatnot in terms of whether a country is a suitable candidate for investment. I think we also ought to look at their progress towards equality and if they’re moving backward, to me, they’re not a great place for investment. And that might be a good and powerful and yet subtle way to say we’re prioritizing non-discrimination and we’re going to take into consideration anywhere we put our money.

 It is far past time that Christofascist be held to compliance with this nation's laws and that it be made very clear that they are not above the law. 

Adam Schiff

Adam Schiff

9th Circuit Rejects NOM's Attempt to Stay Oregon Marriages

NOM's hate merchant in chief, Brian Brown

Having seen opponents of gay marriage lose every court case except a lowly state court case, the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") is desperate to stay relevant - and most importantly, keep the money flowing in so that Brian Brown, et al, can live well.  One such attempt to stay in the news and keep the ignorant and bigoted sending in checks - most of NOM's financial support comes from a handful of secret donors - and give the false appearance that NOM has broad support was NOM's effort to convince the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to stay the District Court ruling that struck down Oregon's bans on same sex marriage.  Yesterday, that effort went down in flames (the Court's opinion is here).  Here are highlights from the Oregonian:

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has denied a request by a group opposing same-sex marriage in Oregon to intervene in the case.

The decision, handed down Wednesday afternoon, means the National Organization for Marriage has no route left short of appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Unless NOM does appeal, any threat it posed to gay marriage in Oregon is over.   The action comes in the wake of the May 19 decision by U.S. District Court Judge Michael McShane in Eugene to strike down Oregon's ban on same-sex marriage.

Supporters of same-sex marriage applauded Wednesday's decision.  "We're thrilled by the news but not surprised at all," said Jeana Frazzini, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon. "There was never any merit to their proposal and they've been denied now at every turn."

Frazzini read the court's decision and called it "decisive."  "From their own filings, the National Organization for Marriage has about 100 members in Oregon," she said. "If anything, I'd characterize this entire episode as a nuisance effort on their part."

NOM, based in Washington D.C., had claimed in court filings that it deserved intervenor status on behalf of "several of its members, identified as Oregon members who provide weddings services, Oregon members who voted for Measure 36, and at least one member who is an elected Oregon county clerk," according to the five-page decision.

"We find that NOM's Oregon wedding service providers members' objections to facilitating same-gender marriage ceremonies is not sufficient" to achieve that standing, the court said.

"They could ask either that the full 9th Circuit review this or appeal it to the U.S. Supreme Court," he said. "But I don't think NOM ever presented a threat. Their appeals, after all, weren't based on the substantive merits of the case. It was merely a question of whether an out-of-state lobbying organization was improperly left out of the party."

The decision leaves Oregon as one of 19 states and the District of Columbia where same-gender couples can legally marry in the U.S.

The Growing Hysteria and Idiocy of Anti-Gay "Christians"

As the tidal wave of rulings striking down bans on same sex marriage continues, both the extremism and idiocy of the self-anointed protectors of "traditional marriage" continues to increase.  Leading the chorus are many of the same tired, neurotic nutcases who make a living peddling hatred.  Mat Staver, founder of the extreme Liberty Council (and dean of Liberty University's so-called law school) would have his sheep like listeners believe that gay marriage is about to bring the end of Western Civilization.  Here's a sampling of his rant:

Mathew D. Staver, dean of the Liberty University School of Law, said that efforts to change the definition of marriage to include same-sex “marriage” would be like trying to re-define the law of gravity, adding that, if it were tried, it would mark “the beginning of the end of Western civilization.”

“We’ve never been in this situation before,” Staver said in a speech at the American Decency Association 2014 Summer Conference in Grand Rapids, Mich. “We will not be able to escape the coercive nature of this issue. It is cataclysmic in its change-effect. It is, I believe, ultimately the beginning of the end of Western civilization, if we adopt this as a country.”

 Not to be out done, NOM's Brian Brown bizarrely equates same sex marriage as trying to create a dining room set out of two tables:

Suppose you took a table and a chair and together referred to them both as chairs. In that instance, the two things really would be different—and by calling them the same thing, you would have made the term "chair" meaningless.

Calling a table a chair does damage to the meaning of the word "chair"—and it does no service to our understanding of either tables or chairs. It is thus injurious to our wisdom and knowledge on three counts, and reduces our ability to reason at all.

So it goes with marriage. Calling something "marriage" that is not marriage damages our public notion of marriage, in multiple ways. It neither serves society as a whole, nor does it ultimately serve society's members because it reduces their ability to make any reasonable or legal distinctions.

Blogger friend Jeremy Hooper sums up the insanity well:

Unlike nearly half of our states, twenty-nine consecutive courts (and many before that), the federal government, and a growing majority of the American public, Brian Brown has taken upon himself to determine that a civil contract between two loving and committed adults can only be called a marriage if the union has the distribution of penises and vaginas that he finds proper. And now he will use dining furniture to make his point on behalf of the discrimination to which he has pledged his career and legacy

Staver and Brown both need serious mental health interventions.

Boston Globe Column: Opposition to Marriage Equality = Support for Jim Crow Laws

Brian Brown - professional hate merchant

If one knows accurate history - which sadly far too many black pastors seemingly do not - one will immediately see the parallels between those who oppose marriage equality for same sex couples and those who opposed desegregation in the 1950's and 1960's (indeed, some of those opponents STILL oppose desegregation).  Worse yet, if one knows the antecedents of today's "family values" organizations, many track directly back to some of the movements that were most vociferous in their opposition to desegregation and who often cited the Bible as justification for their deeply held hate and bigotry.  One need look no farther than FRC president Tony Perkins who has a documented history of supporting white supremacist organizations. These people were and are on the wrong side of history.  A column in the Boston Globe looks at these modern day descendants of segregationist who are yet again on the wrong side of history.  Here are some column highlights:

Americans will rally in Washington, D.C., at a March for Marriage on Thursday in support of “the simple and beautiful message,” to quote Brian Brown, that “marriage between one man and one woman is unique and critical for our society.” Brown is president of the National Organization for Marriage, the event’s lead sponsor.

Don’t he and his supporters know that they’re on the Wrong Side of History?

These days, of course, anyone who publicly opposes same-sex marriage can expect to be scorned in many quarters as a bigot or reviled as an ignoramus. No Democrat with serious political ambitions would dare to agree with Brown’s traditional point of view. In some places the same is increasingly true of Republicans.

Yet until about 10 minutes ago, in historical terms, the traditional understanding of marriage as the complementary union of male and female was anything but controversial. Brown’s “simple and beautiful message,” now seen as so threatened that it needs to be defended at Washington rallies, was about as mainstream a position as there was in American life.

 Same-sex marriage has gone from all-but-unthinkable to all-but-unstoppable. So what do those marchers in Washington think they’re going to accomplish? Don’t they have better things to do with their lives than fight for a cause that, if not yet entirely lost, is surely down for the count? Why don’t they wake up and smell the historical inevitability?

Then again, much the same could have been said a century ago to those who insisted — in the depths of Jim Crow — that the cause of civil rights and racial fairness was worth fighting for. They too must have heard with regularity that they were on the “wrong side of history.” The promise of Reconstruction was long gone. In much of the country, black enfranchisement was a dead letter. The Supreme Court had ruled 7-1 in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial segregation — “separate but equal” — was constitutional.

History is littered with causes and beliefs that were thought at one point to be historically unstoppable, from the divine right of kings to worldwide Marxist revolution. In the relative blink of an eye, same-sex marriage has made extraordinary political and psychological gains. It is on a roll, winning hearts and minds as well as court cases. No wonder it seems to so many that history’s verdict is in, and same-sex marriage is here to stay.

I first moved to Virginia shortly after the ruling in Loving v. Virginia and, coming from New York State, was shocked to see separate restroom facilities for blacks and whites even in courthouses (somehow the whites always happened to have the far nicer facilities) and there were (and are) some who proclaimed segregation now, segregation forever.  History does not look kindly on such people and I am convinced that the anti-gay animus filled "family values" organizations of today will be equated with the KKK by future generations.  I can only wonder what the grandchildren of Tony Perkins and Maggie Gallagher, et al, will think of their ancestors.  I suspect that many will slink and hide and pretend they do not know who the hate merchants in their lineage even were.  I can't say that I would blame them.