Evangelical Trash Talk

UPDATED: In the wake of the firestorm over his admission that his views on gay unions are shifting, Richard Cizik has resigned as president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. The lesson is that the homo-haters will not tolerate anyone who is willing to listen to science and reasoned discussion or who might view LGBT Americans as fully human. Here are some highlights from the Washington Post:

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A prominent evangelical lobbyist resigned yesterday over his remarks in a National Public Radio interview, in which he said he supports permitting same-sex civil unions. The Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), later apologized for the remark, said the Rev. Leith Anderson, president of the 30 million-member organization. But, Anderson said, "he lost the leadership's confidence as spokesman, and that's hard to regain."

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Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said Cizik's beliefs had diverged too far from those of the NAE membership. "There's been some concern from the constituents that he was at least some distance from where the constituency was, but this is a whole different order of magnitude for his constituency on the gay-marriage issues -- it's a mega-issue," he said.

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Richard Cizik (at left) of the National Association of Evangelicals is prompting more consternation and trash talk among the professional homo-hater set in the Christian Right. These folks are obsessed with gay sex and seem to spend nearly every waking hour thinking of ways to denigrate LGBT citizens and in the process scare as many sheeple as possible into stroking them checks or sending in their online contributions. Rather than thinking of ways to feed the hungry, cloth the poor or provide housing for the homeless, these rabid Christianists worry almost exclusively about "The Gays." Enter Richard Cizik who believes that there just might be other issues that should command the attention of evangelical Christians. Here's Right Wing Watch's take on the latest tempest among the homo-haters:

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It is no secret that Religious Right leaders have had it out for Richard Cizik of the National Association of Evangelicals for some time now, starting back in 2007 when they tried to get him fired for branching out into the global warming debate because they feared it was undermining the focus on their traditional anti-choice, anti-gay agenda.

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[N]ow he has even fewer friends among the old-guard right-wing leaders thanks to this recent interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air” where he all but admitted that he voted for Barack Obama, said that Dick Armey had good reasons for calling people like James Dobson bullies and thugs, predicted that climate change is going to become an issue on which evangelicals become increasingly active, pledged to work with the Obama administration to find ways to reduce unwanted pregnancies in this country, and admitted that his opposition to marriage equality is “shifting.”

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Well, this last sin has sent the most rabid of the homo-haters into absolute conniptions and the sputtering, spittle flying and gnashing of teeth is nearly off the charts. Of course the unspoken reason for the violent reactions is that fighting the make believe "gay agenda" is a huge cash cow for the Christianist organizations and if gays ever become accepted as main stream, many of the professional gay haters will be unemployed. Jeremy Hooper at Good As You has a great run down of the hyperventilating:

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Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America: “Mr. Cizik claimed that his views are five years ahead of his constituency, but these views are not anywhere close to Biblical orthodoxy, traditional Christian theology nor the bulk of Evangelicals who ground their faith in the Bible. Perhaps this is why he espouses them in forums to which most of his supposed 'constituency' do not listen.”

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Janice Shaw Crouse, Director and Senior Fellow of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute: “The NAE consists of 45,000 churches, 50 denominations and 30 million constituents. I cannot believe that they are happy to have a spokesperson, who supposedly represents them, expressing views that are contrary to Biblical authority and contradict theological orthodoxy. I think, perhaps, my dear friend Rich has been inside the Beltway for too long and has swallowed too much of the NPR and Vogue Magazine Kool-Aid.”

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AFA: "Many have tried for years to get the NAE to drop Rev. Cizik, but the NAE has refused to do so. Churches have a right to know how the money they give to NAE is used."

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Ingrid Schlueter, co-host of the nationally syndicated Crosstalk Radio Talk Show: "Richard Cizik seems more concerned about impressing NPR's liberal audience with his broad-mindedness than being faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ,” ... “As an adoptive parent of two children given life by their birth mothers, I find it abhorrent that Mr. Cizik would sanction Christian support for the most radically pro-abortion President in the history of the nation.”

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Family Research Council: "This revelation should not come as a surprise. This is the risk of walking through the green door of environmentalism and global warming - you risk being blinded by the green light and losing your sense of direction. How else can you explain enthusiastic support for what will probably be the nation's most pro-abortion, anti-family president in our nation's 232 year history?

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Cizik's real sin? That he has stopped drinking the Kool-Aid and is actually focusing on a truer version of the Christian message. The hater set is having none of it since hate and intolerance are their only Gods.

Christianists vs.Patient Rights

One would think that if an individual had religious beliefs - no matter how whacked out and self-absorbed - that they would simply change jobs if their legitimate, legal work duties required them to undertake actions that went counter to their alleged Medieval religious beliefs. But no, not the Christianists. They are attempting to have the Chimperator's anti-science, anti-rights of others cretin regime promulgate new rules that would punish health care providers that do not allow the religious fanatic set to disregard work requirements. These folks act more like the Taliban every day even as they lie, cheat, and shake down the unwary for money. As I had said many times before, with the Christianists, it's ALL about them. F*ck everyone else's rights. Their rights take priority over all others. They are, in my view, a shamelessly self-centered and disingenuous group who give Christianity an ever increasingly bad name. I continue to believe that unrestrained Christian fundamentalism is a clear and present danger to the nation and the individual rights of other citizens. Not surprisingly CWA and FRC support the regulations. Here are highlights from the Washington Post about the latest delusional Chimperator backed efforts to subvert the rights of most Americans and their doctors to make health care decisions:

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A Bush administration proposal aimed at protecting health-care workers who object to abortion, and to birth-control methods they consider tantamount to abortion, has escalated a bitter debate over the balance between religious freedom and patients' rights.

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The Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing a draft regulation that would deny federal funding to any hospital, clinic, health plan or other entity that does not accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in care that runs counter to their personal convictions, including providing birth-control pills, IUDs and the Plan B emergency contraceptive.

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There is also deep concern that the rule could have far-reaching, but less obvious, implications. Because of its wide scope and because it would -- apparently for the first time -- define abortion in a federal regulation as anything that affects a fertilized egg, the regulation could raise questions about a broad spectrum of scientific research and care, critics say.

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"This is causing a lot of distress," said one NIH researcher who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. "It's a redefinition of abortion that does not match any of the current medical definitions. It's ideologically based and not based on science and could interfere with the development of many new therapies to treat diseases." Since a copy of the document leaked earlier this month, outside advocates and scientists have voiced growing alarm that the regulation could inhibit research in areas including stem cells, infertility and even such unrelated fields as cancer.

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The most controversial section defines abortion as "any of the various procedures -- including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action -- that results in the termination of life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation." That definition would include most forms of hormonal birth control and the IUD, which most major medical groups believe do not constitute abortion because they primarily affect ovulation or fertilization and not an embryo once it has implanted in the womb.

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Cecile Richards of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America said, "At a time when access to health care is at an all-time low, the idea that the Bush administration would be creating more barriers is frankly incredible." The regulation could trump dozens of state laws that require health plans to cover birth control, pharmacists to fill prescriptions for contraceptives, and hospitals to offer emergency contraception to women who have been raped, critics said.

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Others said the rule could have additional implications, including justifying discrimination against gays, single women or others seeking health care.

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Can't we round these nutcases up and ship them to Afghanistan and Iran instead? They certainly share the same Taliban-like mindset and perhaps the two groups would exterminate each other.

Right Wing Coniptions Over Gay Marriage

Right Wing Watch has a good summary of the disingenuous fuming and pronouncements coming forth amongst the professional Christianist organizations now that gay marriages are legally occuring in California. As I have said many times I find it amazing how these alleged followers of Christ utterly ignore his message of love of neighbor and instead disseminate a non-stop message of hate and disparagement of others. The millions that they spend (i) paying themselves salaries for being full time anti-gay bigots and (ii) seeking to deny gays civil legal rights could be so much better used feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, and working to end injustice. This insane obsession with persecuting gays to me indicates that these folks - not us gays - are the ones with the deep-seated mental health issues. These folks truly need some serious mental health counseling and perhaps drug therapy as well. Here are some highlights:
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Last month, when the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage rights for gays and lesbians, the Right was typically apoplectic, unleashing everything from Nazi metaphors to warnings that the end of the world was near. In the weeks since, it doesn’t seem as if the Right has calmed down much and now that marriages have begun in the state, they have come out in force to rail against it and warn of dire consequences to come.
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While Concerned Women for America announced a Day of Prayer and Fasting in hopes that “our nation will return to the Biblical values on which she was founded,” others such as Biblical Family Advocates screeched that “California has slid off of its foundations into moral anarchy” and accused the court of mandating sin by allowing gays to “sodomize the entire culture”: "It is truly amazing that the homosexual community desired the government to get out of their bedroom and now they use the government to force their bedroom upon the general populace. They will not be satisfied until they have sodomized the entire culture, including the family, schools and even the church which should be a safe haven for children, not hedonistic indoctrination camps."

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Vision America’s Rick Scarborough, another professional homophobe who rakes in money hand over fist through his anti-gay rants and lies had this to say:

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Those who think the judicial assault on marriage won't affect them had better think again. It will impact on everything from adoption to public-school curriculum. Church-based agencies will be forced to place children with same-sex couples or get out of the adoption business. The schools will be required to teach that there's absolutely no difference between a family with a mommy and a daddy and one with two mommies, or two daddies." Scarborough urged the people of California and America to "resist this monumental evil."

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Meanwhile the Klan loving folks over at Family Research Council rant this disingenuous and alarmist ad:

Fundie Hate Orgasms

Not surprisingly the gay-haters over at Townhall.com and Concerned Women [Bitches] for America have jumped all over Obama’s open letter to the LGBT community and the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute program of vetting qualified LGBT citizen’s for executive branch appointments respectively. They are in such are in such a tizzy that they’ve just about wet themselves. Never mind the lunatic ideas of McCain’s endorser, John Hagee that I previously commented upon. First at Townhall.com we have Kevin McCullough making the following remarks about Obama, accompanied of course by a photo of him in African attire from a five nation tour in 2006 (http://kevinmccullough.townhall.com/blog/g/8b55fca3-cfe8-473f-9967-2144e6133bb7):

He has issued a written statement saying to the homosexual elite radicals that he will REPEAL the National Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). And that on the issue of redefining the institution by which ALL of society has been built upon he would allow state by state any jolly perverted idea or arrangement that can be signed into law to take place.

And of course merely saying that engaging in homosexual behavior is in fact unhealthy, detrimental and even deadly - would qualify as outright "homophobic" views in Obama's world. SO we can't teach Biblical sexuality... i.e. HEALTHY... only the gospel of condoms!

Obama supporters have tried to silence me claiming that he was never the radical activist for the homosexual lobby that I always knew him to be, but now he has proven me right - and his blinded sheep following him like lemmings over the edge of the cliff are now faced with a choice. A radical liberal activist (supporting homosexual behavior) who supports the most radical redefinition of the basic family structure in the history of the world... or John McCain.

Then there’s Matt Barber at CWA – why is it these women always seem to need a male spokesperson? – hyperventilating over the “homosexual agenda” of taking over the government. One would think their doctors would try harder to keep Barber, et al, taking their meds everyday since they are clearly delusional. Here are highlights from Barber’s rant (http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=68553):

Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues at Washington, DC-based Concerned Women for America, says the project puts to rest the notion that there is no "gay agenda." He says the homosexual lobby is committed to infiltrating the executive branch with people who define their identity based on changeable, sexually deviant behavior. "The ultimate goal, of course, being to have people who engage in these aberrant sexual behaviors in a position of power to influence public policy in such a way that they gain more power," he explains.

Members of the homosexual lobby have done a masterful job of equating their chosen, changeable sexual behavior with immutable characteristics such as skin color, says Barber. "They're comparing apples to oranges, of course, because they are not the same," he says of the homosexual lobby's attempt at comparison. "They have hijacked the language of the genuine civil rights movement and, as such, in corporations around the country and in various governmental entities are considered minorities worthy of special consideration and special rights in terms of hiring practices."

Barber says the idea that a declaration of immoral sexual behavior makes for a better resume and would be a key to landing a high-ranking government job is "frightening."

Of course what is truly frightening is that there are sheeple out there who take McCollough and Barber and those like them seriously. Worse yet, they are subjecting their children to a religious indoctrination that in my view equates to child abuse.