Fundamentalist "Christians" and Muslims: United in Anti-Gay Hatred

Pink News is reporting that the Islamic executioner responsible for having numerous men suspected of being gay thrown from rooftops of tall buildings has been captured by Iraqi security forces.  These horrific murders were motivated by ISIS' selective reading of the Koran which is not consistent with Islam during its golden age.  Back here in America, Right Wing Watch ("RWW") is reporting on the efforts of self-style fundamentalist Christian "leaders" to “re-horrify society about the sin of homosexuality."  Like their Islamic extremists counterparts, this effort is based on a selective reading of the Bible which transforms the Bible into a message of hatred.  Indeed, the only difference between the two groups is the degree of violence - at least so far - the "Christians" are willing to use against gay individuals.  As is the norm with these "Christians" mentioned by RWW, neither Linda Harvey nor Peter LaBarbera - both of who I have had email debates with in the past - have any legitimate credentials to qualify them as experts on sexuality, mental health or medical issues.  Both merely set up "ministries" that allow them to shrill for money while disseminating hatred.   Here are highlights from the Pink News piece:

Security forces in Iraq have captured a ISIS executioner who was notorious for homophobic murders.  Thousands of LGBT people have been displaced in Iraq and Syria, as the terrorist group known as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) continues to actively target and execute gay men. 

The terrorist group has taunted the West with a string of  ‘death to gays’ execution videos, showing men accused of homosexuality being thrown off buildings and pelted with stones.

One of the ISIS executioners who most aggressively targeted gay people was captured this week.  Abu Omer, a senior jihadi executioner known as ‘White Beard’, had ruled the city of Mosul with an iron fist until the city was retaken by security forces last year.  . . . . according to The Times, he was arrested on January 1 after officials were tipped off about his hiding place in the city.

Among the vicious attacks: ISIL has tied nooses around these men’s necks and dragged them behind trucks, burned them alive, thrown them off buildings and stoned them to death.

The report states: “ISIL has unleashed a reign of terror against civilians and vulnerable minorities living in areas it has seized, including barbarous violence against LGBTQ people.  “ISIL’s extreme ideology is interpreted by its followers to require the death penalty for those who engage in sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage, including same-sex sexual relations.”

Turning to the Right Wing Watch article, note how these parasitic American Taliban members repeat the lie that gays are sexual predators (most are, in fact, heterosexual men):

On a recent episode of her “Mission America” radio show, Linda Harvey interviewed fellow anti-LGBTQ activist Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality about the importance of working to “re-horrify” society about the sin of homosexuality.

The two lamented that homosexuality is now widely accepted in America, with Harvey voicing her alarm that it is even welcomed in public schools where “predators” are allowed to use LGBTQ clubs to target children for recruitment.

“So many of these groups are predators,” she said. “I believe that the homosexual clubs in schools are just red flags for predators. I think that they exist there as an audience to continue to fast track kids into the lifestyle, network with adults—I mean, who knows what goes on there.”

“How do we re-horrify people about the sin of homosexuality?” she wondered. “People are becoming so comfortable with this, even people on our side. We need to re-horrify them.” 

From my past interactions with both Harvey and LaBarbera, in my opinion, they are mentally unbalanced and might benefit from a mental health intervention. 

Rubio Suspends Campaign; GOP Doubles Down on Extremism

In the wake of Mitt Romney's 2012 loss to Barack Obama, conservative and Republican think tanks stressed the need for the GOP to remake itself and welcome a more diverse party base.  One of those tagged to represent the new face of the GOP was Marco Rubio.  That was then.  Now, the GOP base has become more racist and extreme and seemingly is headed in the opposite direction from what the 2012 post mortems said was need for the party's survival.  After losing badly to Donald Trump in Florida, Marco Rubio - once heralded as the GOP's savior - suspended his presidential campaign.  At the same time, GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is "thrilled" to be endorsed by Christofascist lunatics and hate group leader (and KKK affiliated) Tony Perkins has been yet again elected to the 2016 GOP platform committee.  Moderation and tolerance are dead in the GOP base.  First, these highlights from a piece in the Washington Post:

WEST MIANI - Years of carefully laid plans to repackage the Republican Party’s traditional ideas for a fast-changing country came crashing down here on Tuesday when Sen. Marco Rubio suspended his campaign for the presidency after a crippling defeat in his home-state primary.

Since Mitt Romney’s devastating loss in the 2012 presidential election, the Republican National Committee and leading voices at think tanks, editorial boards and Capitol Hill symposiums have charted a path back to the White House based on inclusive rhetoric and a focus on middle-class issues.

Nobody embodied that vision better than Rubio, a charismatic standard-bearer for conservative orthodoxy who readily embraced the proposals of the right’s elite thinkers. The Florida senator spoke urgently and eloquently about raising stagnant wages and eradicating poverty. He had an immigrant’s tale to match the rhetoric. And on foreign affairs, he was a passionate defender of the GOP’s hawkish tilt.

But Rubio’s once-promising candidacy, as well as the conservative reform movement’s playbook, was spectacularly undone by Donald Trump and his defiant politics of economic and ethnic grievance. The drift toward visceral populism became an all-consuming rush, leaving Rubio and others unable to adjust.

“The party finds itself catching up to its base. Those very elegant papers it published and conferences it held may have been good and smart, but they didn’t really matter,” said William J. Bennett, a conservative talk-show host and former education secretary in Ronald Reagan’s administration. “Instead, everyone who’s been prominent for the last 15 to 20 years finds themselves getting pushed out.”

Rubio’s fall comes weeks after others who advocated for conservative reforms, such as former Florida governor Jeb Bush and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, have dropped out of the race, and as the donors and institutions who have long supported hawkish policies on fiscal and foreign policies find themselves scrambling to hold onto the consensus that has shaped the GOP for decades.

For many of them, Trump represents a threat to the traditional order of the party and its platform. He does not support overhauling Social Security — a key plank for Romney and GOP congressional leaders — and he was a vocal critic of the 2003 invasion of Iraq in its aftermath, setting him apart from much of the party’s high command.

Whit Ayres, Rubio’s pollster, spent the last several years compiling data and published a book showing that Republicans could not afford to alienate minority voters, especially Hispanics, if they ever hope to retake the White House. Watching Rubio’s concession speech, Ayres was despondent. “After 2012, you thought we’d learned our lesson,” he said.

 While Trump is riding rough shod over supposed GOP reformers, the party and other candidates such as Ted Cruz are cozying up with some of the ugliest elements of the GOP's Christofascist base - the very element that has been the driving force in the party's succumbing to a swamp fever like insanity. A case in point: Tony Perkins - president of the hate group Family Research Council with KKK ties - has been elected to the GOP platform committee.  Here are highlights of Perkins' gloating via Joe My God:

We may not know who will be representing the GOP at the Republican National Convention, but I know one person who will be representing Louisiana — me! For the second time, I’ll be serving as a delegate for my home state when the Cleveland event gets underway July 18. Just as importantly, I’ve been elected by the delegation to serve on the Republican Platform Committee, which is where some of the most significant debates over the party’s core values occur.

In 2012, my role as a delegate gave me the opportunity to play a key role in amending the marriage plank, which led to the committee approving a much stronger version than 2008’s. We also tightened language on obscenity and pornography, protected conscience rights, explained how abortion hurts women, and supported the Second Amendment in D.C. And while the platform work is usually overshadowed by the pageantry of the broader convention, make no mistake: What happens over those two days could dramatically impact the direction of — not just the presidential campaign — but the entire Republican Party and the country.

Very scary stuff given Perkins' anti-gay, anti-woman, and anti-modernity agenda.  Just as scary as Perkins' election to the platform committee is Ted Cruz's embrace of Linda Harvey's endorsement.  For those unfamiliar with Harvey, the woman, in  my opinion, belongs in a mental institution.  Only among the Christofascists could someone with no credentials and it would seem a significant degree of mental imbalance become a successful social parasite.  Right Wing Watch looks at Cruz's self-prostitution to Linda Harvey.  Here are highlights:

Earlier this year, we reported that a handful of right-wing activists in Ohio, including anti-gay activist Linda Harvey of Mission America, had issued a press release announcing their support for Ted Cruz but that these endorsements had not been officially promoted or announced by the Cruz campaign.

That changed yesterday when the Cruz campaign "announced the endorsements of more than 30 key Ohio leaders, including clergy, elected officials, and activists," including three of the activists we highlighted in our original post: Harvey, Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values Action and Molly Smith of Cleveland Right to Life.   

In honor of the Cruz campaign's announcement, we decided to republish our earlier post in order to remind everyone just whom Cruz is embracing:  

Perhaps Harvey thinks that Cruz will be the president she has longed for who will issue “an Emancipation Proclamation … to free America from the tyranny of sodomy.”

Harvey, who is boycotting so many pro-LGBT businesses that she complains she is running out of places to shop, has just this year:

·        Claimed that efforts to combat bullying of LGBT young people amount to “sexual abuse.”

·        Said that gays “were not born this way, but created through sexual indoctrination” and now want to recruit kids in turn.

·        Worried that LGBT youth are possessed by “demonic spirits.”

·        Said that gay pride parades are signs of God’s impending judgment on America and “ought to be banned.”

·        Backed Jamaica’s law criminalizing homosexuality.

·     Said she actually loves gay people, but supporting gay rights is “the least compassionate, the meanest and most hateful thing you can do” because that will “accelerate and confirm this behavior in more and more people in our country.”’

Harvey has also advised parents not to let gay doctors or nurses treat their children, even when they’re hospitalized, and has insisted that “there is no proof that there’s ever anything like a gay, lesbian or bisexual or transgendered child, or teen or human.”

Anti-gay zealot and nutcase, Linda Harvey

Hate - A "Christian" Holiday Value

While most of the world remains focused on the hate and intolerance embodied by ISIS, here at home our domestic religious extremists are having a meltdown over the fact that fewer retailers are willing to engage in the hate and discrimination that are part and parcel with today"s "godly Christians" who are only happy when persecuting and making life Hell for others.  One such whining hate merchant is Linda Harvey, a self-anointed faux expert who pontificates on matters about which she has no  credentials.  Harvey has no legitimate employment and makes her living leading a "ministry" that does little other than condemn others and sow hate and discord and advocate for a Christian theocracy.  In a rant at World Net Daily, a/k/a Wing Nut Daily on this blog, provides a list of retailers who deserve our support this holiday shopping season.  Here are excerpts:

I stopped shopping at Macy’s in 2011 after learning about the retailer’s grossly unjust policy against women. Macy’s management said “yes” to a transsexual young man’s demand to change in the women’s dressing room and rejected a Christian employee’s attempt to block his inappropriate access, even firing her because of her principled actions. And Macy’s star balloons are now a regular feature of most “gay pride” parades.

Then there’s Target. Where to start? Selling “gay pride” T-shirts a few years back was bad enough, but Target is now “proudly standing” with homosexuals and cross-dressers who want to change America’s 1964 Civil Rights Act to add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” through what pro-family colleague Peter LaBarbera is calling the “Criminalizing Christianity Act.”
Joining Target in supporting this anti-American, pro-deviance legislation are Amazon, General Mills, Google, Facebook, Paypal, Levi-Strauss and others. Which brings us to another recent traitor, Wal-Mart. This one-time reliable backer of Judeo-Christian standards has gone to the dark side in a big way. Wal-Mart put pressure on the governors of Arkansas and Indiana to oppose religious freedom bills. Why would Wal-Mart side with sexual anarchists against the First Amendment liberties of all Americans to oppose homosexual behavior?

But their unfaithfulness doesn’t end there. Wal-Mart is now a financial backer of deviant “gay pride” parades. What happened to this company? Do not shop there, people!

If you’re thinking toys, avoid Mattel. They just created “Moschino Barbie” with an ad featuring a tragically feminized little boy who plays with Barbies, a wicked accommodation to the current gender-destructive culture.

And don’t get me started on the many in-your-face insults of JC Penney, like ads featuring homosexuals, even on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and choosing as a national spokesperson lesbian Ellen DeGeneres. Did they plan to be so purposely offensive? Seems to be the case.

One has to wonder how someone becomes as seemingly mentally imbalanced and obsessed as Harvey.  One of my guides is to shop at the retailers Harvey condemns and boycott any retailer that Harvey supports.  If you decide to boycott a retailer or support a retailer as the case may be, please take the time to tell them why they have lost your business or gained it as applicable.  Here's a more complete list of retailers Harvey condemns:

Best Buy, Abercrombie & Fitch, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, CVS, Dell, DIRECTV, E-Bay, Ford Motor Co., The Gap (includes Old Navy and Banana Republic), General Motors, Hallmark, Home Depot, IKEA, JC Penney, Levi-Strauss & Co., Macy’s, Mattel, Nationwide, Nike, Nissan, Nordstrom, Office Depot, Staples, Starbuck’s, Target, TJX Companies ( owns TJ Maxx and Marshall’s), Volkswagen and Walgreen’s.

State laws regarding same-sex marriage in the United States¹

---

  Same-sex marriage legal

  Same-sex marriage performed elsewhere recognized

  Same-sex marriage legalization pending, but not yet in effect²

  No prohibition or recognition of same-sex marriage in territory law

  Judicial ruling(s) overturning the same-sex marriage ban stayed indefinitely pending appeal

  Judicial ruling(s) overturning the ban on recognizing same-sex marriage performed elsewhere stayed indefinitely pending appeal

  Same-sex marriage banned contrary to federal appellate court precedent

  Same-sex marriage banned

If you are having a hard time keeping up with the dizzying pace of change on the same sex marriage over the past week - no one could have expected what's occurred this time just last week - the New York Times has a good summary that can be found here with the latest updates.  The image above is the latest revised version of marriage equality from Wikipedia.  For Virginia readers, here's the part of the piece that applies to Virginia:

Gov. Terry McAuliffe on Friday was set to join the list of high-ranking American officials presiding at a same-sex wedding. Gay marriage has been legal in Virginia for only five days.

Mr. McAuliffe, who campaigned in support of same-sex marriage last fall, was scheduled to officiate at the marriage of Katherine Bradley-Black, 44, and Renée Bradley, 50, at their home in Northern Virginia.

The women, both education administrators whom Mr. McAuliffe met through a mutual friend, have been together for 18 years and have two children, ages 12 and 8. They are among the scores of couples who have snapped up marriages certificates since the Supreme Court order on Monday.

Elections DO matter - one can just imagine the chaos that would be reigning in Virginia right now had Ken Cuccinelli  won the governorship last November.

Meanwhile, the Christofascists are  beside themselves and calling for massive "civil disobedience" akin to Virginia's "Massive Resistance" after the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation - in my view, scratch a homophobe and you'll likely find a racist as well - and threatening to bolt from the Republican Party if the GOP doesn't stop same sex marriage.    They offer no explanation, of course, as to what the GOP is supposed to do since refusing to obey valid federal court orders would open up elected officials for removal from office.   Right Wing Watch has a compilation of the spittle flecked shrieks of the "godly folk."  Here are some examples:

Hate group leader Linda Harvey (who has no legitimate job and has been a parasite living off of homophobia for years) -

Linda Harvey of Mission America warned on her radio bulletin yesterday that America has entered “a time of possible civil disobedience” following the Supreme Court’s recent marriage equality announcement, telling listeners that “we must not serve the interests of sin and darkness” and “this court’s inaction is an act motivated by evil and deception and ultimately will not stand.”

“This is attempted theft of what God has ordained and our Lord will not honor this lawlessness,” Harvey said. “Allowing homosexuality to become normal in America may certainly be part of God’s judgment on our once-Christian nation for our irresponsible sexual practices and for turning our back on what the Lord has taught us.

Harvey hoped the court’s action will actually give a boost to the work of anti-gay activists

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel and dean of  Liberty University Laws School, a daily embarassment to Virginia, exemplifies the shrieks against the GOP.   Ironically, he says a third party is needed to fight gay marriage which he equates to slavery, even though he and his followers are the direct descendants of the pro-slavery crowd and segregationists -

Liberty Counsel founder Mat Staver, who is still reeling from the Supreme Court’s decision this week to allow several lower-court marriage equality rulings to stand, is now lambasting his fellow Republicans for failing to defend the party’s anti-gay positions.

Staver told Greg Corombos of Radio America yesterday that a third party will be needed to take a strong stance against the legalization of same-sex marriage, just as the Republican Party emerged in the 1850s to oppose slavery as the Whigs were foundering due to divisions on the issue.

When Corombos asked why Republicans have delivered a muted response to the marriage decision, Staver didn’t hold back: “They’re cowards, and if Republicans don’t stand up for this, the party will become a non-issue and there will be a third party that will ultimately take its place. That’s what happened with the issue of slavery and there’s no party that’s immune from this situation.”

Staver urged Republicans to ignore polls showing growing support for marriage equality: “Just because polls change, that doesn’t make the marriage issue change. You can’t change gravity because a number of people want to fly and get rid of gravity.”

He predicted that the tide will soon turn against gay rights advocates as “more people feel the impact of same-sex marriage, both directly within the family but also specifically with regards to religious liberty.”

I have long considered Staver to be mentally imbalanced and way too hysterical about gays for someone who doesn't have serious issues of their own.

Linda Harvey: Today's Face of Hate

The "godly Christians" always claim that they are loving and love everyone even as their words and actions tell a very different story.  Time and time again the take away is that these people hate nearly everyone - or at least everyone who isn't a white, heterosexual conservative Christian.  With their losses mounting in the culture wars these folks are becoming more and more shrill as they see their influence dwindling and, perhaps more importantly, their ability to prey on the ignorant and gullible becoming more difficult which represents a direct threat to their livelihood.  Jeremy Hooper looks at the vitriol being spewed by hate group leader Linda Harvey who never seems to have enough foul things to say about gays:

It's very interesting to watch the anti-LGBT activists process their crushing losses and impending political irrelevancy. Some are in deep denial. Some are viciously angry. Some are scheming whatever minor way they can chip away at progress, hoping to at least stay in business for a few more years. 

Others have moved away from trying to save us from ourselves and are now moving on to "protecting the innocent" from the "wolves" 

We may be moving from a time where our biggest challenge was to witness to homosexuals, into a time where our biggest task is to protect the innocent from them. There are exceptions, of course, and I count on all my fellow believers to have the discernment to recognize those opportunities. But what greatly grieves me is that so few see the need for protection that is clearly before us. Too often the approach is to have no fear as we toss our children out in the world with no defense.

Well, the wolves are ready for them. Let’s hope there’s still time to pull them back inside before it’s too late.

—Anti-LGBT activist Linda Harvey, who has coupled this revelation with her twelve reasons why LGBT people are terrible

The real wolves are the shysters like Harvey who have zero legitimate credentials to back up their claimed expertise and use claimed religiosity the shakedown the gullible for money.  Harvey hasn't worked a real job in years and is in actuality little better than a leech on society.

Hate Group Leader Says Homeless LGBT Teens HaveOnly Themselves to bBame

Linda Harvey - the face of hate

Mission America - Linda Harvey's (Harvey is pictured at left) cottage industry hate group - is among the foulest of the stridently anti-gay groups one will find.  Harvey herself pontificates on topics about which she knows nothing and for which she has absolutely ZERO credentials.  To say that the woman is a douche bag would be unduly gracious.  Hate, bigotry and fear mongering are her stock in trade and she and Renew America are proof as to why there needs to be much closer scrutiny by the IRS of supposed "ministries" and far right "charitable" organizations.  No taxpayer should have to indirectly subsidize the lies and filth these groups disseminate.   As noted before on this blog, some 40% of homeless youth are from the LGBT community, may thrown out by their "godly Christian" parents.   Now, Harvey is maintaining that homeless youth have no one but themselves to blame for their homelessness;  Here are details from Gay Star News:

Mission America anti-gay author has made the extraordinary claim that homeless young LGBTI people only have themselves to blame for their homelessness – blaming them for running away from homophobic parents.

‘”Kids are kicked out of their homes just for being who they are,” is how the saying goes,’ Harvey said in a radio clip uncovered by RightWingWatch.org.

‘Well let me offer another possibility that I’ve heard far too often: a parent learns that a son or daughter is claiming to be gay but an underage child still lives at home, so the now-heartbroken parent puts new restrictions on some of the activities like for instance, the teen is no longer going to be having sleepovers with that same-sex friend, or if the friend is a college student or has an apartment, visits over there will not be permitted.

‘What does the teen do? It may become a fight where the teen storms out by choice and leaves voluntarily because the homosexual relationship is more important than that of his or her parents. And when that all-important relationship ends, the teen is too stubborn or already too-involved in alcohol or drugs or the premature independence of the homosexual life and he or she would rather drift than return home.’

Harvey has in the past said that gay people are just heterosexuals who are in denial, that they are not people, that they try to absorb other people’s personalities and that anti-bullying programs aimed at protecting LGBTI young people turn kids gay. 

Note how Harvey throws in the line about gays being hooked on drugs and alcohol in keeping with her past efforts to depict gays as promiscuous alcoholics and drug addicts.  The woman is worse than excrement.  I truly wonder at times what a detailed psychological profile of Harvey would reveal.  Mental illness is about the only explanation I can arrive at for her batshitery.