Trump's Actions and Christofascist Rants Undercut Alleged Push to Decriminalize Homosexuality

Trump and homo-con, Richard Grenell who
announced the alleged decriminalization effort.

Not to sound like a broken record, but evidence continues to suggest that the alleged Trump/Pence regime to decriminalize homosexuality is little more than a charade aimed at harassing Iran on human rights issues, yet ignore the murder of gays in Saudi Arabia.  A piece in OutinJersey reminds us of the Trump/Pence regime's anti-LGBT agenda, an agenda seemingly at odds with the effort first reported earlier this week.  Meanwhile, the Christofascists are beginning to rant against the alleged effort to decriminalize homosexuality which they are maligning as "cultural imperialism" even though the very same Christofascists groups have worked diligently to foster anti-LGBT attitudes in Africa and elsewhere.  First, this reminder of Trump's anti-gay agenda:

Two years into the presidency of Donald Trump [regime], one thing has become abundantly clear: his statement declaring that he would be a friend to the LGBT community was categorically and undeniably false. In 2018, Trump did plenty to stack the deck against members of the LGBT community. He pushed to ban transgender soldiers and sailors from serving in the military and created a Religious Freedom task force, Trump wasted little time in dismantling the rights earned by the LGBT community in order to appease his most ardent followers.

The biggest 2018 effort from Trump has been the banning of transgender men and women from serving in the military. . . . .Former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis rolled out an implementation plan in March. It would have forcefully discharged those who were diagnosed with either “gender dysphoria” or had undergone a “gender transition,” including received hormones or gender confirmation therapy.

On the religious liberty front, anti-LGBT activists have stepped up their attacks on LGBT rights, seemingly emboldened by the Supreme Court decision that sided with Masterpiece Bake Shop in denying a same-sex couple a wedding cake. The rallying cry for these anti-LGBT activists is that religious “freedoms” are being infringed upon or imperiled by having to treat members of the LGBT community as equals, especially when it comes to supplying services or goods.

On July 30th, former Attorney Jeff Sessions, an outspoken opponent of LGBT rights, announced the task force’s formation. The task force would enforce a 2017 Department of Justice memo that ordered federal agencies to take the broadest interpretation of “religious liberty” when enforcing federal law. This would include prohibiting the IRS from taking away the tax-exempt status of any religious organization that lobbied on behalf of a political candidate, something not allowed by the Johnson Amendment. Sessions said the task force was necessary to stop secularism.

Though the task force will only enforce the memo’s guidelines, Session used his moment at the podium to paint a picture of America as a Christian nation under attack. The message was clear, and a continuation of the perverse rhetoric of the Trump campaign, using the federal government as a way to preserve and protect Christian America.

As for the Christofascists' conniption fit over any effort to decriminalize homosexuality, a press release issued by Family Research Council, a leading anti-gay, extremist "Christian" hate group sums up the push back very well.  Here are excerpts:

An “exclusive report” from NBC News said, “The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality.” There’s just one problem – besides the ambassador, it doesn’t seem that President Trump – or anyone else in the administration – authorized this “campaign.”

For the last eight years, President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton bludgeoned foreign capitals with “diplomacy” designed to advance an LGBT agenda around the world and in the United Nations — doing damage to our relations with many countries as a result. The Trump administration should be ending such efforts, not making them a priority.

As our own Travis Weber points out, some may try to argue that protecting LGBT rights is a way of protecting human rights. Yet this misleadingly implies “that same-sex-attracted and transgendered persons do not currently enjoy human rights protections.”

According to NBC, there are eight countries which permit the death penalty for homosexuality — most of them also known as abusers of religious freedom and other rights, and supporters of terrorism.

An end to those laws, and other physical punishments such as flogging, is a legitimate goal. Let’s find common ground in calling for an end to all forms of physical violence against homosexuals — but refrain from imposing the values of the sexual revolution on the rest of the world.

The hypocrisy of FRC is stunning.  It pushes to for a license Christofascists to openly discriminate against LGBT individuals, including firing them from their jobs, denying housing and accommodations, and, of course, baking them a cake.  FRC may not be advocating for our murder, but he and his organization want to make our lives a living hell. 

 .  

Trump Regime Votes Against UN Resolution Condemning Death Penalty for Gays

You are not reading the title of this post incorrectly.  Since his inauguration, Der Trumpenführer and his fellow extremist, Mike Pence, having been waging war against the LGBT community, particularly those who are transgender.  Now, that war is seemingly going international and seeking to reverse U.S. positions put in place under the Obama administration.  It goes without saying that the Christofascists who comprise Trump's core base (along with white supremacists) are thrilled.  As are Islamic extremists and the brutal leaders of Saudi Arabia, America's false ally which is the principal financier of Islamic extremism worldwide. The Washington Blade looks at this disturbing development.  Here are highlights:

The U.S. on Sept. 29 voted against a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution that condemns the death penalty for those found guilty of committing consensual same-sex sexual acts.

The resolution — which Belgium, Benin, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia and Switzerland introduced — passed by a 27-13 vote margin.

Congo, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa, Togo, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Slovenia, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama, Paraguay, Venezuela, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and the U.K. supported the resolution. Botswana, Burundi, Egypt, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates joined the U.S. in opposing it.

The resolution specifically condemns “the imposition of the death penalty as a sanction for specific forms of conduct, such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations” and expresses “serious concern that the application of the death penalty for adultery is disproportionately imposed on women.” It also notes “poor and economically vulnerable persons and foreign nationals are disproportionately subjected to the death penalty, that laws carrying the death penalty are used against persons exercising their rights to freedom of expression, thought, conscience, religion, and peaceful assembly and association, and that persons belonging to religious or ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented among those sentenced to the death penalty.” Iran, Saudi Arabia, Mauritania and Sudan are among the handful of countries in which consensual same-sex sexual activity remains punishable by death. The so-called Islamic State has executed dozens of men in Iraq, Syria and Libya who were accused of committing sodomy.

“It is unconscionable to think that there are hundreds of millions of people living in states where somebody may be executed simply because of whom they love” said ILGA Executive Director Renato Sabbadini in a press release, referring to the resolution. “This is a monumental moment where the international community has publicly highlighted that these horrific laws simply must end.”

Trump traveled to Saudi Arabia in May. He made no mention that consensual same-sex sexual relations remain punishable by death in the kingdom in a speech he gave in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.

Trump has also not publicly commented on the ongoing crackdown against LGBT Chechens.

The U.S. and 24 other countries in 2014 voted for a resolution against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender the U.N. Human Rights Council adopted. The body in 2011 narrowly approved a resolution in support of LGBT rights that South Africa introduced.

This is what my "friends" who voted for Trump are supporting whether they want to be honest with themselves or not.  Disgusting!

Pope Francis And The Right-Wing Bubble

While Pope Francis has yet to do anything to change the Roman Catholic Church's anti-gay, anti-women, and sex obsessed dogma - much of which traces back to the 13th century - it is nonetheless most entertaining to see him making pin pricks to the GOP bubble that is (i) tethered from objective reality, and (ii) mostly in direct contradiction to the Gospel message.  A piece in  Salon looks at the phenomenon. Here are excerpts:

Despite all the talk that Pope Francis’ address to Congress wouldn’t be political or partisan, it turns out it was both. And, as I predicted here in Salon, it definitely leaned to one side of the aisle. In fact, if you were a conservative Republican, Thursday morning in the Congress was not your finest moment, as Pope Francis laid bare all the ways that the Republican agenda counters Catholic social teaching, from its harsh treatment of immigrants to its fossil fuel-burning disdain for the natural world.

And Francis’ call for politicians to work for the common good was an implicit rebuke to the do-nothing, obstructionist GOP agenda that’s in service to their corporatist, Chamber of Commerce overlords.
Here are the five key moments in Francis’ speech that made conservatives squirm more than any others:

The shout-out to Dorothy Day. Francis commended four Americans in particular, whom he held up as examples of pursuing the common good: Abraham Lincoln, for his pursuit of liberty; Martin Luther King Jr., for his commitment to nonviolence and pluralism; Trappist monk Thomas Merton, for his commitment to dialogue and peace; and Dorothy Day, for her “social activism, her passion for justice and for the cause of the oppressed.” . . . None of them are exactly conservative, but Day in particular is noted as a radical social activist. . . . Day was outspoken in her support of pacifism and labor rights.

 The abortion switcheroo. In defiance of the specific guidance not to try to score political points by clapping at partisan applause lines in Francis’ speech, congressional conservatives leapt to their feet the moment Francis delivered the Vatican’s standard coded language about abortion, mentioning “our responsibility to protect and defend human life at every stage of its development.” Imagine their shock when he immediately followed that with, “This conviction had led me, from the beginning of my ministry, to advocate at different levels for the global abolition of the death penalty.” Psych.

Calling arms deals “money drenched in blood.” Speaking of death, what about all those arms deals the Republicans are so fond of? Francis wanted to know who is selling the bad guys all these weapons and why: “Why are deadly weapons being sold to those who plan to inflict untold suffering on individuals and society?” The answer, according to the pontiff, is “money: money that is drenched in blood, often innocent blood. In the face of this shameful and culpable silence, it is our duty to confront the problem and to stop the arms trade.” I’m sure the GOP and all the defense contractors who give them money will get right on that.

Reminding the GOP we’re all foreigners. As in his speech at the White House on Tuesday, Francis felt the need to once again remind those who are making intolerance toward immigrants their political stock-in-trade that they, like him, are likely the descendants of immigrant families.
In one of the most moving passages of his speech, Francis said, “Let us seek for others the same possibilities which we seek for ourselves. Let us help others to grow, as we would like to be helped ourselves. In a word, if we want security, let us give security; if we want life, let us give life; if we want opportunities, let us provide opportunities.”

Confronting the climate naysayers. Francis made it clear that combating climate change, development and technology can coexist. He explicitly rebuked many conservative critics of his climate change encyclical “Laudato si,” who claim that he is anti-commerce and wants to stifle development or reduce the world to subsistence-level farming to stop climate change. “The right use of natural resources, the proper application of technology and the harnessing of the spirit of enterprise are essential elements of an economy which seeks to be modern, inclusive and sustainable,” he said, adding, “In this regard, I am confident that America’s outstanding academic and research institutions can make a vital contribution in the years ahead.”

On the plus for conservatives side, Francis did talk about the need for “the voice of faith to continue to be heard,” but in the case of this particular voice, conservatives probably wish he would just be quiet.

Accused in Case Scalia Used to Justify Death Penalty Proved Innocent

I did not intend to rightfully bash Antonin Scalia twice in one day, but a reader sent me a link to a column in the Miami Herald that takes Scalia to task for his bigotry and certainty over a death penalty case.  Indeed, Scalia used the supposed facts of the case to justify the death penalty.  The only problem is that in the meantime, DNA tests have proven that the alleged rapist and murderer was innocent.  It's yet another case of Scalia being dead wrong and more motivated by his own prejudices than facts and questionable prosecutions.  Here are column highlights:

To the Honorable Antonin G. Scalia, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States:

Dear Sir:

Twenty-one years ago, your then-colleague, the late Justice Harry Blackmun, wrote what became a famous dissent to a Supreme Court decision not to review a Texas death-penalty conviction.

You mocked him for this stance in an opinion concurring with the majority, invoking as justification for capital punishment the horrific 1983 case of an 11-year-old girl who was raped then killed by having her panties stuffed down her throat. “How enviable a quiet death by lethal injection,” you wrote, “compared with that!”

A few months later, the very case you had referenced came before the court. Henry Lee McCollum, a mentally disabled man who was on death row in North Carolina after having been convicted of that rape and murder, applied to the court for a review of his case. You were part of the majority that rejected the request without comment.

The demagoguery of your response to Justice Blackmun is pretty standard for proponents of state-sanctioned death. Rather than contend with the many logical and irrefutable arguments against capital punishment, they use a brute-force appeal to emotion.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article23877205.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article23877205.html#storylink=cpy

As you have doubtless heard, it now turns out McCollum was innocent of that crime. Last year, he and his also mentally disabled half-brother Leon Brown (who had been serving a life sentence) were exonerated by DNA evidence and set free.   A few days ago, McCollum was pardoned by North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory.

The case against him was never what you’d call ironclad. No physical evidence tied him to the crime. The centerpiece of the prosecution’s case was a confession McCollum, then a 19-year-old said to have the mentality of a child 10 years younger, gave with no lawyer present after five hours of questioning. 

“I had never been under this much pressure,” he told the News & Observer newspaper in a videotaped death row interview, “with a person hollering at me and threatening me...I just made up a false story so they could let me go home.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article23877205.html#storylink=cpy

You and your colleagues had a chance to intervene in that injustice and chose not to. Not incidentally, the real culprit avoided accountability all that time.

The argument against the death penalty will never have the visceral, immediate emotionalism of the argument in favor. It does not satisfy that instinctive human need to make somebody pay — now! — when something bad has been done. Rather, it turns on quieter concerns, issues of inherent racial, class, geographic and gender bias, issues of corner-cutting cops and ineffective counsel, and issues of irrevocability, the fact that, once imposed, death cannot be undone.

Those issues were easy for you to ignore in mocking Blackmun. They are always easy to ignore, right up until the moment they are not.

This is one of those moments, sir, and it raises a simple and obvious question to which one would hope you feel honor-bound to respond. In 1994, you used this case as a symbol of why we need the death penalty.  What do you think it symbolizes now?

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article23877205.html#storylink=cpy

Personally, I despise Scalia.  He is symptomatic of what is wrong with much of the judiciary.  Judges are supposed to be unbiased and, if unable to be unbiased and objective, they are to recuse themselves from the case.  Scalia is ALWAYS biased and has prejudged cases before hand based on his sole based on his own prejudices and preconceptions.  The prospects of a fair trial - or appeal in the case of the U.S. Supreme Court - is impossible with judges and justices like Scalia and his dimwitted cohort, Clarence Thomas. Both need to be removed from the Court.  Kudos to Leonard Pitts for this much needed column. 

Where Imprisonment or Death For Blasphemy Is The Norm

As people continue to feel revulsion over the murders in Paris motivated by Islamic extremism and , in the case of the victims at Charlie Hebdo, sick outrage for perceived blasphemy, many are missing the point that the laws in far too many countries make blasphemy a crime and in some instances, a capital offense.   Such laws make the murders in Paris "justified" in the minds of religious extremists.  Equally disturbing is the fact that a number of the countries enforcing such laws are U.S. allies and/or recipients of large amounts of U.S. aid.  Thus, the U.S. needs to be demanding that such laws be eliminated and those imprisoned for blasphemy be released.  A prime example is the plight of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, age 30 (pictured above), sentenced to 1,000 lashes and ten (10) years in prison.  Why the Hell is America supporting such a foul regime?  In a word, oil.  In short, America is only too ready to prostitute its values.   Al-akhbar.com has details:

US-ally Saudi Arabia flogs liberal activist Raif Badawi in public Friday near a mosque in the Red Sea city of Jeddah, receiving 50 lashes for "insulting Islam," witnesses said.

Badawi, 30, was arrested in June 2012 and charged with offenses ranging from cyber crime to disobeying his father and apostasy, or abandoning his faith.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, a fine of 1 million Saudi riyals ($266,666) and 1,000 lashes last year after prosecutors challenged an earlier sentence of seven years and 600 lashes as being too lenient.

Witnesses said that Badawi was flogged after the weekly Friday prayers near Al-Jafali mosque as a crowd of worshipers looked on.

Badawi was driven to the site in a police car, and taken out of the vehicle as a government employee read out the charges against him to the crowd.

The blogger was made to stand with his back to onlookers as another man began flogging him, witnesses said, adding that Badawi did not make any sound or cry in pain.

The faithful who had emerged from noon prayers watched in silence and were ordered by security forces not to take any pictures on their mobile phones.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said the punishment was "barbaric" and noted its timing after Saudi Arabia condemned Wednesday's deadly attack on French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

"Although Saudi Arabia condemned yesterday's cowardly attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, it is now preparing to inflict the most barbaric punishment on a citizen who just used his freedom of expression and information," Reporters Without Borders program director Lucie Morillon said Thursday.

Badawi, who has been in jail since 2012, is a "prisoner of conscience", said London-based Amnesty International, demanding his release.

Badawi is the co-founder of the Saudi Liberal Network along with women's rights campaigner Suad al-Shammari, who was arrested last October and also accused of "insulting Islam."

"Flogging and other forms of corporal punishment are prohibited under international law, which prohibits torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment," said Amnesty's Philip Luther.

Saudi Arabia's legal code follows a medieval version of Sharia law. Judges are trained as religious scholars and have a broad scope to base verdicts and sentences on their own interpretation of religious texts.

But the problem extends far beyond Saudi Arabia.  Here are highlights from an article in Slate that looks at government sanctioned murder or imprisonment for blasphemy:

The Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris this week was uniquely horrific. But in one way, it was not that unusual: Violent acts in response to “blasphemy” are unfortunately pretty common. They’re just usually perpetrated by governments.

In a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, UCLA law professor Amjad Mahmood Khan argues that Pakistan’s absurdly broad blasphemy laws—under which any “imputation, innuendo, or insinuation” that “directly or indirectly defiles the sacred name of Prophet Muhammad” is outlawed and in some cases punishable by death—have not only led to the arrest of thousands of individuals for crimes as trivial as wearing an Islamic slogan on a T-shirt, but “provide legal cover for terrorists to commit atrocities in the name of protecting Islam’s integrity based on their warped view of the faith.” This includes the mass killings of members of minority sects like the Ahmadis, who are forbidden by law from calling themselves Muslims and frequently charged under blasphemy laws, as well as attacks on Christians. 

Blasphemy laws are harshest and most common in the Muslim world, but aren’t exclusive to it. In the wake of Pussy Riot’s church performance, Russia’s parliament passed a new law mandating jail terms for insults to religion. Nearly a quarter of the world’s countries have blasphemy laws on their books, according to Pew, and one out of 10 bans apostasy. The Charlie Hebdo killings have already prompted some Western governments, notably Ireland and Canada, to announce that they will reconsider the blasphemy laws on their books. But in much of the world, governments, not terrorists, will continue to be the biggest threat to freedom of and from religion.

In the movie "Latter Days" a character asks the Mormon missionaries the following question: "How come if God talks to Joseph Smith, Smith gets to be a prophet, but if God talks to me, I'm a schizophrenic?"   Sadly, the same question applies to the Quran and Muhammad who wrote it based on claimed verbal communications through the angel Gabriel.  Was Muhammad truly a prophet or merely a schizophrenic con man?  I suspect readers know my answer.

Judge Vacates Conviction in 1944 Execution of 14 Year Old Black Youth

If one wonders why blacks in America do not trust the American criminal justice system - and why police induced "confessions" should always be suspect - look no farther than the case of 14-year-old George J. Stinney Jr., who was executed in South Carolina.  Stinney is the youngest American ever executed and when one looks at the "trial" he received, it quickly takes on the appearance of a legalized lynching.  No doubt, "godly" white folks pushed for his conviction and applauded his execution.  After all, since he was black, in their minds, it's not as if he were human, right?  Sadly, that mindset is alive and well in the South and seemingly many police departments in America.  The New York Times looks at the vacating of Stinney's kangaroo court conviction.  Here are excerpts:

Calling it a “great and fundamental injustice,” a South Carolina judge on Wednesday vacated the 1944 murder conviction of 14-year-old George J. Stinney Jr., the youngest person executed in the United States in the last century.

Judge Carmen T. Mullen of Circuit Court did not rule that the conviction of Mr. Stinney for the murder of two white girls in the town of Alcolu was wrong on the merits. She did find, however, that the prosecution had failed in numerous ways to safeguard the constitutional rights of Mr. Stinney, who was black, from the time he was taken into custody until his death by electrocution.

The all-white jury could not be considered a jury of the teenager’s peers, Judge Mullen ruled, and his court-appointed attorney did “little to nothing” to defend him. His confession was most likely coerced and unreliable, she added, “due to the power differential between his position as a 14-year-old black male apprehended and questioned by white, uniformed law enforcement in a small, segregated mill town in South Carolina.”

The order was a rare application of coram nobis, a legal remedy that can be used only when a conviction was based on an error of fact or unfairly obtained in a fundamental way and when all other remedies have been exhausted.

Two white men who had helped search for the girls also testified, and a cellmate of Mr. Stinney’s recounted conversations in which Mr. Stinney said he was innocent and had been made to confess. Less than three months passed between the murder and the execution; the trial and sentencing took less than a day.

Some of the problems of due process highlighted in the ruling were not rare in the Jim Crow South.

Yet another less than proud legacy of the South.

The Republican Culture of Death

We constantly hear Republicans and far right talking heads making outrageous claims about Obama death panels and the liberal left supporting a culture of death.  Truth be told, however, it is the Republican Party and its Christofacist/Tea Party base that is the real force behind a culture of death.  Why? Because many aspects of the GOP platform lead to unnecessary and otherwise avoidable deaths.  All the sanctimonious claims of "respecting life" will not wash away the blood on the hands of these people as they oppose health care expansion for the poor and unfortunate, seek horrific cuts to food stamps, throw unemployed workers to the gutter, and push for unrestricted gun ownership that results in avoidable gun related deaths virtually every single day.  A piece in the Loudoun Progress looks at this reality.  Here are highlights:

When is it okay to start talking about the fact that Republican policies actually kill people?
The most obvious example is Republican support for our government killing people, explicitly and in cold blood. That’s what the death penalty is. State sanctioned killing of a citizen in cold blood. Regardless of your position on the morality or constitutionality of the death penalty, it is, quite simply, support for state-sanctioned death. And as an example of the bedrock principle for Republicans that the state should be allowed to kill its citizens, there is no better example.

How about Republican’s opposition to reasonable gun safety legislation? To the point of actively repealing gun safety legislation already in place when they take control of a state? Did you know that Missouri repealed background checks for gun purchases recently? And when it did, gun murders went up 25%?  “Hey, this legislation will cause more people to be violently murdered!”  “Great, let’s do it!”

Or the 17,000 women who will die because Republican-controlled states refuse to expand Medicaid?

“We calculated the number and characteristics of people who will remain uninsured as a result of their state’s opting out of the Medicaid expansion, and applied these figures to the known effects of insurance expansion from prior studies,” lead author Samuel Dickman said. “The results were sobering. Political decisions have consequences, some of them lethal.”

So again I ask, when can we start talking about the fact that Republican policy positions seem to revel in a culture of death?

Sadly, much of the mainstream media is too lazy to challenge members of the GOP on such issues and instead mere repeats their talking points as if they were true.  

Executions and Death Sentences - the USA Has Very Nasty Company

While Americans view themselves as religious and many in the far right wear their religiosity - feigned or real - on their sleeves, the USA is keeping company with some very nasty countries and regimes when it comes to executing prisoners and awarding death sentences. Amnesty International notes:

The United States stayed in its dubiously bad place on this fundamental human rights issue. The U.S. was the only country in the Western hemisphere or the G8 to kill its prisoners, and was responsible for the fifth most known executions in the world, behind China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq. (As an independent country, Texas would have ranked 7th, between North Korea and Somalia, with its 13 executions in 2011.)

To me, this expansive use of the death penalty underscores the hypocrisy of the Christianist supporters of executions. It also makes one wonder why Europe (which is so much maligned by the far right in this nation) generally has a far lower crime rate, far fewer guns in circulation and has nowhere the USA's need for the death penalty. Obviously, none of this speaks well about America.

Quote of the Day: Andrew Sullivan on Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum

Andrew Sullivan nicely sums up the disconnect between supposed religious beliefs and actions/policies advocated by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. In truth, the criticism applies equally to Romney and to Ron Paul. The hypocrisy and actual moral bankruptcy extends, of course, far beyond these men to the Christian extremists who are supporting them and make up much of the GOP base as well:

We hear constantly about the evils of contraception and gays and an alleged "war on religion" from the two Catholic presidential candidates. And yet both of them support torture of terror suspects; and both were ardent supporters of the Iraq war and want to deepen the one in Afghanistan as well as launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran. Both support the death penalty.

Time and time again we see the Bible picked over to selectively find passages that support a certain form of bigotry. The larger Gospel message of Christ is utterly and completely ignored. Christianity has become something ugly indeed.

Church, State and the Immoral World of Antonin Scalia

Over the years as he has been on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Antonin Scalia has, in my opinion, become nuttier and nuttier and displayed a growing inability to grasp the concept of separation of church and state - and to refrain from injection his personal religious views into court decisions where they do not belong. In short, he's become more and more of a Christianist who seeks to inflict his religious beliefs on all Americans. The irony is that while Scalia sees himself as Uber Catholic, his views (and those of the U. C. Catholic bishops) often make short shrift of true Catholic social teaching. Maureen Dowd has a column in the New York Times that gives Scalia an enjoyable to read smack down on his hypocrisy, pompousness and willingness to condone evil. Here are some highlights:

The church has aggressively meddled in politics on abortion, trying to defeat candidates who support abortion rights and prevent some liberal politicians from receiving Communion. But American bishops have been inconsistent in preaching their values.

They do not try to bring down politicians who supported the Iraq war, even though Pope John Paul II spoke out against it and sent a Vatican cardinal to warn W. that the war would be a “disaster” that would “destroy human life.” They do not express outrage at Republican audiences that cheer for executions, or target pols who brag on the death penalty, even though John Paul issued an encyclical against “the culture of death,” saying modern states have so many ways to protect citizens that the necessity for executions is “very rare, if not practically nonexistent.”

Scalia, confident in his own infallibility, dissented. As he wrote in a religious journal in 2002, he does not find the death penalty immoral, and he believes that as the “minister of God,” government has powers to get “revenge” and “execute wrath.” He’s clearly more an Old Testament guy than New, or he would know that some prisoners get falsely accused and nailed to the cross (Matthew 26:59-66).

Now Scalia has dissented from the opinion of a second pope on the issue. Pope Benedict sent Georgia state officials a letter last month asking for clemency for Troy Davis, but the very Catholic Supreme Court denied a last-minute stay of execution.

In his Duquesne speech, Scalia said: “If I thought that Catholic doctrine held the death penalty to be immoral, I would resign. I could not be a part of a system that imposes it.”

My family priest, Father Kevin O’Neil, teaches about “cooperation in evil” in Catholic moral theology. If you facilitate something that has been deemed wrong, like taking a human life, are you cooperating in evil? Maybe the Supreme Court should ask itself that question. Are you “cooperating in evil,” Justice Scalia?

The Death of Decency and Morality in the GOP

There are those who wonder how Germany sank to a point under Hitler and the Third Reich that many citizens not only knowingly but willingly closed their eyes to the extermination of Jews and the murder and mistreatment of many other minorities. Under the Nazi regime, through constant lies and propaganda political enemies and disliked minorities were dehumanized to an extent that their murder and torture was deemed morally acceptable by those drinking the Nazi Kool-Aid. Frighteningly, I feel that we are beginning to see a similar process among the Tea Party and GOP base, the vast majority of whom disturbingly claim to be "godly Christians." Twice now during the GOP presidential debates we have witnessed applause at statements that ought to make one cringe. Or at least cringe if one has a shred of decency and gives any credence to the Gospel message. The clip above shows the Tea Party/GOP response to a hypothetical where a 30 year old uninsured individual suffered from a medical catastrophe.

The Washington Post has a column that comments on this chilling episode as well as where the execution of a prisoner - who might have been innocent - came up. It's frightening in that I can see these Tea Party followers/Christianists willingly executing those they dislike, LGBT citizens and non-Christians, of course, topping the list. Here are highlights:

[W]e can now add this debate audience cheering for people dying without health insurance to the last GOP debate audience cheering for executions to our understanding of the current Republican Party.

[T]he GOP keeps spinning farther and farther from the general election median voter every week. And, in many cases, reality — do these folks really believe that the biggest economic problem today is runaway inflation? That Americans are desperate to rid themselves of Social Security? That policies enacted by Barack Obama and the Democrats in 2009 (whatever you think of those policies) caused a recession that began in 2007? That “exceptionalism” is the beginning and end of foreign policy?

Andrew Sullivan is rightfully shocked and appalled. Here are brief highlights from his reaction:

[T]hat cannot excuse the emotional response to the issue in the crowd last night. Maybe a tragedy like the death of a feckless twentysomething is inevitable if we are to restrain healthcare costs. But it is still a tragedy. It is not something a decent person cheers. Similarly the execution of hundreds, while perhaps defensible politically and even morally (although I differ), is nonetheless a brutal, awful business. You don't delight in it. And the same is true of torture. Even if you want to defend its use in limited circumstances, it remains an absolute evil, no humane person would want to do it, and no civilized person would brag of it or dismiss any moral issue with it at all. And yet that is what Dick Cheney and Liz Cheney have repeatedly done. They are positively proud of their torture record. The fish rotted from the head down. Last night, we got a whiff of the smell.

In my view, it is rapidly becoming morally impossible to remain a Republican if one has any moral decency and is a true Christian as opposed to the greed driven, flag and Bible waving modern day Pharisees of the Christian Right and the ranks of the professional Christian set.

Has Rick Perry Awakened Liberals and Progressives?panic fires up the left

As noted in many previous posts, Barack Obama has been a huge disappointment to me and many others who voted for him in 2008. Indeed, his re-election stratagem seems to boil down to a campaign based on the mantra "I'm not as bad as my opponent." Enter Rick Perry into the GOP presidential candidate field and the Obama approach seems to have been given much credence. Obama - despite his many failings - suddenly looks pretty good compared to Perry's scary insanity and frightening approach to government. And not unexpectedly, liberals and many in the Democratic Party base have been driven to panic at the thought of a Perry presidency. Politico looks at how Perry is energizing the left in general. Here are some highlights:

In his two weeks as a presidential candidate, Rick Perry has done something that neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney could do: wake up the left.

Perry panic has spread from the conference rooms of Washington, D.C., to the coffee shops of Brooklyn, with the realization that the conservative Texan could conceivably become the 45th president of the United States, a wave of alarm centering around Perry’s drawling, small-town affect and stands on core cultural issues such as women’s rights, gun control, the death penalty, and the separation of church and state.

The epidemic of lefty angst isn’t just a matter of specific Perry policies though; it goes to the heart of the liberal worldview. His smashing debut on the presidential stage suggests that the victory of an urban liberal Democrat, Barack Obama, wasn’t a step toward a more progressive nation, but just a leftward swing of an increasingly wild pendulum, now poised to rocket to the right.

[E]ven as the primary is fought on conservative turf, liberal leaders say they and their constituents see Perry as far worse than your average, hated Republican, and indeed as bad — if not worse — than his hated predecessor in Austin, George W. Bush. And progressives who might have had a hard time getting worked up about Mitt Romney find themselves struggling for superlatives with which to express their fear of a President Perry.

Barry Lynn, whose Americans United for Separation of Church and State is on the front lines of keeping religion out of public life, also labeled Perry an extreme figure. “He doesn’t just go to religious right gatherings — he creates religious right gatherings, and that’s a big difference,” he said, citing The Response, a 30,000-person event Perry led in Houston in early August.

Lynn said last week’s polls showing Perry in the lead among Republicans had startled his group’s supporters. “Any time there’s a very viable candidate who has taken on the mantle of a crusader for Christ and ignorer of the Constitution, that makes very many people who care about the real Constitution very nervous,” he said.

But Perry isn’t necessarily far outside the Republican mainstream in, for instance, his implacable opposition to taxes and abortion, or his support for religion in public life. His stated support for states rights might, in theory, make him less likely to intervene on social issues than some of his GOP rivals. . . . . Perry’s combination of policy, Southern style and an easy, unstudied adherence to contemporary religious and political conservative doctrine has put him beyond the reach even of some Democrats who sometimes cross the aisle.

“Whether he’s the nominee or not, he absolutely helps fire up our base,” said Jennifer Palmieri, president of the liberal Center for American Project Action Fund. “To the degree to which progressives are disaffected and unenthusiastic — this is their ‘holy sh**’ moment.”

Notre Dame Hypocrisy

I have not said too much about the continuing swirl of protests from the pedophile priest loving set at Notre Dame University that has its panties in a knot over Barack Obama's selection as the commencement speaker this year. These folk who worry only about children before they are born continue to brown nose and ass kiss the members of the Church hierarchy who deliberately covered up sexual abuse of minors and callously reassigned predator priests to new parishes. Equally bad, these folks had no apparent problem with welcoming the Chimperator to the campus even though the Catholic Church in theory opposes the death penalty which Bush authorized more than any other governor. At times I truly wonder how these Catholics got their heads so far up their own backsides that they cannot see the hypocrisy in their double standards. What is shocking about the Chimperator - as is brought out in a New York Review of Books column - is just how little he carried about those he was sending to to be executed. Or maybe it's not shocking coming from the man who took the nation to war in Iraq based on lies and who has responsibility on his hands for the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqi civilians. Here are some column highlights:

*

In the twenty-first century, a state governor represents the last vestige of the "divine right of kings," because he has absolute power over life and death—especially when such power is entrusted to politicians motivated more by expediency than by conscience. . . . All governors claim to agonize over death penalty decisions. All claim to scrutinize every possible angle of the cases of condemned persons facing execution under their watch.

*

George W. Bush during his six years as governor of Texas presided over 152 executions, more than any other governor in the recent history of the United States. Bush has said: "I take every death penalty case seriously and review each case carefully.... Each case is major because each case is life or death."

*

He might have succeeded in bequeathing to history this image of himself as a scrupulously fair-minded governor if the journalist Alan Berlow had not used the Public Information Act to gain access to fifty-seven confidential death penalty memos that Bush's legal counsel, Alberto R. Gonzales, whom President Bush has recently nominated to be attorney general of the United States, presented to him, usually on the very day of execution. The reports Gonzales presented could not be more cursory.
*

Take, for example, the case of Terry Washington, a mentally retarded man of thirty-three with the communication skills of a seven-year-old. Washington's plea for clemency came before Governor Bush on the morning of May 6, 1997. After a thirty-minute briefing by Gonzales, Bush checked "Deny"—just as he had denied twenty-nine other pleas for clemency in his first twenty-eight months as governor.

*

But Washington's plea for clemency raised substantial issues, which called for thoughtful, fair-minded consideration, not the least of which was the fact that Washington's mental handicap had never been presented to the jury that condemned him to death. Gonzales's legal summary, however, omitted any mention of Washington's mental limitations as well as the fact that his trial lawyer had failed to enlist the help of a mental health expert to testify on his client's behalf.

*

When Berlow asked Gonzales directly whether Bush ever read the clemency petitions, he replied that he did so "from time to time." Instead, Bush seems to have relied on Gonzales's summaries, and they clearly indicate that Gonzales continuously sided with the prosecutors.

*

Berlow writes, "The fact that courts have rejected a defendant's legal claims arguably places an added burden on a governor—as the conscience of the state...—to conduct a scrupulous review." How, then, could Bush's legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, systematically neglect to provide mitigating evidence or "new facts" that the petitioners' juries had never heard? For the man who said that the nature of the war on terror "renders obsolete [the Geneva conventions'] strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners" and called the conventions "quaint" when issuing guidelines for the treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo, this is not surprising.

*

There is more, but you get the drift. Bush uncaringly and irresponsibly deprived condemned individuals from having a chance to either prove their innocence or at least mitigating circumstances. Believe me, the more exposure I have to the trial process, the less faith I have in the court system. The outcome of a case is often a crap shoot and is decided more by the prejudices of the judge and/or jury than the true facts of the case.

Sunday Reflections

I spent last evening at the home my friend who just lost his mother. It was one of those times where nothing you say or do is adequate, so that in the last analysis, all you can do is be with them, share their grief and let them know that you love them. For me, it brought back memories and emotions of my younger sister's death to cancer in 2001, as well as losing my father last September. A combination of disbelief, numbness and sorrow. And thoughts of what might have been.

The mood made me decide to go to church today for spiritual soothing, if you will. The church itself is a work of art (the photo at left does not do it justice) and has a majestic peacefulness to it. As is always the case, the parish members are welcoming and truly seem to care about me - I am probably one of the parish's more high profile gay members - in a genuine way, and not at all judgmentally. In fact, I am currently working on the pastor to join HRBOR, since there are an abundance of LGBT members of the local community who long for a church home. I know I rant about Christianists, but there are actually some good Christians out there who are not hatefilled bigots. It's nice to encounter them since it is usually the hate mongers who get all the publicity.

To completely digress, one poster recently asked why I do the "Male Beauty" posts since so many of my posts are on serious topics. I guess I do it for a couple of reasons: (A) for readers who enjoy the "eye candy" and (B) because beautiful guys are as much God's handiwork as majestic mountains or a beautiful ocean sunrise. In classical Greece, the human form was considered beautiful and to be admired. I believe that was the proper outlook and I appreciate the beauty of a gorgeous face and/or body.

I realize that I may have rambled a bit, but with what has happened, it is one of those days where my mood is all over the chart.

18 face death sentence for homosexual activities in Nigeria

Iran and Iraq are not the only countries where gays are executed for merely being gay. Nigeria, home of Anglican Archbishop "Homo Hater" Peter Akinola, is another country where the Muslim extremists confuse civil laws with religious laws. Here's a story on this issue (http://www.africasia.com/services/news/newsitem.php?area=africa&item=070809154001.tmxj73bd.php):

Eighteen men have been arrested in northern Nigeria for alleged sodomy, which carries the death sentence under Bauchi state's Islamic sharia law, the official NAN news agency reported Thursday. Judge Malam Tanimu ordered the 18 remanded in prison until a further hearing on August 21 following their arrest on Sunday in a hotel in Bauchi city.

The court on Wednesday heard that the men, who were wearing female clothing, had come to the city from five neighbouring states to celebrate a gay "marriage". Prosecuting police officer Tadius Boboi said the men's actions had contravened the sharia penal code adopted in Bauchi and other states in Muslim northern Nigeria eight years ago following the end of military rule.

With all of Nigeria's huge problems and abject poverty, worrying about homosexuality should be far down the list of issues that the government concerns itself with. Yet further proof of the dangers of mixing religion with the civil laws. Why the international community, including the United Nations, doesn't make pariahs out of such nations for human rights abuses is mind boggling. Oh, I forgot - these are oil producing countries, so they get a free pass.

Iran begins executions for adultery and other violations

Per the International Hearald Tribune online (http://pageoneq.com/rssfeedstuff/index.php?id=13538), Iran is preparing more executions of those who fail to live up to the Islamo-facsist's theocratic rules:

TEHRAN: The Iranian government confirmed Tuesday that a man was executed by stoning last week for committing adultery, and said that 20 more men would be executed in the coming days on morality violations.

He said the 20 additional executions were for such things as "rape, insulting religious sanctities and laws, and homosexuality." Most executions in Iran are hangings, often in public and at the scenes of the alleged crimes.

The police arrested about 1,000 people in May during a so-called morality crackdown. Jamshidi said 15 more men were being tried on similar charges and could receive death sentences.

Clearly, Islamic fanatics are a threat to the West and to many average Muslims and need to be stopped. Crimes of "insulting religious sanctities" basically allows these fanatics to accuse almost anyone. When I see this type of news story, it makes me think what could happen in this country if the Christianists are not likewise stopped. I suspect Daddy Dobson and his Christianist compatriots would not shed a tear to see gays publicly executed in this country.