Bob McDonnell and Wife Due in Federal Court Today

One of the reasons that the Virginia Republicans are making so much noise about Mark Herring's decision to not defend Virginia's gay marriage ban is because they want to take attention away from headlines like this: "Former Va. Governor, Wife Due in Federal Court."  It is headlines like this that show how rotten things are under the supposedly "family values" crowd that preaches one thing while doing something very different in practice.  And let's not forget that the evangelical Christians hyperventilating over Herring's action as a group  have the highest divorce rate in America.  So much for the sanctity of marriage.  NBC 4 in Washington looks at today's court appearance by Bob and Maureen McDonnell.  Here are excerpts:

Former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, are set to make their first court appearance on federal corruption charges. 

A bond hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m., followed by an arraignment at 11 a.m. Friday in U.S. District Court in Richmond.

The former Republican governor and his wife were indicted Tuesday after a lengthy federal investigation of his relationship with a former CEO of a dietary supplement maker.

The 14-count indictment accuses the McDonnells of accepting gifts totaling more than $135,000 including loans, a Rolex watch, rounds of golf at an exclusive club and designer clothes, among other gifts. It connects those gifts to support that Maureen and Bob McDonnell gave to Star Scientific, a Glen Allen, Va.-based company that makes dietary supplements.

McDonnell and his wife are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit honest-services wire fraud; three counts of honest-services wire fraud; one count of conspiracy to obtain property under color of official right; six counts of obtaining property under color of official right; and one count of making false statements to a federal credit union.

McDonnell is also charged with an additional count of making a false statement to a financial institution, and Maureen McDonnell is charged with one count of obstruction of an official proceeding.

Yep, those are the type of "conservative" and "family values" that the Virginia GOP doesn't want people to notice.  Hence the increased hysteria over gay marriage.  Any thing to change the topic.

A Guide To Stores That Won’t Ruin Their Workers’ Thanksgivings

Greed - both at the corporate level and individual level - is destroying Thanksgiving.   I personally plan to boycott retailers that are open today and depriving their employees of a family holiday and day off from work.  Instead, I will focus my purchase this holiday season at retailers who respect their employees and that are closed today.  Think Progress has a compilation of stores to avoid and stores that deserve your patronage.  

Here are retailers to boycott as well as those deserving of your support:

Click image to enlarge

Here is more from Think Progress:

Radio Shack told ThinkProgress that it will be closed “In honor of Thanksgiving and the time-honored tradition of gathering with family and friends.” Apple’s CEO Tim Cook reportedly reversed some stores’ decisions to open because he felt that it’s important for workers to be with their families.

Other stores say their workers are excited to work on the holiday. But at Kmart, which will open the earliest starting at 6 a.m. on Thursday, workers have reported being denied their requests to take the day off. Other workers may be volunteering to work because they get so few hours normally and need the extra money. Some may not have the vacation days to take the holiday, as the United States is the only advanced country that doesn’t guarantee all workers get paid vacation time.

But the stores that open early may not even see a benefit. They risk a big consumer backlash, with half of consumers saying they disapprove of the early hours. Two different polls have found that the vast majority don’t plan to shop on the holiday anyway. Shoppers and workers have also been petitioning stores to stay closed and give their employees a day off.

Bryan Fischer's Foul "Family Values"

In a previous post I noted the profile done on gay-hater extraordinaire Bryan Fischer of the hate group American Family Association done by The New Yorker.  The picture left by the article indeed suggests that Fischer has more than a few screws loose and might do well to seek a mental health care intervention.  Fischer apparently was not pleased with the piece - probably because it all to clearly showed him to be a self-promoting hypocrite and demagogue, not to mention a major league asshole.  He directed his wrath at the articles author who found one of Fischer's former compatriots coming to her defense and substantiating facts that Fischer claimed to be untrue.  As I often note, no one lies more than the professional Christian crowd and no one disseminates more hate that the "godly Christian" crowd.  One can only hope for the death of Fischer's form of Christianity.   Right Wing Watch looks at the contretemps.  Here are excerpts: 

Last week we told you about an excellent profile of Bryan Fischer in the New Yorker and Fischer’s predictably over-the-top and inaccurate attacks on the article and author, Jane Mayer. In the wake of those attacks, Mayer has posted a follow-up blog post, “Have Not Love: How Bryan Fischer Turned on a Friend,” that sets the record straight and explores the twisted family values of Fischer, a so-called family values advocate:

As I worked on my profile of the influential conservative radio-host Bryan Fischer, I was struck by the difference between the “pro-family” values he espouses and some of the choices he has made in his own life. For example, Fischer has not seen his only sibling in something like a decade—a sister with serious health problems who lives on social security and welfare disability payments. Perhaps more revealing, though, is the broken friendship between Fischer and another conservative Christian activist, Dennis Mansfield.

After the article came out, Fischer accused me of misrepresenting an anecdote concerning his relationship with Mansfield. Since then, Mansfield has weighed in on his own blog to defend the accuracy of the New Yorker story, and expanded on what he calls Fischer’s “divisive” politics as a dead end for this country.

Mansfield, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress, parted ways with Fischer after his son was arrested for drug possession:

The public arrest torpedoed Mansfield’s congressional bid. More importantly, he says, the episode, and the subsequent humility he learned from his son’s struggle, caused him to reëxamine the way in which he was using his Christian faith as a cudgel in politics. As Mansfield told me, he concluded that “faith-based conservatives are either purposefully or inadvertently looking punitively at other people” rather than “lifting each other up.”

Writing on his blog last Thursday, Mansfield said this about Fischer:

Pushing your own agenda using the veil of religion has been used all throughout history. Today is no exception, and individuals in the evangelical community do it as much as anyone else. When someone wraps their own hate speech in a "god blanket" it makes it easier for a subset of people to accept, and eventually it may even gather a following. The problem is that anyone outside of that subset is turned away from not only that particular subset, but from the entire religion.

As often noted, I believe that in the longer term, Fischer and his fellow Christofascist hate merchants will be the death of Christianity.  Or at least their foul version of it.  That death cannot come soon enough.

The Evolution of Marriage and the Lies of the Christianists

As I note frequently on this blog, when it comes to lying, virtually no one beats out the "godly Christian" crowd and the "family values" organizations.  Indeed, if their lips are moving, the best assumption is to assume that they are lying until proven otherwise - something that doesn't occur often.  Candidly, following their constant lies and hypocrisy has made me come to hold contempt for the term "Christian" because as the Christianist practice Christianity it is truly something ugly if not down right evil.  In the realm of gay rights, the lies from the godly Christians are endless and range from continued quotes of faux "research" that was discredited decades ago to the current favorite lie that throughout history, marriage has been between "one man and one woman."  Even the Bible shows the lie of this claim.  But it's also useful to recognize the type of historic monogamous marriage the Christianist worship if they want to protect historic marriage.  An article in The Daily Beast looks at marriage's evolution and also makes the case that changes in marriage make same sex marriage something fully justified.  Here are excerpts: .

President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage last week was certainly historic. But it was not a historical game changer. While Obama may pay a political price for outraging the well-funded minority that passionately opposes gay marriage, he is actually swimming with a strong historical tide.

The country’s division over same-sex marriage is narrow enough for opponents to throw serious obstacles in its path. But it’s only a matter of time until they’re swamped by a demographic tide, because opposition to same-sex marriage is heavily concentrated in the oldest segments of the population. Less than one third of Americans aged 70 to 79 support same-sex marriage, whereas 56 percent of those aged 30 to 39 and more than 70 percent of those aged 18 to 29 are in favor of it.

And the growing visibility of gays and lesbians—in the military, in business, on television, and in people’s own kin networks—is eroding opposition even among the older generation. A 70-year-old Romney supporter told a New York Times reporter the day after Obama’s announcement: “I can’t say if I’m for it or against it, because I don’t know what my grandkids will be.”

For millennia, marriage was about property and power rather than mutual attraction. It was a way of forging political alliances, sealing business deals, and expanding the family labor force. For many people, marriage was an unavoidable duty. For others, it was a privilege, not a right. Servants, slaves, and paupers were often forbidden to wed, and even among the rich, families sometimes sent a younger child to a nunnery or monastery rather than allow them to marry and break up the family’s landholding.

The redefinition of traditional marriage began about 250 years ago, when Westerners began to allow young people to choose their partners on the basis of love rather than having their marriages arranged to suit the interests of their parents. Then, just 100 years ago, courts and public opinion began to extend that right even to marriages that parents and society disapproved.

In 1967 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional for states to prohibit interracial marriage. In 1987 it upheld the right of prison inmates to marry.

The path to same-sex marriage was further opened up when heterosexual couples began to push back against state control over their sexual and reproductive lives. Until the 1950s, some states forbade married couples from using assisted reproduction to have children, ruling that artificial insemination was tantamount to adultery and any resultant child was illegitimate. Conversely, until the Supreme Court ruled in 1965 that couples had a right to sexual privacy, many states refused to allow the sale of birth control to married couples who wanted to prevent or limit their childbearing.

[T]he most important cultural change that has increased support for same-sex marriage is the equality revolution within heterosexual marriage.  For most of history, the subordination of wives to husbands was enforced by law and custom. As late as the 1960s, American legal codes assigned differing marital rights and obligations by gender. The husband was legally responsible for supporting the family financially, but he also got to decide what constituted an adequate level of support, how to dispose of family property, and where the family would live. The wife was legally responsible for providing services in and around the home, but she had no comparable rights to such services.

That is why a husband could sue for loss of consortium if his spouse was killed or incapacitated, but a wife in the same situation could not. And because sex was one of the services expected of a wife, she could not charge her husband with rape. 

Between the 1970s and 1990s, however, most Americans came to view marriage as a relationship between two individuals who were free to organize their partnership on the basis of personal inclination rather than preassigned gender roles. Legal codes were rewritten to be gender neutral, and men’s and women’s activities both at home and work began to converge.

The collapse of rigid gender expectations and norms has fostered the expectation that marriage should be an individually negotiated relationship between equals, replacing the older notion of marriage as a prefabricated institution where traditional roles and rules must be obeyed.

The growing acceptance of same-sex marriage is the result of these profound changes in heterosexual marriage. It’s not just the president’s views on marriage that have evolved. Marriage itself has evolved in ways that make it harder to justify excluding same-sex couples from its benefits and obligations.

A rearguard action by a determined minority may hold back the tide of history for a while. That is why many opponents are eager to pass one-man/one-woman amendments that will take a two-thirds majority to overturn. But same-sex unions are here to stay. The question is whether our political and legal system will recognize that reality now—or whether gays and lesbians will have to wait until the out-of-touch opposition to marriage equality literally dies off.

It's instructive that the GOP's anti-women agenda ties in with the far right Christianists goal of returning marriage to a pre-1960's model: no contraception, rigid gender roles, no divorce, and male dominance over women.   While that model may appeal to Bible beaters and Kool-Aid drinkers, I suspect most women find the concept frightening.  And as the father of two daughters, I surely do NOT want them reduced to chattel controlled by their husbands.  Yet that is precisely where the Christianist model wants marriage to follow.

Newt Gingrich and the Continued Hypocrisy of the Christian Right

In many ways Newt Gingrich is the poster boy of much of what the Christian Right in this nation claims to condemn: adulterous affairs, multiple marriages, political graft and sleazy lobbying, not to mention being challenged when it comes to truth and veracity. Yet, in South Carolina, these self-anointed and seemingly falsely pious folk supported Gingrich over their other choices. Insane as he might be, at least Rick "Frothy Mix" Santorum seems to more closely resemble what the Christian Right crowd claims to support. As I've noted before, the incredible disconnect between purported support of "family values" and the "sanctity of marriage" and support for Gingrich is mind numbing. And the phenomenon underscores the hypocrisy of those who most like to wear their religion on their sleeves. A column in the New York Times looks at this circumstance and why Gingrich - who is the opposite of what these people should be supporting if they weren't hypocrites - has at least temporarily captured their votes. Here are some highlights:

In 1999, shortly after the Senate voted to acquit President Clinton on two charges of impeachment stemming from his affair with the intern Monica Lewinsky, Paul Weyrich — mastermind of the union of the Republican Party and the Christian right, a founder of the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the Free Congress Foundation — threw up his hands in despair.

In the face of this onslaught of moral corruption, Weyrich counseled withdrawal from society at large. A “legitimate strategy for us to follow is to look at ways to separate ourselves from the institutions that have been captured by the ideology of Political Correctness, or by other enemies of our traditional culture,” he wrote. “We need to drop out of this culture, and find places, even if it is where we physically are right now, where we can live godly, righteous and sober lives.”

What would Weyrich, who died in 2008, make of the fact that Newt Gingrich — who was himself having an adulterous affair during the Clinton impeachment proceedings (one of several conducted by the former speaker, according to his own testimony and a number of lengthy journalistic investigations, including this one and that one) — won the 2012 South Carolina Republican primary with a plurality of voters who described themselves as evangelical or born-again Christians?

Exit polls show that Gingrich beat Romney by 44-22 among born-again and evangelical Christians, and by 46-10 among voters who said the religious convictions of the candidates mattered “a great deal.”

In fact, the Gingrich campaign reveals the current state of the Christian right, its status anxieties, its desperation, its frustration and in particular its anger.

In strategic terms, religious conservatives need to be motivated to turn out in high numbers. Republican consultants have developed tools to identify and inflame what they call conservative “anger points.” . . . it is Gingrich who is the quintessential “anger points” candidate.

Gingrich won the hearts of many devout voters two weeks ago when he exploded in anger as CNN’s John King asked him to respond to the claim made by his second wife, Marianne, that he had refused to give up his six-year affair with Callista Bisek and offered his wife the option of an “open marriage.” Gingrich’s reply to King brought the audience to its feet, capturing one of the most deeply felt conservative “anger points” — hostility to the mainstream media . . .

Gingrich is the first conservative presidential candidate to campaign on a package of traditional values from which he is exempting issues relating to personal sexual behavior. And there are reasons why this strategy worked on Jan. 21: The moral vision of the religious right is collapsing everywhere, including within its own ranks. There are fewer and fewer “traditional” families in the United States; the number of secular voters is growing at a faster rate than the number of those who are religiously observant; women’s rights and homosexual rights have become broadly accepted; births outside of marriage are now routine among whites, Hispanics and African Americans.

Gingrich’s strength as the tribune of conservative rage at liberal elites trumped his long history of personal failings. He violated the very family values and the sanctity of marriage that social conservatives profess to believe in, but it was much more important that Gingrich was the enemy of their enemy.

What does this political volatility say about the conservative movement and the Republican Party?

First, that although the Christian right is now in decline, it remains powerful, making up roughly 35 to 40 percent of the Republican primary electorate. But its preoccupations are less and less those of Americans taken as a whole. The Christian right might become increasingly marginalized and as the movement shifts to the periphery, it becomes more of a liability to the party than an asset.

Second, the Republican Party will, over time, struggle to develop a coherent moral stance that does not conflict with the leftward drift, both in values and behavior, of the electorate.

[T]he country is going through a profound restructuring in moral and economic thinking and the danger for Republicans is that their current coalition might become obsolete. If the party doesn’t adapt, the alternative is that its power centers — the Christian right, anti-immigration forces, and proponents of policies that benefit the affluent at the expense of the less well-off — will refuse to adjust, in which case the party risks going the way of the Studebaker.

Frankly, the GOP deserves to go the way of the Studebaker. For too long of late it has courted the worse elements of the electorate and pandered to hate merchants.

New York Times Slams Lowe's for its Cowardliness

I did not comment much at the time about the surrender of Lowe's to the rhetoric of hate promoted by a shell organization that parades under the name "Florida Family Association." In my view, it has come to the point that if a group uses "family" in it's name, nine times out of ten, the organization is actually little more than a hate group deceptively masquerading as something less ominous. The only differentiation between one such "family" association and the next is the identity of who they hate. It may be gays, it may be Muslims, or it may be blacks - or all of the foregoing. Yet too many businesses are either to lazy or too stupid to check out the real nature of their critics before surrendering to hate. The New York Times did a great job ripping both the Florida Family Association and Lowe's a new one in an editorial on Friday. Lowe's spinelessness makes me want to drive the extra mile or two to go to Home Depot instead. Here are some editorial highlights:

It is incredibly sad that one person with his own one-man hate group can tap into anti-Muslim sentiment and lead reputable companies to make foolish judgment calls.

At least two advertisers — Lowe’s, the home-improvement retailer, and Kayak.com, the online travel firm — have pulled commercials from “All-American Muslim,” a new reality series on the TLC cable channel, since the show was condemned by David Caton, an anti-Muslim and anti-gay activist, and the shell organization he founded and runs, the Florida Family Association.

Businesses have a perfect right to decide how to spend their advertising dollars. But, in pulling out as they did, Lowe’s and Kayak sent a distasteful message to their customers, their employees, and to the larger public.

Mr. Caton has called on companies to end their sponsorships, arguing that the show is dangerous and misleading “propaganda” because it portrays Muslims as “ordinary folks” just like other law-abiding Americans, not as extremists and terrorists.

Both Lowes and Kayak deny that they were moved to act by Mr. Caton’s campaign, citing instead the show’s controversial nature and, in Kayak’s case, reservations about its quality. “All-American Muslim” may not be the best TV show, but the controversy was manufactured by one man. By appearing to bow to bigotry, the companies earned a self-inflicted black eye.

Iowa ‘Family’ Group Compares Homosexuality To "Second Hand" Cigarette Smoke

Few groups and individuals are bigger liars than the so-called "pro-family" and "Christian" organizations and their adherents who oppose civil legal equality for LGBT Americans. No lie is too big or too vile when it comes to their agenda of slander and denigration. As noted often on this blog, the unfortunate thing is that few in the mainstream media ever challenge their lies and smears against LGBT citizens. Instead, deference and special rights are afforded to down right nasty individuals who subscribe to the Nazi anti-Jew propaganda model of trying to depict gays as a menace to society and public health. The foul haters now working to amend Iowa's constitution to obliterate all recognition of same sex couples is clearly cut out of this cloth and would have the ignorant and simple minded that homosexuality is dangerous in the same manner of second hand cigarette smoke. Oh, and we are highly diseased as well. These folks surely make Anne Rice's disavowing of Christianity look like the path to righteousness in comparison. Think Progress, relying in part on Jeremy Hooper's work looks at the poison being peddled in Iowa. Here are some highlights of the "facts" about homosexuality that the Iowa Family Policy Center is disseminating:
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– Reduces life expectancy by about 20-35 years.
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– Homosexuals are 20x more likely to be abused by partner than heterosexual.

– CDC reports cancer rate is 90x higher in homosexual men – while smokers is only 10-30x.
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– Yes, they CAN change! (Sept. 1, 2009 NARTH report).
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[Bob Vander] Plaats and the Iowa Family Policy Center, which is a subsidiary of the Family Leader, have a long history of anti-gay bigotry. In June 2010, the Iowa Independent reported that Iowa Family Policy Center president Chuck Hurey called a group of pastors who supported same-sex marriage “confused at best and blatantly evil at worst.” Earlier this year, Family Leader official Danny Carroll predicted same-sex marriage in Iowa will lead to polygamy and Plaats himself compared gay unions to incest.
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Of course, none of these "facts" are true. But when does the truth ever get in the way of such "godly Christians?" Given this face of Christianity, it's no wonder that the younger generations increasingly identify themselves as having "no religion."

Catholic Pharmacy Shutters Doors in Virginia

A reader sent me the link to a story in the Washington Times - not one of my normal reads I will confess - about a pharmacy in Northern Virginia that opened to a lot of wingnut fanfare that was forced to close because it put "moral values" ahead of stocking inventory that customers want to purchase. The American Family Association and other "family values" organizations have perennial "boycotts" and other attacks on businesses that market to the LGBT community - e.g., Ford, Coke, Walgreens, etc. In truth, these businesses not forgotten the message the Catholic Pharmacy apparently never grasped. Businesses are in business to make money and earn a profit. And in the case of publicly traded companies, to generate dividends to shareholders. By refusing to carry contraceptives, many cosmetics and other products, the pharmacy sent the message that segments of the consumer base (including many Catholics who ignore the Vatican's teachings on birth control and many other issues) were simply not wanted. Or worse yet, that they were looked down upon and condemned by the sanctimonious pharmacy operators. Here are some story highlights:
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DMC Pharmacy, a pro-life Catholic pharmacy that opened with much fanfare in Chantilly, Va., in October 2008, closed last month because of lack of funds. "We could not make it work financially," said Robert Laird, executive director for the pharmacy, whose letters stood for Divine Mercy Care. "We could never get that big push to make it viable and finally the board of directors said enough was enough." By the time the store closed March 4, it was losing in the tens of thousands of dollars per month.
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[T]he 1,500-square-foot store on Metrotech Drive did not stock birth control pills, condoms, cigarettes or pornographic magazines. It did have booklets on natural family planning below a picture of St. John Leonardi, the patron saint of pharmacists. It was one of seven pharmacies in the country that refused to dispense contraceptives for moral reasons, on the grounds they caused abortions, lead to promiscuity or endangered a woman's health.
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Situated next to a Catholic bookstore, the founders hoped to attract clientele from St. Timothy and St. Veronica, two nearby Catholic parishes totaling 20,000 members. Within five miles were four other booming churches with 30,000 Catholics. . . . But regular customers never materialized in great numbers.
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Plus, DMC never got into the heavy retail items, such as cosmetics, toys and fast food, that help keep similar pharmacies afloat.

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I feel sorry for employees who have lost their jobs, but not so much sympathy for the store's owners who should have had more business sense.

Anti-Gay Prime Minister Berlusconi Sued for Divorce

Apparently, hypocrisy among supposedly "pro-marriage" politicians is not limited to those in the USA like thrice married Newt Gingrich or prostitute patron David Vitter. We can add Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has followed the Vatican's dictates and consistently opposed marriage or similar legal rights for gays, to the list of hypocrites. As the New York Times is reporting, Berlusconi's SECOND wife says she wants to file for divorce. It seems that Mr. "protect marriage" has been cavorting with other women. But then he met wife number two and commenced an affair was he was married to his first wife. So much for marital vows unless it's a same-sex couple that want to take them. Here are some highlights:

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ROME — Less than a week after writing an open letter that criticized her husband for cavorting with much younger women, the second wife of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi says she wants to file for divorce, Italian newspapers reported Sunday.

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“I’d like to close the curtain on our married life,” Veronica Lario, 52, said in an interview with La Repubblica that was published Sunday. A secretary for Ms. Lario confirmed the report. Ms. Lario met Mr. Berlusconi, 72, in 1980, when she was a B-movie actress in Milan and he was a married, up-and-coming real-estate tycoon. They were wed in a civil ceremony in 1990 after having three children.

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She also was incensed at news reports that Mr. Berlusconi had attended the 18th birthday party in Naples of Noemi Letizia, who has posed for magazines semi-nude and has said in interviews that she calls the prime minister “daddy.”

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“That surprised me,” Ms. Lario told ANSA. “Because he never attended the 18th birthday parties of his own children, even if he was invited.” The Turin newspaper La Stampa quoted Ms. Lario as saying on Sunday that she had to begin divorce proceedings: “I was forced to take this step.”

Double Hypocrisy

Christopher Buckley has an interesting post over at the Daily Beast that looks at two examples of extreme hypocrisy: Newt "Family Values" Gingrich and the self-styled "sanctity of marriage obsessed" Roman Catholic Church. Gingrich is thrice married and left his former spouses under less than gracious and a dignified manner yet bloviates about "family values" amongst the wingnuts of the GOP. Meanwhile, we have the Catholic Church which for the proper sum of money can ALWAYS find a way to enter an annulment. Being a rich politician - like a Kennedy for example - doesn't hurt one's prospects for an annulment either. One might even say that Gingrich and the Catholic Church deserve one another since both tend to be devoid of principle and in my view are morally bankrupt. All Gingrich needs to do to be a perfect fit with the Vatican is molest some minors, preferably boys. Here are some column highlights:

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Brace yourselves for a tsunami of punditry this weekend, when the much-married Newt Gingrich is received into the Catholic Church. This would ordinarily be a private occasion, but Newt Gingrich is not ordinary. He is (I hedge) probably the most interesting putative candidate on the Right at this point.

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He—and Mother Church, from whose tender embrace I myself have regrettably lapsed—will both be made out to be appalling hypocrites. Who among us should throw stones, but Mr. Gingrich’s marital history is a matter of public record, and it is not tidy. He first married at age 19, to his 26-year-old former high school geometry teacher and then, so the story goes, presented her with divorce terms after she was wheeled out of cancer surgery.

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Mrs. Gingrich #2 was dumped after her husband had carried on an extra-marital affair with a fetching, blonde congressional staffer named Callista Bisek, who went on to become the present Mrs. Gingrich #3. This Family Values paradigm was complicated by the fact that whilst Mr. Gingrich was filibustering Ms. Bisek over the Speaker’s desk, he was simultaneously leading the impeachment charge against a naughty president of the United States.

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As for Mother Church, she’ll come in for drubbing this weekend for seeming two-faced about the sanctity of marriage. As you know, divorce is still not allowed in the Catholic Church. But here insert a large “however” —she is liberal in the granting of annulments.

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Mother Church can be rigid, but at times—bless her—she can think like a $700 an hour K Street lawyer. Annulments are granted for a number of reasons: lack of discretion (I didn’t realize the bum was a drunk at the time); defective consent (The bum lied—he didn’t want kids all along); psychic incapacity (The bum was a schizophrenic!); prior bond . . . If the church had been this progressive in the matter of annulments back in the 1530s in merry olde England, the Archbishop of Canterbury would today be a Roman cardinal.

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It would be churlish in this Lenten season to suppose that Mr. Gingrich’s conversion is anything but deeply felt and sincere. The stated reason for it is that he wishes to worship alongside his wife, who is described on her husband’s website as “a devoted Catholic.” To the extent her devotedness is assessed alongside her early relationship with the then-married Mr. Gingrich, it should be borne in mind that to be “devoted” is not the same as being “perfect”

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It seems nearly any kind of sexual impropriety is fine with Rome as long as it doesn't involve same sex individuals because then - God forbid - they will be inherently disordered and evil.

Rise and [Hopefully] Fall of the GOP

As a former Republican, at times I shake my head in disbelief at what a horrible organization the Republican Party has become. It is incredibly divisive and hate-driven, increasingly dismisses the value of anyone who isn't white, straight, intellectually ignorant, evangelical Christian, and anti-minorities. Amazingly, all the while it deludes itself by claiming to be the Party of "family values" and decency. I definitely do not know what dictionary these folks are using to achieve this result based on the actual conduct of the Party's members from McCain spokesmen/women down to the rank and file types at Sarah Palin's increasingly nasty rallies which look more and more like blood lusting lynch mobs. Richard Cohen in today's Washington Post is equally appalled. Here are some highlights from today's column:

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It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Bush and now John McCain have constructed a mean, grumpy, exclusive, narrow-minded and altogether retrograde Republican Party. It has the sharp scent of the old Barry Goldwater GOP -- the angry one of 1964 and not the one perfumed by nostalgia -- that is home, by design or mere dumb luck, to those who think that Obama is "The Madrassian Candidate."

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[T]he GOP, under Rove and his disciples in the McCain campaign, has not only driven out ethnic and racial minorities but a vast bloc of voters who, quite bluntly, want nothing to do with Sarah Palin. For moderates everywhere, she remains the single best reason to vote against McCain. But the GOP's tropism toward its furiously angry base, its tolerance and currying of anti-immigrant sentiment, its flattering of the ignorant on matters of undisputed scientific consensus -- evolution, for instance -- and, from the mouth of Palin, its celebration of drab provincialism, have sharpened the division between red and blue. Red is the color of yesterday.

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I know, the blues are not all virtuous. . . . . Still, a Democrat can remain a Democrat -- or at least vote as one -- without compromising basic intellectual or cultural values. That, though, is not what Colin Powell was saying Sunday about his own party.

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In the end, [Colin] Powell was determined not to be one of the GOP's useful idiots. Those moderates willing to overlook the choice of Palin, those capable of staying in a party where, soon enough, she could be an important or dominant force, retain the intellectual nimbleness that enabled them to persist in championing a war fought for duplicitous reasons and extol cultural values they do not for a minute share. Powell walked away from that, and others will follow -- the second time that a senator from Arizona has led the GOP into the political wilderness.

"Family Values" Scammers

There is a great column by Wayne Besen on 365gay.com that looks at the disingenuousness of Focus on the Family, American Family Association, and similar groups that whine incessantly about "protecting the family" and "protecting the sanctity of marriage" yet are absolutely missing in action when it comes to doing anything concrete to support families and/or marriage except for conducting an anti-gay jihad. In short, they do NOTHING in terms of family friendly legislation that would help families in financial stress, facing crushing medical bills, or on the verge of losing their homes to foreclosure. That's right, absolutely NOTHING. And as for the anti-gay jihad, the whines and shrieks are ALWAYS accompanied by requests for MONEY so that millions upon millions of dollars can be used to denigrate and work to marginalize gays and, of course, pay the salaries of the "ex-gays for pay" and demagogues like Don Wildmon and Daddy Dobson. In short, these organizations are frauds that but for hiding behind the cloak of religious ministries might well be shut down by under anti-fraud laws. The truth about these fraudulent groups needs to be disseminated as widely as possible on a constant basis. Here are some highlight's from Wayne's column:

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The last few weeks have shown that so-called pro-family organizations are some of the most useless, money-sucking scams in the world. With real families suffering from economic hardship in America, a declining birthrate in Europe and Google doubling the price of daycare for employees, the only thing right wing family groups want to discuss is their bizarre and all-encompassing fagela fetish.

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Recently, The Brooklyn Paper, had a huge headline, “SPLITSVILLE: Brooklyn divorces up 30 percent.” The article cited a number of reasons including, “when the economy tanks, so do many marriages.” One would think this would alarm so-called pro-family organizations and they would be out in force repairing marriages – or at least looking for economic solutions to take the stress off couples.

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A new study by the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University showed that in 2006, for the first time in U.S. history, a majority of births to women under 30 – 50.4 percent – were out of wedlock. New York Times columnist Bob Herbert points out that, “By comparison, when John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960, just 6 percent of all births were to unmarried women under 30. One imagines that this report might have startled “pro-family” organizations and they would have put their millions of dollars towards stopping this trend. No such luck. Instead, they are investing huge piles of money and manpower to pass anti-gay marriage amendments in Florida, Arizona and California.

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Right wing organizations can be considered many things – but certainly not advocates for the family. They inhale money, exhale anti-gay pollution and have done absolutely nothing for the traditional families they claim to represent. It seems the more such groups proliferate, the more the family deteriorates.

The Wife John McCain Callously Left Behind

That's the title of a story in the UK's Daily Mail about John McCain's first wife who he left so that he could marry a much younger heiress (Cindy is 18 years his junior) only a month later. It is a sad commentary on the U. S. mainstream media that one has to look to foreign news outlets to find stories that ought to be widely circulated here in the USA. It's also very sad that with a history like this McCain is trying to brown nose the Christianists claiming he supports "family values" and the sanctity of marriage. Oh, but I forgot - the evangelical Christians have some of the highest divorce rates in the USA, so I guess a divorce like McCain's is fine by such selective standards. So much for abiding by the inerrant word of the Bible. The Christianists only believe in inerrancy when it facilitates gay-bashing. And as for the local connection, like so many with past Navy ties Carol McCain lives in nearby Virginia Beach. Here are a few story highlights:

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McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children. But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children. And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

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[W]hen McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier. Her car had skidded on icy roads into a telegraph pole on Christmas Eve, 1969. Her pelvis and one arm were shattered by the impact and she suffered massive internal injuries. When Carol was discharged from hospital after six months of life-saving surgery, the prognosis was bleak. In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter. Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

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But last week at the bungalow where she now lives at Virginia Beach, a faded seaside resort 200 miles south of Washington, she told The Mail on Sunday how McCain divorced her in 1980 and married Cindy, 18 years his junior and the heir to an Arizona brewing fortune, just one month later.

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‘My accident is well recorded. I had 23 operations, I am five inches shorter than I used to be and I was in hospital for six months. It was just awful, but it wasn’t the reason for my divorce. ‘My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens...it just does.’ Some of McCain’s acquaintances are less forgiving, however. They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

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In 1979 – while still married to Carol – he met Cindy at a cocktail party in Hawaii. Over the next six months he pursued her, flying around the country to see her. Then he began to push to end his marriage. Carol and her children were devastated. ‘It was a complete surprise,’ says Nancy Reynolds, a former Reagan aide. ‘They never displayed any difficulties between themselves. I know the Reagans were quite shocked because they loved and respected both Carol and John.’

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Ted Sampley, who fought with US Special Forces in Vietnam and is now a leading campaigner for veterans’ rights, said: ‘I have been following John McCain’s career for nearly 20 years. I know him personally. There is something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is – deceit. ‘When he came home and saw that Carol was not the beauty he left behind, he started running around on her almost right away. Everybody around him knew it. ‘Eventually he met Cindy and she was young and beautiful and very wealthy. At that point McCain just dumped Carol for something he thought was better. ‘This is a guy who makes such a big deal about his character. He has no character. He is a fake. If there was any character in that first marriage, it all belonged to Carol.’

The Part of Family Values - NOT

I regularly try to expose the hypocrisy and dishonesty of the anti-gay Republicans and the Christianists. Yes, they DO provide so much material. :) I found this site, Republican Offenders, via Pam's House Blend and love the site from what I have read of it so far. It contains a compilation of huges numbers of accounts of "family values" Republican officials of all levels of government involved in all kinds of less than Christian value activities. Not surprisingly, many of these self-professed guardians of family values have a predeliction for sex with minors, particulary under age boys.

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In my view, a perusal of this site confirms that the GOP views the "values voters" as a bunch of easily duped cretins who can be routinely induced to go to the polls based on a couple of hot button issues - gay bashing being one of the most favored - like lemmings. These "values voters" end up voting for individuals who must be secretly laughing at the whole affair. I am not against religion or people of faith. However, I do have a very hard time with people who are intellectually dishonest and/or lazy and who refuse to think for themselves and not be led by the nose like simpletons.

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In essence, religious fundamentalism is defined in my opinion as religious belief that shields the believer from having to exercise independent thought and/or analyze facts and reach a fact based conclusion. This fear of thinking in turn leads to a slavish idolatry to ritual (e.g., traditional Catholics) and closed mindedness. The end result is that demagogues - think Benedict XVI, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Karl Rove, etc. - play these people like a violin with the sheeple (to use one of Pam Spaulding's terms that I love) being blindly lead by those who use them for control, political power and personal wealth. It is a sad situation brought on by their own "deeply held religious beliefs." The GOP continues to cynically use these folks and they never catch on that they are being used.

Gay homework assignment - Research the ‘pro-family’ groups for an eye-opening look at their strategies.

From time to time some readers ask me why I allow the Christianist far Right elements to cause me to show "anger." They suggest that I basically ignore them. This column in the Washington Blade (http://www.washingtonblade.com/2007/9-28/view/columns/11319.cfm) suggests not only why it is appropriate to get angry, but also why LGBT citizens need to "know their enemy." A regular perusal of their web sites reveals a concerted, deliberate campaign of hate and disinformation that, unfortunately, too many of their readers are fooled into believing is the truth. It is one thing to argue a point of view on the basis of one's religious belief. It is something else entirely to knowingly and deliberately disseminate lies and false information. Particularly while professing to be a follower of Christ. Here are some column highlights:

Then I remind myself that I am a second-class citizen. I’m not quite like all the other parents who waved goodbye to their kids this morning. I can’t forget that. Nor can I take the warm, cozy and comfortable life I have for granted. And I don’t mean that in some paranoid way. We always need to be reminded of what we are up against.

So in that spirit, I’d like to suggest that each of you to do a little homework. TAKE A FEW minutes and have a look at some web sites. I don’t feel great about driving traffic to some of these sites but I feel there is some upside, so here goes. Google the word “family.” The No. 1 entry is www.family.org. Think about that for a minute.

The No. 1 entry when you Google “family” belongs to James Dobson. He is well funded, has access to extraordinary media platforms and raises millions of dollars instilling fear about gay Americans into his army of followers.I perused that site and stumbled upon a piece offering advice to parents whose son or daughter has just come out to them. It starts out quite nicely and it isn’t until the end that the true colors come shining through. Would you like to know how many millions of Americans hang on James Dobson’s every word? Millions and millions.

NOW LET’S TAKE a look at the Traditional Values Coalition (www.traditionalvalues.org). Andrea Lafferty (I wonder if she made lunch for her kids this morning) is the executive director and is one of the stable of anti-gay spokespeople sought out by national media. Here is her take on the upcoming vote on ENDA:

“Democrats have a serious problem with this legislation and that is why they are hiding the truth about what ENDA will do. They know that ENDA will give drag queens, cross-dressers, she-males, etc., the same protected status in American law as African Americans or other legitimate minority groups. Yet, they kept these individuals hidden from view at a recent hearing on ENDA.”

Next time you find yourself wondering how a bill as benign as ENDA has not been passed, visit any one of these sites and know that the talking points you find there are being widely disseminated by well-funded organizations.I repeat: I am not a paranoid personality. I like to be well informed. I’ll take that a step further: I believe I have an obligation to be informed.

If you do as the writer of the column suggests, I believe you ill conclude (1) these "Christians" are truly our enemies and (2) getting angry is justified.

Another GOP Sex Scandal

This story involves a GOP councilman from St. Petersburg, Florida. Yet another example of the true "family values" of the GOP. Funny how these types of stories do not seem to be showing up everywhere about Democrats. (See: http://blogs.tampabay.com/breakingnews/2007/09/st-petersburg-1.html):

John Bryan, 56, a St. Petersburg City Council member, had been accused of sexually abusing his three adopted daughters. Police were investigating, but they had not charged Bryan with a crime. On Friday, he killed himself just hours after a judge ordered him to stay away from his two youngest girls.

A staunch Republican and former finance chairman for U.S. Sen. Connie Mack, Bryan helped push Baker's agenda through the City Council.

In his public life, Bryan appeared to be the doting father. Photos of his two youngest daughters adorned his office at City Hall. He brought the girls with him to speaking engagements, bragged about them to anyone who would listen and posed for pictures with them during his campaign for re-election in 2005. He was known throughout central Florida as an advocate for foster children.

If the sexual abuse allegations were true, the girls might have an easier time moving on now that their dad is gone, Galatzer-Levy said. But not being able to confront him, or have closure through an investigation or trial, also could make things harder. "It would be hard to deal with, if the price of relief is that your father's dead," he said.

Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig Arrested in Airport Men's Room

Yep, yet another family values Republican gets outed, this time much more publicly and in a way that goes far beyond mere rumor. Back in October, 2006, Mike Rogers outed Craig on Blog Active. Perhaps this time the larger media will pay attention to yet another case of GOP hypocrisy. I have been unable to link to the Roll Call Story(http://www.rollcall.com/issues/1_1/breakingnews/19763-1.html) - probably because the server is going into melt down from hits - so I am quoting from part of Wonkette's coverage. I don't know about you, but if had been innocent, I do not think I would have coped a plea. Here's highlights from Wonkette:

Last June, Larry Craig, the Senator who was publicly outed to absolutely no ensuing scandal, was arrested for “lewd conduct” in a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. He pleaded guilty on August 8, paid $500, got out of the 10-day jail sentence, and was given a year of probation. His office referred to the incident — and this is all from Roll Call so you can’t accuse us of making this bizarre quote up — as a “he said/he said misunderstanding.” They claim they’ll explain what they mean by this later today, when they come up with a convincing lie.

You see, it was all just a simple he said/he said misunderstanding! Because Larry Craig was under the impression that the other gentleman wanted to have anonymous sex with him in an airport bathroom. To be honest, we feel bad for poor Larry Craig — the cop didn’t even give him time to whip it out! Dude shoulda fought the case! Because we would’ve liked to have seen this drawn out as long as possible.

http://wonkette.com/politics/stealing-gonzo.s-thunder-dept%27/idaho-senator-larry-craig-arrested-in-mens-room-293922.php

Poison from the "Family" Values Crowd

Pam Spaulding's blog posted the information set out below about the lies and disinformation being put out by Traditional Values Coalition (one of the "Christian" groups that loves to quote the false research of Paul Cameron discussed in my earlier post). While I still monitor the TVC web site, from time to time, the amount of hate spewing from the site can make one literally feel ill. I would love an opportunity to debate Sheldon on camera and expose him for the liar he is. Last fall when I was in a debate on the Virginia Marriage Amendment sponsored by the Libertarian Party, a member of the audience (who turned out to be on the faculty at Pat Robertson's Regent University) tried to quote some of Paul Cameron's garbage and I was able to shut him down by citing some of the data in my earlier post. All of us need to educate ourselves so that we can expose these liars so that fewer LBGT individuals suffer the horrible death of Matthew Shepard (the photo is of the fence above where Matthew died). Here's Rev. Sheldon's latest poison:

"Homosexual/Drag Queen Hate Crimes Bill On Fast Track
We must defeat H.R. 1592, the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007, by Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Democrat from Michigan.
Without your action, this anti-Christian legislation will pass -- under the guise of hate-crime prevention -- and accomplish the following homosexual goals:

* Silence the Bible-believing Churches, Pastors and Christians
* Criminalize so-called "hate speech," - which is any speech that is critical of homosexuality or cross-dressing behaviors. The suppression of free speech will be justified by the claim that such speech "incites" individuals to commit violence against homosexuals, cross-dressers etc. Any remarks about homosexuality, such as reading Bible passages, preaching on these passages, telling a person they can come out of the homosexual lifestyle, etc. will be deemed critical remarks and will be ruled to be outside the bounds of First Amendment protections for pastors, business owners and individuals.
* Elevate homosexuality and gender confused individuals such as drag queens, cross-dressers, she-males, etc. to the status of federally-protected minorities. These behaviors will be considered equal to race under the federal law.
* Interfere with local law enforcement by elevating every alleged incident of "hate" against a homosexual or cross-dresser into a federal crime.
* Fund anti-Christian curriculum for children K-12, through the U.S. Departments of Education and Justice to promote homosexuality and cross-dressing as normal behaviors."

I find it interesting that Jesus spent most of his time condemning the self-righteous of his time (who acted not unlike Rev. Sheldon) as opposed to condemning so-called "sinners" who did not conform to the legalism and hypocrisy of the the scribes and Pharisees.