One Million Bitches Target The GAP

One thing that always strikes me is that despite the right wing zealots bleating about protecting freedom and free speech, they truly only believe in such rights for themselves.  When others engage in free speech or advertising or just plain living their lives as they choose, suddenly the hypocrites of the right wing want to enforce censorship.  One of the latest examples is the hissy fit that the Christianists at OneMillionMoms are having over a new ad by The Gap (shown above) that - oh the horror! - shows two handsome young men in a single shirt with the phrase "Be One."   The one million bitches have their panties in huge wad and are vowing retaliation against The GAP for its heresy of admitting that gays exist and marketing to us.  Like all of the Christofascists, the one million bitches want special rights for themselves, but have a basically "f*ck you" attitude towards those with differing beliefs.  The lesson of course is, we need to go out and shop at The GAP.  With luck, The GAP will see a sales surge like Starbucks experienced after NOM sough a boycott against the company. Here's a sampling of the group's screed:

Speaking of companies who are choosing to be politically correct instead of focusing on selling clothes; GAP is also guilty. In Los Angeles, CA, GAP has a billboard located downtown that reads: "GAP- BE BRIGHT- BE ONE" with two homosexual men pressed together under a shared t-shirt. They are hugging each other and facing the camera cheek-to-cheek. "BE ONE" is in large letters which emphasizes the same-sex relationship.

GAP Inc. Brands, including Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime, and Athleta, does not deserve, nor will it get, money from conservative families across the country. Supporting GAP is not an option until they decide to remain neutral in the culture war. GAP needs to seriously consider how their immoral advertising affect the youth of our nation.

Christians should urge for the removal of GAP's offensive billboard in Los Angeles and any other city where it is located. GAP will also need to cancel any plans to use the "Be One" ad campaign elsewhere including store-front posters, its website, and in print magazine ads.

The group instructs its sheep and cow like members to send the company the following rant:

As a parent and a member of OneMillionMoms.com, I am highly offended by your company's disrespect for the millions of parents whose children will be exposed to your latest "Be One" GAP billboard ad. Selling clothes has nothing to do with a person's sexual orientation. In attempting to be politically correct, you are offending a huge majority of your customers.

GAP Inc. Brands, including Old Navy, Banana Republic, Piperlime, and Athleta, does not deserve, nor will it get, my family's business as a result. I will not be able to support your corporation until you decide to remain neutral in the culture war. I implore you to consider how your immoral actions affect the youth of our nation

Did you note how "remaining neutral" equates to knuckling under to the hate and bigotry of the one million bitches?  I can just imagine how many of these moms are of the fat ass, stretch pants soccer mom type I recall (and found so mindless and despicable) from my days in straight suburbia. 

The Gospel of Mel Gibson - And Other Self-Righteous Christianists

It seems that most of the homophobic types who malign and slander LGBT citizens fall into a couple of categories: (1) closeted self-loathing gays like Ted Haggard, Robert Knight and George Rekers, et. al, or (2) lazy and/or simple minded individuals who fear having to make independent moral analysis and judgment and cling to whatever dogma is preached to them. In a column in the New York Times aimed at Mel Gibson, David Brooks seems to have found another category which, on reflection appears to sum up folks like James Dobson, Tony Perkins (pictured here), Pat Robertson and a host of other professional Christians: the modern narcissist. Brooks conjectures that their moral certainty and utter lack of empathy for others derives from their overall tempestuous love affairs with themselves and their love of hearing themselves pontificate. For some, I also suspect that there's a deep love for money which they fleece from the sheeple who mindlessly heed their snake oil pitch and hand over lots of money. Here are some column highlights:
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The narcissistic person is marked by a grandiose self-image, a constant need for admiration, and a general lack of empathy for others. He is the keeper of a sacred flame, which is the flame he holds to celebrate himself.
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His self-love is his most precious possession. It is the holy center of all that is sacred and right. He is hypersensitive about anybody who might splatter or disregard his greatness. If someone treats him slightingly, he perceives that as a deliberate and heinous attack. If someone threatens his reputation, he regards this as an act of blasphemy. He feels justified in punishing the attacker for this moral outrage.
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And because he plays by different rules, and because so much is at stake, he can be uninhibited in response. Everyone gets angry when they feel their self-worth is threatened, but for the narcissist, revenge is a holy cause and a moral obligation, demanding overwhelming force.
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And the sad fact is that Gibson is not alone. There can’t be many people at once who live in a celebrity environment so perfectly designed to inflate self-love. Even so, a surprising number of people share the trait. A study conducted at the National Institutes of Health suggested that 6.2 percent of Americans had suffered from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, along with 9.4 percent of people in their 20s.
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Every week brings a new assignment in our study of self-love. And at the top of the heap, the Valentino of all self-lovers, there is the former Braveheart. If he really were that great, he’d have figured out that the lady probably owns a tape recorder.

One in Six Americans Felt Pangs of Hunger in '08

In addition to the travesty that the USA does not provide guaranteed health care to its citizens - unlike the modern industrialized nations of Europe among other places - it is a national disgrace that the percentage of Americans experiencing hunger has increased rather than diminished. The irony, of course, is that the voters and politicians who oppose heath care reform and social services to disadvantaged Americans are precisely those who pretend to be supporters of "family values." Since when did hunger and lack of need medical care come to represent "family values" or what America is allegedly all about? But if one listens to the rants of the far right against health care reform, immigration reform and a host of other needed reforms, it is always the falsely pious ego centric members of the Christian Right who are in favor of denying assistance to the poor, etc. They are the antithesis of the Gospel message of Christ, yet the spineless mainstream media never challenges them on their hypocrisy and the disconnect between their actions and the Gospel they claim to worship. The Washington Post has coverage on the increasing presence of hunger in America. Here are some highlights:

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The nation's economic crisis has catapulted the number of Americans who lack enough food to the highest level since the government has been keeping track, according to a new federal report, which shows that nearly 50 million people -- including almost one child in four -- struggled last year to get enough to eat.
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The magnitude of the increase in food shortages -- and, in some cases, outright hunger -- identified in the report startled even the nation's leading anti-poverty advocates, who have grown accustomed to longer lines lately at food banks and soup kitchens. The findings also intensify pressure on the White House to fulfill a pledge to stamp out childhood hunger made by President Obama, who called the report "unsettling."
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The data show that dependable access to adequate food has especially deteriorated among families with children. In 2008, nearly 17 million children, or 22.5 percent, lived in households in which food at times was scarce -- 4 million children more than the year before. And the number of youngsters who sometimes were outright hungry rose from nearly 700,000 to almost 1.1 million.
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Several independent advocates and policy experts on hunger said that they had been bracing for the latest report to show deepening shortages, but that they were nevertheless astonished by how much the problem has worsened. "This is unthinkable. It's like we are living in a Third-World country," said Vicki Escarra, president of Feeding America, the largest organization representing food banks and other emergency food sources.
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The report's main author at USDA, Mark Nord, noted that other recent research by the agency has found that most families in which food is scarce contain at least one adult with a full-time job, suggesting that the problem lies at least partly in wages, not entirely an absence of work. . . . The report suggests that federal food assistance programs are only partly fulfilling their purpose, although Vilsack said that shortages would be much worse without them. Just more than half of the people surveyed who reported they had food shortages said that they had, in the previous month, participated in one of the government's largest anti-hunger and nutrition programs: food stamps, subsidized school lunches or WIC, the nutrition program for women with babies or young children.

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Despite findings such as these, I know a number of Republicans who continue to chant the mantra of lower taxes as they stand by and let children suffer from hunger and lack of medical care resources. Naturally, all of these folks consider themselves "godly Christians" while in reality they are greedy, self-centered scrooges who car nothing for what happens to their fellow citizens. It's sick and it's disgusting, but that's the reality of today's GOP and its false Christian, self-centered bigots

Anti-Gay Zealots With Self-Claimed Direct Line to God

I always wonder about the mental health issues involved with right wingers who have the hubris to believe that somehow they have a direct communications link to God and that somehow God directs their anti-gay bigotry to accomplish his/her/its goals. Two recent case of this delusional phenomenon are former Miss USA, Carrie Prejean and Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer (pictured at left). In the case of Prejean, having lost her crown for refusing to follow the terms of her contract, she is promoting herself as a darling of the Christianists and just appeared at the objective reality free Family Research Council "Values Voter Summit" in Washington, D.C. According to Prejean, who has become a professional victim of the gay agenda, "I knew God had a plan for me… God chose me for that moment. He knew I was strong enough to get through all the junk that I have been through.” Here some more of Prejean's diarrhea of the mouth via the Los Angeles Times:

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What she went through, she said, was “a vicious storm of attacks,” including being vulgarly insulted by Hilton in an Internet video, and having her parents’ divorce records published by tabloids. She has also had a series of legal tangles with the Miss USA pageant, whose owner, Donald Trump, initially stood by her, as well as the company that owns the Miss California pageant, which she sued after it revoked her crown.

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“Even though I didn’t win the crown that night,” said Prejean, tearing up, “I know the Lord has so much of a bigger crown in heaven for me.”

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As relatively harmless as the delusional and overly self-important Prejean may be, such delusions are far more dangerous when held by public officials. Jan Brewer is a prime example. The good governor just rescinded domestic partnership rights in Arizona basically because these legal rights do not fit with her crazy, discriminatory religious beliefs. One would think that after 8 years of the Chimperator's delusional misrule that people would know better than to elect religious fruitcakes to office (yes, that includes Taliban Bob McDonnell and the utterly insane Ken Cuccinelli here in Virginia). Not so in Arizona. Here are some highlights from Brewer's merger of church and state via the Arizona Daily Star:

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Gov. Jan Brewer said Wednesday that she believes "God has placed me in this powerful position as Arizona's governor" to help the state weather its troubles. In a wide-ranging speech on the role of religion in politics and in her life, Brewer detailed to a group of pastors of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church how she relies on her faith and in prayer to deal with many of the issues she faces as the state's chief executive.

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Brewer also said there are times when, during a meeting with staffers, one will suggest praying about an issue. "And we stop, and we take that time, and we pray about it," Brewer, a Missouri Synod-Lutheran herself, told the group meeting here. "And it does make a difference."

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Brewer reminded the ministers how she did not seek to become governor but "inherited many, many, many significant challenges that still confront Arizona citizens today" when she got the job after Janet Napolitano quit to take a job as homeland security chief in the Obama administration.

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The Missouri Synod Lutherans are the far right segment of Lutherans who view gays and the separation of church and state with as much disdain as Pat Robertson and similar Christo-fascists who have nothing but contempt for the religious freedoms of other citizens. The ELCA and Missouri Synod are light years apart in their approach to gay Christians.