Richmond Circuit Court Judges Defy Bob Marshall and The Family Foundation

In an amazing turn of events after the Christofascists at The Family Foundation and the mentally deranged and homophobic Del. Bob Marshall torpedoed his appointment to the Richmond District Court Bench, Tracy Thorne-Begland (pictured at left) has been appointed by the Richmond Circuit Court judges to fill a District Court vacancy.  The Circuit Court judges move follows an unusual move by five Richmond based mega law firms - a veritable who's who in the Virginia legal world - that jointly signed a letter addressed to the Circuit Court judges urging them to appoint Thorne-Begland and decrying the bigotry that was evidenced by his treatment by the Virginia House of Delegates.  Hopefully this turn of events will embolden other businesses and corporations to send a strong message that they - and many of us regular citizens - are over the Family Foundation dictating state laws and policy.  Victoria Cobb and her coven of haters at The Family Foundation need to be sent slinking back into the political wilderness or whatever dark swamps or nether regions that they crawled out from.  They are an embarrassment to Virginia and they need to step into the 21st century.  Here are highlights from the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The Richmond Circuit Court has appointed Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland to fill the judicial vacancy created when the House of Delegates rejected his nomination to the Richmond General District Court bench last month.  He is the first openly gay judge in Virginia.

The appointment is a vindication of sorts for Thorne-Begland and his supporters, who felt his rejection by the GOP-controlled House of Delegates last month was primarily motivated by the fact that he is openly gay.

It is also a bold move for the judges of the Richmond Circuit Court, who know his interim appointment to the bench could face political opposition when it comes up for review next year in the legislature.  The judges did not act in a vaccuum, however.

The May 15 vote in the House sparked a measure of outrage in the legal community, as well as among local elected officials, Democrats, moderate Republicans and a number of organizations representing civil liberties and gay rights.

Earlier this week, five of Richmond's most prominent private attorneys, representing politically influential law firms, sent a letter to the Richmond Circuit Court expressing support for Thorne-Begland. And on Wednesday, an internal Republican memo surfaced that rebutted opposition leveled by several Republicans with military backgrounds over Thorne-Begland's military record as a Naval flight offcer.

The memo, written by Del. Richard L. Morris, R-Isle of Wight -- a 22-year Navy veteran and military law attorney -- argued that Thorne-Begland had not violated military law or his oath in publicly stating his opposition to the military's policy against gays in the armed forces.

Tracy Thorne-Begland has released a statement about his appointment as a general district court judge.

"I am humbled by the Circuit Court's decision," said Thorne-Begland, who serves as Richmond's chief deputy commonwealth's attorney under Commonwealth's Attorney Michael N. Herring.

Thorne-Begland's appointment to the 13th Judicial District in the Manchester Courthouse takes effect July 1.

"I look forward to serving the citizens of the city of Richmond as a jurist, and over the coming months, I hope that my service provides comfort to all Virginians that I remain committed to the faithful application of the laws and Constitutions of Virginia and the United States of America."

 

Tucker Martin, a spokesman for Gov. Bob McDonnell, said:  "The governor believes Mr. Thorne-Begland is well-qualified to serve on the bench. He congratulates him on the appointment."

It is ironic that Victoria Cobb - head Christofascist at The Family Foundation made this remark about the Circuit Court judges' rebuke of her organization's rank bigotry:

"As a member of the court, he now has the responsibility to uphold the Constitution, not apply his own personal, political agenda or viewpoint," said Victoria Cobb, president of the Christian conservative group, The Family Foundation.  "Because of our efforts, he will be watched very closely in the coming years, particularly if he is elevated to any higher court in the future." Cobb said she hoped the "incident" would prompt deeper scrutiny of future judicial candidates.

The Family Foundation and Ms. Cobb do not give a rat's ass for the Constitution and the law.  It is ALL about their personal agenda of turning Virginia into a theocracy governed by the Christianist equivalent of Sharia law.  Ms. Cobb and The Family Foundation represent one of the most insidious forces of evil and threats to constitutional government in the Commonwealth.  It's safe to assume that if her lips are moving, she's lying.

Belief In God Plummets Among Youth

While the Christianists disseminate hate and discord against gays, immigrants, non-whites and non-Christians among others and the Catholic Church leadership continues to demonstrate that it is morally bankrupt, younger Americans are watching and drawing their own conclusions about religion.  And increasingly, that conclusion is that they don't need or want religion and all of its poisonous attributes.  The chart above from Talking Points Memo that reflects new Pew Research findings shows clearly who belief in God and religion is plummeting among the under 30 set.  I'm sure the self-congratulatory professional Christians and the Catholic bishops will blame the situation on "secular society" but I suspect the real reason is because the Christians in America are killing Christianity. Given the hate and violence that seem to be the principal hallmarks of Christianity nowadays, that's probably a good thing.  Here are highlights from the TPM article:

The younger generation is abandoning God in droves.  A new survey by the Pew Research Center finds that belief in the existence of God has dropped 15 points in the last five years among Americans 30 and under.  Pew, which has been studying the trend for 25 years, finds that just 68 percent of millennials in 2012 agree with the statement “I never doubt the existence of God.” That’s down from 76 percent in 2009 and 83 percent in 2007.  Among other generations, belief in God is high and has seen few changes in recent decades.

The trend was also reflected in declining numbers of millennials who agreed with the statements “Prayer is an important part of my daily life” and “We all will be called before God at the Judgment Day to answer for our sins.” Answers to those questions also didn’t change much among older generations.

Thursday Morning Male Beauty

Catholic Church Continues to Battle Efforts to Ease Sex Abuse Suits

The hypocrisy and disingenuousness of the Roman Catholic Church leadership remains stunning.  While feigning contrition for the organized crime like world wide policy of enabling and then covering up for predator priests who preyed on children and youths, the Church continues to fight tooth and claw to avoid being held accountable for such heinous abuse - abuse that sometimes pushed victims to drugs, alcohol and suicide.  The spectacle of the criminal trial still ongoing in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the implication of at least two cardinals in the deliberate protection of predators with absolutely no concern for victims should make any thinking Catholic want to head for the church door.   Sadly, as the New York Times reports the Catholic Church leadership is doing everything possible to kill efforts to extend the statute of limitations which would allow more victims recourse for their abuse.  Here are article excerpts:

While the first criminal trial of a Roman Catholic church official accused of covering up child sexual abuse has drawn national attention to Philadelphia, the church has been quietly engaged in equally consequential battles over abuse, not in courtrooms but in state legislatures around the country. 

The fights concern proposals to loosen statutes of limitations, which impose deadlines on when victims can bring civil suits or prosecutors can press charges. These time limits, set state by state, have held down the number of criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits against all kinds of people accused of child abuse .  .  .  

Victims and their advocates in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York are pushing legislators to lengthen the limits or abolish them altogether, and to open temporary “windows” during which victims can file lawsuits no matter how long after the alleged abuse occurred. 

The Catholic Church has successfully beaten back such proposals in many states, arguing that it is difficult to get reliable evidence when decades have passed and that the changes seem more aimed at bankrupting the church than easing the pain of victims. Already reeling from about $2.5 billion spent on legal fees, settlements and prevention programs relating to child sexual abuse, the church has fought especially hard against the window laws .  .  .  .  

Changing the statute of limitations “has turned out to be the primary front for child sex abuse victims,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University who represents plaintiffs in sexual abuse suits. 

“Even when you have an institution admitting they knew about the abuse, the perpetrator admitting that he did it, and corroborating evidence, if the statute of limitations has expired, there won’t be any justice,” she said. 

Timing is a major factor in abuse cases because many victims are unable to talk about abuse or face their accusers until they reach their 30s, 40s or later, putting the crime beyond the reach of the law. In states where the statutes are most restrictive, like New York, the cutoff for bringing a criminal case is age 23 for most serious sexual crimes other than rape that occurred when the victim was a minor.  

In New York, the Catholic bishops said they would support a modest increase in the age of victims in criminal or civil cases, to 28. But their lobbying, along with that of ultra-Orthodox Jewish leaders, has so far halted proposals that would allow a one-year window for civil suits for abuses from the past.

Joan Fitz-Gerald, former president of the Colorado Senate, who proposed the window legislation, was an active Catholic who said she was stunned to find in church one Sunday in 2006 that the archdiocese had asked priests to raise the issue during a Mass and distribute lobbying postcards. “It was the most brutal thing I’ve ever been through,” she said of the church campaign. “The politics, the deception, the lack of concern for not only the children in the past, but for children today.” She has since left the church.

The new archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput, who led the successful campaign to defeat such a bill in Colorado, says that current restrictions exist for “sound legal reasons.” 

There truly is no real contrition on the part of the Church leadership.  The only real concern is over the monetary cost of having been caught and exposed.  The victims don't even show up on the radar screen in Rome.  It's disgusting and a major reason I'm no longer a Catholic. 

General Mills Flips NOM the Finger and Opposes Minnesota Anti-Gay Amendment

The Christofascists at the National Organization for Marriage ("NOM") had been pressuring major Minnesota corporations to remain "neutral" in the marriage battle being waged in that state.  Being "neutral" in NOM's jargon means remaining silent and by implication supporting NOM's theocratic agenda of forcing Christianist religious beliefs on all citizens and shredding the First Amendment's guaranty of freedom of religion for all, not just far right Christians.  Now, General Mills has responded and announced its opposition to the anti-gay marriage amended being pushed by NOM and its fellow anti-gay hate groups and liars.  Here's what Minnesotans United for all Families posted on its Facebook page late yesterday evening:

BREAKING NEWS TONIGHT: Fortune 500 Corporation General Mills CEO announced tonight that General Mills opposes the marriage amendment seeking to limit the freedom to marry in Minnesota. Stay tuned for more information!

Not surprisingly, some of the haters are none too happy that General Mills has opted to support equality under the civil laws.   Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown will be acting as if someone peed in their Cheerios.  Think Progress looks at the Christianists disingenuous "stay neutral" campaign here.The piece goes no to note as follows:

[T]here’s no such thing as a “neutral” position that doesn’t still hurt the gay community. The term as used by anti-gay conservatives seems to derive from Minnesota’s largest school district, Anoka-Hennepin, where a “neutrality” policy prevented staff from discussing LGBT issues and thereby created a toxic bullying-ridden climate for gay and trans students. A policy of neutrality is a policy of invisibility, disregard, and shame. NOM’s use of such a red herring is both a sign of the organization’s anti-gay malevolence and desperation for support.

Lastly, NOM’s rationale that supporting marriage equality has “little to do with” corporate missions is simply wrong. Businesses do better when their LGBT employees are treated fairly, because they can recruit and retain more talented staff and market their spirit of inclusion to customers. Minnesota’s businesses should call NOM on its bluff and do what’s right for both their profits and the thousands of same-sex families who might patronize them: embrace equality for all.

Poll: More Blame Bush Than Obama For Nation's Bad Economy

In what cannot be happy news for Mitt Romney, a new Gallup poll shows that by a considerable margin Americans outside of Kool-Aid drinking GOP circles blame Chimperator George Bush for the nation's crippled economy far more than they blame Barack Obama.  While Romney continues to try to blame Obama for the continued economic doldrums, 68% of Americans recognize where the real fault lies: George Bush, Emperor Palpatine Cheney and the GOP controlled Congress.  Obviously, Obama needs to keep pounding on this fact - and the fact that Romney's proposals to date are little more than a warmed over version of the disastrous policies of the Chimperator's failed presidency.  Here are highlights from Politico:

 

Americans continue to place more blame for the country’s ongoing economic problems on former President George W. Bush than on President Barack Obama, a new survey shows.

Though Bush has been out of office for nearly three and a half years, 68 percent blame him a “great deal” or “moderate amount” for the nation’s economic woes, according to a Gallup poll released Thursday. Meanwhile, 52 percent of Americans believe the same about Obama.

There exists a partisan divide on who blames who for the current economic distress, but Republicans are more willing to blame Bush than Democrats are willing to blame Barack Obama.

In fact, 49 percent of Republicans said Bush was greatly or moderately responsible for America’s economic woes, compared to 51 percent who said he wasn’t. On the other hand, 19 percent of Democrats blame Obama for the current distress, while 81 percent say he is “not much” or “not at all” responsible.

Bush’s continued unpopularity - he was recently polled as the least popular living ex-president - may have an impact on the 2012 presidential race, since some of the potential running mates for GOP candidate Mitt Romney are deeply tied to Bush, who served in the White House from 2001 to 2009.

For example, Ohio Sen. Rob Portman was the director of Office of Management and Budget from 2006 to 2007; Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels held the same position from 2001 to 2003. And of course, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is George W. Bush’s brother.

More Wednesday Male Beauty

Good Bye to the GOP - Part II

Yesterday I noted an article that quoted Michael Stafford, a former Republican Party officer, who has left the Republican Party because of the GOP's down right inanity, meanness and religious extremism.  These are the same attributes of the GOP that caused me to leave the Party over a decade ago (although the party was still quasi-sane when I left compared to its current state).  Now, I've found a column written by Stafford that goes into to even more detail and confirms many of my own views of what has happened to the GOP.  Here are some highlights from The Cagle Post:

I’m a life-long Republican. My political affiliation has been woven intrinsically into the very fabric of my being.

As an adult, I continued to be a rock-solid Republican- I helped run my law school’s chapter of the Federalist Society and its Republican club. And after the election of President Obama in 2008, I served as an officer in my state Republican Party. For the next two years, I devoted substantial amounts of my time, my talent, and my treasure to supporting local candidates running for office and to building the Party organization.  Today, however, I am a registered Republican no longer.

I came to the decision to leave the GOP not with a heavy heart, but with a broken one.  I reached this point through a long series of awakenings and realizations - a path marked by literally years of wrestling with, and finally accepting, the political implications of a number of difficult truths. It involved ever-increasing levels of cognitive dissonance, as I tried to square my experiences, concerns, and knowledge, with my continued loyalty to the GOP.

As a local GOP official after President Obama’s election, I had a front-row seat as it became infected by a dangerous and virulent form of political rabies.  In the grip of this contagion, the Republican Party has come unhinged. Its fevered hallucinations involve threats from imaginary communists and socialists who, seemingly, lurk around every corner. Climate change- a reality recognized by every single significant scientific body and academy in the world- is a liberal conspiracy conjured up by Al Gore and other leftists who want to destroy America. Large numbers of Republicans- the notorious birthers- believe that the President was not born in the United States. Even worse, few figures in the GOP have the courage to confront them.

Republican economic policies are also indefensible. The GOP constantly claims that its opponents are engaged in “class warfare,” but this is an exercise in projection. In Republican proposals, the wealthy win, and the rest of us lose- one only has to look at Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget to see that.

Its [the GOP's] reckless behavior helps drive the political dysfunction crippling our nation.  In the end, it offers a dystopian vision of our future- a harsher, crueler and more merciless America starkly divided between the riders, and the ridden.

Ultimately, leaving the GOP was necessary in order to maintain my own integrity. Leaving is also a public act of personal protest. I am under no illusions about its broader significance- it will have no impact on the trajectory of the political narrative in this nation. But that does not make it futile. On the contrary, as the shadows lengthen, such minor individual acts of defiance and dissent are more critical now than ever before.

Perhaps, one day, a reformed and responsible Republican Party will reemerge.

But until then, the GOP and I have reached a parting of the ways. In the poignant words of “Kathleen Mavourneen,” an old Irish ballad: “It may be for years, and it may be forever”

If it's any consolation to Stafford, he is but one of countless life long Republicans who have left the GOP in order to maintain their own integrity and moral decency.  Of course what I find most ironic is that the GOP continues to pretend that it is the party of Christian values even as its policies reflect little but greed, cruelty to the less fortunate and a total lack of compassion or caring for others. Oh, and then there's the rejection of objective reality that I find most troublesome.

The New Yorker Exposes AFA's Bryan Fischer: Extreme, Ridgid, Bigot and From a Broken Home

I'm not a subscriber to The New Yorker, so I can only quote from an article abstract that focuses on AFA's anti-gay bigot in chief, Bryan Fischer, as well as a piece on Right Wing Watch.  But what's interesting is the picture that emerges of Fischer.  Like Maggie Gallagher (who engaged in what the GOP and Christian Right would describe as slut behavior and found herself pregnant and abandoned by her "boyfriend") and it seems all of the prominent "ex-gays for pay," Fischer seems to have come from a f*cked up family background and the man still suffers from psychological issues that he's never properly dealt with.  Instead he projects his anger and venom on others, Native Americans, gays, immigrants of all sorts and Hispanics being among his preferred targets.  In my opinion, the man is a mental case and it is telling that he's typical of the hate merchants of the self-professed Christianists.  Rather that ranting and spewing hate towards others, Fischer ought to be seeking a significant mental health intervention.  Here are highlights from The New Yorker abstract:

[E]vangelical radio talk-show host Bryan Fischer. .   .  .  who hosts “Focal Point,” a popular Christian radio talk show, is one of the country’s most vocal opponents of what he calls “the homosexual-rights movement.” As he puts it, “A rational culture that cares about its people will, in fact, discriminate against adultery, pedophilia, rape, bestiality, and, yes, homosexual behavior.” His goal is to make this view the official stance of the Republican Party. 

[The article] tells about Fischer’s upbringing. He attended Stanford University and the Dallas Theological Seminary. Fischer directed Biblical studies at Cole Community Church in Boise, Idaho for thirteen years. Discusses Fischer’s growing political activism and tells how he came to be affiliated with the A.F.A.

 

Right Wing Watch fills in these details that I cannot access until the current issue of is past current status.  Here are some telling details:

 

Readers who are already familiar with Fischer’s extremism will likely be much more interested in the details about how he came to be what he is today, starting with his upbringing and relationship with his parents:

Fischer’s political activism, however, began years before the advent of same-sex-marriage laws. In fact, his preoccupation with family dysfunction seems to have started with his own. Though Fischer loves to talk, he does not like to talk about his childhood, and spoke about it only grudgingly. He was born in Oklahoma City, in 1951, and his father, John, a descendant of German Mennonites, was a Conservative Baptist minister whose pacifism was so strict that he became a conscientious objector during the Second World War—a choice that makes Fischer uncomfortable. […]

 

Fischer didn’t volunteer anything about his mother, but, when pressed, said, “My parents divorced when I was about twenty. It just rocked my world.” His mother, who worked as an interior decorator at a furniture store, was “chronically late,” and the bus driver on her route to work would always hold the bus for her. Eventually, he said, “my mom fell for the bus driver,” deserting him, his father, and his younger sister. “I don’t want to go into it,” Fischer said. “But I saw the devastating impact it had on other people in my immediate family.” Asked how his father fared, Fischer turned away, then said, “He looked like an Auschwitz survivor. It was akin to that ordeal.”

 

Dennis Mansfield, a Christian conservative who was friends with Fischer for twenty years, said that Fischer also “had a deep-rooted disappointment in his father, for not being strong enough.”

Later, as a student at Stanford, Fischer gravitated to David Roper, a chaplain at the school, and began attending his evangelical church in Palo Alto. Fischer told Mayer that he was attracted by the “manliness” of the church: “It was the first time I’d been around a real muscular Christianity,” he told me. “It had a kind of strength and virility to it that would appeal to men.” Roper told Mayer he found this characterization “odd” and is no longer close to Fischer. In 1993, Fischer was crushed when Roper retired and endorsed a different successor. […]  

But friction had grown between the two men—and between Fischer and the congregation— over various doctrinal issues. “The central issue was gender,” Fischer told me. The church, he said, had “adopted policies that would have allowed women to exercise authority over men.” He opposed this, citing the Apostle Paul.  .  .  .  .  “Somebody’s got to have the tie-breaking vote,” he explained to me. “According to God, that’s the husband and father.”

 

Four years later [in 2005], Fischer was kicked out on the street by his own congregation – again manliness was to blame:

“It was the gender issue again,” Fischer told me. “Because of my Scriptural convictions, I wasn’t able to budge. A female friend of the wife of an elder wanted a leadership role. I felt those roles should be reserved for men… . When I objected, they said, ‘You’re fired.’ It was very abrupt. I didn’t know what I was going to do next. It was very painful.”

 

The picture that is painted is that Fischer is not only and insufferable bigot but a total asshole to boot.  I'd also add that given the findings of the recent University of Rochester study on homophobes and their suppressed homosexuality, Fischer has all the hallmarks of a self-loathing closet case.  Not to mention attributes of someone in need of serious mental health care.  That Fischer stands as a major voice for the Christianists is indicative of how utterly f*cked up most of them are.

Matt Staver Says ENDA and Gays Seek to “Undermine the Very Concept of God"

Click image to enlarge

While spewing anti-gay lies and hatred the Christofascists always disclaim any responsibility for anti-gay bulling and the resultant suicides by LGBT teens that are a too frequent phenomenon.  Worse yet, these horrid individuals and their organizations claim to "love gays" even as they incite hatred and violence against us.  In the five years that this blog has been online, it is instructive that the ONLY death threats and threats of harm I have ever received (which why all comments are now moderated and a profile required for those leaving comments) have ALL been from "godly Christians."  As Right Wing Watch is reporting, Matt Staver, the head of the poor excuse of a law school known as Liberty University School of Law has gone beyond the pale in claiming that gays not only want to destroy "religious freedom" - which for Staver translates to Christianists being allowed to force their religious views on all citizens - but also to destroy the concept of God as well.  Meanwhile, Staver's fellow hate merchants at Traditional Values Coalition (a registered hate group) are pushing a truly vile ad - see the image above - opposing ENDA.  It doesn't take much to connect the dots and see that this kind of hate speech is an incitement to violence against LGBT citizens.  Here are highlights from Right Wing Watch on the type of "Christian love" being marketed by Mr. Staver:

Liberty Counsel chairman Mat Staver is ratcheting up the rhetoric in opposition to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), even going so far as to say that if passed the legislation may lead to child molestation, sexual assault, and death. Staver told Jim Schneider of VCY America on Crosstalk yesterday that ENDA “will put individuals at risk and ultimately result in significant damage and even death of some individuals”

Staver: So you can go into these restrooms or changing rooms, if you’re a man, and want to go in and molest, or watch, or sexually assault young girls. So, I mean, the absurdity of this is just beyond understanding how someone could be in favor of it. This [ENDA] will ultimately, in addition to colliding with religious liberty, in addition to forcing a radical agenda on people, this also will put individuals at risk and ultimately result in significant damage and even death of some individuals. 

Schneider: How critical is it Mat that our listeners contact their U.S. Senators at this time pertaining to ENDA?

Staver: I think it’s absolutely critical, we cannot have this law pass, we just simply cannot have it pass, it will literally reshape America and business and you will have your religious freedom on a collision course with this radical homosexual agenda. This will be the biggest club that the homosexual agenda will have to ultimately beat down people of faith and moral values.
…
Staver: Years ago I said what the ultimate goal of this homosexual agenda was not this sexual orientation where you are wired to a particular way but ultimately the abolition of gender. It’s hard for us to even comprehend that, how can you abolish the concept or the construct of gender, male and female, it’s so objective, it’s so obvious, how can you do that? But that’s exactly what they want to do: anything that you see is just fictitious; it’s only what’s in your mind. If you abolish the concept of gender you ultimately undermine morality, you ultimately have no morality and norms for men and women or sexual behavior. As Alfred Kinsey ultimately wanted to do, he wanted to undermine morality in marriage. Why? So he could undermine the very concept of God himself.

Don't be surprised to hear lunatics citing Staver and TVC as justification after they murdered or maimed some innocent LGBT citizen.    And what's equally frightening is that this is exactly the type of propaganda approach that Hitler and the Nazi regime utilized against the Jews of Europe in the 1930'2.  Staver and TVC are the ones who are truly evil.