Quote of the Day: The Ass Backward Values of Pro-Gun Conservatives

Growing up through high school my family had 50 acres of land and we had horses and rode often on our property - except during hunting season when hunters ignored the "No Trespass" and "Posted" signs that we diligently placed around the perimeter of the property.  During that portion of the year it was not safe to be on one's own property and we kept the horses in the front pastures in order to minimize the chances that they would be shot.  And on the few occasions when I challenged hunters trespassing on our property I was greeted by arrogance and surliness.  It was obvious that these men did not give a damn about the rights of others.  Perhaps those experiences forever colored my view of gun owners.  But I believe it is symptomatic of the mind set of those who want unfettered access to guns regardless of the danger poised to others.  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at the misplaced views of the pro-gun crowd which in my view boils down to extreme selfishness - a pervasive trait it seems among conservatives.  Their perceived rights always trump the rights of other citizens.  Here are excerpts:

How many children have to die, how many innocents have to be lost in a mall or a theater or on a neighborhood street, how many presidents or political leaders or prophets like Dr. King have to be shot down in a fusillade that wounds history itself, before America protects the first of our founding inalienable rights—to “life”—which surely comes before the “liberty” of carrying a cache of weapons. And that demands gun control—and I’m not using a politically convenient phrase like “gun safety legislation.” Some guns are outright unsafe—assault weapons—and all guns are unsafe in the hands of some people.

Republicans who claim to defend the “right to life” profit politically by defending the moral wrong of a wholesale arsenal of death inflicted on the already living. The religious right that has allied itself with the gun lobby defies Christ’s warning that those who harm the children would be better off thrown into the sea with a millstone around their necks. Shouldn’t the protection of life begin not with a fertilized egg, but with human beings who are truly and fully alive?

[W]e should have the courage to do something for our country, too. We should look into the anguished faces of parents outside that Connecticut elementary school—faces now tragically incised on our national consciousness. We should recall events from that darkness at noon in Dallas nearly 60 years ago to the carnage at Columbine and Aurora. Those faces and events matter more than the scorecard of the National Rampage Association.

Let us stand against the odds so that countless others who otherwise would never even know the cause of their slaying or the name of their executioner may instead live, laugh, and find love and not hate.

Obama Addresses the Nation on Sandy Hook - Wing Nuts Go Berserk

If one wonders how a horror like the one that occurred on Friday in Newtown, Connecticut can happen, one need look no farther than the mindset of some Neanderthals who went berserk over the fact that Obama's address preempted a portion of the 49ers-Patriots game.  Somehow I suspect many of such viewers are likely gun fans as well.  Truthfully, there are times I believe that this country would be a far better place without professional sports - at least if all the time and attention spent on sports were focused on making the country and our communities better.  The Washington Post looks at Obama's address last night.  Here are highlights:

President Obama offered words of solace to a heartbroken and inconsolable community Sunday, meeting with loved ones of the dead from Sandy Hook Elementary School and lamenting at a nationally televised memorial service that the United States has failed in its duty “to keep our children, all of them,” safe from harm.

Two days after the massacre of 20 children and six adults by a young man firing a military-style semiautomatic weapon in a hallway and classrooms at Sandy Hook Elementary, Obama, apparently alluding to gun-control laws, vowed to “use whatever power this office holds . . . in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.”

“No single law, no set of laws, can eliminate evil from the world or prevent every senseless act of violence in our society,” he said. “But that can’t be an excuse for inaction. Surely we can do better than this.”

The president’s visit to this community of 27,000 people, about 30 miles west of New Haven, came as the debate over gun control raged anew and as investigators continued the laborious job of sorting out precisely what happened Friday morning at Sandy Hook, and why.

Earlier Sunday, authorities disclosed that the 20-year-old gunman, Adam P. Lanza, stormed into the elementary school with “numerous” high-capacity ammunition magazines for the .223-caliber Bushmaster assault rifle that he used to carry out the carnage.

The specifics of Adam Lanza’s weaponry, publicly disclosed by police, raised questions about how he had obtained so many magazines. And it suggested that the attack could have been even worse. When he died, Lanza still had numerous rounds of unspent ammo, and authorities later found a shotgun in the car he used.

Each of the Newtown victims, ages 6 to 56, was shot at least twice and some were hit by as many as 11 bullets, authorities said.

And the reaction in wingnut land? It is not pretty and underscores the sickness that this country suffers from.  Here are a few samplings of the reactions of these less than fine Americans:

Take that nigger off the tv, we wanna watch football! @Hester52 @Ty_CoolerThanU  - Bradley Patterson@2A_HogOfTheYear

don't want to see some nig making a speech, I want to watch the 49ers beat the patriots Pusha B @Bryant_Jaimes

What the fuck is this nigger doing on my screen?!?!?!? I want football!!! Nick Brack@BrackBrackCity

I'm sorry, cutting into the football game so that gun grabbing nigger can make a political speech? Major fucking... fb.me/1PfK94sut  Liz Michael@lizmichael

There are many more such comments, but you get the drift.  It's pretty frightening that this type of mind set exists.    I think we know how these individuals voted in November if they voted at all.  And we wonder why America is sliding down in the international ranks!

More Sunday Male Beauty

The Decline of Evangelical America

Any cursory reading of this blog makes it readily apparent that I believe many of the problems in this country stem from the political influence of evangelical Christians who among other things (i) seek to force their religious views on all citizens, (ii) want to gut social programs that aid the poor and disadvantaged, and (iii) seem to revel in constant war and religious crusades against non-Christians, Iraq and Afghanistan being but two examples.  As for the Gospel message, these far right Christians seem more and more the antithesis of the Gospel of Christ and if anything increasing constitute modern day Pharisees best know for their hypocrisy and hatred of others.  The good news is that perhaps the power of the evangelical Christians  is waning and some of their denominations are losing members, especially among the younger generations. At least that is the premise of a piece in the New York Times.  Here are excerpts:

IT hasn’t been a good year for evangelicals. I should know. I’m one of them. In 2012 we witnessed a collapse in American evangelicalism. The old religious right largely failed to affect the Republican primaries, much less the presidential election. Last month, Americans voted in favor of same-sex marriage in four states, while Florida voters rejected an amendment to restrict abortion. 

Studies from established evangelical polling organizations — LifeWay Research, an affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Barna Group — have found that a majority of young people raised as evangelicals are quitting church, and often the faith, entirely. 

First, evangelicals, while still perceived as a majority, have become a shrinking minority in the United States. In the 1980s heyday of the Rev. Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, some estimates accounted evangelicals as a third or even close to half of the population, but research by the Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith recently found that Christians who call themselves evangelicals account for just 7 percent of Americans. (Other research has reported that some 25 percent of Americans belong to evangelical denominations, though they may not, in fact, consider themselves evangelicals.) 

But while America’s population grows by roughly two million a year, attendance across evangelical churches — from the Southern Baptists to Assembles of God and nondenominational churches — has gradually declined, according to surveys of more than 200,000 congregations by the American Church Research Project. 

The movement also faces a donation crisis as older evangelicals, who give a disproportionately large share, age. Unless younger evangelicals radically increase their giving, the movement will be further strained. 

Evangelicals have not adapted well to rapid shifts in the culture — including, notably, the move toward support for same-sex marriage. The result is that evangelicals are increasingly typecast as angry and repressed bigots. In 2007, the Institute for Jewish and Community Research, in a survey of 1,300 college professors, found that 3 percent held “unfavorable feelings” toward Jews, 22 percent toward Muslims and 53 percent toward evangelical Christians. 

We evangelicals must accept that our beliefs are now in conflict with the mainstream culture. We cannot change ancient doctrines to adapt to the currents of the day. But we can, and must, adapt the way we hold our beliefs — with grace and humility instead of superior hostility. The core evangelical belief is that love and forgiveness are freely available to all who trust in Jesus Christ. This is the “good news” from which the evangelical name originates (“euangelion” is a Greek word meaning “glad tidings” or “good news”). Instead of offering hope, many evangelicals have claimed the role of moral gatekeeper, judge and jury.

I believe the cultural backlash against evangelical Christianity has less to do with our views — many observant Muslims and Jews, for example, also view homosexual sex as wrong, while Catholics have been at the vanguard of the movement to protect the lives of the unborn — and more to do with our posture.

I do not personally see evangelicals changing in ways that will stop the decline - which is a good thing in my view -  and, if anything, expect to see more stridency and extremism as this toxic from of Christianity lurches toward a much deserved death.  Meanwhile, the younger generations will continue their flight from the hate and prejudice that are so pervasive among far too many evangelicals.

Do Not Donate to the Salvation Army

This time of year it is a common sight to see the Salvation Army bell ringers in front of various stores and in shopping malls. Despite the temptation to toss some money in the kettle as one passes by, the better approach is to walk on by or, if asked for a donation, simply state that you don't donate to organizations that discriminate.  I've written about this issue in previous holiday season, but is it is important to restate the fact that the Salvation Army is an anti-gay organization.  Yes, it has the right to set its own rules, but each of us has the same right to refuse to subsidize the Salvation Army's discriminatory agenda.  Bil Browning has a post at The Bilerico Project that further delineates why the best approach is to avoid donating to the Salvation Army.  Here's are excerpts from Bil's post:

The Salvation Army has a history of active discrimination against gays and lesbians. While you might think you're helping the hungry and homeless by dropping a few dollars in the bright red buckets, not everyone can share in the donations. Many LGBT people are rejected by the evangelical church charity because they're "sexually impure."

The church claims it holds "a positive view of human sexuality," but then clarifies that "sexual intimacy is understood as a gift of God to be enjoyed within the context of heterosexual marriage." The Salvation Army doesn't believe that gays and lesbians should ever know the intimacy of any loving relationship, instead teaching that "Christians whose sexual orientation is primarily or exclusively same-sex are called upon to embrace celibacy as a way of life."

On its webpage, the group claims that "the services of The Salvation Army are available to all who qualify, without regard to sexual orientation." While the words are nice, their actions speak volumes. They blatantly ignore the position statement and deny LGBT people services unless they renounce their sexuality, end same-sex relationships, or, in some cases, attend services "open to all who confess Christ as Savior and who accept and abide by The Salvation Army's doctrine and discipline." In other words, if you're gay or lesbian, you don't qualify.

The organization also has a record of actively lobbying governments worldwide for anti-gay policies - including an attempt to make consensual gay sex illegal. (Yes, you're paying lobbyists with those donations.)

Since 1986 the Salvation Army has engaged in five major assaults on the LGBT community's civil rights and attempted to carve out exemptions that would allow them to deny gays and lesbians needed services as well as employment.

• When New Zealand considered passage of the Homosexual Law Reform Act in 1986, the Salvation Army collected signatures in an attempt to get the legislation killed. The act decriminalized consensual sex between gay men. The measure passed over the charity's objections.
• In the United Kingdom, the Salvation Army actively pushed passage of an amendment to the Local Government Act. The amendment stated that local authorities "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship." The law has since been repealed, but it led many schools and colleges to close LGBT student organizations out of fear they'd lose their government funding.
• In 2001, the organization tried to extract a resolution from the White House that they could ignore local non-discrimination laws that protected LGBT people. While the commitment would have applied to all employees, the group claimed that it needed the resolution so it "did not have to ordain sexually active gay ministers and did not have to provide medical benefits to the same-sex partners of employees." After lawmakers and civil rights activists revealed the Salvation Army's active resistance to non-discrimination laws, the White House admitted the charity was seeking the exemptions.
• Also in 2001, the evangelical charity actively lobbied to change how the Bush administration would distribute over $24 billion in grants and tax deductions by urging the White House deny funding to any cities or states that included LGBT non-discrimination laws. Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary, issued a statement saying the administration was denying a "regulation sought by the church to protect the right of taxpayer-funded religious organizations to discriminate against homosexuals."
• In 2004, the Salvation Army threatened to close all their soup kitchens in New York City to protest the city's decision to require all vendors and charities doing business with the city to adhere to all civil rights laws. The organization balked at having to treat gay employees equal to straight employees.

I've seen the discrimination the Salvation Army preaches first hand. When a former boyfriend and I were homeless, the Salvation Army insisted we break up before they'd offer assistance. We slept on the street instead and declined to break up as they demanded.

Instead of donating to the Salvation Army, choose a different charity that will help everyone without prejudice. Find a local secular charity - or here are some national organizations that provide help to anyone who needs it:

• Goodwill (disabled and unemployed)
• The Red Cross (medical and emergency relief)
• Doctors Without Borders (medical and emergency relief)
• Habitat for Humanity (homelessness and housing)

In One Way That America Is Sadly Exceptional

We hear the far right in particular always bloviating about "American exceptionalism."  They are right in one sick aspect of American society.  We slaughter one another with hand guns more than any other developed country.  Don't tell me insane number of guns isn't a prime motivating factor.  How many front pages like this one do we need to see before something changes?

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Sunday Morning Male Beauty

The GOP Civil War Continues - Will Sanity Prevail?

As a former Republican from a family of now former Republicans I continue to watch the ongoing civil war within the GOP and wonder whether sanity can be regained or whether instead the Christofascist/Tea Party virus that has overtaken the party will prove ultimately fatal.  The embrace of ignorance, religious extremism and open racism by the GOP continues to shock those who recall the Rockefeller Republican days of our youth.  Some in the GOP seem to be realizing that the party risks extinction if the party doesn't change its policies and not just its messaging.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the ongoing war for the soul of the GOP.  Here are excerpts:

Some Republicans still argue that nothing is fundamentally wrong with the party. Or nothing that a better get-out-the-vote operation, a field of more appealing candidates, and more outreach to Hispanics and women wouldn’t repair.

But others are coming to the conclusion that the problem goes deeper than that, to the party’s philosophy and policies, which are getting further out of step with the nation.

“Republicans have lost a majority of the popular vote in five out of the last six elections,” GOP pollster Whit Ayres said. “There’s a message there. The Republicans need a new business model, and a new product for the new century. It’s not just a problem of one candidate or one campaign.”  That gloomy assessment is shared even by some of the GOP’s most ardent ideological warriors.

Nothing is more central to GOP self-identity than its drive to cut taxes. Conservative columnist Robert Novak used to remark that Republicans were put on this Earth for precisely that purpose.
The problem for them now is that the American public feels otherwise, at least when it comes to the breaks for the wealthy that were enacted under George W. Bush, which Obama promised to end if he were reelected.

In the postmortems following Mitt Romney’s defeat, there are factions that argue that the party should have presented a sharper contrast by demanding ideological purity, and others that say it doomed its nominee by doing exactly that.

“What we got was a weak moderate candidate, hand-picked by the Beltway elites and country-club establishment wing of the Republican Party. The presidential loss is unequivocally on them,” Tea Party Patriots national coordinator Jenny Beth Martin said in a statement released just moments after the television networks called the race for President Obama on election night.

That prompted this retort from pundit Ann Coulter: “The party’s problem now runs more along the lines of moron showoffs, trying to impress tea partyers like Jenny Beth Martin.”

[T]he polls also say that on the specifics of nearly every major policy question, Republicans are positioned against the tide of public opinion — on taxing the rich and maintaining entitlement programs, on same-sex marriage, on whether climate change is real and manmade, on whether illegal immigrants should be given a path to citizenship.  

Sadly, I remained convinced that until the power of the Christofascists within the GOP is broken  it will be impossible to turn the party around toward a path towards sanity and renewed appeal to a changing country.  There IS something fundamentally wrong with the GOP and it all traces back to the rise of the Christofascist in the party who are more often than not also racists.

Who Really Funds the NRA? Not It's Members

I have long despised the NRA for its disingenuous propaganda pushing for more or less the abolition of all sensible gun control restrictions.  But there's another reason: the organization lies and pretends that it is speaking out for its average members, many of whom want nothing more than to own traditional hunting rifles and/or non-automatic pistols.  However, the reality is that the NRA is increasingly a front organization for gun manufacturers many of whom, you guessed it, manufacture assault weapons and high volume ammunition clips.  So when National Rifle Association spokesman Wayne LaPierre goes on television to claim that the NRA gets its money from its membership in small donations, he's deliberately lying through his teeth.  A research paper shows where the real serious money comes from.  Here are excerpts:

The National Rifle Association (NRA) receives millions of dollars directly from domestic and foreign gun manufacturers and other members of the firearms industry through an organized corporate outreach program according to a new report issued today by the Violence Policy Center (VPC).

The report, Blood Money: How the Gun Industry Bankrolls the NRA, reveals that since 2005 contributions from gun industry "corporate partners" to the NRA total between $14.7 million and $38.9 million. Total donations to the NRA from all "corporate partners"--both gun industry and non-gun industry--for the same time period total between $19.8 million and $52.6 million. The vast majority of funds--74 percent--contributed to the NRA from “corporate partners” come from members of the firearms industry: companies involved in the manufacture or sale of firearms or shooting-related products.

Despite the NRA's historical claims that it is not financially allied with the gun industry, including the current disclaimer on its website that it “is not affiliated with any firearm or ammunition manufacturers or with any businesses that deal in guns and ammunition,” NRA "corporate partners" include many of the world's best known gunmakers as well as such companies as Xe, the new name of the now infamous Blackwater Worldwide--known for its abuses in the Iraq war--which alone contributed between $500,000 and $999,999 to the NRA since 2005.

Among the NRA’s “corporate partners” who gave $25,000 or more to the organization are 22 that manufacture firearms, including such well-known gunmakers as: Arsenal, Inc.; Benelli; Beretta USA Corporation; Browning; DPMS Panther Arms; FNH USA; Glock, Inc.; H&R 1871, LLC; Marlin Firearms; Remington Arms Co., Inc.; SIGARMS, Inc.; Smith & Wesson Corporation; Springfield Armory; and, Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc. Of the 22 gunmakers, 12 manufacture assault weapons. Also among the NRA’s “corporate partners” are numerous high-capacity ammunition magazine manufacturers or vendors. 

One manufacturer, Beretta, donated one million dollars to the NRA to work to overturn gun control laws in the wake of the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision in "District of Columbia v. Heller" (which for the first time ever recognized an individual right to possess a handgun in the home for self-defense).

MidwayUSA sells ammunition, high-capacity ammunition magazines, and other shooting accessories and has contributed between five and 10 million dollars to the NRA via its NRA Round-Up Program (which rounds up customer purchases to the nearest dollar with the difference going to the NRA) and other contributions. One Pittsburgh resident who apparently took part in the NRA’s Round-Up Program through MidwayUSA was concealed carry permit holder George Sodini, who in August 2009 opened fire at an LA Fitness Center in Collier, PA, killing three women and wounding nine others before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life. A copy of the e-mail receipt sent to Sodini from MidwayUSA for his purchase of 9mm and .45 ammunition includes a donation of 74 cents from the mass shooter to the NRA via the Round-Up Program.

The study concludes, "The mutually dependent nature of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry explains the NRA’s unwillingness to compromise on even the most limited controls over firearms or related products (such as restrictions on high-capacity ammunition magazines)....The NRA claims that its positions are driven solely by a concern for the interests of gun owners, never mentioning its own financial stake in protecting the profits of its gun industry patrons.

So when politicians accept NRA money, they not only are little better than paid whores but are also allowing themselves to be played for utter fools.  Are you listening Harry Reid?  The American public needs to open its eyes to who is really speaking for gun manufacturers and not your local neighbor who likes to go hunting from time to time.

Will Connecticut Massacre Finally Lead to Meaningful Gun Control?

The horrific massacre in Connecticut on Friday (three of the young victims are pictured above) underscores the need for federal legislation on gun control.  Piece meal state by state reform - assuming backward states like Virginia with Republican controlled legislatures would even pass stricter controls - will not do what is needed because guns purchased in lax states like Virginia simply cross state lines and end up in states like New York where much more  sane gun laws already exist.  The fix must be at the national level.  The question is whether Barack Obama and other politicians will have the spine to defy the madmen in the GOP base and the NRA and finally say no more to a continuation of Old West style carnage.  No other developed nation has the regular carnage seen in America for a simple reason: civilians are not allowed to have military style weapons such as these:

Click image to enlarge

Remember this - all of the guns used in Friday's massacre were purchased legally.  Just as has been the case with every other mass shooting spree.  So please, do not repeat the NRA mantra about "law abiding citizens" being deprived of gun rights.  And no more whining about "politicizing" tragedies like the one on Friday.  These tragedies continue to occur because of political cowardice plain and simple.  A piece in the Washington Post is hopefully is accurate and just perhaps there will be enough public outrage to kick the NRA and its political whore (mostly in the GOP) to the curb and strict, sane controls that respect hunting rights (no one needs a Bushmaster rifle to hunt) will be implemented.  And whether or not gun apologists care to admit it or not, anyone who opposes new restricts is complicit in the next massacres that will surely occur if nothing is done.Here are article highlights:

Friday’s rampage in Newtown, Conn., could be a tipping point in a national debate over gun rights that has faded in recent years. Advocates pointed to three reasons why this shooting may change the climate in Washington in a way that the one at a Colorado movie theater and the attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) did not.

The almost unimaginable killing of so many 6- and 7-year-olds has sparked an outpouring of public emotion; Obama is on stronger footing to champion gun-control measures now that he has been reelected and will never again face voters, and the National Rifle Association has been weakened after spending millions of dollars backing candidates who lost.

The scale and frequency of mass shootings has grown so extreme that gun-control advocates believe they now have a strong case to make to enact strict restrictions on automatic weapons. Their challenge, though, will be turning the latest wrenching moment into a winning legislative strategy.  That, they say, requires presidential leadership.

Obama, in his statement Friday responding to the Connecticut shooting, sounded angry and resolved as he recounted a string of recent incidents of gun violence.

“If having dozens of people gunned down in an elementary school doesn’t motivate Washington to do even the easy things they can do, it’s not clear what will,” said Mark Glaze, director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group chaired by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I) that represents 750 mayors across the country.

Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control advocacy group, said she senses a change in the political atmosphere. “The general public is reaching the point of being fed up, and I think this will push it over the edge,” she said.

Rep. John B. Larson (D-Conn.) said in a statement Saturday that “to do nothing in the face of continuous assaults on our children is to be complicit in those assaults.”  .   .   .   .  Among the measures that Larson and other Democratic lawmakers have suggested are requiring background checks for all gun sales, closing the terrorist watch-list loopholes, banning
high-capacity ammunition magazines and reinstating the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004.

The article goes on to quote the typical gun apologist bullshit dished out by Republicans in particular:

 Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), the fourth-ranking House Republican, said Congress should be “careful” about suggesting new gun laws.

“We need to look at what drives a crazy person to do these kind of actions and make sure that we’re enforcing the laws that are currently on the books. 

I'm sorry, but I have more respect for the most tawdry whore than I do for Ms. Rodgers and her similarly spineless cohorts in the GOP and Democrats who accept NRA money like Harry Reid.  They dance around and refuse to accept the simple proposition that NO ONE needs assault weapons and, if one is crazy enough to be buying them to "plan for the worst" like Adam Lanza's mother is alleged to have done, then they are likely too crazy to be allowed to have such weapons. 

And those of us in the LGBT community need to acknowledge that the vast majority of the nuts in the NRA and the circles of their political supporters are the same folks who hate us and want us criminalized.  There's a reason why the GOP adopts positions on "God, guns and gays."