GOP Establishment Avoids "Bishop" E. W. Jackson

Many in the reality free GOP base always whine that if the Republican Party would just nominate sufficiently conservative candidates, the GOP would roll on to unprecedented victory.   Well, these folks got their wish when the Virginia GOP - well, actually a coven of extremists orchestrated by the Christofascists at The Family Foundation - nominated Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli, "Bishop" E. W. Jackson, and Mark "Mr. Miscarriage Law" Obenshain for the party's statewide ticket.   And the polls are showing this "dream ticket" significantly down in the polls.  Faring worse of all is "Bishop" Jackson who the few sane Republicans in Virginia view as radioactive with good reason.  For his part Jackson views those not qualified for a forced commitment in a mental institution with equal disdain.  Here are highlights from a Washington Post article on the latest on "Bishop" Jackson:

Virginia Republicans have been keeping their distance from E.W. Jackson ever since the fiery minister, who has compared Planned Parenthood to the Klan and linked yoga to Satan, won the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor.  Turns out the feeling was mutual.

The Chesapeake pastor has rebuffed the party’s suggestion that he tone down his rhetoric and steer clear of hot-button issues — much to the delight of his grassroots supporters, the frustration of some GOP loyalists and the surprise of almost no one.

More unexpectedly, Jackson has refused the party’s nuts-and-bolts logistical help, choosing not to tap into resources that include the GOP’s trove of voter data and more than 40 field offices around the state, according to four Republican operatives.

While the top of the ticket mostly talks jobs, Jackson has pushed his “liberty agenda,” which calls for limiting the federal government’s reach, promoting gun rights, and resisting “Obamacare.” And as he rejects the party’s messaging and logistical aid, some Republicans fear that he could not only handicap his own prospects but hurt the GOP nominee for governor . . . . 


Jackson’s continued outspokenness — last month he called the Democratic Party the “anti-God party” for supporting abortion rights and gay marriage — could reflect on the whole Republican ticket and turn swing voters away, the GOP strategists said.

At the same time, Jackson’s decision to pass up basic ground-game help could discourage the Republicans’ tea party wing . . . . If the party base sees Jackson struggling and concludes the GOP establishment snubbed him rather than the other way around, it might not turn out in droves for Cuccinelli, . . . 

Said another strategist: “There’s a very strong anti-establishment vein in this. They are laying the groundwork actively to blame somebody else — the establishment — for losing.”

Some of Jackson’s grassroots supporters applaud his decision to resist the party’s attempt to shape his messaging — or muzzle him, as they see it. “This election, November 2013, is Armageddon for social conservatives in Virginia. If we don’t win . . . we could become the next California on marriage,” said Steve Waters, a Richmond-based political consultant who has done work for Jackson. “And I think E.W. will talk to that, and has talked to that.

“Instead of working with the party and doing a little bit of trust-and-verify, they’re going their own way.”

One can only hope that "Bishop" Jackson - I use quotation marks on bishop since Jackson set up his own small church and gave himself the title - goes down to a truly historic defeat.  The man is crazy.  And the GOP can thank The Family Foundation for the fact that he's the Lt. Governor nominee. 

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Politifact Virginia: Cuccinelli's Claim that McAuliffe is "Under Investigation" is a Lie

Time and time again we see the "godly Christian" crowd and those who like to proclaim their religiosity lie through their teeth.  Ken Cuccinelli - who would work to impose a Christian Taliban regime over Virginia - is no exception.   He is currently running ads that claim that Terry McAuliffe is under federal investigation.  Politifact Virginia looked at Cuccinelli's claim and the available facts and politely concluded that Cuccinelli is a liar.   Here is the money quote:

Cuccinelli said McAuliffe is the only gubernatorial candidate under formal investigation. He cites an SEC probe into the tactics GreenTech Automotive used to attracted foreign investors. McAuliffe was chairman of the electric car company until last December and remains one of its key stockholders. But there has been no indication that McAuliffe is a target of the SEC investigation. 

The burden of proof falls on Cuccinelli to prove his charge against McAuliffe, and he comes up empty. 

One can only assume that Cuccinelli is desperate to distract voters from his own dirty linen in the form of $18,000 in gifts from Jonnie R. Williams/Star Scientific and the $140,000 he received from the parent company of a gas company being sued by landowners cheated out of royalty payments.  As noted in prior posts, Cuccinelli's office gave unprecedented and highly improper  legal advice and aid to the gas companies against Virginia landowners.  I think we can agree on what the $140,000 bought.

Texas Military Forces Refuse to Process Same-Sex Couples' Benefits

In yet another example of how the far right increasingly sees itself as above the federal laws and rulings of the U. S. Supreme Court, Maj. Gen. John Nichols (pictured above), who oversees the Texas Army National Guard, Texas Air National Guard, and Texas State Guard, directed state-run facilities to comply with the anti-gay Texas state constitution, which does not recognize same-sex marriage.  Perhaps the Pentagon should consider cutting off all federal funds that flow to these Texas divisions of the military if Texas believes it can ignore Pentagon directives.  This development underscores that the cowardice of the U. S. Supreme Court and its refusal to rule broadly on gay marriage has only created more chaos.  The Advocate has details.  Here are highlights:

The Texas Military Forces, which includes the state's National Guard and other troops, are refusing to process requests from gay and lesbian couples for spousal benefits, ignoring orders from the Department of Defense that it should extend health care, housing, and other benefits to married gay and lesbian members of the military by today.

The directive creates an additional hurdle for gay and lesbian members of the military, who now must apply for benefits at a federal facility. In Texas, one of the nation’s largest states, applying at a federal installation could require traveling a considerable distance.

The Pentagon confirmed to the Associated Press that Texas is the only entire state that is currently refusing to process benefit requests for same-sex partners, though some state-run offices in Mississippi have also refused to issue applications.

“It’s truly outrageous that the state of Texas has decided to play politics with our military families," said Stephen Peters, president of American Military Partner Association, which advocates for LGBT military families. "Gov. Rick Perry should be ashamed. Our military families are already dealing with enough problems and the last thing they need is more discrimination from the state of Texas."  

Tuesday was the first day these benefits were available to members of the military, following the Supreme Court decision that struck down a key section of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Two thoughts.  First, Texas and Mississippi seemingly learned little from their defeat in the Civil War in terms of the federal law taking priority over state law.  Second, as I have argued many times - and as the majority in United States v. Windsor recognized - the only motivation behind anti-gay laws and state constitutional amendments is hatred and anti-gay animus that seeks to make gays lesser citizens be they in the military or civilians.   And this pervasive evil has one source: religion.

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

Australian Prime Minister Slams Anti-Gay Pastor

One of the things that drives me to distraction at times is the unwarranted deference given to religion in American politics.  When one looks at the fruits of religion - hate, intolerance, hypocrisy, the embrace of ignorance, and at times physical violence against others - the negatives far out weigh any positive benefits in the form of actual, honest to goodness charitable works done.  Yet American politicians remain terrified at the prospect of offending the pious set.  Not so Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who lost patience with a anti-gay pastor who challenged Rudd on his support for gay marriage and let the pastor have it verbally.  Would that we could see such honesty in America.  The Guardian looks at the exchange involving Rudd and the gay hater:

Kevin Rudd has insisted his views in favour of same-sex marriage are compatible with his Christian faith, saying a literal interpretation of the bible that opposed gay unions would also dictate support for slavery.

Challenged by a pastor and Christian radio announcer on the ABC’s Q&A program on Monday night as to why as a Christian he did not follow the teaching of the bible that marriage was between a man and a woman, Rudd replied: “Well, mate, if I was going to have that view, the bible also says that slavery is a natural condition because St Paul said in the new testament: ‘slaves be obedient to your masters,’ and therefore we should all have fought for the confederacy in the US civil war.”

He added: “I mean, for goodness sake, the human condition and social conditions change. What is the central principle of the new testament? It is one of universal love, loving your fellow man,” Rudd said, during a passionate performance in which he insisted he was still not contemplating losing Saturday’s election despite Labor’s declining standing in the opinion polls.

Rudd is 100% on point.  Of course, today's conservative Christians have lost the message about love and instead fill their lives with hate and bigotry.  

Church Camp Counselor Touches 13 Year Old Boy With Penis; Church Calls It “Horseplay”

Apparently, the Vineyard Community Church in Chattanooga, Tennessee (yes, it figures it would be in the Bible Belt) has learned a few things from the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy when it comes to lunatic attempts to explain away improper sexual contact with children and youths.  How else to explain the church leadership's effort to call a camp counselor's climbing naked on top of a 13-year-old boy and placing his penis on top of the boy’s crotch -  while a group of other boys were watching - "horseplay."   Fortunately, the local police thought otherwise and camp counselor, Zachary Anderle (pictured above) has been charged with simple battery, two counts of third-degree cruelty to children and sexual assault.  Addicting Info has details.  Here are highlights:

The Chattanooga Times Freepress reported that Vineyard Community Church Camp Counselor, Zachary Anderle, was charged with simple battery, two counts of third-degree cruelty to children and sexual assault, following an incident in which he climbed, naked, on top of a 13-year-old boy. Anderle placed his penis on top of the boy’s crotch, while a group of other boys were watching. He also slapped the boy in the face. Vineyard Community Church is located in Chattanooga, TN. The incident between Anderle and the boy took place at the Church’s Camp site, which it was hosting in Temple, GA.

As if the actions of Anderle were not bad enough, the church committee which has been appointed to investigate the event has stated that it believes the incident was simply a matter of “horseplay gone wrong.” While the church has removed Anderle from participating in church camp activities and has also barred him from participating in any activities that involve children, the statement clearly shows a desire on behalf of committee members to make the incident somehow appear more “acceptable.” Even though I think it’s clear that reasonable human beings do not engage in “horseplay” which involves putting their naked genitalia on the crotch of a thirteen year old child, apparently members of this church believe such things are “all in good fun.”

It gets better. Anderle’s attorney, Alan Trapp, explained that the act was just an attempt to discipline a 13-year-old boy at camp. According to the Chattanooga Freepress report, Trapp said:

“This boy was using a lot of unsavory, sexually charged language. Zach told him to stop repeatedly. When he wouldn’t, Zach told him, ‘If you do not stop, I will come down there and sleep with you naked,” Trapp also told reporters “and he actually jumped on him and all the other boys laughed and thought it was funny.”

Bud Winderweedle, a member of the “investigative committee” established by Vineyard Community Church to look into the incident, also told media:

the camp director attempted to apologize to the 13-year-old’s mother and offer counseling, but she did not respond.

Yes, they offered counseling… After a naked church camp counselor jumped on top of this woman’s son, touching him with his genitals, after he threatened to sleep with her child naked, and after he physically assaulted that child by slapping him in the face, they felt it was appropriate to approach this mother and offer additional counseling.

She went to the police instead. Good for her. The level of denial in this story is so deep and dark, that it’s almost like a bottomless pit. The more you try to peer into the minds of these people, the darker and more frightening it becomes.

Conservative Christianity needs to die.  The soon, the better for society and the world.

The Victims of Republican Obstruction: the Poor and Less Fortunate

As noted frequently on this blog, the Republican Party constantly wraps itself in feigned religiosity, pretends to honor the principles of the Gospels, and claims to be the party of "family values."  All are lies and ruses to dupe the ignorant.  Especially, the claim of being the family values political party.  In truth, the GOP only supports families that are well to do whites who are also preferably knuckle dragging conservative Christians.  Families who are non-white, down on their luck financially and/or do not fit the image of the mythical family of Beaver Clever simple are not wanted or welcome.  Indeed, the GOP would rather that these families would cease to exist.   And to achieve this goal the GOP opposes so-called Obama care that would benefit millions of Americans and seeks to dismantle the social safety net.  An editorial in the Washington Post looks at GOP obstruction and those it harms.  Here are excerpts:

AFTER PRESSING for months, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) last week finally convinced his legislature to expand the state’s Medicaid program as part of the national restructuring of the health-care system known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). According to calculations from the Urban Institute, some 212,000 uninsured Michiganders now stand to obtain health-care coverage.

It’s a sad fact that Mr. Snyder deserves congratulations for this accomplishment. You wouldn’t think state leaders would need convincing to accept mountains of federal cash to help people with meager incomes obtain health insurance. But many Republican leaders and activists have waged a disruptive and harmful campaign to complicate, delay and undermine the ACA, which starts phasing in when state insurance markets begin enrolling customers in a month.

The most prominent efforts have been in Congress, where conservatives’ latest move has been to insist on holding the government budget process hostage to obtain cuts in funds intended for ACA implementation. But the most disruptive activity has been at the state level. Twenty-one states have refused to expand their Medicaid programs, blowing a large hole in the ACA’s coverage strategy. The Urban Institute estimates that 5 million people won’t get coverage as a result.

As The Post’s Sandhya Somashekhar reported last week, Republicans at the state level also have applied a variety of less visible measures to impede the law’s implementation. Some won’t enforce consumer protections, including a ban on insurance companies rejecting patients with pre-existing conditions. The result will be illegal discrimination.
Georgia’s state government is doing “everything in our power to be an obstructionist,” Ralph Hudgens, the state’s insurance commissioner, boasted.

Congress enacted the Affordable Care Act. The Supreme Court found most of its provisions to be constitutional. Republicans, having opposed the bill and supported the legal challenge to it, are entitled to be unhappy about the outcome, though in our view they are wrong on the merits. They are not entitled to obstruct and flout the laws of the United States. On the contrary, they have an obligation to cooperate in good faith with wholly legitimate laws duly passed and reviewed by all three branches of government.

Where did the GOP get this mind set?  From the "godly Christian" folk and their largely conservative Christian Tea Party first cousins who continue to think that they are above the law.  The GOP has been hijacked by those motivated solely by greed and hate.  Whenever they begin to blather about family values they need to be condemned loudly.  They are liars plain and simple.

Justice Anthony Kennedy: A Surprising Friend to Gay Rights

Kennedy picture at center

The New York Times has a piece on Justice Anthony Kennedy who has become a pariah in Christofascist circles and a hero in gay rights circles.  That Kennedy would find himself viewed this way is a bit of a surprise if one remembers that he was nominated to the U. S. Supreme Court by Ronald Reagan who conveniently closed his eyes to the AIDS epidemic in its beginning years.  In deed, when appointed, few advocates for gay rights would have expected that Kennedy would go on to author three landmark decisions that have helped propel gay equality, the most recent being the majority opinion in United States v. Windsor - which identified the true motivation behind anti-gay laws, anti-gay animus - and which may yet unleash a whirlwind nationwide against anti-gay laws.  Here are article highlights:

The San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus sang “Give ’Em Hope” for a revered and in some ways surprising guest who shared a California stage with them last month: Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. 

In remarks from the stage, San Francisco’s mayor, Edwin M. Lee, thanked the justice “for upholding the Constitution and justice for all” in his majority opinion in June in United States v. Windsor, a major gay rights victory. 

“Freedom is always a work in progress,” Justice Kennedy said in his own remarks, making clear that there was more work to be done. 

Justice Kennedy has emerged as the most important judicial champion of gay rights in the nation’s history, having written three landmark opinions on the subject, including this summer’s Windsor decision, which overturned a ban on federal benefits for married same-sex couples. Those rulings collectively represent a new chapter in the nation’s civil rights law, and they have cemented his legacy as a hero to the gay rights movement. 

The praise now being showered on Justice Kennedy by gay rights advocates — and the deep disappointment of conservatives — would have been hard to imagine when President Ronald Reagan nominated him to the Supreme Court in 1987. Gay rights groups were more than a little wary then.  

The justice’s trajectory since then has been a product of overlapping factors, associates and observers say. His Supreme Court jurisprudence is characterized by an expansive commitment to individual liberty. He believes that American courts should consider international norms, and foreign courts have expanded gay rights. His politics, reflecting his background as a Sacramento lawyer and lobbyist, tend toward fiscal conservatism and moderate social views. And he has long had gay friends. 

Romer v. Evans, in 1996, struck down a Colorado constitutional amendment that had banned laws protecting gay men and lesbians. Lawrence v. Texas, in 2003, struck down laws making gay sex a crime. And in June, Justice Kennedy wrote the Windsor decision. 

In 1987, gay rights advocates could see little of this coming.

In 1986, a month after the Supreme Court upheld a Georgia law that made gay sex a crime in Bowers v. Hardwick, Judge Kennedy, not yet a justice, gave a speech at Stanford expressing reservations about the ruling. He contrasted it to a 1981 decision from the European Court of Human Rights striking down a similar law in Northern Ireland. 

Seventeen years later, Justice Kennedy cited the European court’s decision in his majority opinion in Lawrence v. Texas, which overruled Bowers.  “Its continuance as precedent demeans the lives of homosexual persons,” Justice Kennedy wrote.

These days, Professor Dorf said, there is more praise than criticism, and Justice Kennedy has joined a select group.  “What Earl Warren was to civil rights and what Ruth Bader Ginsburg was to women’s rights,” he said, “Kennedy is to gay rights.”

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