Canadian Political Party Pushing For Revocation of Tax-Exempt Status for "Ex-Gay" Organizations

In a move that one could only dream would become a reality in the USA, Canada's New Democratic Party (NDP), now the largest progressive party, has adopted a resolution calling for the Canadian government to revoke the charitable status of "ex-gay organizations." The move makes perfect sense. If one is a charity for tax purposes, it ought to be a requirement that one actually engage in charitable activities as opposed to marketing lies and dangerous witch doctor like therapy condemned by legitimate medical and mental health care associations. There is no reason why taxpayers should be indirectly subsidizing bogus science by giving "ex-gay" organizations a free ride tax wise. Needless to say, the Bible thumpers and "ex-gays for pay" are acting as if someone pissed in their Cheerios and the spittle is flying. The Christianist faux news site OneNewsNow reports on this common sense development in Canada. Here are highlights:
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The New Democratic Party (NDP), which supplanted the Liberal Party in the May election as the dominate left-wing political group, recently held its convention in Vancouver and unanimously approved a resolution that calls on the Canadian government to revoke the charitable status of "ex-gay organizations."
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Brian Rushfeldt, executive director of Canada Family Action (CFA), contends the NDP's resolution is "blatant discrimination" against groups that assist those exiting the homosexual lifestyle. "When they will target a few particular ministries that minister to people wanting to get out of the homosexual lifestyle ... and say, 'We're going to shut you down,' there is no other word for it except blatant discrimination based somehow on left-wing socialist ideology," Rushfeldt decides.
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Obviously, no one is looking to shut down these fraudulent organizations - the public would simply no longer be providing an indirect subsidy. And if the groups cannot make it without a subsidy, then too damn bad. The "ex-gays for pay" can go out and get real jobs.

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Michele Bachmann’s Political Headache

I wrote yesterday about a hit piece leaked via the Daily Caller that raised questions about Michele Bachmann's fitness for the presidency because of her supposedly "incapacitating" migraines. The story, of course, ignored the myriad other reasons why Bachmann is utterly unfit for the office of president, starting with her religious extremism and the fact that she's totally untethered from objective reality (she makes the Chimperator look well grounded). The fact that she's married to an outwardly lisping, mincing queen only adds to the spectator sport aspects of her campaign. The clear unspoken message from the leaked story is that mainline Republicans want to kill her campaign since they realize that in a general election Obama would massacre Bachmann as thinking moderates and independents fled to the Democrat standard bearing - possibly taking down GOP members of Congress in the process. The Daily Beast looks at Bachmann's headache problem and other machinations likely going on behind the scenes. Here are some highlights:
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When is a migraine more than a migraine? When the person afflicted is a leading presidential candidate who also happens to be a woman. The same day she moved into first place for the first time in a national poll of Republican primary voters, Michele Bachmann faced a potentially game-changing story about her personal health. Coincidence? Who knows, but with success comes heightened scrutiny. She’s in the big leagues now.
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In its explosive story, The Daily Caller described Bachmann’s migraines as weekly and incapacitating, requiring heavy medication and at least three hospitalizations. . . . An unnamed adviser is quoted as saying, “When she gets ’em, frankly, she can’t function at all.”
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The Minnesota congresswoman issued a statement that pointedly did not address her hospitalizations or the possible role of stress. She said her migraines are “easily controlled with medication” and suggested that the proof lies in her busy life as a wife, mother, lawyer, Minnesota state senator, congresswoman, and—now—a White House candidate constantly on the road.
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Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, called Bachmann’s response a good start but only that. “We have learned that we need transparency — medical records, information about the medication, and preferably access to her health provider,” he said. “Being president is too important for a ‘trust me.’”
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The questions raised about Bachmann’s migraines have potentially major political implications. If her supporters are unsure about her health, some may look at other candidates.
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Bachmann’s migraines never came up in her campaigns for the House or the state Senate, according to Jacobs. But the consensus is they are fair game in a presidential campaign. The job has become so global, so demanding, that it requires not simply good health but also enormous stamina.
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In the end, Bachmann may need to release more medical information and grant access to her doctors. If her condition is anywhere close to as serious as depicted by her former aides, her campaign will be in trouble. For now the greater challenge seems to stem from the unusually rapid turnover rate in Bachmann’s congressional staff. She has a slew of former aides, and some of them, apparently, have lots to say.
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I don't wish Michele Bachmann any ill will. That said, I do think she's a menace to the country and we need her out of politics, not occupying the White House.

Franken and Leahy Destroy Lying Focus On The Family Witness

I frequently maintain that when a Christianist's lips are moving, the safest bet is to assume that they are lying. At today's Senate Judiciary hearings on the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, Tom Minnery from Focus on the Family tried to spin lies and misrepresent the findings of a Health and Human Services study and argued that same sex couples are inferior parents. Thankfully, Senator Al Franken had done his homework and destroyed Minnery's testimony. Franken was assisted by Senator Patrick Leahy who forced Minnery to admit that DOMA discriminated against the children of same sex couples. The first video clip shows Franken taking down Minnery. The second shows Leahy scoring against Minnery as well. Both are via Think Progress.

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As I said, if a Christianist's lips are moving, odds are that whatever is being said is a lie.

Who is Funding Anti-Gay Hate Groups in Iowa? Meet the Wells Family/Blue Bunny Ice Cream

As regular readers know, I am a strong advocate of using the strength of the LGBT buying power - not to mention that of our allies - to punish companies and/or their controlling shareholders for funding anti-gay bigotry. In Iowa the Family Leader is about as virulently anti-gay as you can get and its mouth piece, three-time failed gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats, is a font of anti-gay nastiness. For those living under a stone, Family Leader recently wanted GOP presidential candidates to affirm that homosexuality is a choice and that African American children enjoyed stronger families during the period of slavery than under the Obama administration. As with NOM, one cannot help but wonder who is providing the funding to allow such groups and individuals to constantly spew hate and intolerance. Think Progress has an expose that reveals the number one financial backer of hate and bigotry in Iowa: the Wells family, the power behind Wells Dairy, which is the third largest ice cream maker in the United States and sells its products under the Blue Bunny label. In addition, Wells licenses the Weight Watchers brand of ice creams, sells Chef Duff’s ice cream (of Ace of Cakes fame), and partners with Disney to offer Disney-branded novelties. My advice to readers? Boycott Wells products and contact Disney and similar customers and ask that they change suppliers. Here are some highlights from Think Progress:
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The FAMiLY LEADER’s controversial 14-point marriage fidelity pledge has caused a rift within the Republican party and led several GOP insiders and 2012 presidential candidates to raise concerns about the group’s extreme conservative ideology and social beliefs. Aside from asking the party to affirm that homosexuality is a choice and that African American children enjoyed stronger families during the period of slavery, the group’s president — three-time failed gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats — has also been caught suggesting that President Obama was born in Kenya and breaking out in laughter at a homophobic faggot joke.
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Yet Vander Plaats would have floundered in obscurity had it not been for the backing of well-connected and deep-pocketed donors, particularly the Wells family behind Wells Dairy. The company, headquartered in Le Mars, Iowa, is the third largest ice cream maker in the United States and sells its products under the Blue Bunny label. Wells Dairy has 5 percent market share behind Nestlé (Häagen-Dazs, Dreyer’s, Mövenpick) and Unilever (Ben & Jerry’s and Breyers Ice Cream), licenses the Weight Watchers brand of ice creams, sells Chef Duff’s ice cream (of Ace of Cakes fame), and partners with Disney to offer Disney-branded novelties. But the Wells family is interested in more than frozen desserts. Mike Wells, the president and CEO of the company, was a member of Vander Plaats’ council of advisers during his gubernatorial campaign and public records reveal that Wells family members have contributed at least $456,000 to Vander Plaats and his affiliated organizations and campaigns.
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Mike and his wife Cheryl Wells have also started at least two ministries, including The Living Center and Side by Side Ministries, aimed at spreading “the Word of God to others.”

Quote of the Day - Andrew Sullivan on DOMA Repeal

Once again, Andrew Sullivan aptly describes what is becoming of the Republican Party:
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Obama is backing repeal of DOMA section 3 and section 2. . . . Andrew Cohen gives credit to a federal judge who ruled DOMA unconstitutional last July. Of course, the unraveling of this law . . . . has to be balanced by the GOP's increased, manic intransigence on the question. Almost every current Republican candidate is required to shudder at the very thought of gay people. The current GOP front-runner, Michele Bachmann, has views on gays that were only widely held in the 1950s and 1960s and were dropped by responsible and sane psychologists in the early 1970s. Her husband does incalculable damage to the souls and psyches of those he simultaneously calls "barbarians" - and charges for it. As the general public coalesces around a new consensus, the GOP has taken a stand far, far to the right of Ronald Reagan's in the 1970s. More to the point, their anti-gay extremism is intensifying. But this is the result of a political party becoming a religious one. The world changes but doctrine cannot.

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Would Ronald Reagan Still Be a Republican?

As I've noted before, I come from a family that with few exceptions considered ourselves Republicans and were not embarrassed to do so. But that was in the past when reason, intelligence, knowledge and reason were attributes that most members of the GOP admired. Today's GOP is a whole different ball game and indeed, the GOP base now rejects just about all of the foregoing values. If my entire family ceased to be Republicans - so-called Rockefeller Republicans, if you will - because the party morphed into something awful, the questions arises of who else would cease to be a Republican given what the party has become. In a Washington Post column Dana Milbank makes the case that Ronald Reagan would likewise now find himself a refugee from the GOP and back within the Democrat fold. His argument sets out a line of reasoning that I suspect more and more GOP moderates find themselves subscribing to more and more as the party lurches towards increased extremism. Here are some highlights:

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After he switched to the Republican Party in 1962, Ronald Reagan famously quipped: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.” Now, the Republican Party is doing the same thing to him — and Democrats are happy to take Reagan back.
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Nobody knows what Reagan, who died in 2004, would make of the current fight over the debt limit. But 100 years after Reagan’s birth, it’s clear that the Tea Party Republicans have little regard for the policies of the president they claim to venerate.
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Tea Party Republicans call a vote to raise the debt ceiling a threat to their very existence; Reagan presided over 18 increases in the debt ceiling during his presidency.
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Tea Party Republicans say they would sooner default on the national debt than raise taxes; Reagan agreed to raise taxes 11 times.
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Tea Party Republicans, in “cut, cap and balance” legislation on the House floor Tuesday, voted to cut government spending permanently to 18 percent of gross domestic product; under Reagan, spending was as high as 23.5 percent and never below 21.3 percent of GDP.
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That same legislation would take federal spending down to a level last seen in 1966, before Medicare was fully up and running; Reagan in 1988 signed a major expansion of Medicare. Under the Tea Party Republicans’ spending cap, Reagan’s military buildup, often credited with winning the Cold War, would have been impossible.
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No wonder Democrats on Tuesday were claiming the Republican icon as one of their own. After the caucus meeting with the Reagan clip, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) began the day’s debate by reading from a 1983 Reagan letter to Congress warning that “the full consequences of a default — or even the serious prospect of default — by the United States are impossible to predict and awesome to contemplate.”
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But while Reagan nostalgia endures, a number of Republicans have begun to admit the obvious: The Gipper would no longer be welcome on the GOP team. Most recently, Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr. (Calif.) called Reagan a “moderate former liberal . . . who would never be elected today in my opinion.” This spring, Mike Huckabee judged that “Ronald Reagan would have a very difficult, if not impossible time being nominated in this atmosphere,” pointing out that Reagan “raises taxes as governor, he made deals with Democrats, he compromised on things in order to move the ball down the field.”
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Half a century after he left the party, the Gipper is winning one for the Democrats.

Why Marcus Bachmann is Fair Game for Mockery

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I've been rough on the always lisping, always mincing Marcus Bachmann for a couple of reasons. First, it drives me to distraction when individuals seek to inject their own psychological issues into the political realm and interfere with the lives and rights of others. Second, nothing hacks me off more than hypocrites be it in the political or religious realm. With Bachmann one is confronted with a man who appears to be gay and suffering from the worse consequences of religious based self-hate and denial. Because Bachmann has "chosen" to try to convince himself he's straight, he wants all other LGBT individuals to live in his warped world. For decades I tried to convince myself I was straight. The difference is, I never tried to force others to join me in the closet nor did I aid and abet political extremists who sought to denigrate and marginalize gays for political and/or financial gain. Since Marcus Bachmann has deliberately decided to both, he's place a huge bulls-eye on his own back. I'm not the only one to have this view. Both Dan Savage and Andrew Sullivan have little sympathy for him either. And the South Park clip set out above sums up the ridiculousness of Bachmann's self-delusion (not to mention Albert Mohler's argument for reparative therapy) Here are highlights from Andrew's blog:
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Dan Savage defends his mockery of Marcus Bachmann's big gay lisp against criticism: [A]s sex researcher Michael Bailey puts it: Not all gay men are sissies, but nearly all sissies are gay men. So it's entirely possible—it seems highly likely to me—that Marcus Bachmann is one of those guys who insists that sexual orientation is a choice because he choose to be straight. Or choose to identify as straight.
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Gay people who point out how fruity Bachmann is aren't saying there's something wrong with being fruity, or gay, or with guys who look, speak, walk, or dance the way Bachmann does. A lot of us look, speak, walk, and dance that way. And we don't think there's anything wrong with us for looking, speaking, walking, or dancing that way . . . . But Marcus Bachmann sure does. He thinks there's a whole lot wrong with being gay. When we point out that this same Marcus Bachmann acts like a huge homo—like a messy, married, dishonest, closeted version of Cam—we're hoisting that pansy on his own hateful petard.
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[A]s Dan notes, some things just cannot be ignored. When a brutal homophobe sounds and looks like a parody of a big old queen, suppressing that fact becomes close to impossible.
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The Kool-Aid drinking set may be willing to over look the obvious about Bachmann, but given his wife's jihad against the civil rights of LGBT citizens, I hope the mainstream media doesn't lose interest for a long time. If Marcus Bachmann wants to pretend he's straight and go through elaborate mind games with himself, that's fine so long as he and his wife stop trying to force others to do likewise.

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