Famous Republicans....are they gay?

Look at Republicans present and past, and ponder…

Were they gay?

J. Edgar Hoover, I think we can close the book on that one.

Reagan and Romney, with the perfectly coiffed, laquered black hair, hostile to women and their causes...?

Bush 41, married a woman who looks like his mommy, forever trying to blow shit up and kill people just to prove he was as manly as Ronnie?

Rick Santorum, Eric Cantor, Mike Pence, John Thune, pretty boys?

Lindsey Graham, unmarried pretty boy?

Charlie Crist, rumor magnet?

Craig and Foley, too easy…

John Boehner, spends more time in a tanning booth than a 14-year-old girl?

All those loveless, twisted marriages with mechanically-grinning, badly-aging, power-suited Barbie dolls?

All that insane methinks-he-doth-protest-too-much homophobic rhetoric?

Seriously, when you see the Republican leadership line up in the Senate TV gallery with their TV makeup on, to spew lies about whatever the Democrats are trying to pass...don't you get a yen, in the back of your mind, to start singing "Y-M-C-A"?

Westboro gang brings their hate to West Virginia mine country

http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/west-virginians-1-wingnut-westboro-0

The Westboro hatemongers are at it again – in West Virginia. They marched over to coal country to tell all those grieving parents, wives and children that the miners deserved to die because America tolerates gays. And because West Virginia has too many Catholics.

Gay-bashing epidemic

That silly old hate crimes bill was compleeeeeetely unnecessary, right?

The FBI disclosed today that the number of anti-gay hate crimes last year was almost 2000.

Two thousand.

Five times a day, crazed wingnuts attack some gay guy, or some gay girl.

Five times a day.

And that's just the stuff that's reported as a crime, not to mention the thousand times a day a gay student is rammed into his locker, or hollered at in the hallway, and doesn't bother to complain.

"Because beatin on them fags is fuuuuuuun! Yee haw!"

Welcome to our world.

Wingnuts claim Obama official will turn your kids gay

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/family-research-council-ginning-up-opposition-to-gay-appointee-at-dept-of-education.php?ref=fpa

"Jennings favors indoctrinating even elementary-age children in pro-homosexual ideology."


Cue the scary Carmina Burana music!


O Fortuna! Velut luna! Statu variabilis! Semper crescis!

Wingnuts blame recession on...gays

http://www.koco.com/politics/19920709/detail.html


OKLAHOMA CITY -- State Rep. Sally Kern launched a proclamation for morality at a state Capitol rally where she was heckled by protesters on Thursday who urged her to "love thy neighbor."

About 200 people appeared for Thursday's rally meant to gather signatures for the proclamation. The document declares the need for a spiritual renewal to address societal problems.

Kern also blames the country's economic crisis on the nation's immoral actions.

Kern's past comments about homosexuality has made her a frequent critical lightning rod but she said the morality proclamation she plans to ask people to sign is about hating the sin, not the sinner.

"What I hope comes out of this is that those people who believe in the Judeo-Christian faith will come together and step up," she said. "The whole point of the proclamation is let's stand up. Let's stand up and let our voices be heard and not let the minority rule the majority."

Her Oklahoma Proclamation of Morality states that the greater national moral crisis is the reason for the economic recession. She said the United States has become a world leader in promoting abortion, pornography, same-sex marriage and other things she disagrees with. It mentions, among other things, President Barack Obama's decision to declare June to be Gay Pride Month.

"Those things are more symptoms of what's been happening to our nation for decades," she said." We've gotten away from believing there is a right or wrong."

Jesus had two dads

Quote of the day from a friend in Baltimore.

More GOP lies and hysteria

Despite the fact that the CIA and a number of lawmakers have debunked the GOP accusations against Pelosi, Newt is screaming that she must be censured (savor the irony) and Rush is demanding she resign.

But the funniest attempt at GOP hysteria came, unsurprisingly, from Steele, who was caught trying to teach strategy to Republicans -- "let's scare people by telling them gay marriage will cost tax money!!"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/16/michael-steele-gay-marria_n_204263.html


This is what passes for leadership in the GOP.


**UPDATE** -- Oops, missed another one. Now Steele is screaming that Obama will take all our guns and put terrorists on our streets, both of which are bullcrap.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/05/steele-dems-want-to-take-away-our-guns-move-terrorists-into-our-communities.php?ref=fp2

**UPDATE** -- and now Boehner is demanding that Pelosi apologize. But the funny part of the story was when Boehner was cornered on whether they should be an investigation -- an investigation which would, in the end, confirm all of the crimes committed by the Bush administration. So naturally Boehner waffled.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/05/17/gop-leader-on-pelosis-claim-provide-proof-or-apologize/

**UPDATE** -- ...and Steele is calling for the investigation that so many Republicans dread. Oops!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/17/steele-open-to-torture-in_n_204364.html

**UPDATE* -- ...and now the Republicans want her to apologize, but don't want the investigation. Nice try!

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/john-boehner-thinks-nancy-pelosi-should-ap

Billo: civil unions mean polygamy and sex with turtles!

http://crooksandliars.com/node/28091

How to write a gay marriage law

The recent Iowa ruling told us what their gay marriage law was not. Now comes the task of legislating what the law actually is.

The trick with writing a good law, is idiot-proofing it so that the people who come along and try to abuse it, wreck it, violate it, skirt it, stretch it, violate the letter and spirit of it...can be stopped.

Conservatives are dead wrong in asserting that marriage must be only an issue between one man and one woman. But they are dead right in that if the line isn’t drawn there, it must be drawn somewhere. The people who draw the line need to draw it carefully, to account for people like this:

a. Rightwing loons who try to game the system, to make it harder for gays to marry....Ever since Roe versus Wade, anti-abortion nuts have tried every trick in the book to make certain states and counties abortion-free – harassing abortion providers, giving anti-abortion providers the option of referring service under a “conscience exception” etc. What if rightwing churches and justices of the peace try to do the same to gay couples in certain jurisdictions? Should the law stipulate that gay couples must always have access to marriage officiation? We already have some wild and woolly definitions of who can officiate at weddings – judges, ship captains, faux Elvises from Vegas with mail-order theological degrees, Uncle Ray-Ray who runs a voodoo shop, you name it – but in some cases a new provision might be needed for gay couples. You can also count on gay-friendly services to start popping up.

b. People who might want to expand the concept of marriage beyond two people....Cultures around the world have experimented with group marriages for thousands of years, but Americans might hesitate on that, particularly if it means allowing a pimp to “marry” all his girls to get them health care, or a homeless activist to do the same for a shelter full of homeless guys. In the end we will probably shift slowly from a one-man-one-woman rule to a two-adult rule.

c. Religious groups who want to expand the concept of marriage even more widely....Not just group marriages but under-age marriages and marriages which entail rights, responsibilities and rituals that some would call “religious” and others would call “criminal” – drugs, sacrifices, etc. You get into that, and suddenly you’re tangling with the First Amendment, which courts have already had to do on this issue. Are these the sort of people gays will want as their political allies in the legislative battles? Or could the rightwingers actually make common cause with those folks, to try to kill a gay-marriage bill with a poison-pill amendment that nobody likes?

d. Transgender, hermaphrodites, and other categories of in-betweener....Anybody got a plan to account for them?

e. Insurance companies that try to game the system by encouraging (bribing) state legislatures to prohibit health coverage for out-of-state gay partners, and then incorporating in those states. You never know what they will come up with.

f. States which will drag their feet on changing their gay marriage law, to wait for the toxic effect of the political power of evangelicals to wear off a bit.

g. The red states that will refuse to budge at all on this issue....Will there be “gay flight”? What happens in a state with great employment opportunities but lousy gay-rights laws, or vice versa?

We cannot leave all this up in the air. If government doesn’t take action in the form of legislation, then government will still get involved in the form of endless litigation in court. Once all these battles really begin in the legislatures, the pro-gay team needs to get in the room when the actual language is being drafted, because the rightwing loons will absolutely be in the room too. We need to change the rules so that gay couples can marry, but we also need to manage the change the right way, so we don’t have the little old lady down the road marching into church and demanding the right to marry 20 of her cats. We don’t want to give the rightwing loons a chance to bury us all in slippery-slope arguments, so we need to get to the slope before they do, and fence it off sensibly.

I see a lot of lawyers getting rich on this in the next decade or so.

Gay rights mean...what?

Polls show that Americans support civil unions. But the American people don’t really grasp what it entails.

Heterosexual couples enjoy many rights which gay couples often don’t. They come in five different categories.

First, is the category which I call “Other People’s Money”. This means that government changes a policy in such a way that private corporations must fork over money to gays even if they don’t want to. The big item here is insurance coverage. This is another reason why we need universal health coverage – it is stupid to make health coverage dependent on employment or marriage.

Second is the “government money” category. That means that government changes policy in a way that means that you, as the taxpayer, give new money to gays. This includes compensation for service-related deaths, income tax filing status and deductions, tax-free property transfers, Social Security, veteran’s pensions and disability, disabled vets tax exemptions, and relocation benefits for military families. There are some issues which could be either Other People’s Money or governmental money, depending on the rules: these include survivor benefits and continuation of health care for surviving spouses.

Third is the category which means that gays get more rights under government regulations than they do now, even if no money is necessarily involved. These include organ donor issues, next-of-kin status, parental rights, access to school records, alimony, child custody, adoption, foster care, homestead laws, water rights, spousal assets as a factor in determining need for government aid (VA benefits, housing, educational loans, farm price supports), name changes, domestic violence laws, spousal privilege for criminal witnesses, prison and hospital visitation, conflict-of-interest rules, medical decisions, and funeral decisions.

Fourth: this category involves areas in which the government would need to impose regulations on private corporations. This would include condominium laws and bankruptcy.

The fifth category involves problems which could be resolved by a simple consensual contract, such as child support (if the law allows it), shared property, prenuptial agreements, and wills and inheritance.

That’s why I was warning people a few weeks ago – the Iowa ruling said what the marriage rule was NOT, namely one-man-one-woman. It didn’t really say what the rule IS: which rights are now to be provided to new couples?

We need fair statutory law to give gays and lesbians their rights. Conservatives have a legitimate issue: all of this means that the rest of us will probably pay more money. But at the end of the day, gays have a legitimate point that we cannot simply throw our hands in the air and insist that “we just can’t afford to treat gays fairly”. Not acceptable.

Oops, forgot! "Don't ask, don't tell!

Right now the military is in sad shape. Due in large part to the war in Iraq, recruiting is in serious trouble, and standards have been lowered dangerously.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” is hurting the military even more. It deprives us of good, talented, patriotic people who, even now, want to serve their country. It also costs millions in recruiting, training and separation costs.

Supporters of the policy insist that getting rid of it would be disruptive. Half a century ago racists said the same thing about integrating the army; 40 years later, Colin Powell took over as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and proved the argument absurdly wrong.

Think of the stupidity of this argument: Bush’s inane policies have put us in a position wherein we are forced to recruit felons, drug addicts and illiterates and ship them off to fight in Iraq. Don’t you think that sending a mob of cretins into battle is disruptive? If you’re out there in a firefight, wouldn’t it concern you to have a bunch of demented loons covering your back?

Considering the sexual harassment and other abuse that is already happening in the military, it’s hard for the Pentagon to pretend that allowing gays to serve would cause even worse problems.

79 percent of Americans, including 66 percent of conservatives, are okay with gays in the military. This includes a growing horde of generals, admirals and military experts. Obama has said he will change the policy. And high time.