Today in Anderson Cooper making people look stupid simply by asking questions: This lady. It may be the best entry in this subgenre of news since this video. (via pbump)
He didn’t ask the most obvious question: “You really haven’t given any of this very much thought at all, have you?”
Background to this whole sad story here.
(via randomactsofchaos)
Because the boundless love and endless compassion of Jesus requires no less, I guess.
![Anti-gay Virginia Republican both hateful and wrong.
ThinkProgress:
Earlier this week, the Virginia House of Delegates rejected Tracy Thorne-Begland, a former Navy pilot and top Virginia prosecutor, for a seat on Virginia’s lowest ranking trial court because, in the words of Del. Bob Marshall (R-VA), Thorne-Begland’s gay “lifestyle is exactly contrary to” his obligation to uphold the state constitution. On CNN this morning, Marshall doubled-down on this view, explaining that he blocked Thorne-Begland because the judicial candidate had the audacity to serve his country while gay:
MARSHALL: [Thorne-Begland] had to misstate his background in order to be received into the military in the late 1980s. There was a specific question, “are you a homosexual?” He had to say no. He took an oath of office which he had to defy… . Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks never took an oath of office that they broke. Sodomy is not a civil right. It’s not the same as the Civil Rights Movement. You have to look at the past, and, in fact, look, in late 2011 he was critical of the, you know, Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. He criticized our attorney general simply for explaining what the law of Virginia is with respect to certain protected classes.
Here’s the thing, Marshall’s not right about that civil right thing — at all. As Ian Millhiser points out, “‘Sodomy,” as Marshall so quaintly puts it, is a civil right. That was the holding of Lawrence v. Texas, which established that consenting adults have a right to be free from government interference in their ‘private sexual conduct.’”
And is he saying that, had MLK or Rosa Parks broken with an oath of office, it would make them unfit for the bench? Really?
As is so often the case, some rightwing hater has to rationalize himself out of the hole he’s dug for himself. And, as is just as often the case, he’s failing very, very badly.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m46d0i0uz51qfengno1_1280.jpg)
Anti-gay Virginia Republican both hateful and wrong.
Earlier this week, the Virginia House of Delegates rejected Tracy Thorne-Begland, a former Navy pilot and top Virginia prosecutor, for a seat on Virginia’s lowest ranking trial court because, in the words of Del. Bob Marshall (R-VA), Thorne-Begland’s gay “lifestyle is exactly contrary to” his obligation to uphold the state constitution. On CNN this morning, Marshall doubled-down on this view, explaining that he blocked Thorne-Begland because the judicial candidate had the audacity to serve his country while gay:
MARSHALL: [Thorne-Begland] had to misstate his background in order to be received into the military in the late 1980s. There was a specific question, “are you a homosexual?” He had to say no. He took an oath of office which he had to defy… . Dr. Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks never took an oath of office that they broke. Sodomy is not a civil right. It’s not the same as the Civil Rights Movement. You have to look at the past, and, in fact, look, in late 2011 he was critical of the, you know, Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell. He criticized our attorney general simply for explaining what the law of Virginia is with respect to certain protected classes.
Here’s the thing, Marshall’s not right about that civil right thing — at all. As Ian Millhiser points out, “‘Sodomy,” as Marshall so quaintly puts it, is a civil right. That was the holding of Lawrence v. Texas, which established that consenting adults have a right to be free from government interference in their ‘private sexual conduct.’”
And is he saying that, had MLK or Rosa Parks broken with an oath of office, it would make them unfit for the bench? Really?
As is so often the case, some rightwing hater has to rationalize himself out of the hole he’s dug for himself. And, as is just as often the case, he’s failing very, very badly.
Trayvon Martin gun range targets sell out — because many ‘conservatives’ are really just assholes.
WKMG:
An unidentified entrepreneur admits he is trying to profit off Trayvon Martin’s death by selling gun range targets featuring the teen who’s death has sparked a nationwide controversy.
Although Martin’s face does not appear on the paper targets, they feature a hoodie with crosshairs aimed at the chest. A bag of Skittles is tucked in the pocket and a hand is holding a can resembling iced tea.
Martin purchased both items minutes before he was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in February, according to police.
Zimmerman’s lawyer believes this sort of thing isn’t helping his client. “This is the highest level of disgust and the lowest level of civility,” says attorney Mark O’Mara. “It’s this type of hatred — that’s what this is, it’s hate-mongering — that’s going to make it more difficult to try this case.”
According to the report, the seller — a prick who wisely wishes to remain ananymous — says the targets “sold out in 2 days.”
There are a lot of real assholes out there.
Romney was an anti-gay bully in High School
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Mich. — Mitt Romney returned from a three-week spring break in 1965 to resume his studies as a high school senior at the prestigious Cranbrook School. Back on the handsome campus, studded with Tudor brick buildings and manicured fields, he spotted something he thought did not belong at a school where the boys wore ties and carried briefcases. John Lauber, a soft-spoken new student one year behind Romney, was perpetually teased for his nonconformity and presumed homosexuality. Now he was walking around the all-boys school with bleached-blond hair that draped over one eye, and Romney wasn’t having it.
“He can’t look like that. That’s wrong. Just look at him!” an incensed Romney told Matthew Friedemann, his close friend in the Stevens Hall dorm, according to Friedemann’s recollection. Mitt, the teenaged son of Michigan Gov. George Romney, kept complaining about Lauber’s look, Friedemann recalled.
A few days later, Friedemann entered Stevens Hall off the school’s collegiate quad to find Romney marching out of his own room ahead of a prep school posse shouting about their plan to cut Lauber’s hair. Friedemann followed them to a nearby room where they came upon Lauber, tackled him and pinned him to the ground. As Lauber, his eyes filling with tears, screamed for help, Romney repeatedly clipped his hair with a pair of scissors.
Obama statement reminds House GOP that they haven’t been hating gays enough lately.
Just hours after President Barack Obama publicly backed gay marriage, the House struck back and passed a measure aimed at reinforcing the Defense of Marriage Act.
With a 245-171 vote, the House voted to stop the Justice Department from using taxpayer funds to actively oppose DOMA — the Clinton-era law defining marriage as between a man and a woman that the Obama administration stopped enforcing in February 2011.
“It is not President Obama’s prerogative to decide which laws matter and which do not, nor his right to challenge constitutional amendments duly passed by the various states,” said the measure’s sponsor, Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.). “The Justice Department is duty-bound to enforce DOMA and to not do so is a flagrant disregard for the Constitution and for the rule of law.”
This is about the best example of the reactionary nature of the Republican Party as you’re ever going to get. The president expresses an opinion and the GOP reaction is, “Oh my God! This is the worst thing ever. We must act!” And if that means throwing a bunch of money down a hole, then so be it. “Fiscal responsibility” takes a back seat to the belief that Barack Obama is always wrong.
“On an historic day and in the dark of night, House Republicans have voted to tie the hands of the Obama administration with respect to their efforts to end discrimination against America’s families,” Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement. “House Republicans continue to plant their feet firmly on the wrong side of history.”
Especially when that side is the side opposite President Obama.
![Because the War on Women wasn’t unfair enough, meet the War on Girls.
Right Wing Watch:
The Family Research Council recently called for boycotts and prayer requests against the Girl Scouts, typically by pushing a false and misleading claim that Girl Scouts are distributing brochures from Planned Parenthood and suggesting that proceeds from Girl Scout Cookies go to the women’s health group, which is also not true.
Yesterday, FRC president Tony Perkins spoke with FRC senior fellow Cathy Ruse on Today’s Issues, the program Perkins co-hosts with American Family Association president Tim Wildmon, where Ruse attacked the Girl Scouts for hiring LGBT staff members and supporters of gay and abortion rights. Perkins explained that the reason the “progressive agenda” is targeting Girl Scouts for “liberal indoctrination” is because “they’re not having kids [and] so they want to make sure they can get our kids.” Perkins said the Girl Scouts’ decision to hire LGBT staffers, unlike the Boy Scouts which bans gays, is “like leaving the door wide open at the chicken coop for the fox”…
We have to fight the Girl Scouts because they don’t hate the gays nearly enough as Tony Perkins and his fellow closeted brethren would like.
Want to know the weirdest thing though? They think this all makes perfect sense.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3rrs9Ygky1qfengno1_1280.jpg)
Because the War on Women wasn’t unfair enough, meet the War on Girls.
The Family Research Council recently called for boycotts and prayer requests against the Girl Scouts, typically by pushing a false and misleading claim that Girl Scouts are distributing brochures from Planned Parenthood and suggesting that proceeds from Girl Scout Cookies go to the women’s health group, which is also not true.
Yesterday, FRC president Tony Perkins spoke with FRC senior fellow Cathy Ruse on Today’s Issues, the program Perkins co-hosts with American Family Association president Tim Wildmon, where Ruse attacked the Girl Scouts for hiring LGBT staff members and supporters of gay and abortion rights. Perkins explained that the reason the “progressive agenda” is targeting Girl Scouts for “liberal indoctrination” is because “they’re not having kids [and] so they want to make sure they can get our kids.” Perkins said the Girl Scouts’ decision to hire LGBT staffers, unlike the Boy Scouts which bans gays, is “like leaving the door wide open at the chicken coop for the fox”…
We have to fight the Girl Scouts because they don’t hate the gays nearly enough as Tony Perkins and his fellow closeted brethren would like.
Want to know the weirdest thing though? They think this all makes perfect sense.
When your ‘faith’ is indistinguishable from bullying, you’ve really taken a wrong turn somewhere.
