The Progressive Puppy

SC Education Board Chair (and RW Christian) writes online porn.

Kristin Maguire is chair of the South Carolina State Board of Education.  She's a religious conservative who promotes creationism and "abstinence only" sex education.  And, the poor dear, she's just been caught writing hardcore pornographic stories online.  So what's a smokin' hot mama to do?  Well, she steps down from her post and cites "family difficulties" as the reason.

From FitsNews:  Kristin Maguire, an Upstate evangelical and one of South Carolina’s most respected social conservatives, has been one of the governor’s closest education policy advisors for years...  What else is she?  The prolific author of hardcore erotic fiction on the Internet, according to documents provided to the governor’s office earlier this summer and later obtained by FITS.  Maguire, a professed Christian who home-schools her four children, declined to comment for our story but did not deny that she had previously frequented websites that feature such X-rated material.  Maguire believes that a former friend is leaking the information to the media in an effort to ruin her political career.  As for the specific writings alleged to have flowed from Maguire’s pen, most have been deleted from the Internet.  (But not all of them.)  FITS was able to use conversations in various Internet chat rooms, however, to link at least two “erotic stories” to Maguire’s alleged pen name, “Bridget Keeney.”  From there, numerous similarities between “Bridget” and Maguire emerged, including commonalities in age, geographic location, engineering background, hobbies (knitting, for example) and number of children.  One comment left in an erotic chat room by “Bridget” even reveals the name of a professor who was at Clemson University’s College of Engineering at the time when Maguire was a student there, while another comment references a specific medical procedure that Maguire underwent several years ago.

You might think, as I did, her stories can't be that naughty.  She's an evangelical Christian entrusted with the welfare of South Carolina's school children.  Perhaps Maguire pens bodice ripper fiction, y'know, where the Earl of Buttocks seduces a hapless milkmaid?  Something like that?  Let's look at a passage from one of her stories  (preserved for all eternity in .pdf format):  The train entered a tunnel, plunging the cabin into total darkness.  All that existed for me was Joren’s huge, hard dick in my mouth and my throbbing p***y being f**cked with Erik’s fingers. The scent of sex and our moans filled the car.  The three of us rocked in time to the train on the tracks.  When Joren pinched my nipples, my walls convulsed around Erik’s fingers, my climax ripping through me. My whole body shook with pleasure as I groaned deeply and sucked harder at Joren’s delicious dick.  No sooner did I climax than he bucked up into my face, his balls drawing up and his shaft swelling even bigger.  I pulled myself back from almost blacking out and gripped his thighs as he splashed his cum into my mouth.  Again, I swallowed rapidly, devouring his cock and cum at once. There was so much cum that it leaked out around my mouth, but I don’t think Joren minded.  The train pulled into the open again as Joren’s cock and my p***y stopped twitching.

Did I mention that Maguire thinks it's a sin to teach evolution in public schools?

Mary Cheney gives $1000 to anti-gay senate hopeful.

While Dick Cheney and straight daughter Liz have been making the talk show circuit telling everyone how important it is to torture people, lesbian daughter Mary has been funneling cash to a politician who believes gays are unfit parents and undeserving of civil marriage.

John Byrne at Raw Story walks that dog to the park:  Mary Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and onetime gay outreach director for Coors Brewing Company, gave $1,000 to a Republican Senate hopeful who voted against same-sex marriage and allowing gay couples to adopt children in the District of Columbia.  Cheney, 40, has a two-year-old son with her partner of 17 years, Heather Poe.  The donation to former Rep. Rob Portman (R-OH) was made in May.  Portman is seeking the Senate seat that will be vacated by Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) when he retires in 2011.  Cheney’s donation is remarkable considering her public comments on same-sex marriage and gay adoption...  Portman’s opposition to same-sex marriage is particularly salient, because both of his potential Democratic challengers favor its legalization... Robert Paduchik, Portman’s campaign manager, told the Columbus Dispatch in June that the erstwhile congressman still opposes same-sex marriage.

Why should Mary care?  She has all the equality that money can buy.  She's rich and famous.  She'll never be denied hospital visitation rights - and she can afford all those expensive legal documents that ensure she and her partner are protected if one of them dies.  They've already got a child, their little family is set for life.  It's easy to support a bigot when his anti-gay agenda doesn't affect you personally - easy, that is, for a selfish human being.

(Pictured:  Mary Cheney, Rob Portman) 

Satire-Challenged GOPers Back "Billionaires for Wealthcare"

A new group called Billionaires For Wealthcare showed up to "support" a crowd of approximately 1,500 right-wingers who were protesting health care reform.  What's amazing is that so many of these anti-Obama demonstrators had no idea they were being mocked.  Some of them even joined in with the faux organization's chants.  You really must watch this. 

 

(Hat Tip:  Liberty Belle at Democratic Underground.)

Dirty Dog Monday

Fox News hysteric Glenn Beck is now claiming that Obama plans to turn Americorps volunteers into storm troopers for the purpose of disarming state militias - and that the government has given half a trillion dollars to the organization!  AlterNet's Lindsay Beyerstein deconstructs the horseshit:  What the hell is he talking about?  Half a trillion dollars is $500 billion.  Half a trillion dollars would put Americorps in the same league as the Pentagon.  For FY 2010, the president requested less than two billion dollars for Americorps' parent agency, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and congress appropriated $90 million less than he asked for.  (The unhinged commentator eventually admitted that his original number was inflated.  But Beyerstein notes that when Beck first tossed out that absurd figure his guests played right along, nodding stupidly.)  Aaand, ten more companies have pulled their ads from Beck's show.

Yesterday on Faux News, Dick Cheney accused President Obama of launching an "intensely partisan" investigation into Bush-sanctioned torture and said "it offends the hell out of me."  (Torture doesn't offend him, understand.  Holding torturers accountable, now that's abhorrent.)  Sam Stein writes on Huffington Post:  Calling the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used on terrorist suspects "absolutely essential," the former vice president deemed any decision to launch an probe into the possible illegal use of these EITs an "outrageous political act" and a "direct slap at the CIA." ... Cheney insisted that newly released documents from the CIA proved that the use of torture on terrorist suspects were instrumental in preventing future attacks (a claim that the documents actually say is difficult to make).  The former vice president largely skirted questions about what should be done with those CIA officers who clearly went over the legal boundaries in their use of EITs. He did, however, gleefully take swipes at Obama and the Democratic Party, calling them soft on national security. ...The decision to pursue an investigation into the authorization of torture - which will be preliminary in nature and narrow in scope - was made by Attorney General Eric Holder alone.  (Narrow it may be, but inquiries like this can snowball.  Sounds like Darth Dickie is getting skeered, which is only appropriate since he's spent his entire public career trying to frighten the American people.)  Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) later disagreed with Cheney, saying that "we have an attorney general who is not pursuing a political agenda, but who is doing what he believes the law requires him to do."  (And how refreshing is that for the country, after soulless entities like John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales filling the office.)

Arizona Pastor Stephen Anderson has been telling his parishioners to pray for the president's death.  Then after one of them showed up at an Obama event carrying an AR-15, the Baptist minister got a surprise visit from the Secret Service.  (Anderson also advocates the execution of gays and lesbians - because it says so right there in the Bible!!!)

Jacob Weisberg writes an eye-opening piece for Newsweek that demonstrates how Republicans are really the ones "pulling the plug on Grandma."

Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, a Republican, is attempting to cast himself as a moderate by alleging support from Black Entertainment Television co-founder Sheila Johnson.  Pam Spaudling obliterates the McDonnell-as-centrist myth:  Unfortunately for Bob, there is a 93-page document at the Regent University library that provides an inside look at what he really thinks about feminism, marriage and The Homosexual Agenda. These views are hardly moderate (or cast away), particularly since he was on Crazy Pat's show to talk about preserving marriage...  (Spaulding goes on to cite some of McDonnell's antediluvian positions.)

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee will be headlining the "How To Take Back America Conference," which is hosted by radical anti-gay bigots like Rick Scarborough, Janet Porter, Phyllis Schlafly, Don Wildmon, and Mat "proud to be an extremist" Staver.  Kyle at Right Wing Watch reports on the ugly assemblage.

Finally, a Huge Happy Fifth Anniversary to one of my favorite websites - Crooks and Liars.  In the competitive field of political blogging, John, David, Mike, and the rest of the C&L gang are all top dogs.

School Caves to Fundie Outrage over Evolution T-Shirts

School officials at Smith-Cotton High in Sedalia, Missouri, have given into the demands of a few ignorant parents and forbidden the marching band from wearing t-shirts that depict the "Evolution of Brass."  The pale gray shirts, which were intended to promote the band’s fall program, feature the image of a monkey progressing through evolutionary stages and emerging as a man.  Each figure in the design clutches a brass musical instrument.  It's a reasonably cool illustration - but anathema to anti-science Christianists who believe that Darwin is the Devil.

From the Sedalia Democrat:  The band debuted the T-shirts when it marched in the Missouri State Fair parade.  [Band Director Gordon] Summers said he was surprised when he received a direct complaint after the parade.  While the shirts don’t directly violate the district’s dress code, Assistant Superintendent Brad Pollitt said complaints by parents made him take action.  "I made the decision to have the band members turn the shirts in after several concerned parents brought the shirts to my attention,” Pollitt said.  Pollitt said the district is required by law to remain neutral where religion is concerned.  "If the shirts had said ‘Brass Resurrections’ and had a picture of Jesus on the cross, we would have done the same thing," he said.  (Except that evolution is NOT religion.  It is science.  And it's still being taught in public schools, at least until the Prayer Posse get their way.) ...Parent Alena Hoeffling said she is infuriated with administration’s decision to pull the attire.  "Whatever happened to the separation of church and state," she said.  (That particular concept is becoming extinct.  Sadly.)  Summers said a new T-shirt is currently in the design stages, but declined to comment on the image.  "It has to be approved first," he said. 

They should just bypass the school board and take the new design directly to those knuckledraggers who complained.  Their opinion is apparently all that matters.

Bogus Ex-Gay Research Touted by Evangelicals

Who knew that ex-gay ministries had such a high success rate?  (They don't, but pesky things like facts and accuracy never stopped religious conservatives from "proving" anything.)  Scientific methodology via Bible thumpers: You take a relatively small group of young gay Christians who have been threatened by their families and the church, bully them into submitting to indoctrination sessions, and then boast about the efficacy of ex-gay programs.

Florida Baptist Witness crows over the meaningless data:  In findings that directly contradict mainstream academic thought, 53 percent of subjects in a new seven-year study reported successfully leaving homosexuality and living happily as heterosexual or celibate persons.  The study by psychologists Stanton L. Jones of Wheaton College and Mark A. Yarhouse of Regent University is a follow-up to one released two years ago in the form of a book, Ex-Gays?  That study was called groundbreaking (by Christians who believe the earth is 6000 years old) and the latest set of data is no less significant, the researchers say.  (FBW concedes that the researchers' salaries were paid by Exodus International, the largest ex-gay ministry in the country.)  Among the questionable results...

•23 percent reported a successful conversion to heterosexual attractions.
•30 percent reported living a celibate life and were content with their reduction in homosexual attractions. Altogether, those latter two categories were combined for a 53 percent success rate, the researchers said.
•16 percent of subjects had modest decreases in homosexual attractions and weren’t satisfied with their degree of change but were committed to continuing the process.
•7 percent had seen no decrease in homosexual attractions but had not given up trying to change.
•25 percent of subjects were considered “failures,” either because they gave up on the process and once again identified as a homo­sexual (20 percent) or because they had not yet embraced a homosexual identity but nevertheless had given up (5 percent).

All the subjects were going through programs set up by Exodus International, a Christian ministry...  The latest findings were released four days after an American Psychological Association task force released a 130-page report that said "gay-to-straight" therapies are unlikely to work.  (The APA said that because it's true.  And, unlike Exodus, they don't have an anti-gay agenda to promote.)   

PZ Myers at Pharyngula exposes the charlatans:  (F)undies love to cobble up 'scientific' studies that back up their claims of successful conversions.  These typically defy common sense and the results of work by real psychologists, but that doesn't stop them.  Their latest result claims a program of Christian counseling has a 53% success rate.  Unfortunately, even in the press releases that crow about this answer, they have to admit some bothersome details.  Like that their sample size was less than a hundred, that over a third of their subjects dropped out and refused to talk to them, and that even those they managed to retain in the study are very evasive and reluctant to talk to the researchers, all stuff you'd expect of a program that doesn't work in any way other than instilling guilt in their subjects.

Researcher Stanton L. Jones dismisses the many credible scientists who have rejected his study:  "When it comes to examining the evidence that sexual orientation change can occur, they apply extraordinarily rigorous standards."  (Darn those rigorous standards!  How can fundie Christians get the results they want if they have to adhere to science?)

And they wonder why they are mocked.