It was the end of summer 2011. Birds that hadn't been roasted alive by Texas wildfires were singing, cows that hadn't died of thirst were mooing, the leaves on many of our maple trees were already brown (having skipped the yellow, orange, and red stage because of a state-wide, prayer-resistant drought), and fake historian David Barton announced his intention to sue the pants off three people who reported on his scurrilous activities and disreputable associations.
Two targets of this frivolous lawsuit are school board candidates whose offense was producing an amusing video critical of the Bible thumper; the third is a pundit from The Examiner who penned a scathing article titled Exposing David Barton. HuffPo's Chris Rodda asks: "What nobody can figure out is why Barton is suing these particular people, who haven't said anything that hasn't been said many times before over the years by other, much more well known Barton critics."
I can answer that question. It's because David Barton is nuts. To call him psychotic or bipolar would be an insult to those with legitimate mental illnesses. I suspect Barton embraces his delusions. His worldview is deliberately anchored in the early 20th century where his racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, American exceptionalism aka "The White Man's Burden," and other archaicnotions were the norm. Consider his recent ramblings to the ultraconservative Concerned Women For America in which Barton insists that God wants every person to work at their jobs for six days a week:
David Barton, founder of the dominionist group WallBuilders, lectures his worshipful listeners about "some tough lessons" regarding "God's economy." (Nurse Ratched, are you taking notes?) "We used to have what was called the Puritan Hard Work Ethic, which - it's really not Puritan - it's a Biblical hard work ethic. The Bible doesn't tell us anything about working five days a week, eight hours a day or less - it says "six days shalt thou work." You rest on the seventh, but the command is you're going to work six days. And you'll find that hard working people that work those six days - rural people tend to work longer hours than bankers and lawyers and other and they tend to have less physical problems; they have less burn-out, less stress, less whatever, less high blood-pressure. Folks who work harder and longer tend to do better because God told us to do that; that's the way he kind of made our bodies."
Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch responds: The more we listen to David Barton, the more clear it becomes that it is his goal to see the United States operate strictly in accordance with the Bible in literally every regard. As Barton says, "anything the Bible talks about cannot be considered secular," which means that every aspect of public life ought operate in accordance with Biblical teachings, including education, immigration, health care, taxes and economic policy, employment regulations, the role of government, and even our building codes. Every once in a while, Barton provides a glimpse of just what America would look like if it became the "Christian nation" he desires in which everything ran according to the Bible, such as when he says that it would mean our schools would open with prayer and our government would stop helping the poor.
Right-wing Christian extremists like Barton have been twisting scripture to fit their personal biases and "Bless Our Greed" ideals for so long they're now creating dogma from whole cloth. If these religious zealots ever gain control of America's secular government you will see a totalitarian nanny state that would make Kim Jong-Il blush.
Below is the video that Barton and his political minions found so insulting. (The unvarnished truth often is.)
If you can stand watching Barton's ideological garbage straight from the horses ass (so to speak) jump over to the website Godless Liberals for Jon Stewart's extended 3-part interview with this "prophet" of the Texas Taliban.
Anti-Choice, Homophobic "Mobile Health Clinics" in Lone Star State
It's been obvious for some time that the "pro-life" movement has broadened its agenda. Shrill anti-choice activists are no longer intent on merely halting legal abortions, thus sending young victims of rape and incest into the darkened alleyways of yesteryear. They won't be satisfied until women - our wives, sisters, mothers, daughters - with life-threatening health issues or carrying nonviable fetuses are forced to endure even more anguish than their medical conditions would naturally incur. They're also pressing for legislation to grant human rights to microscopic zygotes via grotesque "personhood amendments" and striving to make the sale and possession of contraceptives illegal. Pope Benedict will be deee-lighted.
Audacious Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches recently investigated a mobile "pregnancy unit" parked near a Planned Parenthood facility in Houston. She went inside this dogma-driven 'Christian Healthcare On Wheels' hoping to speak with Coalition for Life president Christine Melchor - but instead Posner was confronted by a stern "nurse" named Cheryl Park who reluctantly gave her a tour of the "pro-life" bus which provides tea and sympathy to those that believe human life begins at the exact moment sperm touches a female ovum and cold comfort to any woman (or girl) who for medical or personal reasons must terminate her pregnancy. Writes Posner:
Park is Catholic, as are many of the Houston Coalition for Life activists, but she says the Lutheran Missouri Synod has been on board with the cause. Park can’t hide her contempt for Planned Parenthood, and she’s barely able to even utter the words, referring instead to “over there” and “they.” Her opposition isn’t due solely to the fact that Planned Parenthood performs abortions; she is adamantly against the use of birth control, and hopes to stop women, not just from entering the building for abortion services, but for any reason. In the waiting area, Park offers me pamphlets, ranging from those promoting chastity, offering misinformation about the ineffectiveness and dangers of birth control, to those offering services for “post-abortion trauma,” which is cured by faith in Jesus.
A dour middle-aged woman dressed in scrubs, Park seems incredulous as she lists the services that Planned Parenthood provides: AIDS testing, research, vasectomies, and tubal ligations. “They treat lesbians and gays,” she adds scornfully, “you might see two guys go in there together. They just run the whole gamut.”
Oh my Lord! Planned Parenthood treats gay and lesbian couples like human beings? Quick, call the police!
Across from the bus, a handful of activists mill around the entrance to the Planned Parenthood parking lot. In multi-colored sidewalk chalk, lettering emblazoned with hearts and curlicues, someone has written, "God loves you both."
Of course the activists in the Womb Control Movement just know that God cherishes the unborn more than He loves the born - and naturally that includes all the sexually abused young girls these activists would force into carrying unwanted fetuses, risking their physical and emotional health.
Still, who can resist the well-reasoned arguments of the "pro-life" crowd? Right?
You may have seen the following video of a man who confronted some sidewalk anti-choice religious zealots. The man's wife had to undergo an abortion because their 16-week-old fetus was dying inside her. The most astonishing thing about this incident is that the activists could not would not be convinced that they were doing anything wrong. They could not be shamed because they have no shame. They certainly have no compassion.
Over at the Huffington Post, Gay Voices editor Michelangelo Signorile takes Jonathan Chait to the political woodshed for a well-deserved verbal spanking. The popular SiriusXM radio host is particularly unimpressed by the opening paragraph of Chait's whiny editorial for New York Magazine which reads:
If we trace liberal disappointment with President Obama to its origins, to try to pinpoint the moment when his crestfallen supporters realized that this was Not Change They Could Believe In, the souring probably began on December 17, 2008, when Obama announced that conservative Evangelical pastor Rick Warren would speak at his inauguration. “Abominable,” fumed John Aravosis on AmericaBlog. “Obama’s ‘inclusiveness’ mantra always seems to head only in one direction—an excuse to scorn progressives and embrace the Right,” seethed Salon’s Glenn Greenwald. On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow rode the story almost nightly: “I think the problem is getting larger for Barack Obama.” Negative 34 days into the start of the Obama presidency, the honeymoon was over.
Michelangelo checks that mongrel for fleas: Chait fails to mention - perhaps he even failed to realize - that all three of the commentators he referenced are gay Americans. Rick Warren isn't just a "conservative Evangelical pastor"; he was a driving force behind the passage of Prop 8 in the same year in which Obama was elected, spewing a message from the pulpit to California voters: "if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8." (At the beginning of his piece, Signorile had observed that "seeing a majority of voters rescind a right that gays and lesbians had been enjoying -- watching that majority literally strip a right from a struggling minority -- sent a chill through the LGBT community across America." I can assure you we felt this icy blast here in Texas. The smug we-told-you-so's of Bible Belters were relentless and absolutely glacial.) Warren, pastor of the influential Saddleback Church, had made offensive, bigoted remarks about gays, claiming homosexuality "is not the natural way" and that "certain body parts are meant to fit together." He compared homosexuality to incest and pedophilia, telling a Beliefnet reporter, in the context of a discussion of marriage for gays, that he didn't support a "a brother and sister to be together and call that marriage" and was "opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that a marriage." When the reporter asked if he believed those are equivalent to gays and lesbians marrying, he said, "Oh, I do." ...I wonder if Chait would think it "unreasonable" for black pundits to be disillusioned with a white president who invited a supporter of Jim Crow laws to speak at the inauguration. Would he think it "unreasonable" for Jewish commentators to criticize a Christian president who asked an avowed anti-Semite to say a prayer at the inauguration?
I have written more than a few posts about Rick Warren's inappropriateinclusion in the White House inaugural festivities, as well as the pastor's chummy association with Uganda's Martin SSempa, one of main instigators in the African nation's "Kill the Gays" legislation. Warren was eventually shamed into decency in the Uganda matter, and attempted to walk back some of his more offensive anti-gay rhetoric, even getting the blogged endorsement of out-and-proud lesbian entertainer Melissa Etheridge. (He says he's her number one fan. *sigh*)
Mr. Chait asserts that progressives' disappointment in Obama is due soley to our unrealistic expectations. The columnist writes: "Liberals are dissatisfied with Obama because liberals, on the whole, are incapable of feeling satisfied with a Democratic president. They can be happy with the idea of a Democratic president - indeed, dancing-in-the-streets delirious - but not with the real thing. The various theories of disconsolate liberals all suffer from a failure to compare Obama with any plausible baseline." Chait claims that progressives "compare Obama with an imaginary president - either an imaginary Obama or a fantasy version of a past president."
Actually, no. We try to hold Obama to the promises he made when he was campaigning for our votes. Obama promised aggressive social changes and economic growth - but immediately after taking the oath of office he forked over trillions in tax dollars to insatiable financial institutions (without oversight), and he continues to waste untold trillions in a pointless and unwinnable war in Afghanistan. Fearing the ire of corporate execs, he refused to roll back Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. His stance against torturing prisoners is apparently just for show. But perhaps most infuriating - to me, anyway - is his pandering to the country's religious conservatives who will always, always loathe him.
As for Obama's campaign promises to the LGBT community, well, that self-described "fierce advocate" was swept away by the gentlest breeze of right-wing scorn. Yes, Don't Ask Don't Tell was finally overturned, and we now have a weak Federal Hate Crimes Prevention Act (which some states simply ignore). But most equality supporters realize that these advances were the result of intense lobbying and Democratic allies in Congress - and they cost President Obama not a dime of political capital. Few of us will forget that he once defended his position against marriage equality by announcing on live TV that when a man weds a woman "God is in the mix." (Consequently, his comment implied, the committed relationships of same-sex couples are spiritually insignificant - although now Obama insists that he is "evolving" on the issue.)
Is Obama the President progressives hoped for? Nope. Will he someday be that president? Probably not. Still, despite everything, most of us will support him in the 2012 elections (warts and all) because we understand how much worse for America's future any of the equality-hating, ideology-obsessed GOP candidates would be.
Created by the folks at Get up! Australia, this first video may be the most touching promotional ad for marriage equality I've seen. The second is an effective anti-bullying ad from de Kinderombudsman in the Netherlands (based on a true story).
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Now let's hear from the anti-gay Philistines who continue to oppose equality. The third video is a blast from the past, using a police "detective" to scare children straight. Last, and definitely least, watch NOM's Maggie Gallagher explain how to share her bigotry with your family over the holidays.
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It seems that lawmakers in Russia are using similar tactics as some conservative politicians and Religious Right leaders in the United States (and manyAfrican nations including Uganda, Sudan, and Nigeria) by lumping child molesters together with gays, lesbians, and transgendered individuals; thus transforming law-abiding citizens with non-heterosexual identities into targets for physical violence and discrimination. The city of St. Petersburg, once renowned for its diversity and culture, is considering a measure which would criminalize the "promotion of homosexuality, transsexuality and paedophilia to minors" without defining what is actually meant by the word "promote."
Nikolai Alekseev reports for the GuardianUK: St Petersburg, which is deemed the cultural capital of Russia, the place where many famous gay people created our artistic heritage, entered into the 21st century's hall of shame by drifting into medieval barbarity. The bill that was proposed in St Petersburg sets administrative fines for the propaganda of homosexuality, transsexuality and paedophilia but it does not explain what "propaganda" actually means. For what is the difference between the public expression of someone's loving feelings and the promotion of a lifestyle? Can a work of art be considered propaganda? Can a protest for human rights be considered as imposing one's personal characteristics on others? The St Petersburg bill does not answer these questions. In fact, it not only equates homosexuality to paedophilia but also separates homosexuality and heterosexuality, as the latter, in the MPs' view, can be promoted... Gay people are being used as scapegoats in Russian politics, where society is still largely homophobic. This atmosphere is made clear when the governor of Tambov called for gays to be torn into pieces and thrown in the wind, or when former Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov called us alternatively "satanic", "faggots", "western weapons of mass destruction" and made us responsible for the spread of HIV." (Read The False Link on Psychology Today.)
The U.S. State Department has issued a mild rebuke to Russian leaders who are pushing this draconian legislation.
Members of the pro-fascist organization 'Rus' regularly attack and murder gays and lesbians. Their violent crimes often go unreported and unpunished by a legal system which sympathizes with the anti-gay crusaders. Legislation like this will spread fear and inflame the passions of those already predisposed to bigotry. (A tourist boycott of St. Petersburg wouldn't go amiss. Let them see how much "culture" Christian extremists and neo-Nazis bring to their fair city.)
Below is Part 1 of Current TV's documentary on Neo-Nazism in Russia called "From Russia, With Hate" ...
Hate is hate, wherever it originates. White supremacists in Russia not only have LGBT folks in their cross-hairs; they're also vilifying and dehumanizing immigrants. This they have in common with America's right-wing pastors and pols.
Now go back and watch that first video again. You'll feel like you've taken a refreshing shower.
The Stupid Never Stops: Mayor Jose Benitez of Huarmey, Peru, is warning people who elected him that tap water will turn their youngsters gay. Gawker has the story.
Faith2Action's religious dominatrix-activist Janet Porter and her coterie of womb controllers insist that the Ohio Senate will soon pass their anti-choice "heartbeat bill," the harshest in the nation, which has already sailed through the state's House of Representatives. Heartbeat bills are exactly what you would think. They make abortion a criminal offense (even when a woman's health is threatened by pregnancy) from the moment a fetal heartbeat is discernible in the first trimester.
Robin Marty on AlterNet: "For most women, that would provide a window of two weeks or less in order to learn she was pregnant, make her decision about the pregnancy, arrange for an appointment, gather money for an abortion, obtain the mandatory counseling and sit through the required 24 hour waiting period. For a woman with irregular menstrual cycles, by the time she realizes she is pregnant it likely would already be too late to do anything but continue the pregnancy."
Brian Tasshman reports for Right Wing Watch: Porter’s prized legislation would “eliminate virtually all abortion,” and has won the support of leading Republicans such as Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann. After it passed the House, she organized an ad campaign and a prayer rally to urge the Republican-controlled Senate to allow a vote on the bill, telling Senate leaders that “when the Heartbeat bill becomes law” America“will be once again in a position where God can bless us.”(Well, except for those pesky hellbound homosexuals, deranged transgender individuals, Satanic Muslims, and less-than-human undocumented workers that Porter and her cohorts are determined to eradicate.) The blatantly unconstitutional legislation has created divisions in Ohio’s anti-choice lobby – the Ohio Right to Life Society refuses to back Porter, and the Republican State Senate president has yet to say whether the bill will be assigned to a committee.
At the fundie rally, after much preening and self-congratulation, Janet Porter announced, "When your children and your grandchildren ask you: Where were you when they were killing babies? You can answer: We were the ones who stopped the killing." (There was a video posted but the Faith2Action goons had it pulled from YouTube.)
Acorns are not oak trees and embryos are not babies. How would Janet respond to the young victims of rape and incest - prepubescent girls - who become nothing but brood mares in the eyes of the law? How would she respond to little children whose mothers' health prevent them from carrying a fetus to term? When their moms suffer and die in the delivery room, would she then pray with them that this is all "God's will?"
The pretentious piety of "pro-lifers" is somewhat remindful of that self-absorbed, shallow, Jew-hating prioress in Geoffrey Chaucer's classic The Canterbury Tales, who seldom expressed genuine Christian charity but ...
"She wolde wepe, if that she sawe a mous, Caught in a trap, if it were deed or bledde."
It amazes me that so many grown men feel threatened by or resentful toward strong, free-thinking, independent women - and it's even more astonishing that some women, in accordance with their sincerely-held spiritual beliefs, devalue themselves and embrace inequality as a God-ordained condition.
The all-powerful Southern Baptist Convention, the LDS Church, and Roman Catholic hierarchy strive, disingenuously, to make the point that a woman's "submissive" place in the home isn't reeeealy submissive; that Christian females merely have different roles to fulfill than men. Of course the Holy See currently prohibits women from administering the sacrament (Vatican officials refer to female priests as "crimes against faith"), Mormon wives accept a subservient position in spiritual affairs, and the customers at Lifeway Christian Stores were so scandalized when Gospel Today featured female ministers on its cover that managers ordered copies of the magazine hidden behind the counters.
On the ultraconservative website Renew America, Selwyn Duke thumps his chest, prissily proclaiming: (W)here men are big-picture-oriented, women are detail-oriented. This feminine quality is wonderful when handling young children, whose lives must be micro-managed; the problem is that it also leads to acceptance of a micro-managing government that, ultimately, will treat us all like children. And then you have not just a nanny state - a feminine descriptive, mind you - but what we are quickly descending into: The Harridan State! (Misogyny is rarely expressed so baldly.) Did you ever wonder why women are so often attracted to strong, burly men? It's the same reason why they're drawn to men boasting wealth and/or power. It's the same reason why they're more careful investors. It's the same reason why male animals show off and act dominant to attract females. It's the same reason why women are drawn to highly intelligent men... Women crave security. (Poor, helpless, dependent things. Thank Jeebus members of the "weaker sex" have studly men like Selwyn to point out their innate inadequacies and observe how hopelessly attracted they are to "burly" and "highly intelligent" dudes, y'know, like himself.) ...When a woman falls for a man who she can look "up" to, she may say to him something such as "You make me feel safe." I get this from female readers all the time — sometimes one article is all it takes. (Now if that doesn't make the collective panties of Concerned Women For America moist I don't know what will.)
Kim Campbell writes for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: The Serpent under-minded God's spoken word in Genesis when he confronted Eve's understanding of God's goodness. The serpent still undermines God's truth today... We get to have children that will help populate the earth who will be part of the throng around the throne from every tribe, tongue, and nation. After the Fall, Eve's punishment came in the form of pain during childbearing. (To those who support a literal interpretation of scripture, Eve and her female descendants are forever cursed to suffer during childbirth because she disobeyed God The Father - a male, we're reminded from the pulpit - in her quest for Knowledge. Also, do you think it's possible that the "serpent" who beguiled Eve was a velociraptor? Scoff me not. Thirty percent of Texans are convinced that dinosaurs were present in the Garden of Eden.) We are not to be androginous which society would like us to lean toward: women in battle, women playing men's sports, men wearing skinny jeans or wearing earrings, parents raising their children "sexless" until they can determine what they want to be. We see it. This denial of the truth of sexuality. There is diversity in function in the created sexual genders. God has a beautiful plan for males and females. He does all for His glory. (It amuses me when evangelicals declare that everything God does is For His Own Glory.)
Janie B. Cheaney writes on World Magazine: The root of the problem, like so much else, goes back to the Garden. The man neglected his leadership role, allowing the woman to make a bad decision, which broke their bond with God and set their relationship at odds. Mutual dependence ever since—men for protecting, women for domesticating—held a rough approximation of the creation order together by force... Men need high expectations, worthy goals, respect. Women need security, approval, love. (And apparently, prior to the societal changes detested by religious conservatives, marital rape or a punch in the mouth for not "obeying" their husbands.) Each needs what the other can give, but if we refuse to support each other with our positives, we'll drag each other down with our negatives. If men and women don't mutually pledge their strengths, they will default to their weaknesses. The harder a woman pushes, the faster a man retreats. The more a man forfeits, the more a woman takes on. He gets lazy, she gets bitter. He turns violent...
Genesis 2:18-24 If you are like Adam, simply have God create a wife for you from one of your ribs while you sleep. Genesis 4:16-17 If you are like Cain, even if no one is out there, just wander around a bit and you’ll find a wife. Genesis 20:12 If you are like Abraham, you will marry your half-sister. Genesis 29:15-30 If you are like Jacob, agree to work seven years in exchange for a woman’s hand in marriage. Get tricked into marrying the wrong woman. Then work another seven years for the woman you wanted to marry in the first place. That’s right. Fourteen years of toil for the wife you want. Exodus 2:16-21 If you are like Moses, find a man with seven daughters and impress him by watering his flock. Exodus 6:4 If you are like Amram, marry your father’s sister. Amram was Moses' father. Did you know that Moses was a product of incest? Deuteronomy 21:11-13 If you find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails and give her new clothes. Then she’s yours. (To rape or torture or whatever God's chosen conquerors wanted to do.) Luke 16:18 Jesus said: Whoever put away his wife and marries another commits adultery. Whoever marries the divorced woman commits adultery. (Conservative Cafeteria Christians like to ignore that passage. Take presidential wannabe Newt Gingrich, a serial adulterer who abandoned one of his wives when she got cancer.) 1 Cor 7-10 Paul said: Let NO woman divorce her husband. (Even if he beats her and abuses the kids.) Ephesians 5:22-24 Paul preached: Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife. (There's more in this vein on Gary's droll website.)
It's hardly surprising that Southern Baptists have woven Paul's exhortations into the denomination's Declaration of Faith: "A wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ." (That would be the "headship of Christ" as interpreted by - you guessed it - MEN! For the masculine ego, this is a win-win situation.)
LDS Side Note - Mormon women once created a curious justification for their lesser status in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: "Every time we wrap our arms around our husbands," they would joyously murmur, "we are members of the priesthood." This reasoning is specious at best, considering the Mormons' unsavory - and relatively recent - history of polygamy and childbrides compelled to marry older men. (And yet, LDS elders and Mormon politicians can't seem to stop condemning the lives and loves of committed same-sex couples.)
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