The Progressive Puppy

CNN's Roland Martin Tweets In Support Of Anti-Gay Violence

But he claims he was "joking" when he Tweeted that sports fans should beat the shit "ish" out of gay males ...

Trudy Ring reports for The Advocate:  CNN commentator Roland Martin made it a not-so-super Sunday with a tweet and a Facebook posting widely perceived to be homophobic, and the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has called on the network to fire him.  GLAAD reports that after retailer H&M’s Super Bowl commercial featuring soccer player David Beckham, Martin tweeted to his nearly 95,000 Twitter followers, "If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl."

Equality activists at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation quickly responded to Martin's call for violence toward "dudes" who appreciate Beckham's pecs and abs by tweeting: "Advocates of gay bashing have no place at @CNN."  The organization is now asking for Martin's resignation.  (Sign the petition at Change.org.)

Heterosexists watching the game might snort and ask what's the big deal.  It's not complicated:  Roland Martin has every right to act icky and holier-than-thou around queer folk - but crude statements that appear to promote violence can incite hate crimes and lead to anti-gay bullying in schools. 

In any event, this isn't Martin's first stroll down Homophobia Lane.  From GLAAD:  

Last year, Tracy Morgan said during a stand-up routine that if his son were gay he would 'stab him.' Morgan later apologized and worked with GLAAD to send positive messages to parents and LGBT youth.  Morgan understood how his words could influence his fans and put youth in danger, while Martin defended Tracy Morgan's original remarks...  At a time when the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that violence against LGBT people was up 23%, we need people in the public eye to speak out against the dangers of anti-LGBT violence, not openly encourage it.  Martin also has used his platform to misrepresent religious views about LGBT people. Far from the church being uniformly anti-gay, as Martin has claimed, LGBT people are welcomed just as they are into the full life of the church, in congregations and entire denominations across the United States. Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Episcopal denominations welcome LGBT folks, as well as many congregations from a variety of denominations.

Perhaps Martin would feel more appreciated spreading his anti-LGBT views for Rupert Murdoch's GOP-pandering media consortium.  (That would be Fox News, home of far right pundits, climate change deniers, religious fanatics, conspiracy theorists, anti-choice zealots, Obama haters, and of course run-of-the-mill homobigots.)

Victoria Jackson Touts Her Anti-Islam Hysteria (video)

During this unintentionally amusing episode of PolitiChicks TV - but honestly, aren't they all? - SNL alum and Tea Party ham Victoria Jackson dons her librarian glasses in order to give gravitas to her shrill spiel.  You'll notice that the other women on stage seldom speak.  Like Jackson's eyeglasses, they are merely props, dead-eyed Stepford wingnuts whose sole function is to give Victoria's persecution complex and public nervous breakdown an audience.  Prattles the porcine pundit:

"Islamic law has infiltrated your community, your country, and your life!"

"Islam is our enemy.  Islam is not a religion of peace. That's a lie.  It's called 'tekea' - you're allowed to lie for Allah."  (Aren't we lucky that Christians never lie?)

"The Muslim Brotherhood is in all of our highest positions, including the President."

"The socialists, the progressives like Hillary (Clinton) want to destroy America."

"If we're under Islamic law, then my husband can cut my head off and stone me to death."

You may recall Jackson's online tirade against the popular television program Glee, where she referred to Kurt and Blaine's first brief kiss as "sickening."  This woman isn't just a trainwreck, she's a national disaster.

Jon Stewart on Newt Gingrich

Politico reports that Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are in a dead heat, according to an ABC News/Washington Post poll of primary voters - with Ron Paul hanging onto third place like a dog tick.

Newt Gingrich just won a straw poll among the dreaded Tea Party Patriots.

Jason Clayworth writes for the Des Moines Register:  Newt Gingrich here today criticized the negative attacks that have partially deflated the popularity of his campaign.  He said he will embark on a 44-city bus tour of Iowa starting Dec. 27.  And he will begin doing telephoners with Iowans several times a week starting Thursday to respond to the attacks his opponents spring on him in negative advertisements.  Gingrich has vowed to run a relentlessly positive campaign, free of attack ads, but he wants an opportunity to respond directly to attacks, he said.  Gingrich today declined to comment on a new complaint that his campaign illegally paid him $42,000...  Gingrich for weeks has battled criticism that his business, the Gingrich Group, was paid $1.6 million for historical work and consulting fees for Freddie Mac.

This clip from Comedy Central (via Hulu) says it all ...

Scott Walker, Thuggish Republican Governor

Keith Olbermann reminds us that in Terry Gilliam's nightmarish fantasy Brazil, government thugs would not only break down your door and torture you - they would send you a bill for their trouble.  This isn't so different from Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker's proposal to charge Occupy demonstrators for the cost of pepper spray used against them.

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Residents of the Badger State aren't particularly thrilled with their chief executive.  In a period of less than two weeks, more than 300,000 signatures have been collected in an attempt to remove him from office.  There's more information on the Republican governor's disreputable tactics and policies on the website Recall Scott Walker.

Fox News + Anti-Gay Agitprop = Death and Despair

Carlos Maza walks the dog for Equality Matters:  It’s no secret that Fox News has a habit of injecting anti-LGBT bias into its supposedly straight news coverage. Whether it’s criticizing same-sex parents, fear mongering about marriage equality, or making crass jokes about transgender people, Fox makes its anti-LGBT viewpoint known whenever possible...  Now, a new Equality Matters analysis has found that Fox virtually ignored the recent suicide of Jamey Rodemeyer, a gay teenager who took his own life last month after experiencing intense bullying from his peers. In the two weeks following Rodemeyer’s death, Fox mentioned the story just once, while discussing proposed new anti-bullying legislation in New York. During the same period, CNN and MSNBC extensively covered both Rodemeyer’s death and the ongoing problem of anti-LGBT bullying in America.  Fox’s failure to acknowledge Rodemeyer’s death is symptomatic of the network’s broader conservative agenda when it comes to covering anti-LGBT bullying.

As News Hounds, Equality Matters and numerous LGBT rights organizations have observed, the self-described "fair and balanced" network is the very antithesis of impartiality.  It's target audience is comprised of Tea Party zealots and fundie fanatics, and ultraconservative hacks under billionaire Rupert Murdock's dark tutelage are responsible for spreading GOP propaganda.  (If this "news" channel had been broadcasting back in the late fifties and early sixties, I suspect it would have championed segregation and anti-miscegenation laws.  Jesus, just look at how many of their "experts" have close ties to white supremacists and militia groups.) 

These days they bash the gays - and it's not just FN's endless parade of fire-and-brimstone preachers doing irreparable damage.  Resident quack Dr. Keith Ablow is always on hand trying to convince gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender youngsters that their lives are worthless and the oft-discredited "reparative therapy" can make them happy and "normal."

Keith Ablow is not that removed from a typical schoolyard bully - the only difference being, Ablow brutalizes America's children via television sets and Internet devices, and with a more extensive vocabulary (presumably).  One wonders how many troubled teens have listened to this homobigot and others like him before eating the barrel of a gun.

Proud Of Opposing Equal Rights, Sugarcoating Wingnut "Values" 

Fox News Channel is so skewed to the right that the country's epidemic of gay youth suicides is considered by them to be as insignificant as the violent hate crimes perpetrated against LGBT citizens (which also go unreported or underreported).  You can, however, expect the conscienceless drones at Faux to provide huge chunks of airtime for evangelical ministers to whine about how oppressed they are.  Is it War On Christmas time yet?

You may recall the 7-year-old transgender lass - a child that has identified as female since the age of two - whose fondest wish was to join the Girl Scouts.  The Colorado chapter initially refused to accept her as a member, but later relented.  (The Girl Scouts have always been more progressive than the Boy Scouts, whose leaders fired a volunteer this summer after learning that she was a lesbian mom in a longtime monogamous relationship.)  Since the Fox News shills couldn't allow a kid who was born different to feel good about herself, they brought on Dr. Judith Reisman to tag-team her unscientific views with Dr. Ablow.  Both Reisman and the unctuous Ablow accused the girl's parents of "child abuse."  Of course the "fair and balanced" network neglected to mention that Reisman is a professional homophobe who received her academic "degree" at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University.  (I was amazed to learned that the college offered any science curricula.)

More about Reisman and Ablow from Maza:  She is a full-throated proponent of the claim that gay people are more likely to engage in pedophilia, as well as the myth that the Nazi party was run by gay men ...  He’s suggested that gay parents influence their kids to become transgender, compared transgender people to heroin addicts, and compared homosexuality to pedophilia. He’s been criticized by a number of medical professionals for trying to pass off his own, bigoted opinions as medical expertise...  (And these are the sort of "authority figures" Fox News legitimizes.)

"Most hatred is based on fear, one way or another."   - Laurell K. Hamilton

UPDATE:  The ever vigilant Alvin McEwen at Pam's House Blend did some digging and unearthed yet more damning facts about Reisman that Equality Matters apparently overlooked:  The piece failed to mention that Reisman is a failed researcher who was given a federal grant of more than $784,000 to study 30 years worth of Playboy magazines. These findings were dismissed as “paranoid pseudoscientific hyperbole.” Or that she wrote a book accusing sex researcher Alfred Kinsey of child abuse. When the Kinsey Institute easily batted down her charges, she sued it for defamation and emotional distress, claiming that it tried to censor her book. Not only was the case dismissed, but it was dismissed with prejudice, which means Reisman could not re-file it.

(Pictured Top:  Jamey Rodemeyer, bullied to death and ignored by Fox News.  Bottom:  Judith Reisman, transgender girl, Keith Ablow)

Without Compassion: Recalling a Jerry Falwell Moment

Reverend Jerry Falwell, the Late Great Hate

From childhood we're taught not to speak ill of the dead.  I believe it's worse to speak ill of the dying.

I recall once when Jerry Falwell, founder of the so-called Moral Majority, appeared on The Phil Donahue Show.  He spent his allotted sixty minutes (sans commercials) railing against homosexuality, a subject that remained dear to his heart until clogged arteries shut down that organ. 

This was in the early eighties and the AIDS epidemic was in its genesis.  Falwell's loathsome remarks are burned into my memory.  The Southern Baptist minister, blithely ignoring the program's host and even forgetting which camera framed those fluttering jowls, was pontificating about how "unnatural" gays and lesbians were and how "the Creator doesn't make mistakes."  Needless to say, scientists hadn't yet begun documenting the plethora of wildlife species which engage in same-sex activity, not to mention lifelong monogamous same gender bonding.

At one point during the interview - which was really more like a sermon since Falwell used the venue to castigate "sissy boys" and "manly women" - the evangelical leader, after assuming a jocular tone and floating a few lame quips, declared to the assemblage:  "Animals don't engage in homosexual conduct!  Chimpanzees don't, birds don't, fish don't, dogs don't!"

When Falwell said "dogs don't" the entire audience burst out laughing.  They laughed at him, not with him. 

It was a silly thing to say.  Most dog lovers have witnessed male canines mounting other males (as well as the occasional human leg).  Of course dogs that haven't been neutered - and about half of those who have - will mount a variety of objects, and everybody knows this isn't an indicator of the canine's sexual predilections.  (Our black lab Little Brother used to display a certain, er, tendresse for a grinning plush monkey.) 

It's important to note, however, that even though the people in the studio realized that a dog's sex drive is eclectic, Falwell had made a grave error.  He underestimated the intelligence of his audience. 

Falwell concluded his spiel by denouncing gays and lesbians as "abominations" and warning audience members that AIDs was "God's punishment for homosexual activity," a position still embraced by many ultraconservative pastors and pols.  Phil Donahue, clearly fed up with this tripe, pounced upon his guest's cruel judgment and exposed the preacher's "facts" as base fearmongering.  (Remember when media titans stood up to self-righteous bullies?)

Protected by the pulpit, a minister can usually count on... if not blind agreement, then respect and silent acquiescence from his own congregation, no matter what nonsense he pulls out of his ass.  Falwell was accustomed to receiving this respect.  He was not accustomed to having his declarations questioned.  He was not accustomed to being the object of ridicule.  When the crowd laughed - and I'm talking belly-laughs - Falwell's chubby face, already perspiring under hot studio lights, became elastic. In a matter of moments his expression changed from smug and overconfident to bewildered and hurt.  I almost felt sorry for the man.  Almost.

In the 21st century, when fundies talk about sexual orientation they alternate between their "it's abnormal" talking point and their more contemporary spin:  "Yes, animals might engage is homosexuality - but they also eat their young!  Human beings are not animals."   Gay and lesbian relationships are condemned from the pulpit and romantic love between members of the same gender is dismissed as "unnatural lust."  Some right-wing pastors compare us to child molesters, alcoholics, even terrorists.  Others insist that we're damaged and must be "fixed."  We are told that we "choose sin" and can pray away the gay.  We are also told that perhaps change is impossible, and therefore we must remain chaste. 

I wish they'd get their stories straight.  Religious conservatives have been misrepresenting gays and lesbians for so long that they've finally managed to confuse themselves.

Why I Remember

It has been nearly three decades since that episode of The Phil Donahue Show.  There's a reason why I'll never forget it.  In the pre-Internet era, sexual orientation was seldom mentioned on television or in print media, and for the topic to be addressed at all was noteworthy.  Much more relevant, however, is this:  Less than a month before Falwell's homophobic tirade was broadcast, my partner's younger brother Steve confided to us that he had come down with "the gay cancer," as AIDs was sometimes called back then. 

Steve and I watched that program together.  I was unprepared for what Falwell would say and shocked that a Christian pastor would blame Art's brother and countless other young men for a disease.  Steve got up and left the room, in tears, before the episode was over.

Our sweet Stevie - who wouldn't harm a gnat and possessed a warm and generous nature - was, according to America's religious zealots, responsible for his own suffering and imminent death while this... this grotesque clown preened on TV, clutching his Bible and luxuriating in the misery of others.  It was obscene.

Jerry Falwell died in 2007.  Steve died within a year of the Donahue Show episode I just described.  Art's brother moved into our house during the last six months of his life, so we could care for him.  He suffered horribly - but all we could really do was keep him clean and fed.  (There were no treatment options in those days.)

A History of Hate

Below is the transcript from an exchange between Falwell and Pat Robertson in which these "holy" men connect gays and secularists to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.  The segment aired on the CBN's 700 Club, less than a week after the World Trade Center collapsed:

JERRY FALWELL:  I agree totally with you that the Lord has protected us so wonderfully these 225 years. And since 1812, this is the first time that we've been attacked on our soil and by far the worst results. And I fear, as Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, said yesterday, that this is only the beginning. And with biological warfare available to these monsters -- the Husseins, the Bin Ladens, the Arafats -- what we saw on Tuesday, as terrible as it is, could be miniscule if, in fact -- if, in fact -- God continues to lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve.
PAT ROBERTSON: Jerry, that's my feeling. I think we've just seen the antechamber to terror. We haven't even begun to see what they can do to the major population.
JERRY FALWELL:  The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this.
PAT ROBERTSON:  Well yes.
JERRY FALWELL:  And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say "you helped this happen."
PAT ROBERTSON:  Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted that agenda at the highest levels of our government. And so we're responsible as a free society for what the top people do. And, the top people, of course, is the court system.
JERRY FALWELL:  Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged". In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time - calling upon God.
PAT ROBERTSON:  Amen!

Younger generations of progressive Christians may be able to look past the venom spewed by these and other religious bigots - but I cannot.  I will always remember a brave young man who suffered and died in our home while people who were not fit to wash his feet - and I use that phrase in its Biblical sense - condemned him to hell and interminable suffering.

In Falwell's later years, perhaps suspecting that his legacy would be forever tainted by homophobia - as, deservedly, it is - the preacher made tepid overtures to the LGBT community and spoke to a few gay rights groups.  The meetings were insubstantial, despite being referred to as "productive" by his own ministry.  Falwell lived in hate and died in hate.

(Pictured left to right:  The odious Jerry Falwell, a vengeful God, Kaposi's Sarcoma, and Phil Donahue who is a truly compassionate man.) 

AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh's charioteers ... AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.  - Jerry Falwell

The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called 'reverend'.  - Christopher Hitchens