Hey Bigots! Can I Have Some Bigot Cake as Well?

Remember Melissa and Aaron Klein?  They are the owners of Sweet Cakes By Melissa, an Oregon bakery that shot to national infamy by refusing to bake a cake for the local Satanic cult’s 3rd Annual Fetus Cook-Off.  The cake was to celebrate the addition of Planned Parenthood as a Gold level sponsor of this year’s event, and….  Yeah, actually they refused to make a wedding cake for two women because Jesus said very plainly in that book the bigoted Christians really wish existed:

“And Thee Sayeth Onto Thou, Skip a bit, brother, and thee Woman folk I command thusly; Touch no man but thou husband; be pure and chaste in all, but slut in the bed of marriage; enjoy thee not sex, but suffer through it whenever your lawful husband, your master, wishes it; know that if your husband strays, it is your fault, oh woman, once tempted led to the fall of man; God created fellatio, as a way for woman to worship her superior, and you should provide your husband nightly; cunnilingus however, is the work of Satan, never ask it of your husband; and now woman, pay close attention, for this is the key to your salvation.  Thee are permitted, encouraged even, to lick, kiss, touch, feel, fondle, poke, rub, hug, and/or suck on any part of another woman ONLY for the entertainment and pleasure of your lawful husband.  For a woman marrying a woman robs two men of their rightful property.  So spoke Jesus the Christ.  Seriously.  That is what I said.  Jesus.  That’s me.  And that is what I said.  Honest. ” – The Book of “God We Wish We Had This,” chapter 5, verses 11 to 73.

See?  It’s right there in that made up quote from that imaginary book about the mythical sky daddy who tells these people to be bigots.  It’s not their fault!

So anyway, Sweet Cakes by Melissa refused to bake the nice couple a wedding cake and possibly also told them they were abominations in the eyes of god*.  The nice couple sued, and since our judicial system doesn’t base their decisions on what they think a 2000 year old mythical figure would do, Sweet Cakes by Melissa lost and was ordered to pay close to 150k.

So everything worked out alright in the end, right?  The couple, who just wanted a wedding cake, got compensated for being discriminated against, which kinda makes up for their unwanted infamy among the Christian right wing lunatic fringe, the courts did court stuff lawfully, and the cake bakers who refused to bake cakes for people in relationships they did not approve of had to pay a hefty fine.  All’s right in the world!

Until you read this:

Sweet Cakes by Melissa was kicked off GoFundMe earlier this year, but has since raised more than $350,000 on the crowdfunding site Continue to Give. The growing total, which far exceeds the couple’s $150,000 goal, is the largest individual campaign in the history of the three-year-old site, the Washington Times reported. The couple previously netted more than $60,000 from Go Fund Me before that campaign was taken down.

What good are fines at stopping discrimination when there are a whole bunch of bigots out there all too willing to send their bigot bucks to whatever bigot needs bigot bucks at that particular moment?  It’s practically an encouragement to discriminate, a bigot safety net, there to catch bigots who face complaints and lawsuits in a big pile of bigot bucks.**

Which leads us to our next chapter in this story; what the Klein’s decided to do with the leftover cash.

This week, the owners of an Oregon bakery ordered to pay $135,000 for refusing to make a wedding cake for a lesbian couple sent out 10 specially made cakes to LGBT groups.

Sweet Cakes By Melissa sent the cakes, which say “We really do love you!” in white writing over a red heart. The packages also included a DVD copy of “Audacity,” an anti-gay film, according to The Advocate. The film’s website says it “delivers an unexpected, eye-opening look at the controversial topic of homosexuality.”

“Our purpose is to express our love for them as a Christian,” bakery owner Melissa Klein wrote in an email to the Oregonian. “We don’t hate them. We also included in the package the movie Audacity. I feel it is a well done movie that shows what being a Christian is about. My hope is that they will watch it and maybe just understand our heart.  We want to show them that it’s not about not serving them it’s about not being able to partake in an event.”

Pic credit: Equality California

Okay, three cheers to the Kleins for a textbook example of the second definition for “audacity”:

au·dac·i·ty

ôˈdasədē/

noun

noun: audacity

1. 1.

   the willingness to take bold risks.

   “her audacity came in handy during our most recent emergency”
2. 2.

   rude or disrespectful behavior; impudence.

   “she had the audacity to send GLBTQ organizations a cake with the hate flick Audacity.”

I mean, spot on use of language there.  Very impressive.  Second, you fucking sent them “Audacity”?  While claiming that you love them?  Holy mixed messages, Batman.  That’s like giving your kid a kitten then running the cute, cuddly ball of fur over on purpose,  then replacing said kitten with a puppy because puppy rape is what gets you going.  “Audacity” has an incredible amount of audacity (first definition) in even calling itself a film.  Half the damn movie is Ray Comfort clips from Youtube.  My feelings on “Audacity” can be summed up as follows; if Ray Comfort came up to me with a video camera and started asking idiotic questions about sexuality, I would fuck with him like no other.  But that’s not fair, I know who he is.  If a random stranger with a video camera came up to me and started asking me insane questions on sexuality in the same tone of voice and manner of speaking as Ray Comfort, I would say whatever I thought he wanted to hear to shut him up and get him away from me before he started to shoot or stab people.  If you torture yourself into watching “Audacity,” put everyone of his interviewees in that frame of mind.  If you want the full scoop on Ray Comfort’s masterpiece of Christian cinema, Eli, Noah, and Heath review this gem on The Scathing Atheisthere. (Review starts at the 23:45 part if you don’t like well written comedy. Not that you’ll like the review then either, but I still wanted to include the time stamp.)

So let’s see, we have spot on use of language, and inflicting a film that makes God’s Not Dead look both like  Oscar bait and a subtle, nuanced work of apologetic.  We’ll add that together, carry the one, divide by the square root, multiply by the ………

I got it!

Dear Melissa and Aaron.

Please take your bigot cakes, paid for with bigot bucks, and shove them as far up each of your bigot assholes as you each can reach, you passive aggressive, condescending, holier than thou, asshatted bigots.  While Jesus has surprisingly little to say about homosexuals, considering how much time and effort Christian bigots dedicate to all things gay, your god* could be the most homophobic deity in the pantheon and it still wouldn’t give you a legitimate excuse to not bake the cake.

When you bake a cake for a wedding, you are not giving your blessing and/or seal of approval on the match being made.  No one is asking that of you.  When they ask if anyone has any objection to the wedding, they don’t frantically look around to make sure the cake baker is in the room and giving consent.  It is the same as a county clerk, except even less vital; the clerk is also not approving or blessing the union, they are just verifying that the couple is eligible to get married according to the secular law, while you are just providing a decoration that will probably be shoved into at least one of the couple’s faces.

Melissa, you are a bigot.  Unfortunately, you happen to live during a time period in America where being a bigot pays.  You may have to move to a more bigoted location, or open up a mail order business, but it is beyond certain that while many talented and driven small cake shops will fail in the coming years, you will make a decent living either baking for bigots or speaking to bigots.  But do not let yourself be fooled.  Do not buy into the lie, that you are the one being oppressed, and that you are somehow fighting a fight for religious liberty.  You are not.  You are a homophobic bigot.

Why am I so comfortable in making that statement?  Well, partially this:

When one of the reporters called and asked if the business could make two identical cakes to help a friend celebrate the grant she received for cloning human stem cells, a Sweet Cakes employee simply laughed and said, “It’ll be $25.99 each, so about $50 to start.”

A request for a cake to congratulate a friend on her divorce was also happily accepted, with a Sweet Cakes worker saying, “We can definitely do something like that.”

Sweet Cakes was even happy to take orders for cakes for a pagan summer solstice fete — complete with a green pentagram decoration — and celebrating babies born out of wedlock.

But even more than that is the simple fact that all of you “traditional marriage” people are bigots.  No one is kidnapping the men off your block and forcing them into gay marriages.  You argue for biblical marriage, yet ignore the polygamy running rampant throughout the book.  Marriages were arranged for decent chunks of history, and while clans like the Duggars long for the days when women were passed like property from one man to the next, something tells me that even most Christians are not willingly going to accept arranged marriage.  While we’re keeping things traditional, are we bringing back the dowry as well?  I’ve recently been fascinated with medieval history, and the rare cases where a King or dowager Queen marry for love are often seen as scandalous.  (For one example, the dowager Queen Katherine and Owen Tudor. Or if we’re speaking of dowry, the marriage of Henry VI to “a Queen not worth ten marks”***, Margaret of Anjou.  Ah, traditional marriage.)  If you are that concerned about “traditional” marriage, why aren’t you freaking out about interracial weddings?  Cause you’re fifty years too late?  Cause that type of bigotry isn’t acceptable in polite, Christian circles anymore?  I guess it depends on what “polite, Christian circles” you run in, does it not?****

What about divorce?  You will bake divorce cakes, and something tells me you gladly bake cakes for people’s second (and third, and fourth, and….) weddings when Jesus, your whole fucking reason for refusing to bake a cake for a gay wedding, was quite clear (for once) on divorce(my bolding):

⁸ Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. ⁹ I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”

¹⁰ The disciples said to him, “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry.”

¹¹ Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. ¹² For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.” Matt 19

See, Jesus’ opinion isn’t “be fruitful and multiply,” it’s “keep it in your pants, but if you absolutely can’t stay celibate, which you definitely should, but if you can’t, I guess you can get married.”  And since he starts the chapter talking about how marriage was totes awesome according to god, who’s the enemy of traditional marriage in this story?  I’ll give you a hint.  It’s the same guy who’s on the other side of the glory hole.

Invariably, about this deep in any anti-marriage equality article, after the author has exhausted the weak arguments available to them, you find the anecdote about the author’s child (or friend’s child) finding out about gay marriage through tv/a magazine cover/ a newspaper cover/ an assigned book in school and that person having to explain something they are uncomfortable talking about to the child, and…..  Well, and then I’m not really sure.  I see this argument all the time I’m really not sure what they want.  The ability to hide reality from their child until that child is of legal age?  Here’s one recent example, from Right Wing Watch (although Wonkette covers it here as well.)

Ruse said that he started to worry when he realized that one of the chefs on Chopped “looked like a butch lesbian” and put his finger on the remote just in case he got exposed to gayness. “But this is the Food Network so we don’t have anything to worry about, right?” he said.

But it was too late. Despite his best efforts, Ruse and his daughter were forced to see a lesbian couple:

So I didn’t have my hand on the trigger fast enough when they did a hard cut to a backstory about this lesbian chef and don’t you know it she’s got her arm around her ‘wife,’ she refers to her ‘wife,’ and I was too slow in fast-forwarding. My eight-year-old Lucy, sweet Lucy, turned to me and said: ‘Did she say wife?’ And I said, ‘No, I think she meant girlfriend.’ And Lucy said, ‘I think she said life.’ God bless the innocence of this child. But they will not let us off the mat, the ideologies who want to cram this thing down our throats no matter where we go.

And it gets worse. Ruse laments that unwitting children may have had their vacations ruined by an edition of USA Today that featured a gay couple kissing:

The day after the decision of the Supreme Court was a full page photograph of two men kissing on USA Today. This is a paper that lands in front of hotel room doors all over the country, this is vacation time, families open that door, children may have opened this door to see two men kissing. They are making us explain things to our children that we don’t want to explain and they know what they’re doing, they absolutely know what they’re doing.

While Ruse complains about being persecuted by the Food Network, let’s remember that this is same anti-gay activist who condemned the United Nations for investigating “discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against individuals based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.”

I mean, I get the urge to protect your children.  If I had kids (and I do have nieces, a nephew, and a young cousin who’s pretty much a niece) I would want to protect them from Confederate battle flags, neo-nazis, Fox News, Westboro Baptist Church, Catholic priests, The 700 Club, guns, and poster sized pictures of aborted fetuses.  But these things all exist, and at age appropriate times, I think it is important to introduce children to the concepts.  I do not want the first time my daughter hears about a poster sized picture of an aborted fetus to be when she’s walking into a Planned Parenthood for her well-woman check and some protester is shoving it in her face.  “Traditional marriage” supporters will throw my own “age appropriate” comment right back in my face, but we aren’t talking about hardcore gay porn here.  We are speaking of the existence of a group of people who most certainly do exist.  Everyone knows a homosexual.  If you do not know a homosexual, it is more than likely because you are a bigot and the homosexuals you do know just aren’t telling you.  Chances are a few of the kids at your child’s school have gay parents.  A lesbian couple on Food Network is not an endorsement of that lifestyle.  A lip to lip kiss on the cover of a newspaper is not a religious statement.  They are just holding a mirror to society.  What evil lifestyle is the couple on Chopped displaying?  The one where you love someone and commit to them in marriage?  Those bastards.

Marriage equality is about love, consent, and equal rights under the law.  Freedom of religion means you do not have to get gay married.  Your church doesn’t have to perform gay weddings.  You and your pastor/priest can bitch about how gay marriage is going to lead to the end of the world all day long, and twice on Sunday.  You are even free, as sick as it is, to raise your kids believing that homosexuality is a sin and that gay marriage is wrong.  (Hopefully you’re not one of those bigots who will throw their child out of the house if they come out as gay.)

What you don’t get is the ability to force that belief on others.  No anti-gay prayers in school (or any prayers for that matter….and note, I am referring to official prayers, not non-disruptive silent prayers by individual students.)  If you hold elective office (or appointed office) you don’t get to refuse to do your job because Jesus.  You took an oath to obey and support the laws of our nation, not those of your book or church.  If you can’t do your job, then quit.  Save us all the trouble of firing you.  Especially when you are more than likely a “fiscal conservative” as well, and it is tax dollars you are wasting grandstanding for martyr points.  If you are a business, then you serve everyone or no one.  Simple, is it not?  Think that isn’t fair?  Well, how would you feel if I had a business and I refused to serve Christians?  Could you imagine what Bill O’Reilly would say about me?  He’d probably have David Silverman on as a guest, show the one picture of me posing with Silverman, and spend the whole segment yelling over David about how much of a treasonous bigoted scum sucking commie I was. But that whole thought experiment is meaningless to you, is it not?  Because you can not place yourself in another person’s skin.

Enjoy your bigot bucks.  Enjoy sending out your condescending cake with the bigger waste of a disc than “Free AOL” software.  Because on this front of the culture war, you lost.  You can pretend that you will out breed the progressives all you want, but most of your children will end up rejecting your bigotry.  The “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” kerfluffle will be a dark family secret, with their great grand children shockingly discovering those bigot were their ancestors, wondering what went wrong, eventually chalking it up to a different time, just as those of us did with ancestors who protested against things like interracial marriage, women’s suffrage, or ending slavery.

Now, get back to shoving that cake so deep in there that you see it in your santorum for the next year.

*While I never really thought of it before, after listening to this week’s diatribe on The Scathing Atheist, I am making a conscious effort to not capitalize “god,” except when it appears at the start of a sentence.  This is a habit I have had for ages, so please don’t mind the inconsistency as I retrain my fingers.

**Dude, I can not be the only atheist who’s retirement plan looks like this:

• Fake conversion
• Plead poverty/persecution due to my new found faith
• Rake in the bigot bucks
• Write book on my experiences in the Christian fringe movement.

Fucking ethics and morals.  I wonder how “psychics” and alt-med practitioners get rid of those pesky things.

***From the title of chapter 7 in The Wars of the Roses by Alison Weir.  Also from this book comes my personal favorite nickname for the future Queen of England, “la petite creature.” (pg 107)

****Bigotry against an “outgroup” is fascinating.  While I was growing up and during my teen years, bigotry against homosexuals was seen as the standard in my area.  It was the default assumption.  Unless you spoke up, everyone assumed you hated the “fags.”  Those who were different at all for any reason were labeled “fags.”  (Before Nirvana went mainstream, I think I was called “leather fag” more often than my actual name for a while.)  There was also a really strong undercurrent of racism, just not as automatically assumed as the homophobia.  Perhaps because while my school had (I believe, I am not getting out my yearbook) one African-American (in 1994!!!)  and two Indian-Americans in my graduating class, we were just outside of Altoona (and all hung out with people from each school) which had a much more diverse racial make up.

Now, with outright racism largely frowned upon by society and the acceptance of GLBTQ community members as actual normal people, we’re witnessing a strange outbreak of bigotry across multiple fronts as, I don’t know, bigots look for an acceptable place to release it?  From the resurgence of anti-black racism (see the comment thread on any story dealing with Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown) to the last gasps of those who desperately wish they could choke on a nice hard cock (see Brian Fischer, Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron, et al.) to the shockingly counterproductive anti-Mexican immigrant hate coming from the GOP’s field of presidential candidates (see. well…all of them?) to the confusing issue of actual post 9/11 anti-Middle Easterner racism being lumped together and equated with legitimate criticism of the tenants of the Islamic religion, it seems society is determined to prove those who claimed we had moved beyond race, beyond bigotry as wrong as possible.  What’s the next group?  It can’t be women, although the GOP has made a go of it over the past couple of years, but women simply have too much voting power.  My guess, and we’ve definitely seen it in action before, I just think it will get much more mainstream: bigotry against the poor.  A group with almost no political power, with no money to buy politicians, that is so easily demonized (they buy steak with food stamps!  They get free phones!  Welfare mommas!  Your hard earned tax dollars, Rabble Rabble Rabble!!!)  It’s coming hard, from your local GOP candidate.  Bet on it.

***** Just a note here.  The piece on Jindal is over half done at the moment.  It hasn’t been the best week as it goes with my family and health, so I’ve been a bit behind.  I’m also just about to become unemployed,  hopefully for a very short period of time, which has been cutting into my time.  I will work on getting it up on Monday.  Thanks all for reading this!

Really Rachel? Really?

I have to admit, I was so caught up shopping for a gay wedding present for the totes-legal-now-that-the-Supremes-said-that-everyone-needed-to-stop-kung-fu-fighting-long-enough-to-get-gay-married-everybody-even-puppies-goats-llamas-cable-news-shows-websites-and-straight-men-except-not-Jared-from-Subway-cause-seriously-fuck-that-guy impending nuptials joining The Wonkette and The Rachel Maddow Show in the bonds of holy matrimony, wondering what happens on the honeymoon for a website/cable news show marriage, who would get pregnant, and if they would give birth to little podcasts and oh my god this sentence ran on so long I got lost.

Okay, so I was busy doing that thing mentioned in the above sentence so I almost missed this little comment from Rachel Maddow on her show last night, and that would have been a shame because I so disagree with her for once.

There`s no reason to think that Jeb Bush is a terrible person.

I understand, Rachel.  You are always trying to get Republicans to come on your show, and those that do are always treated fairly.  Perhaps in the not too distant future (na na na), when elected Republicans can once again govern like adults without fear of being primaried for the sin of compromise, more members of the GOP will realize appearing on your show is not like a progressive on The O’Reilly Factor.  Of course, for that possibility to, well, be possible, you can’t exactly go around calling Republican candidates for President “terrible people,” now can you?

But I can.  Especially when the Republican in question actually is a terrible person.  In fact, one of the most pressing questions I hope to answer in my 17 part on-going series, Getting to Know the Trip, is if there is a non-terrible person in the field.  (Preliminary answer?  No.  They’re all pretty terrible.)  Things need to change if we have any hope of reclaiming our democracy and building it back up to something other than a world wide joke.  One thing that really needs to change is that the press needs to live up to the responsibility the Founding Fathers gave it by enshrining Freedom of the Press in the Bill of Rights.  The only bias a news anchor/reporter should have is an overwhelming bias towards reality. Stop covering politics like sports and stop being afraid of offending people if a political party takes a stance in opposition to objective fact.

While I am going to save most points for when I get to Jeb in my Goat Countdown, hearing Rachel last night compelled me to let you all know a few reasons why yes, Jeb Bush is a terrible person.  And we’ll start off with the two words that should immediately disqualify him from the Presidency:

Terry Schiavo

Raise your hand if you remember this ghoul trying to score political points by reinserting the feeding tube into a women in a persistent vegetative state, forcing her to “live,” against the wishes of her husband (and guardian) and, if you believe her husbands word, and I have no reason not to, against her own wishes as well.  Die with dignity? Not with Jeb on duty:

She had left no will. No written instructions. She was 26. To try to determine what she would have wanted, there was a trial, in the Pinellas County courtroom of circuit judge George Greer, in which Michael Schiavo relayed what she had told him in passing about what her wishes would be in this sort of scenario. Others did, too. She also had next to no chance of recovery, according to doctors’ testimony. Greer cited “overwhelming credible evidence” that Terri Schiavo was “totally unresponsive” with “severe structural brain damage” and that “to a large extent her brain has been replaced by spinal fluid.” His judgment was that she would not have wanted to live in her “persistent vegetative state” and that Michael Schiavo, her husband and her legal guardian, was allowed to remove her feeding tube.

But that was before the Jeb signal went up!

So on October 15, 2003, Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube came out. Judge’s orders. She would die within two weeks. This stage of the case looks in retrospect like the start of a test. Just how much power did Jeb Bush have?

HB 35E was filed after 8 at night on October 20. Many lawmakers already were gone for the day. Gelber, the state representative from Miami, put his suit back on at his apartment in Tallahassee and hustled back to the Capitol. Fellow Democrats gathered around as the attorney and former prosecutor began to read the bill one of Bush’s staff attorneys had helped to write.“Authority for the Governor to Issue a One-time Stay …”

Gelber looked up.

“I don’t have to read anymore,” he said. “It’s clearly unconstitutional.”

“The governor can’t just change an order of the court,” Gelber explained this month. “It’s one of the most elemental concepts of democracy: The governor is not a king.”

But the governor is Jeb!  He’s better than a king.  Letters poured into his office, each attempting to suck his dick a little bit better than the previous one.  Oh, it must have been good to be Jeb in those heady days.  Unfortunately, those pesky courts, you know, the ones who had earlier ruled in favor of Terri’s right to die with dignity?  Yeah, those ones.  Well, they were about to meddle around and ruin poor Jeb’s good day.

Back in Florida, though, the courts were focused not so much on what was “morally obligatory” but more on what was legally mandatory.

A circuit judge ruled Bush’s “Terri’s Law” unconstitutional.

Well, that’s only a circuit court.  Wait til it gets to the Florida Supreme Court.  They’ll see it Jeb’s way, I just know it.

The seven state supreme court judges took less than a month to dismiss unanimously “Terri’s Law.”

Oh.  Well, that was embarrassing.  Unanimous?  Damn.  The only thing worse would be if the Chief Justice released a written smackdown that Foster could mark up with bolding and italics on his blog, in this article.

“If the Legislature with the assent of the Governor can do what was attempted here,” chief justice Barbara Pariente wrote in her ruling, “the judicial branch would be subordinated to the final directive of the other branches. Also subordinated would be the rights of individuals, including the well-established privacy right to self-determination. No court judgment could ever be considered truly final and no constitutional right truly secure, because the precedent of this case would hold to the contrary. Vested rights could be stripped away based on popular clamor. The essential core of what the Founding Fathers sought to change from their experience with English rule would be lost …”

But that was like, forever ago.  Surely Jeb has learned from his attempt to destroy the system of checks and balances to score cheap pro-life points.  No matter how many letters from supporters he received over the matter, he had to hear the overwhelming outcry in opposition to his privacy and self-determination shredding power grab.  Right?

No, not really.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Friday he had no regrets about fighting to keep Terri Schiavo alive, addressing the mid-2000s controversy on his second trip to New Hampshire this year.

“I don’t think I would have changed anything,” he told New Hampshire business leaders at St. Anselm College’s Politics and Eggs breakfast in response to a question about whether he would have handled things differently with the benefit of hindsight.

Speaking of the past, it turns out that Jeb longs for the good old days, back when adulterous women were forced to wear large letter “A’s.”

Public shaming would be an effective way to regulate the “irresponsible behavior” of unwed mothers, misbehaving teenagers and welfare recipients, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) argued in his 1995 book Profiles in Character.

In a chapter called “The Restoration of Shame,” the likely 2016 presidential candidate made the case that restoring the art of public humiliation could help prevent pregnancies “out of wedlock.”

One of the reasons more young women are giving birth out of wedlock and more young men are walking away from their paternal obligations is that there is no longer a stigma attached to this behavior, no reason to feel shame. Many of these young women and young men look around and see their friends engaged in the same irresponsible conduct. Their parents and neighbors have become ineffective at attaching some sense of ridicule to this behavior. There was a time when neighbors and communities would frown on out of wedlock births and when public condemnation was enough of a stimulus for one to be careful.

Bush points to Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 novel The Scarlet Letter, in which the main character is forced to wear a large red “A” for “adulterer” on her clothes to punish her for having an extramarital affair that produced a child, as an early model for his worldview. “Infamous shotgun weddings and Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Scarlet Letter are reminders that public condemnation of irresponsible sexual behavior has strong historical roots,” Bush wrote.

Who’s a cute little misogynist?  Come on, Jeb, make that “grrr” noise.  It will go great with this quote from Alternet:

After all, we’re talking about a man who once put the life of a disabled woman who’d been raped at risk by intervening legally to force her to carry her child to term — a move a Florida court later found illegal.

We’re talking about a man who, as governor, signed a controversial abortion ban into law — and praised a similar measure passed by the House on Wednesday as “humane and compassionate.”

We’re talking about a man who likes to defend his anti-choice record by saying “the most vulnerable in our society need to be protected” — even though he’s shown he’s not above playing politics with a child’s body, once going so far as governor as appealing the decision of a court that ruled a 13-year-old girl could have an abortion when her pregnancy posed an extreme risk to her health.

We’re talking about someone who likes to talk a big game about how taxpayer dollars should never be used to fund abortions — even though he slipped millions in taxpayer dollars to Florida “crisis pregnancy centers” notorious for lying to and misleading women about their reproductive health choices. (This, in a state where 73 percent of counties have no abortion providers and crisis centers may be the only places women have to turn for the medical care they desperately need.)

And let’s not forget that Jeb once held $1 million in family planning grants hostage until the programs receiving the money agreed not to discuss birth control at all.

And since I want to save most of the ammo for my 6k or so word introduction of Jeb that is still probably a couple months away, I will leave you with this recent little gaffe.  Wasn’t Jeb supposedly the establishment candidate who wouldn’t make stupid gaffes?  From Correct the Record, though you can find it just about anywhere:

 Jeb Bush: “I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues.”

I know you were trying to be nice, Ms. Maddow, but he is a terrible person.

Now I’m going to do a knife hit to get the taste of yet another bush out of my mouth.  Have a good weekend, I’ll try to get a few posts up during the weekend.

For those interested, here is the order for the next few parts of Getting to Know the Trip

1. Bobby Jindal
2. Lindsey Graham
3. Rick Perry
4. Jim Gilmore
5. George Pataki

I will try to have Gov. Jindal up on Monday, although his is going to be so much fun that it may take til Wednesday.  I mean, this is a Governor who has pissed off just about every single voter in his state in his hopeless attempt to win the presidential nomination.  A legitimate answer to the question “What is wrong with the United State’s method of electing a President?” would be simply pointing at Jindal.  He is a guy who got himself elected Governor of a state solely as a stepping stone to higher office, and every single decision he makes as Governor is informed by his higher goal.  Yes, it will be fun.

After I finish out the under 2% gang I’ll make a schedule for the other candidates.  I’m thinking of going by national poll numbers, which is meaningless, but hell, Fox News thinks they mean something, so why not?  We’ll see.

If you have a few minutes, I urge you to read the whole piece on Jeb and the Terri Schiavo over at Politico, titled “Jeb ‘Put Me Through Hell’.”  It’s worth checking out, if only to remind you of the situation.

 

 

 

 

L. Brent Bozell Shares Foolproof Tactic to Win Debates Against Liberals

Normally I pay absolutely no attention to the “esteemed” L. Brent Bozell, head of an impotent organization with an important sounding name, the Media Research Council.  Why you ask?  Mainly because the “research” implied by the organization’s name seems to consist primarily of a Christian conservative, either Mr. Bozell himself or an underling. watching the media until they see something that morally upsets them.  While I am sure our friend L. would love it if I compared his group to the Family Research Council or the American Family Association, I find the most fitting comparison is to Bill Donahue and the Catholic League, another group with an impressive sounding name that seems to exist only for its figurehead to untwist their knickers by writing an angry column consisting almost entirely of “rabble, rabble, rabble.”  While, terrifyingly, the FRC and the AFA actually have power to shape the opinion and thought of their Christian conservative audience, I have a really hard time believing anyone not married or related to Donahue and Bozell take them even the least bit seriously.  So ignore them I do.

For some strange reason, however, the “mainstream” media does seem to take them seriously at times.  Media groups are constantly reaching out to Donahue for comments on stories affecting Catholics as if he has the authority to speak for any Catholic not named William Donahue.  As for L. Brent Bozell, newspapers continue to publish his opinion columns even after he admitted that he doesn’t write the things, although perhaps he started to after that scandal broke.

So apparently if the “mainstream” media is taking L seriously, maybe I should as well.  (I wonder what the “L” stands for anyways?  I’m sure I could find out in less than a minute, but the mystery is so much more interesting.  Is it “Limp?”  “Lesbian?”  “Lefty?”  “Lucifer?” If you’re bored, leave your guess in the comments.)  Conveniently (A word, for what it’s worth, I misspell more than any other.  Definitely not convenient.)  for my new “taking Lefty Brent Bozell seriously” plan, the Altoona Mirror, fishwrap of choice for all south-central Pennsyltuckians, published Limp Brent Bozell’s newest column this morning.  Unfortunately for my new “taking Lucifer Brent Bozell seriously” plan, the content of the column aborted my new “take Lesbian Brent Bozell seriously” plan faster than a Planned Parenthood executive one baby liver away from a new Mercedes. *  Since the Altoona Mirror has placed the majority of its articles behind a pay wall accessible only to subscribers, no doubt to combat the countless people attempting to pirate such a prestigious paper, I will link to Larry Brent Bozell’s column at ArcaMaxx instead.

Arrogant liberal journalists naturally assume that conservative talk radio only succeeds in making Americans dumber. They reach this conclusion by avoiding conservative talk radio entirely.

No, actually they reach this conclusion by listening to conservative talk radio.

The overwhelming majority would never dare appear on one of these shows and debate the conservative host.

I wonder why?  I’m sure it couldn’t have anything to do with listening to prior liberals appearing on conservative talk radio and hearing the host shout over them, cut their mic, launch ad hominem attacks, insult them, refuse to let them respond, and hang up on them if all else fails.  Surprises me to no end that the big name progressives aren’t lining up for the chance to be treated like shit.

If one of them ever entered the ring with Mark Levin, they’d invoke the “mercy rule” before the first commercial break.

And that, dear readers, is where my “take Lucinda Brent Bozell seriously” plan collapsed in flames.  No, Lola Brent Bozell, you do not get to declare that your conservative heart throb would instantly win a debate with any liberal.  That’s not serious commentary, that’s a literary blow job.  Let’s follow along with some more of this fantasy hummer, shall we?

In recent years, Levin has matched a brainy talk show with a series of brilliant political books. The latest is called “Plunder and Deceit: Big Government’s Exploitation of Young People and the Future.” It’s a good bet that no liberal journalist will read it, no liberal newspaper will review it, and that no liberal network would imagine calling up Levin for an interview. They are too busy advocating tolerance and diversity.

I do have to give Lennon Brent Bozell some credit here for his absolute lack of a gag reflex.

Levin argues that the current ruling generation of statists — elected in part by millennial voters — are unraveling American civil society by undermining the country’s moral foundation and her economic footing. The central question of our time may be whether today’s young people still desire the founding vision of America with its constitutional limits on government, assisted by moral self-discipline, or whether we face a terminal moral and economic decline.

I can’t do it.  I just can’t.  This is basically, if you strip away the sloppy knob job, nothing but a man in black socks and shorts yelling at the neighborhood kids to get off his lawn.  “Undermining the country’s moral foundation?”  Really?  I mean, I lasted past Lord Brent Bozo Bozell claiming Levin’s talk show was “brainy” and didn’t even call out the fact that Levin’s “brilliant” political book (first draft in crayon!) has a title that sounds like it came from Ann Coulter, but I have to draw the line somewhere.  As this slob job continues, we find Leisure Suit Larry Brent Bozell citing the American Enterprise Institute as an unbiased source, taking random shots at the “liberal” media, and pointing out every mistake science makes as proof that climate change is a conspiracy.   Here’s some more of this conservative porn:

The left pushes against economic freedom with dire prognostications of planetary doom. Levin cites Dr. Mark Perry, an economics professor at University of Michigan and a scholar for the American Enterprise Institute, who made a list of 18 “spectacularly wrong apocalyptic predictions” made by eco-leftists around the first Earth Day.

……

Our media are never embarrassed by these spectacularly failed predictions. Levin could write an entire book on this alone. To promote the leftist agenda, they ignore them and create an entirely new set of dire predictions.

Who is this Mark Levin anyway?  I have to admit that I didn’t recognize the name.  Perhaps he is a respected moderately conservative scholar that I have been unfairly damning by comparison with Lucid Brent Bozell?  Let me Google him quick…..

“The Great One” pointed out that Fox had an opportunity to host one of these important debates, “And they took advantage of us, they took advantage of the audience.” Levin explained that Kelly”s “question two,” accusing Donald Trump of making inappropriate comments to Rosie O’Donnell and others, “was outrageous.” Levin suggested that Fox went to great lengths to engage in “oppositional research” on Mr. Trump.

(Fair warning, the above links to Breitbart)

Um.  “The Great One”?

Moreover, Levin objected to the format where in which we heard six or seven minutes each from the ten candidates, and a third of the time the Fox moderators dominated the event. Fox brags they had 24 million viewers, he pointed out, but he concluded that it amounted to an “embarrassment as far as I’m concerned… while the New York Times and CNN praised the event, I considered it an exploitation of the process, which is supposed to inform the American people. Not gotcha questions, not gossip… I think the American people are owed an apology.”

(Fair Warning, this links to Hot Air.)

Well, that one I agree with.  They should be nailed down on issues such as climate change, raising the minimum wage, the militarization of the police, income inequality, and other issues poll after poll shows the American people care about.  Somehow though, I do not think Mr. Levin would think those were fitting subjects to talk about.  I think he probably means “if you are elected President, how soon until you slash taxes on those with higher incomes and bomb Iran?”  *Shrug*

Alright, I’m closing in on 1500 words, I guess it’s time to wrap this one up.  Am I missing anything…..  Oh, of course!  The Facial!  Back to Lulz Brent Bozell’s literary fellatio for the ending we all deserve.

And they’d never dare debate Mark Levin.

Uh, Mr. Bozell?  You have something on your face…..

 

*The asterisked sentence was edited by The Center for Medical Progress.  The full, unedited text of the sentence follows:

“Unfortunately for my new “taking Lucifer Brent Bozell seriously” plan, the content of the column aborted my new “take Lesbian Brent Bozell seriously” plan faster than a Planned Parenthood employee would counsel a pregnant executive to examine all of her options, pointing out that terminating the pregnancy was only one of the possible choices, choices that also included placing the baby up for adoption, though the executive would need more tests since her liver enzyme count was not far away from a problematic number, before complimenting her on her new Mercedes.”

As you can see, the original sentence was long and ungainly.  We wish to thank The Center for Medical Progress for their non-context changing editing job. 

Hmm. A “Wait, What?!?,” a Jumped Shark, or Just Plain Disgusting?

Don’t get me wrong, fighting the war to end slavery was a moral good, its just that sometimes I wish these people were from a different country so we weren’t associated with them.

From Alabama, surprise surprise, courtesy of ThinkProgress:

Alabama officials are currently seeking to prevent a pregnant prison inmate from obtaining a legal abortion by stripping her of her parental rights, in a case where a lawyer has been appointed to represent the interests of her fetus.

Because inmates don’t have rights, and women shouldn’t, of course.  Come along and get depressed with me.

An unnamed woman, who is referred to in court documents only as Jane Doe, is asking for permission to travel to Huntsville to end her pregnancy. She says she was unable to get an abortion before she was taken into custody and is now feeling desperate. “I am very distraught, and do not want to be forced to carry this pregnancy to term,” she wrote.

Jane Doe — who has to get permission from the court to be transported to the nearest clinic because prison officials consider abortion to be a non-emergency procedure — is being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which argues that it would be “cruel and unusual punishment” for the state of Alabama to deny her constitutional right to abortion.

Yet another reason why, as poor as I am, I still give money to the ACLU.  Forcing a woman to carry a fetus to term because she is incarcerated is, if not cruel and unusual punishment, at the least all kinds of fucked up.  So, what tactics will Alabama use to force this women to incubate a baby for the state?

Now, as Lauderdale County District Attorney Chris Connolly prepares to argue against this request, he is asking the court to strip Doe of her parental rights so that she will no longer have the right to end her pregnancy. In a hearing to determine the outcome of the case, which is expected to be decided by Friday, the state court appointed an attorney — known as a “guardian ad litem” — to serve on behalf of Doe’s fetus.

Yep, they are attempting to take away her parental rights before the fetus is even viable outside the womb.  And if you can manage to look past what this says Alabama thinks about women and their “rights,” it doesn’t get any better.  This clump of cells will be better represented than Jane Doe would no doubt be, if not for the probable pro bono work of the ACLU, and definitely represented more effectively than every single “innocent until proven guilty” defendant who has to rely on a public defender.  Unless, to be fair, this particular guardian ad litem happens to also be representing 300 other cell clumps each week.  That would be quite doubtful in most states, but this is Alabama.

“It appears to me that what the state is attempting to do is turn Jane Doe into a vessel, and control every aspect of her life, forcing her to give birth to a baby, which she has decided she does not want to do,” Randall Marshall, one of Doe’s attorneys, told the Huffington Post. “The case has certainly moved to this new dimension, but welcome to Alabama.”

Hey, I finally get to use a slippery slope argument!  If this tactic works, what exactly is stopping Alabama from forcibly impregnating all fertile female inmates?  I mean, if it is in the interest of the state for fetuses to be carried to term in prison, and if women are nothing but incubators, which is what a decision for the state in this case would literally mean, then isn’t that the obvious next step?  What’s that?  This case is different because she needs to face the consequences of being sexually active?  Fine then, only forcibly impregnate the sexually active female inmates.  After all, Alabama apparently has a pressing need for unwanted prison babies.

Hell, that is less of a stretch than marriage equality leading to legalized pedophilia.

Hey, as long as you’ll let all your citizens immigrate freely to another state if they so desire, I’ll help you file the succession paper work.  Think about it!  No more Obama, no more Obamacare, no more pesky separation of church and state, and as a third world nation, think of all the sweet aid you’ll get from European nations and the UN!  You can even fly that damn flag whenever you want.  Do it now and we’ll let you take Mississippi and Georgia as well.

 

Oh, Snap!!!! The Ball’s in Your Court Now, Donald.

In a side competition of the 2016 Goat Rodeo (hiya Mock, Paper, Scissors), the contest to say the most outlandishly offensive thing without offending the lunatic fringe base of the GOP (Imagine what it would take to offend them at this point.  Scary, no?), we have a new candidate in the top spot who somehow managed to dethrone The Donald.  That candidate?  Mike Huckabee.  From ThinkProgress:

“By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven,” he reportedly said.

*blank stare* *dropped jaw* *blink* *slow face palm*  Does it even matter what he was talking about?  No, not really, but in case you were wondering, he was talking about the Iran deal.  Of course.

You know, I used to think it took a lot of chutzpah when the radical anti-abortion activists would compare legalized reproductive health care to the Holocaust.  But damn, if that takes shameless audacity what the hell does a comment like this from a “mainstream” candidate seeking the Presidential nomination of one of the two major political parties?

And do not let that “reportedly said” bit fool you.  He said it, and his campaign is running with it.

Well now, Mr. Huckabee, since I can see you are thinking about this rationally, I am sure we can have a fruitful discussion on US/Iranian relations.

This is seriously what politics has become in the US?

 

In Soviet Russia, Jesus Crucifies You!

I freely admit that was horrible.  Feel free to virtually smack me upside the head.  On to the cause of that horrible joke.

Poor America.  First we lost God’s protection because of “the pagans, the abortions, the feminists and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way.” (Remember that blast from the past?)  Then the US military occupied the southwestern United States, confiscating all firearms and locking up all conservatives in closed Wal-Mart locations, and the Kenyan Usurper called an end to all elections, declared martial law, and named himself “President for life.”  Wait.  Shit.  Those last two didn’t happen yet.  Damn, Jade Helm is just starting.  Ignore everything I just said.  Haha.  It was a joke.

Now I am sad to report that the latest Godslap has been delivered to our nation, as our status as God’s Favorite Nation has been taken away, at least according to person-with-direct-line-to-the-will-of-God, Sam Rohrer. From RightWingWatch:

Sam Rohrer of the American Pastors Network once again appeared on The Dove TV yesterday to warn that the United States has forfeited its role as the leading moral voice in the world because of the Obama administration’s record of speaking out against draconian anti-gay laws in other nations, declaring that Vladimir Putin and Russia are now the “moral leader of the world.”

As an aside, has the sentence “Vladimir Putin <is> now the ‘moral leader of the world'” ever been spoken or written unironically before by anyone other than Vladimir Putin and people under the direct influence of Putin?  How far into single issue wonderland do you have to be to make that statement?  This far:

“The moral position leadership of our country has been forfeited,” the former Pennsylvania Republican legislator said. “Our administration is trying to tie together foreign aid into countries in Africa that have actually passed laws against homosexuality and in favor of traditional marriage. They’re trying to use and force these countries to actually embrace same-sex marriage. Our country, this nation is probably doing more to advance the face of same-sex marriage than anything else.”

Of course he was a former Pennsylvanian legislator.  Ahh, beautiful Pennsyltucky.  Remember, we also gave the world Rick “What is that all over the sheets?” Santorum.

“I look over to Russia, Putin, the Russian Orthodox Church has now lifted themselves up as the moral leader of the world,” Rohrer continued. “Believe it or not, Russia and the Russian Orthodox Church [are] the protectors of moral truth. The west and the United States have become the leaders of moral depravity.”

“To now see that we have become, not a shining city on a hill, but a purveyor of evil” is an incredible thing, Rohrer said.

OMG, OMG!!!  I finally get to use the line people in south central Pennsylvania used to say to be all the time, all through high school, college, working, hell….they still say it to me for that matter.  Let me get ready.

Ahem.

*in my best Appalachian drawl*

“Listen up here son, this here is Ameereka, the best damn country that God ever done founded, so if yinz Christians don love it here, then you can get the hell out and don let the door hit yinz on the ass.”

*in my best bigoted preacher voice*

“Let me tell you something, there are planes leaving every hour, on the hour, to all the other nations.  Get on one, we don’t want you, and we don’t need you!”

*in my best condescending teacher’s voice**made all the better cause it is an actual quote a teacher once said to me*

“You should consider moving to Russia.  I’m sure you could find a job writing propaganda for the state-run newspaper in no time at all.”

Ah, that felt really good.

Anyone else get the feeling ole Sam Rohrer gets that tingly feeling in his pants when he sees Putin on the teevee?  Just saying that his favorite fantasy may be the one where a shirtless Putin, fresh from wrasslin’ a bear, shows up to rescue Sam from the evil gay marrying United States, taking him back to Russia in a submarine, all alone, just the two of them, the whole way to Russia, with no one to see or judge them.  What happens under the ocean stays under the ocean, if you get my drift.

Okay, now someone needs to write Sam Rohrer/Vlad Putin slash fiction.  Get on it, internet!

Fellow Dog F$@&ers, ABORT! Pat Robertson Has Figured Out Our Plan! I Repeat, ABORT!

And we would have got away with it to, if it wasn’t for that meddling old hate peddler.

He then criticized the court for its recent ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which struck down state bans on same-sex marriage, arguing that now polygamy, bestiality and pedophilia will all become legal nationwide.

“Watch what happens, love affairs between men and animals are going to be absolutely permitted,” Robertson said. “Polygamy, without question, is going to be permitted. And it will be called a right.”

Robertson also agreed with co-host Terry Meeuwsen’s claim that gay marriage will also legalize “relationships with children,” claiming that “they’re going to succeed now” in legalizing pedophilia.

My question is, how did he sniff out our master plan?  We’ll have to figure out a different way to get our perversion legalized.  I for one have high hopes regarding the secret document from the Dept. of Justice that Tom Delay claims to have which apparently seeks to legalize a dozen new perversions.  Fingers crossed!

Where Do I Subscribe?

Ever hear of Houstonia magazine?  If not, do not feel like you are uninformed or tragically unhip, it just means that you, like me, do not happen to live in the Houston area.  Except now, even though I live quite a distance away from Houston, and Houston isn’t near the top of my list of places in America I want to visit, I suddenly have the urge to get a subscription.

Why would I want a magazine dedicated to exploring a city I may never visit?  Well, the magazine recently ran the following obviously controversial advertisement:

-photo taken from Houstonia.

As you can no doubt see, running an advertisement with this picture was a slap in the……  Wait a second.  What’s supposed to be controversial here?  Wait, the fact that the couple is interracial?  You gotta be fucking kidding me.  That can’t be it.  What am I missing?

Anyway, to put it simply, the magazine got complaints.  (Hat tip to Salon for leading me to this story, though any quotes are taken from the Houstonia link.)

First of all, after snatching the magazine out of his waiting room before impressionable eyes could see it, a Dr. Tomball pulled out some of the crayons they keep for kids and went to town, leaving the magazine’s editor suitably impressed:

Not so Dr. Tomball, who on May 26 sent an email to the Ashton Martini Group registering his disapproval. The note, which I have seen, carries the subject “Disgusting Ad,” and explains: “Your ad in the June Houstonia magazine is DISGUSTING! I will not put this magazine in my reception area! If you care to discuss this,” the note concluded, “I am available.”

As it happens, we did care to discuss this with Dr. Tomball, who oddly was not available when we attempted to make contact.

The vicious backlash continued a week later:

Exactly one week later, we heard from a second man, this time a resident of the Memorial area, who called to say that although he usually likes Houstonia, he “just can’t go for racial mixing.” The caller—identifying himself only as Fred—voiced his concern that children might see the ad and “get it into their heads that this is okay.” To ensure that that did not happen, the man informed us that he’d taken our June issue straight from the mailbox to the trash can, although he declined our invitation to cancel his subscription altogether. He counts himself among this magazine’s fans, he told us.

Bigots gotta bigot, amirite?  What sets this apart from other cases of bigots whining that bigotry isn’t culturally acceptable anymore is the heartfelt response to this bigotry from the magazine’s editor-in-chief Scott Vogel.  First off, Scott calls his dance troupe together and lets “Fred” know that he has just been served:

Well, we are not fans of him. Indeed, if Memorial Fred ever finds the courage to call and give us his full name, we will remove him from our subscription rolls immediately.

Turning his attention to the “good” doctor, Scott helpfully cancels his subscription for him since, in his outrage, he apparently forgot to do it himself:

I’m not sure if Dr. Tomball is a fan of this publication or not. I do know that if so, he will have to go get it himself, as we will no longer be sending copies to his office.

Mr. Vogel then closes with a brilliant statement of diversity and a mission statement I can definitely get behind.

Houstonia’s championing of diversity does not extend to bigots, and while we are by definition dedicated to discovering the best things about this city, we’ll never ignore the worst. On the contrary, our magazine’s mission is to maintain standards of quality always and everywhere, in burgers, in bike trails and in readers, Dr. Tomball included.

And if he cares to discuss this, I am available.

That sound you just heard was the microphone hitting the floor.  So….  Where do I subscribe?

 

How Far Will You Go to Improve Your National Poll Numbers? The “Wait, What?!? for July 22nd.

So Rick Santorum is apparently sitting down for an interview for The Rachel Maddow Show.

Any normal election cycle, this would be practically unthinkable.  While The Rachel Maddow Show has a habit of reaching out  to members of the GOP and has been quite fair to those who appear on the program (it definitely isn’t equivalent to a progressive appearing on The O’Reilly Factor just to be yelled over and cut off), she is not going to just serve up softball questions to Santorum.  Other than agreeing that Fox News is wielding to much power over the GOP field of Presidential candidates with their 10 person debate limit, Rick and Rachel have very little in common politically to put it as mildly as possible.  Rarely will I make this statement, but tonight’s interview is truly must-see-TV.  Or at least a must-hear podcast.

So why is Mr. Google Problem himself not only going on a progressive show, but on a progressive show hosted by an openly gay anchor?*  One has to assume that Fox News, and its field-narrowing 10 man (and with Carly Fiorina’s current numbers it will be only men) limit, based on national polls, for the all important first candidate debate has something to do with it.  While candidates left out of the Fox News debate will no doubt spin it as a non-fatal setback, the truth is those not on the stage are not going to be seen as serious candidates afterwards.    Barring the miraculous, being shut out of the debate will effectively end the campaigns of candidates already desperately trying to be noticed in the current sea, 16 announced as of today, of contenders.  The process of weeding out the field has been the job, in previous cycles, of the states with early caucuses and primaries.  While this process has its own issues (as a voter in Pennsylvania my primary vote is nothing but a rubber stamp or a hollow protest, the national candidate almost certainly already having been chosen by our election day), many still find it preferable to having the field whittled down on the whims of a television network.  Adding to the sense of outrage many feel is the fact that with this many candidates at this stage of the election cycle,  national polls are in large part just a name recognition competition with practically the entire field within the margin of error of each other.  In a poll with a margin of error of +/- 5%, what is the statistical significance of a separation of .2 or .4 of a percent?  Is that really what we want deciding who is allowed to run for President?

So with the date of the first debate rapidly approaching (for real, is there any other country that’s election cycle is over a year?) and practically meaningless national polling numbers suddenly all-important, expect to see all of the GOP presidential candidates, at least those without a safe spot on the debate stage, doing anything to make news, get attention, draw eyes, and hopefully move those polls the fraction of a percent the means everything.  Rachel may ask Rick some uncomfortable questions tonight, and she may draw out answers that further infuriate moderates and progressive alike, but those groups don’t chose the GOP candidate.  When it comes to the actual primaries, Santorum knows that his extreme positions and statements hit a chord with the fringe conservatives who vote en masse in GOP primaries.  After all, it was just last cycle that he finished second to Romney, and Trump’s poll numbers seem to indicate that, if anything, the “base” has become more conservative.  As long as he’s on that stage, he knows he has a chance.  Its just cracking the top ten, getting his name out there, moving those numbers.  This interview is much more likely to nudge the polls than mentioning Brad Pitt in e-mail spam.  Well played, Rick.

In honor of tonight’s impending interview ( I seriously can not wait. I just don’t even know what to expect.  It will probably be a really civil and professional interview, but damn, imagine how his base would love it if he dropped some homosexuality-and-contraception-causes-dog-fucking bigotry in her lap? Talk about guaranteed top ten status…), here are a couple of recent Rick “What’s that on the sheets?” Santorum nuggets of “Wait, What?!?”

In response to the hidden camera video released by a shady anti-abortion group, a video so deceptively edited that it makes the movie Expelled look like a honest bit of film-making:

“When we as a society allow for the dehumanization of any of our community, then we lead to this type of genocide and it leads to even more, as you see, more horrible — and an insensitivity to the dignity of lives and respect for that life,” Santorum said. “I think Planned Parenthood is a cancer in this country, something that the federal government should not have anything to participate with.”

Rick, come on now, don’t hold back.  Tell us what you really think about Planned Parenthood.  And dammit anti-abortion activists, you can make whatever moral, ethical case you want against abortion, but it is not genocide and it makes you look batshit when you make the claim.

I will close the post with a consequence of marriage equality that no one even considered.  I hope us non-bigots are happy now, with the chaos we’ve inflicted on schools that exist only in imaginations fueled by homophobia.  Damn us.

“I know in the schools in Massachusetts, in the grade school, they teach — there are books in place that say ‘Suzy has two moms,’ it’s okay to put a book that says ‘Suzy has two moms’ but you can’t put a book in there saying that moms and dads and marriage is important and tell people how important it is to be married before you have children, then you’re moralizing,” Santorum said. “It’s okay to say, ‘Suzy has two moms’ or ‘Johnny has two dads,” but you can’t say that marriage is an important part of having a stable and healthy economy.”

* I admit, I had a bit of trouble typing that because honestly, a host’s sexual orientation shouldn’t matter one way or the other, let alone even be anyone’s business, yet it seems relevant in this case due to Santorum’s, if not outright homophobia, public positions in opposition to the GLBTQ community.

For Those of You Who Have Yet to See it, The “Wait, What?!?” of the Marriage Equality Debate

Perhaps the most epic anti-marriage equality meltdown of all time that, to me at least, perfectly illustrates the fine line between religious belief and insanity.  It would be perfect comedy if not for the realization that she almost certainly votes every election, and that she is not alone in her feelings.

You know, I’ve often wondered how these “brave” defenders of “traditional” marriage reconcile all the polygamy running rampant through the Bible, then I remind myself how depressingly few Christians actually read the Bible.  (Not a Gospel or two, not some highlights suggested by their pastor, not from the beginning up to where they got bored and quit reading {more than likely still in Genesis}, but actually read their holy book front to back.  I mean, they believe God himself wrote the thing.  If I believed in an all-powerful, all-loving creator God who wrote a book of instructions for the human race, you better believe I’d read the hell out of that thing.  Yeah, Biblical ignorance reveals exactly how dishonest so much belief in God is, in my opinion.  But that is a different essay.)

And for those who are aware of how laughable the claim of “traditional” marriage actually is, well, cognitive dissonance is a pretty powerful effect.