The problem is, the homosexual community is very organized. They got a lot of money behind them. In fact, the average homosexual makes more than the average person does. They have better education. And they’re really good at shutting anybody down and embarrassing them so they will shut up.
WISCONSIN — Former GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan told a Wisconsin town hall audience on Monday that he now supports the right of same-sex couples to adopt children, even though he still opposes marriage equality. Confronted by an audience member about his anti-LGBT voting record — Ryan earned a “zero percent” score on gay […]
The law would allow businesses to discriminate based on “sincerely held” religious and philosophical beliefs
A Republican senator from northern Iowa said homosexual lifestyles pose a health risk to him and his family in comments that drew a sharp rebuke from an openly gay Democratic senator.
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Dave Agema, the Republican National Committee member and former Michigan state representative who has been roundly criticized for a recent antigay Facebook post, sponsored the RNC’s resolution to define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, which passed unanimously at the Committee’s annual meeting on Friday in Los Angeles. MLive.com reports that Agema was a key sponsor of the resolution, which reaffirmed the party’s platform position opposing marriage equality.
“I am pleased with our success in the face of unrelenting criticism from the left and want to thank national social conservative leaders who made their voices heard loud and clear in this process,” Agema said in a release following Friday’s vote. “I hope that we can all now move forward and talk about other issues … We have won the battle, and I will have nothing more to say on this matter.”
Read more here.
Even as the public warms to the idea of national marriage equality, the Grand Old Party is digging in its heels and reaffirming its opposition to it. At their spring meeting in Los Angeles, the Republican National Committee voted unanimously to affirm their opposition to marriage equality, as well as adding an addendum asking the Supreme Court to uphold Prop. 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act. To add insult to injury, the party’s chairman, Reince Priebus, said Lady Gaga won’t be “chairing our platform committee.”
While two Republican senators — Rob Portman of Ohio and Mark Kirk of Illinois — recently endorsed marriage equality, they are clearly the exception to their party’s rule. Social conservatives, including Tony Perkins of the antigay Family Research Council told their members to pull funding from the RNC if the party endorses marriage equality.
On the latest episode of his web series Gwissues, publicist Howard Bragman hosted an intense conversation between Masen Davis, executive director of theTransgender Law Center, Cristan Williams, director of theTransgender Foundation of America, and Arizona Rep. John Kavanagh, who introduced state legislation that would allow businesses to prohibit transgender people from using the bathroom that corresponds with their gender identity. Kavanagh said his bill came about in response to a Phoenix civil rights ordinance that “made it a criminal act for a business to discriminate against a transgendered person in” a locker room, shower, or bathroom.
Kavanagh admits that his initial response, which he says never proposed in the law, “was to create a counter-law which would have made it disorderly conduct for a member of one sex to intentionally enter those facilities of another, with certain exceptions for children.” Kavanagh says he soon realized “that was overreach,” and so he modified his bill. Kavanagh’s described the current legislation, Kavanagh’s legislation, which passed a Republican-controlled Senate appropriations committee on a party-line vote on March 28, as a law that “simply prevents any locality from creating a crime for a business to designate these private-type facilities for male or female, and enforcing that.”
Davis and Williams disagreed with that assessment, saying Kavanagh’s bill doesn’t recognize the reality of how many transgender Americans live.
“Many transgender people live very quiet lives,” said Davis. “In just about every community in the United States. And [they] use restrooms and facilities without incident. This is really a solution without a problem.”
Nevertheless, Kavanagh believes the chances of his bill passing are “excellent.” “I think this bill represents the mores of our society,” continued Kavanagh. “People just don’t believe that this type of behavior is appropriate.”
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The head of the Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, who once bragged that he’d written the antigay portions of last year’s Republican Party platform, is now telling his followers to boycott. Perkins wants payback for suggestions by Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus and others who say the GOP should spend less time talking about “traditional” marriage.
“Until the RNC and the other national Republican organizations grow a backbone and start defending core principles, don’t give them a dime of your hard-earned money,” Perkins wrote to followers in a newsletter on Thursday. He suggested that instead they send checks directly to FRC because, “At least then you can relax, knowing that your money will be spent advancing faith, family, and freedom!”
Perkins is unmoved by analysis suggesting the party is alienating young voters, who polls show overwhelmingly support marriage equality.
“Instead of trying to appease millennials, Republicans should try educating them on why marriage matters,” he wrote.
It’s not like Priebus is suddenly in favor of marriage equality. Perkins is reacting to his calls for tolerance and a shift of priorities. “I don’t believe we need to act like Old Testament heretics,” he told the Detroit Free Press. Still, the RNC will vote today during a meeting in Hollywood on a resolution that reiterates the party’s opinion that marriage should be limited to a man and a woman while also calling on the Supreme Court to rule against LGBT activists in two landmark cases it heard in March.
A House Republican said he did not think that the Affordable Care Act should not cover procedures like gender transition surgery because he “likes being a boy.”
“I don’t want to pay for a sex change operation,” Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia said at a town hall meeting, according to theBarrow County News. “I’m not interested. I like being a boy.”
Broun, who is a medical doctor, was likely referring to a proposal by the Obama Administration to provide gender transition therapy to transgender people, as prescribed by a doctor. The Affordable Care Act currently does not cover transition surgery, as stated by the Department of Health and Human Services. The statement is similar to Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss, also of Georgia, who rationalized his opposition to marriage equality with this statement: “I’m not gay. So I’m not going to marry one.”
Dave Agema, the Republican National Committee member former Michigan state representative who has been roundly criticized for a recent antigay Facebook post, has drawn his “facts” about homosexuality from some extremely disreputable sources — including a Holocaust denier, reports MLive.com. Last month Agema posted an essay titled “Everyone Should Know These Statistics on Homosexuals” by a writer identified as Frank Joseph, a physician. The article is also available with footnotes on several right-wing websites, and one footnote credits a pamphlet called “Is Homosexual Activity Normal?” by Edward R. Fields.
Fields, reports MLive.com contributor Ken Braun in an article posted today, is identified by the Anti-Defamation League as a nonpracticing chiropractor from Georgia who is not only antigay but a white supremacist and Holocaust denier. One “dubious bullet-point” the essay drew from Fields, Braun notes, is “The median age of death of lesbians is 45 (only 24% live past age 65). The median age of death of a married heterosexual woman is 79.” Other “Fields facts” from the piece are “similarly outrageous,” Braun reports, including “37% of homosexuals engage in sadomasochism,” “60% say they have had sex with strangers in bathhouses,” and “Homosexuals are 100 times more likely to be murdered.”
“Having chosen to use the work of Dr. Fields, the author of the pamphlet Agema posted is — at best — a highly reckless and inflammatory hack whose drivel is nonetheless doggedly defended by an elected officer of the Republican Party,” writes Braun, a political consultant and former legislative aide to a Michigan Republican lawmaker.
Braun joins a chorus of voices calling for Agema to resign his position as a member of the RNC, calls that Agema has so far resisted.
When confronted about his view against marriage equality, former Republican star Mark Sanford essentially said he supported the right of the nine states plus the District of Columbia to make marriage equality legal, though he still hasn’t changed his mind. Sanford is running for Congress in South Carolina, where he had been governor and an up-and-comer in the Republican Party before stepping down when he disappeared for days to have an extra-marital affair.
CNN’s Jake Tapper asked how Sanford would respond to voters who ask, “Who are you to deny love between two men or two women, when you are somebody who talks about following his heart, regardless of the laws and traditions of the state of South Carolina? Why are you sitting in judgment of same-sex couples, when you have had the life you have had?”
Sanford, who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act while a member of Congress before, denied he was being judgmental. He compared himself to President Clinton, who signed the act but changed his mind on it and now support marriage equality.
“If you are a conservative, you believe in this notion of federalism, that one size does not fit all, and that we shouldn’t have prescriptive answers coming out of Washington, D.C. for any of the different things that ultimately we’ve got to resolve as the family of Americans,” Sanford said. A solution “for all 50 states,” he argued, “does not make sense.”
Although Sanford doesn’t want same-sex marriage legalized in his state, Sanford said he does not “condemn” the decisions made in other states. “It’s not to say that your views are wrong, it’s to say that this is what I define it as.” Sanford faces Elizabeth Colbert Busch (yes, Stephen Colbert’s sister) in the race, and her chances of beating him are considered decent.
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This is how the Mormon Jon Huntsman, a former contestant of the Republican Party, announced his support for gay marriage in the magazine The American Conservative. A hundred barons “Grand Old Party” have, as a former governor of Utah, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to prohibit the “Proposition 8,” a law that prevents gay marriage in California. Going against the current Republican leader John Boehner, in agreement with the White House, the Republican petition encourages the highest court in the country to declare the unconstitutionality of the measure in California, a verdict that would require the recognition of gay marriage in throughout the United States.
It may seem strange for a party whose presidential candidate Mitt Romney supported the federal ban gay marriage during his campaign in autumn 2012. And yet, this is a few years that the idea pops into the minds Republicans gay marriage would be a right idea. A conservative idea, strictly speaking, as stated periodically former campaign manager for George W. Bush, Ken Melhman (foto), who made his coming out three years ago. In France, there are the UMP in favor of marriage for all on the fingers of one hand. The American right would it be more open than the French right?
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TW: mention of bestiality, child abuse, pedophilia
Noted neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson stuck his foot in it last week on Sean Hannity’s radio show when he was asked about marriage equality.
“Well, my thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group—be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality… It doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition.
It’s not something that is against gays—it’s against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of pillars of society. It has significant ramifications.”
We’re used to venomous right-wingers comparing homosexuality to child molesting and bestiality, but not the head of pediatric neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a specialist in separating conjoined twins. Oh, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Carson tried to do damage control on MSNBC later in the week, saying, “If anybody was offended, I apologize to you. But what I was basically saying is that there is no group [that is equal to straight couples]. I wasn’t equating those things, I don’t think they’re equal.”
You can always count on a conservative to come through with an “I’m sorry you took it that way” apology. Especially one getting active in Republican politics: Besides speaking at CPAC, Carson addressed the National Prayer Breakfast in February, has popped up repeatedly on Fox News and said he’d run for office if God told him to. The real sticking point is that Carson is set to give the commencement address at Hopkins’ School of Medicine. A group of students have launched a petition to get him replaced:
At the time of his nomination, Dr. Carson was known to most of us as a world-class neurosurgeon and passionate advocate for education. Many of us had read his books and looked up to him as a role model in our careers.
Since then, however, several public events have cast serious doubt on the appropriateness of having Dr. Carson speak at our graduation.
On March 26, on Sean Hannity’s Fox News program, Dr. Carson compared gay relationships with pedophilia and bestiality: “Well, my thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality. It doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition. “
On February 7, Dr. Carson used the National Prayer Breakfast speech— which, like our commencement ceremony, is an historically nonpartisan event — to deride Obamacare, advocate lower taxes for the wealthy, and suggest that Christianity requires supporting Republican policies.
Dr. Carson has also used his platform as a famous neurosurgeon to promote the rejection of evolution: “Ultimately, if you accept the evolutionary theory,” he said, in a statement that would apply to the majority of students and faculty at Johns Hopkins, “you dismiss ethics, you don’t have to abide by a set of moral codes, you determine your own conscience based on your own desires.” This belief of Dr. Carson’s was unknown to many of us at the time of his nomination.
We retain the highest respect for Dr. Carson’s achievements and value his right to publicly voice political views. Nevertheless, we feel that these expressed values are incongruous with the values of Johns Hopkins and deeply offensive to a large proportion our student body.
Carson offered to step down to avoid taking attention away from the graduates (too late) but as of the weekend, the school has not announced any decision to disinvite Carson. A college spokesman told Huffington Post:
“Dr. Carson is a distinguished Johns Hopkins surgeon and scientist chosen to speak at the School of Medicine diploma ceremony because of his extraordinary accomplishments as a neurosurgeon and his many contributions as an advocate for education and children.
He was not asked to speak because of his personal political, religious or social views. His personal views are just that, his own. When he speaks about them, he is not speaking on behalf of Johns Hopkins.”
That line can sometimes work when you’re talking about an author or an actor, someone whose output is creative and separate from their personal life. But Carson’s opinion on homosexuality, on the Affordable Care Act—on evolution, for God’s sake—are very relevant to his work, and to his qualification to give sage advice to young doctors about to enter the field.
Mat Staver, chairman of the antigay Liberty Counsel dean of the right-wing Liberty University School of Law, totally bugged out about Republicans who support LGBT equality, according to audio obtained by Right Wing Watch. Responding to the change of heart by Ohio senator Rob Portman — who announced last week that in light of his son coming out as gay, he now supports marriage equality — the always incendiary Staver didn’t mince words.
After reiterating a threat made by right-wing Republicans such as former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, that Republican support for marriage equality will drive evangelicals from the party into their own third political group, Staver got down and dirty.
“It’s like going into a building at night and you flip on the lights and all of the sudden the cockroaches start running,” Staver told Vic Eliason of Voice of Christian Youth America on conservative radio showCrosstalk Wednesday. “And I think this same-sex marriage issue has shown the cockroaches within the Republican Party, the RINOs: Republican in Name Only. That’s why we lost the 2008 election, that’s why we lost the 2012 election.”
Staver lumped Republican stalwarts like Karl Rove and Reince Priebus in with Portman, calling them all “cockroaches” and declaring that marriage equality ultimately seeks “the abolition of gender.” Not one for brevity, Staver continued, “It’s ultimately the abolition of any moral behavior with regards to human sexuality. The whole assault on marriage is really an attempt to obliterate not only morality, but Judeo-Christian morality, to obliterate marriage and to even obliterate the idea that there is even a God.”
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Republican governor Scott Walker weighed in on the apparent party-wide conversation about marriage equality after Ohio Sen. Rob Portman announced Friday that he has a gay son and therefore now supports same-sex marriage. In a roundtable discussion on Sunday’s episode of NBC’s Meet The Press, the conservative governor said he believes the divide within the party on marriage-equality is a generational issue that doesn’t animate his constituents, then deftly tried to change the subject.
“Are younger conservatives more apt to see marriage equality as something that is…what they believe, that is basic rather than as a disqualifying issue?” Gregory asked Waker.
“I think there’s no doubt about that,” replied the governor. “But I think that’s all the more reason, when I talk about things, I talk about the economic and fiscal crises in our state and country, that’s what people want to resonate about.”
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