Category: Beating Back the St00pid

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Punching the Nose of a Bully Does Not Make You a Bully

A week ago Dan Savage gave a speech at Winona State University. In part, he said:

LGBT kids are four times greater risk of suicide. Tony Perkins advises the parents of LGBT kids to reject their children. LGBT kids who are rejected by their parents are at eight times greater risk of suicide. Perkins is aware of these studies and yet he actively encourages the parents of LGBT kids to do what Perkins knows will push those kids closer to suicide. The Family Research Council promotes anti-gay bullying in homes and opposes all efforts to combat anti-gay bullying in schools. (Here's Perkins on the "It Gets Better" Project: "According to Perkins, [the campaign] is "appalling," "disgusting," and an attempt to "recruit" kids into a perverted and "immoral" "lifestyle.")

Tony Perkins and the FRC point to the LGBT youth suicide rate as proof that the "gay lifestyle" is dangerous and unhealthy… while at the same time doing everything in their power to drive up that suicide rate.

Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids

This of course, got all the usual right wing nut jobs panties in a bunch and the unquestionably heterosexual Tony Perkins responded:

Hate-filled leftist gay activist Dan Savage was at it again last Thursday. In a presentation at Winona State University in Minnesota, Savage went on another vulgarity-laden tirade in front of students this time saying that "every dead gay kid is a victory for the Family Research Council" and that "Tony Perkins sits on a pile of dead gay kids every day when he goes to work" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary, serious vulgarity warning).

Miss Perkins then went on fellow Christianist nut job Mike Huckabee's radio show and continued to beat this horse:

As my teenagers would say, he has some issues. He is a man with some real deep-seated issues … and Dan Savage is nowhere near, he's a hundred and eighty degrees from the positions that we have taken. It's wrong and I will tell you this, we are pursuing everything possible to deal with him because he is out of control…. This is the bottom line, Mike: is that if you don't embrace and celebrate homosexuality and everything associated with it, then you are intolerant. And the truth of the matter is, let's just be very, very truthful, and that's what we deal in is the truth, that even is society embraced homosexuality, there would never be that sense of self-fulfillment because it's outside the way God created man and woman. And that's the bottom line. They cannot erase that, even if they get every law on the books changed, it will never change that.

Naturally, in his indomitable style, Dan responded, basically telling Perkins to "bring it":

Yes, Tony, I have issues.

I have issues with people who would deny me and other LGBT people our full civil equality for no legitimate reason. I have particular issues with high-profile haters who encourage parents to reject their LGBT kids, doubling their already quadrupled risk for suicide. I have issues with people who say that LGBT people are "pawns of the devil." I have issues with people who compare LGBT people to terrorists. I have issues with people who falsely link homosexuality and pedophilia. I have issues with people who suggest that a law calling for the execution of gay people merely "upholds moral conduct."

But having issues with you, Tony, isn't quite the same thing as "having issues." Please make a note of it.

And during your chat today with Huckabee you didn't address the issue I raised. You and Mike called me names—because you were angry that I called you names?—but you didn't address my issue. So here it is again:

LGBT kids are four times greater risk of suicide. Tony Perkins advises the parents of LGBT kids to reject their children. LGBT kids who are rejected by their parents are at eight times greater risk of suicide. Perkins is aware of these studies and yet he actively encourages the parents of LGBT kids to do what Perkins knows will push those kids closer to suicide.

Sue me, Tony. I'd love to see you talk about my "issues" on a witness stand.

I realize that this isn't how you think the world is supposed to work, Tony. You believe—and you're old enough to remember a time when—people like you were free to say vile and disgusting things about people like me without anyone objecting. Certainly people like me weren't allowed to call people like you out. You still believe you should be free to lie about me and other LGBT people with absolutely impunity—we're all pedophiles and terrorists and Satanists—and that we should have to shut up and take it because… well, I'm not sure why you think we're not allowed to respond when you lie about us.

Maybe that's something we could get to the bottom of during the depositions.

I would love to see Tony's sagging ass handed to him in courtroom.

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Really?

Really? REALLY?

Although not unexpected for Colorado Springs, where I spotted this today.

Subtext: OMG! The communist, homosexual-loving, Kenyan Antichrist who hates 'murika N-word in the White House is gonna sneak into your bedrooms, rape your wives and then force—force—them to get abortions!

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Stupidity Gets Another Smackdown

From The Ed Show:

Another defeat for the hapless birther movement: President Barack Obama will be on the November election ballot in Kansas.

All three Republican members of the State Objections Board voted today allow Obama to be listed as a candidate for re-election, despite the protest of California lawyer/dentist Orly Taitz, one of the most prominent birthers in the country.

The board's action came four days after Joe Montgomery of Manhattan, Kansas, filed a complaint, saying he believed Obama was not a natural born U.S. citizen and therefore was ineligible to qualify for re-election.  But Montgomery withdrew his objection on Friday because of what he called intimidation directed at him and people around him.

When Taitz showed up at today's meeting, State Objections Board member Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach told her the deadline to file an objection had passed.

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10 Questions to Help Determine if Your Religious Liberty Is Being Threatened

From a great little post over at Alternet:

This simple quiz will let you know if you're being oppressed.

1. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to go to a religious service of my own choosing.
B) Others are allowed to go to religious services of their own choosing.

2. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to marry the person I love legally, even though my religious community blesses my marriage.
B) Some states refuse to enforce my own particular religious beliefs on marriage on those two guys in line down at the courthouse.

3. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am being forced to use birth control.
B) I am unable to force others to not use birth control.

4. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to pray privately.
B) I am not allowed to force others to pray the prayers of my faith publicly.

5. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) Being a member of my faith means that I can be bullied without legal recourse.
B) I am no longer allowed to use my faith to bully gay kids with impunity.

6. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to purchase, read or possess religious books or material.
B) Others are allowed to have access books, movies and websites that I do not like.

7. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) My religious group is not allowed equal protection under the establishment clause.
B) My religious group is not allowed to use public funds, buildings and resources as we would like, for whatever purposes we might like.

8. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) Another religious group has been declared the official faith of my country.
B) My own religious group is not given status as the official faith of my country.

9. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) My religious community is not allowed to build a house of worship in my community.
B) A religious community I do not like wants to build a house of worship in my community.

10. My religious liberty is at risk because:

A) I am not allowed to teach my children the creation stories of our faith at home.
B) Public school science classes are teaching science.

Scoring key:

If you answered "A" to any question, then perhaps your religious liberty is indeed at stake. You and your faith group have every right to now advocate for equal protection under the law. But just remember this one little, constitutional, concept: this means you can fight for your equality—not your superiority.

If you answered "B" to any question, then not only is your religious liberty not at stake, but there is a strong chance that you are oppressing the religious liberties of others. This is the point where I would invite you to refer back to the tenets of your faith, especially the ones about your neighbors.

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Speaking of Leaving a Mark…

Fucking brilliant:

"I can assure you that gay people getting married will have zero effect on your life. They won't come into your house and steal your children. They won't magically turn you into a lustful cockmonster. They won't even overthrow the government in an orgy of hedonistic debauchery because all of a sudden they have the same legal rights as the other 90 percent of our population—rights like Social Security benefits, child care tax credits, Family and Medical Leave to take care of loved ones, and COBRA healthcare for spouses and children.

"You know what having these rights will make gays? Full-fledged American citizens just like everyone else, with the freedom to pursue happiness and all that entails. Do the civil-rights struggles of the past 200 years mean absolutely nothing to you? In closing, I would like to say that I hope this letter, in some small way, causes you to reflect upon the magnitude of the colossal foot in mouth clusterfuck you so brazenly unleashed on a man whose only crime was speaking out for something he believed in. Best of luck in the next election; I'm fairly certain you might need it.

"P.S. I've also been vocal as hell about the issue of gay marriage so you can take your 'I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing' and shove it in your close-minded, totally lacking in empathy piehole and choke on it. Asshole." ~ Minnesota Vikings kicker Chris Kluwe, in a letter to Maryland state Rep. Emmett Burns, who has called for sanctions against a Baltimore Ravens player for supporting same-sex marriage.

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Oh Suh-NAP!

This is gonna leave a mark:

"Barney Frank is a distinguished and honorable public servant. He has faced nearly 40 years of unspeakable hatred and persecution for being the most prominent and outspoken openly gay elected official in the country. Regardless of what he has to say about Log Cabin Republicans, the notion that they would suggest a man as brave and upstanding as Congressman Frank is either cowardly or a bully is both deluded and absurd.

"The true bullies are the hate-mongers in the GOP who want to strip us of our rights and shove us back into the closet. And 'cowardly'? Cowardly is making pathetic excuses for the backward and misguided anti-LGBT policies of your Party. The Log Cabin Republicans are the most weak-kneed, sycophantic apologists I've ever encountered. After their dismal performance at the RNC convention driving the GOP platform even farther to the right, they should give back all the money they've fleeced from their donors and close the doors." ~ Jerame Davis, National Stonewall Democrats executive director, via press release, in response to this.

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I Will Answer Any Questions…


…except those related to abortion.

And Todd Akin.

And my years at Bain.

Also I will not be answering any questions about my family, my residences or my term as governor of Massachusetts.

Questions about my religion or my taxes are also off-limits, as are all questions about my vice presidential nominee's positions, my Party's  platform and the entire Bush Administration.

Also no questions about droughts.

Source.

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How to Destroy Your Organization's Reason for Existence in a Single Sentence

"Because you believe something is wrong, doesn't mean you make it illegal." ~ Brian Brown @ 47:55

After watching this, I am convinced Bryan Brown, Maggie Gallagher and the rest of these "protector of traditional marriage" buffoons will never move out of the 16th Century, no matter how many facts are presented to them.

And y'know, I kind of feel sorry for them, living out their pathetic little lives locked in such a rigid mindset, totally unable or unwilling to admit they're wrong.

Sad, really.

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Here Comes the Whaaaaaambulance!

The billboards are being called "incendiary" by all the usual suspects, but personally I feel the time is long overdue for all bigoted, hateful religions to get a major public smackdown.

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Okay, Let Me Get This Straight

According to Christian mythology, God is omniscent. God created Adam and Eve (not Adam and Steve, as we're so often reminded). Eve was tricked by Satan (in the form of a talking snake) into eating of the Tree of Knowledge.

Because of that, we lost our immortality and were cast out of the Garden of Eden to live out our lives in pain and suffering. (And apparently snakes were also stripped of the gift of gab as part of the punishment…just because.)

Let's stop right there for a moment.

The Christians' invisible friend-in the-sky is perfect and all knowing. Yet he created beings who—by being omniscient—he knew from the very beginning would be flawed. In other words, humans were built broken (and therefore created imperfectly) to begin with. So if God is incapable of making mistakes, that means he intentioinally created humans imperfect and subject to sin.

WTF? I mean seriously. WTF?

He created imperfect humans so they'd sin and "force" him to cast them out of the Garden.

What kind of sick fuck would do this?

Good ol' Yaweh, that's who.

This Christian God sounds like a real asshole.

And if Adam and Eve (and later, their two sons) were the only people on Earth, where the fuck did Cain and Able get wives? Were they screwing Eve? So they married their own sisters? Where in the Big Book of Traditional Marriage does that option appear? (Turns out, more often than you'd think.)

But hah, not this time. Instead they went east into the Land of Nod, where there were apparently already a large group of people living quite contentedly without any knowledge whatsoever this wondrous Garden and its psychotic keeper to the west.

W…T…F?  Where the hell did these people come from if there were only supposed to be four living people on the entire face of the planet up until this point?

If you ask any man of the cloth this question (when he's not busy raping pre-pubescent boys) the answer is generally, "Some things are just taken on faith." In other words, shut up and don't ask questions.

My brain hurts.

But let's back up even further.

Perfect, all knowing Christian sky-fairy creates everything—including another product of the fevered Christian imagination—angels.  But one of them rebels and is "cast out." So once again we're shown that God isn't perfect, or that he just intentionally creates imperfect things that he enjoys torturing, like a kid with a magnifying glass encountering an ant hill on a sunny day.

Why does the word "psychopath" keep coming to mind?

Later on in the Big Book of Lies (aka the BuyBull), God says "Whoopsie!" and decides that humanity—after being fruitful and multiplying—didn't turn out exactly like he'd intended again and should be killed…except for one small family who is then tasked with saving a pair of every living creature on earth. Or at least within walking distance of their home.

What's the matter? Isn't this God quite capable of saving all the animal life he wants on his own? Or is Norman Bates already growing impotent? And what about the plants, for chrissake? If the planet needs a reboot to rid it of the sin that Mr. Invisible created in the first place, why not just send it careening into the sun and start again from scratch? Or is that now beyond his power? I mean seriously…a flood?

And one more question: If all current humanity sprang from that one little family, where did all the races come from?

But going back to the Garden of Eden for a moment. Let's play a little game and say that Eve didn't eat of the Tree and humanity was never cast out from the Garden or lose its immortality. Can you imagine what a sty that place would be with fifteen to twenty billion of us trying to squeeze in there now? (Remember, people don't die, but they sure don't stop reproducing either!)

Anyway…

Later on, magic sky fairy realizes that he's fucked up again and Noah's descendants turn out just as bad their predecessors. You'd think that by now the idiot would realize this, right? (Definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results.) But this time, instead of flooding the place (or sending it careening into the sun) he's going to go down there as himself…as his son…to torture and descend into hell so that whoever believes in this ultimate sacrifice latest bit of crap doesn't have to go to that make believe place themselves.

These fairy tales are fine for iron-age savages who don't have the deductive reasoning—or scientific history to back them up—that modern men do, but c'mon guys…it's the 21st Century. We've landed men on the moon and have just put a probe the size of a car on Mars. If ever there was a time for the "All Powerful" to come down and say "Great job, guys!" it's now. But since he's been conspicuously absent from the goings on of our daily lives going on 2000 years now and from all accounts is a major DICK, I think it's high time for him to put up or shut up.

This is why I'm an Atheist. Because all these magic stories are pure, unadulterated bullshit.