Brian Tashman's blog

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer is joining other anti-gay activists in attacking Jason Collins, the NBA player who today came out as gay. Fischer said that NBA players and their wives would loudly resist being on a team with Collins out of fear that he will be “eyeballing” them in the shower.

Watch:

Conservative talk show host Steve Deace seems to be upset that NBA player Jason Collins’ decision to come out of the closet is being warmly received by his fellow players and fans, and posted on his Facebook page that his story demonstrates “perfectly how indoctrinated an aspect of our culture has become.” Deace goes on to say that gay rights supporters “are basically fascists” and is angry that he is being labeled “intolerant.”

Deace also lamented that while Tim Tebow, who today was released by the New York Jets, “gets killed by liberal sportswriters” while Collins received praise: “Apparently preferring to have sex with other guys is a profile in courage nowadays.”

Naturally, this is all about God’s judgment:

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber also criticized the coverage of Collins’ “aberrant, immoral sexual lifestyle” as “sad.”

In his daily radio bulletin, Todd Starnes of Fox News said he is “beginning to wonder if the Obama administration thinks the moral high ground is having a bomb explode in the middle of Times Square” following the decision to read Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda Rights. Tsarnaev was questioned for sixteen hours before a magistrate judge read him his Miranda Rights once law enforcement officials determined there was no imminent danger to public safety.

According to Starnes, that decision showed that the Obama administration was not concerned with trying “to get information that might stop the attack” that Tsarnaev brothers planned for Times Square.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation waited more than 48 hours before telling New York City police that the Boston marathon bombers had picked the Big Apple as their next target. That decision put lives at unnecessary risk because we have no idea who else might have been involved in the attack. That’s because the Justice Department pulled the plug on the interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, he clammed up when they read him his Miranda Rights. I’m beginning to wonder if the Obama administration thinks the moral high ground is having a bomb explode in the middle of Times Square rather than interrogate a terrorist to get information that might stop the attack. And why did the FBI ignore warnings that the Tsarnaev brothers were radical Muslims? I think the FBI stands for the Federal Bureau of Incompetence.

Mission America’s Linda Harvey is warning that leaders of the Boy Scouts of America who seek to end the ban on gay members under the age of 18 will have to answer to God for their move to let in gay youth and their “nail polish, dangling earrings and make-up.”

In her WorldNetDaily column, she called such BSA officials “monsters” who will transform the scouts into a “pedophile’s dream” where “the likelihood of sexual abuse is extremely high.”

Congratulations on advancing the sexual anarchist agenda and drawing countless numbers of children into sin. What will these leaders say to Jesus when they meet Him?

It’s a lie. No child’s same-sex attraction should be condoned, but instead, caring adults will guide them toward overcoming these feelings while recognizing a red flag signaling abuse or other disorders.

The Scout board, however, by publicly proposing this change for an upcoming vote, betrays the trust of millions of American boys and the media attention profoundly damages boys’ beliefs about responsible manhood. The ideals of the Scouts are a sham without the recognition that growing into an honorable, mature male means embracing masculinity, not femininity, and eagerly anticipating marriage with a woman and fatherhood in that union.

Who are the monsters on this board who would callously foster and feed the deception that any valid orientation exists except God-designed heterosexuality, and that all else is deviance? Neither Christian doctrine, nor epidemiology, nor social science, nor genetic research supports this fiction. The vote in May should not only say “No” but toss these guys out on their deaf ears.

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So early sexual experience is common among youth who adopt the unnatural “gay” identity, but to depict it as positive is another level of depravity. I reported several years back about books recommended by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. In its reading recommendations, young teens having homosexual sex, sometimes with an adult, were common. And of course, adverse consequences are rare in these stories – no diseases, criminal prosecution of adult predators or emotional trauma. It’s truly a pedophile’s dream, where abused children “choose” to have early sex.

But such stories are now the guidebooks for the new “gay” teen, the troop members our sons will camp out with. Troop should not turn boys away, but deviant notions of sex and gender need to be turned away. And under current policy, they are.

Yet we have this new regressive proposal. Homosexual labels are to be OK for boys, but not adults, one more piece of nonsense. Some Scout leaders will conceal same-sex attractions and yet lead boys who confess these attractions. Won’t some leaders be unable to resist temptation? And predictably, won’t males with these proclivities be drawn in greater numbers than ever to Scout leadership, given the chance to meet willing boys? We would be handing them proximity and access, two basic pedophile/pederast values.

The Boy Scout cover story is that no sexual behavior is allowed in the Scouts, which will, of course, prevent this, as well as an out-and-proud 15 year old from making moves on your still impressionable younger sons. Does anyone realistically trust this will never happen? On the contrary, this policy sets up situations where the likelihood of sexual abuse is extremely high. And the Scout organization is reckless and naive if they don’t see the litigation coming from broken-hearted families whose sons have been victimized either by an older boy or an adult.

Homosexual attraction doesn’t behave by the nice rules constructed by the Boy Scout leaders. Visit a “gay” pride parade to observe what many of these folks consider proud and acceptable behavior in public. The homosexual youth members of your son’s troop may, in all probability, participate in such parades. They may belong to their school’s “gay-straight alliance,” groups that promulgate the myth of inborn homosexual identity, believe any objection to homosexuality is grounded in hate and that Christian conservatives are their enemies.

And let’s not forget the support these homosexually attracted youth will get from the “gay” lobby. The new policy provides a convenient weapon of intimidation to make sure these homosexually identified boys are able to fully “express who they are” within the troop – and nail polish, dangling earrings and make-up are just the beginning. Troop leaders who try to restore order should prepare for legal action.

Writing in WorldNetDaily today, Judicial Watch founder Larry Klayman expanded on his conspiracy theory that a deadly fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas, was actually a terrorist attack.

Instead of offering any evidence to substantiate his claims, he argues that the fact that the explosion at the plant was ruled an accident (and likely a result of loose regulations) is proof enough that the Obama administration is actually covering up an act of “Muslim terrorism” that was meant to kill George W. Bush, who lives in Dallas, Texas.

Dallas, of course, is approximately 77 miles north of West, but that doesn’t really matter.

See, as Klayman explains, Obama is “potentially even more dangerous than al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, the mullahs in Tehran, or any terrorist group or nation state, combined” and a “traitorous ‘Muslim in drag,’” and only Klayman himself can comprehend and expose his diabolical schemes.

In sum, Obama is actually in practice and in his “heart” a Muslim “turned inside out.” As president of the United States and leader of the free world, he is thus potentially even more dangerous than al-Qaida, Hamas, Hezbollah, the mullahs in Tehran, or any terrorist group or nation state, combined. That is why I have not lightly labeled him “our” “Mullah in Chief.”

Is it no wonder then that our Mullah in Chief and his appointed lackeys at the FBI and Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, in the wake of the Boston Marathon Muslim bombing of April 15, 2013, refuse even to consider the possibility of terrorism, much more Muslim terrorism, as the cause for the explosion of a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, just two days later, on April 17. Here is how today’s latest Wikipedia posting describes the explosion, which registered like a 2.2 earthquake on the Richter scale and shook the ground over 70 miles from the town.

“On April 17, 2013, an explosion occurred at the West Fertilizer Company storage and distribution facility in West, Texas, 18 miles (29 km) north of Waco while emergency personnel were responding to a fire at the facility. At least 15 people were killed, more than 160 were injured and more than 150 buildings were damaged or destroyed. The cause of the blast is unknown.”

Given that former President George W. Bush is perhaps the most hated man in “Obama’s Muslim world” of the Middle East, and among mosques here in the United States, and that West, Texas, where “W” grew up is only 30 miles as the crow flies from his Crawford ranch, how is it that even the possibility of Muslim terrorism was again not raised? Indeed, during yesterday’s dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, “W” remarked about this closeness to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, where one must have surely felt the massive explosion. And, the explosion at the fertilizer plant in West, Texas, comes on top of the proximity in time to the Muslim terrorist bombings in Boston.

Couple this with the historic fact that fertilizer bombs are widely used in the Middle East and have also been used here in the United States by Muslim terrorists, and Obama’s silence becomes even more deafening and frightening.

Following his lead, major news media outlets also have not raised the possibility of Muslim terrorism in West, Texas. But, notwithstanding the complicity of these major news outlets, perhaps intimidated by Muslim charges that their past reporting was prejudiced against Muslims by terrorist-connected domestic groups like the Council for American-Islamic Relations, does not the nation’s “fearless leader” have a duty to address head-on the possibility of Muslim terrorism in West, Texas?

Not if you are Barack Hussein Obama, a “Muslim” himself through and through.

We now live in the most dangerous of times in our nation’s history. Our so-called president is a disloyal if not traitorous “Muslim in drag,” and our lives and those of our loved ones are in great peril.

May God watch over and protect us as this man occupies and subverts the Office of the President of the United States and continues to sell us, “We the People,” out to his Muslim terrorist friends.

The Religious Right went into a frenzy this week over charges that the military was deliberately blocking access to SBC.net, the official website of the Southern Baptist Convention’s, as part of an anti-Christian ploy.

“What we are seeing here, I want to be very clear here, we are seeing under the Obama administration a Christian cleansing underway in the United States military,” Fox News' Starnes maintained.

David Limbaugh accused the military of acting like a “thought police” who “selectively suppress[es] First Amendment freedoms” that “our armed forces are charged to protect,” and the SBC’s top ethicist Richard Land said it was an “outrageous” move and the person who blocked the website “needs to be fired.”

The American Family Association called the incident an example of the military’s “hostility towards faith and religious freedom” and its spokesman Bryan Fischer claimed it was part of an Islamist-secularist conspiracy to classify the entire denomination as a “hate group that spews nothing but ‘hostile content.’”

SBC.net was in fact blocked, but not as a result of anti-Christian bias, but because of malware on the SBC’s website.

Don’t just take our word for it, the Baptist Press, the news arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, reported that “the military's software filters detected malware at SBC.net and blocked the website.” Due to malware, not the content of the website, SBC.net was considered “hostile content.”

But don’t hold your breath for Land or Fischer to retract their inflammatory claims.

A military official says malware was to blame for the Southern Baptist Convention's website being blocked on some military bases.

Lt. Col. Damien Pickart, a Defense Department spokesman, said the military's software filters detected malware at SBC.net and blocked the website. The malware since has been removed off the website, and the denomination's website unblocked, he said.

"The Department of Defense is not intentionally blocking access to this site," Pickart told The Tennessean in an email. "The Department of Defense strongly supports the religious rights of service members, to include their ability to access religious websites like that of the SBC."

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Chris Chapman, the SBC Executive Committee's director of information systems, said SBC.net -- like the websites of many other organizations -- is a target for hackers. He also said the military's filters are at an "optimum level" in blocking content, not simply "recognizing invading viruses" but also blocking anything that possibly could be harmful.

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"The recent situation impeding access to our website for some was aggravated by a misunderstanding of a term familiar to those in the information technology field. That term is 'hostile content.' To technical administrators, it simply means some sort of vulnerability or virus. It might not even be an actively harmful element, but simply an exploitable or potentially exploitable condition. We now live in an age where defending against or removing 'hostile content' is a daily undertaking, especially for any organization that maintains multiple Internet servers.

Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality is outraged by a proposal that would end the Boy Scouts of America's ban on gay members under the age of 18, warning in an interview on VCY America’s Crosstalk that such a “treacherous” compromise will inevitably “homosexualize the scouts.”

He warned that “boy-on-boy homosexual promotion” is “dangerous” and that no parent would want their son to have friends who talk about their “openly gay lifestyle” since “the sorts of things that are espoused in homosexuality are not morally straight.”

The Boy Scouts have really made a treacherous move and I think some pro-family leaders, some conservatives and some Christians have said ‘okay I’m already done with the Scouts.’ They are so appalled that the Scouts would move in this direction after they had already won, remember the Boy Scouts won in the Supreme Court, they won their constitutional right to live by their own standard, it was upheld by the Supreme Court. This would just lead to another court challenge that would make the scouts totally pro-homosexual because once you make the compromise and say that you can have scout kids of course the homosexual lawyers will challenge the adults, it will completely homosexualize the scouts, it will lead to more gay activism and I think it will destroy the scouts and their numbers will begin to plummet.

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We have to remember that boy-on-boy homosexual promotion is also dangerous. I don’t think any parent wants a boy coming in talking about his openly gay lifestyle. We know from homosexual activism — I’ve been witnessing it for over twenty years — the sorts of things that are espoused in homosexuality are not morally straight. A lot of times you are seeing young people mimicking the sort of immoral things they see in the adult homosexual world. We simply don’t want homosexuality in the scouts in any way.

Later in the program, LaBarbera agreed with a caller who maintained that homosexuality leads to the collapse of society and feared that the Republican Party may soon “sell out God” and support gay rights, adding that such a position will lead to the establishment of a “wholesome” third party.

Caller: We were just recently at “Weekend to Remember” and that statement was made there by a man that had access to a lot of historical data, he searched back through the history of the world and there’s never been a government that has lasted more than three generations from the point of which they advocated and okayed homosexuality.

LaBarbera: We’ve seen this from historians, including secular historian Will Durant who said that America was already in decline and he cited homosexuality and its embrace, and that was way back in the 80s or maybe the 70s. So your caller is absolutely right and it is very sad to see Christian citizens now, including the Republican Party, being forced to choose between their faith and this political correctness. And if the Republican Party thinks the way to get ahead and to get more votes is to sell out God, they are deeply mistaken and I think it will lead to the formation of a more wholesome, pro-family party.

Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid is citing reports that the two Boston marathon bombers may have been drug dealers and that “the younger brother was a pothead” to argue “that dope’s effect on the brain is what may have led him into his brother’s terror activities.”

“He was probably so wasted mentally on drugs that he became easily manipulated by his brother and cannon fodder for the Islamist revolution on American soil,” Kincaid writes, “Marijuana is not the harmless drug the media frequently claim it to be. It is a mind-altering substance that can play a role in creating communist or Islamic terrorists.”

The older brother was a marijuana smuggler, but the younger brother was a pothead and a dealer. The Boston Globe says three people admitted buying drugs from the 19-year-old. “Several fellow students reported he earned at least some cash selling marijuana—at least the portion he didn’t smoke himself,” the paper reported. “There was a permanent stench of marijuana in his room,” said one person.

The dope aspect of the plot helps explain why they seemed to have no getaway plan, although we now learn they wanted to get to New York City to kill more people. Perhaps their minds were too scrambled to get to New York City. On the other hand, despite the reassuring claims from the media that authorities have found no evidence of foreign help, it is apparent that they did somehow master the art of making somewhat sophisticated bombs requiring timing devices. Perhaps other accomplices remain on the loose. We have no way to tell for sure, since the Obama Administration has read the captured brother his rights, making it less likely he will spill all the beans.

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On one level, the case seems bizarre. A USA Today story says, “Friends and classmates of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev can’t grasp how the pot-smoking party boy they knew is the same young man now accused of carrying out a terrorist attack.” Left unsaid is the fact that dope’s effect on the brain is what may have led him into his brother’s terror activities. He was probably so wasted mentally on drugs that he became easily manipulated by his brother and cannon fodder for the Islamist revolution on American soil.

What happened in Boston is starting to look like what Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn tried to accomplish with the 1960s generation. Disillusioned young people, brainwashed with illegal mind-altering drugs and armed with weapons, were being taught to hate the American government and the police. Remember that communist terrorist Dohrn had said, “We fight in many ways. Dope is one of our weapons. The laws against marijuana mean that millions of us are outlaws long before we actually split. Guns and grass are united in the youth underground.”

Perhaps if the drug laws were being vigorously enforced in liberal Massachusetts, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could have been picked up by the authorities before joining his brother in the Boston bombing. Perhaps his arrest could have led to his supplier, his own brother. But it looks like drugs were common on campus, and among students, and so everyone just looked the other way. The terrible triple murder case involving marijuana sprinkled on the victims apparently wasn’t very high on the priority list, either.

Now, however, as CNN reports, the killings are being reviewed by a “wider group of eyes,” with an eye on the older brother.

Let us hope the media open their eyes as well, not only to the terrorist threat, but to how dangerous drugs can play a role in violence, murder, and mayhem. Marijuana is not the harmless drug the media frequently claim it to be. It is a mind-altering substance that can play a role in creating communist or Islamic terrorists.

Pamela Geller embraced Glenn Beck’s crumbling conspiracy theory that the government is trying to cover up the alleged role of a Saudi national in the Boston marathon bombing in an interview with Janet Mefferd yesterday.

Mefferd: [Janet Napolitano] says this Saudi national was on a watch list but only while he was being questioned and then he was immediately taken off; does this sound strange to you?

Geller: If we can speak with any accuracy, she’s lying. She’s been lying and changing her story. First she said he wasn’t on the list, then she said it was a different Saudi; then she said he was pinged, while she said he was pinged when he left, she then said his name was spelled wrong and that’s why they didn’t know when he came back to the country. What is really disturbing about all this is that this is our national security, these are our babies and our families that are being put in harm’s way and they’re lying to us, they’re lying to us and they are covering for jihadists. This is what is happening. What is the motive for this? There can be no good motive.

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Geller: How many jihadists in waiting are there in this country? That Saudi national that not only Michelle Obama visited, the first person of interest that was detained, who is now being deported in a rush deportation because he has ‘national security violations’ had visited the White House many times.

First, it seems that Geller confused the Saudi national, who is considered a victim and not a suspect, with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the deceased Boston bomber.

Geller also said that the Saudi national is about to be deported, even though The Hill already reported that the rumor is false and based on “another student from Saudi Arabia who was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement for violating his visa” and “is not believed to have any connection with the bombing.”

After arguing that the Saudi man in the hospital almost certainly had a role in the attack, she said that Michelle Obama visited him in the hospital where he is recovering…because of course the government would let the First Lady visit dangerous terrorists!

The Christian Science Monitor adds that the Saudi national was temporarily put on a watch list it was only so he couldn’t leave the hospital while he was being questioned. His name was then removed from the list after he was cleared by authorities, and he is not subject to deportation.

First off, [Bret] Baier said the wording of the paper was indeed somewhat dire.

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But officials told him it was simply an automatic piece of customs paperwork triggered when police went to question the Saudi in the hours after the bombing.

To make sure he did not somehow get on an airplane before they could talk to him, they put him on a no-fly list. That automatically meant he was subject to visa revocation. The other language, including the reference to an “event,” followed from that.

“Also keep in mind, it’s just … a customs and border control document…. It’s not indicative of any investigative information,” said Baier.

After the FBI determined the man had no connection to the Boston crime, it took several days for the bureaucracy to scrub him out of its system. That is why the document existed for a short period of time, and why it shows evidence of officials trying to change it. But anyone searching the system for his name on the Sunday prior to the bombing would have found nothing, reported Baier, because no US government agency was looking for him.

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The Homeland Security Secretary replied that the Saudi in question had not been on a watch list prior to the bombings and was never really a person of interest in the case.

“Because he was being interviewed, he was at that point put on a watch list,” Napolitano added. “And then when it was quickly determined he had nothing to do with the bombing, the watch listing status was removed.”

As if all this weren’t complicated enough, a number of news outlets have reported that there is a second Saudi man in Boston, unrelated to the student, who was taken into custody when he showed up at a port to retrieve a package, and a routine check showed he had overstayed his visa.

That’s the Saudi who is subject to deportation. The student who was caught in the bomb blast is not.

A week after President Obama won re-election, James Dobson on Family Talk said that his wife Shirley and her colleague John Bornschein used the National Day of Prayer Task Force to actively pray for Obama’s defeat.

The National Day of Prayer Task Force never did a good job pretending to be nonpartisan, but Dobson’s admission made its far-right bias all too clear.

Of course, with the ‘National Day of Prayer’ scheduled for May 2, we now get to hear Shirley Dobson, who leads the task force, complain during an interview with Janet Parshall yesterday that Obama is not attending.

That’s right, she is angry that Obama isn’t attending a function that her own husband said prayed against his re-election.

She also told Parshall that the Obama administration is leading an “attack” on religious freedom and does not give Christians a seat at the table in the White House.

You know Janet our religious liberties have been under such attack that I think Christians have — I don’t want to use the term ‘have had it’ — but I think their eyes are being opened and they realize that we have to come against this and we have to come out in corporate prayer and different prayer meetings. More than ever I think they want to assemble this year just to make a stand that our country was based on religious freedom and we are not going to give it up easily.

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We do have different congressmen, Congressman [Randy] Forbes has been a great ally and Congressman [Robert] Aderholt, they participate themselves and we never have a problem at that observance. This year our honorary chairperson is going to be Greg Laurie and he’s going to be giving the main message, Chaplain Barry Black who is the chaplain of the Senate is going to be participating and Chaplain Wannick from the Pentagon is coming over to participate and of course congressman [Frank] Wolf will stand in for the legislature.

We have somebody for every branch but Janet unfortunately we’ve never had anybody come over from the executive branch. Every year we call the White House, we ask how the President wants to celebrate the National Day of Prayer and we appreciate that he does give a proclamation every year and they’ve been good with proclamations proclaiming a day of prayer in our nation, but the answer comes back ‘well the President has decided to pray silently or pray alone’ or there’s always some excuse. So we’ll say, ‘can somebody from his Cabinet come over and represent the executive branch so we can pray for them and pray for the President,’ and they’ve never sent anybody from the executive branch. We pray for them; we have somebody there that stands in the gab. But it really is so sad that they have all these other special interest groups in the White House but the Christians are not represented.