Anti-Gay

• Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Obama called the proposed anti-gay Uganda legislation "odious" ... and Ugandan officials are apparently not pleased.
• One Iowa warns that "right-wing extremists are resorting to underhanded tactics in an attempt to take away the freedom to marry."
• Americans United says a brief filed by Wallbuilders is "offensive, disrespectful and essentially advocates that the government should feel free to discriminate against all non-Judeo-Christian religions." Yep, that sounds like Wallbuilders.
• Apparently, Sen. Orrin Hatch meant the exact opposite of what he said when he stated that was open to the idea of repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
• Finally, do you think Sen. Mitch McConnell will be forced to apologize for insulting the FBI? Me neither.

The AFA's Bryan Fischer sure does seem intent on driving home his point that homosexuality ought to be illegal, as he has now written yet another post on this subject, this time seeking to how much better life would be if gays were still considered to be criminals: 

This raises the question, then, as to whether sodomy laws should be, or legitimately have been, repealed just because they are rarely enforced.

The answer to this is a clear and unequivocal "No."

Think for a moment of the current social controversies that could potentially be avoided if homosexual conduct was still against the law.

Gays in the military: problem solved. We shouldn't make a place for habitual felons in the armed forces. End of discussion, end of controversy. If someone objects, ask them which other felonies the military ought to overlook in screening recruits.

Gay marriage: problem solved. We should never legalize unions between any two people when the union is forged specifically to engage in felony behavior. Would we sanction, for instance, the formation of a corporation whose stated purpose was to import illegal drugs?

Gay indoctrination in the schools: problem solved. We don't want to raise a generation of schoolchildren to believe that felony behavior is perfectly appropriate. That's why we spend so much money warning students about the danger of drugs.

Hate crimes laws: problem solved. We wouldn't throw a pastor in jail for saying that illegal behavior is not only illegal but also immoral. For instance, he's free to say that murder is not only contrary to man's law but also to God's law. End of the threat to freedom of religion and speech.

Special rights for homosexuals in the workplace: problem solved. No employer should be forced to hire admitted felons to work for him. End of the threat to freedom of religion and freedom of association in the marketplace.

This list could actually be extended, but you get the point. Laws not only curb dangerous and risky behavior, they keep such behavior from being normalized, sanctioned and endorsed by the rest of society, and as such render an enormous benefit to a healthy culture.

The promos for the old movie "American Graffiti" asked the question, "Where were you in '62?" If the same question were asked about the United States, we'd have to answer: in a much better, saner and healthier place when it comes to criminal sexual conduct.

I think Fischer is aiming to establish himself in the obsessively anti-gay wing of the movement heretofore inhabited mainly by people like Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber.

The proposed anti-gay legislation [PDF] in Uganda mandates a seven year prison term for "aiding and abating homosexuality" and "conspiracy to engage in homosexuality," life in prison for committing the "offence of homosexuality," and the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality."

The legislation is so obviously draconian that it is hard to believe that any activists in the US would defend it, much less support it ... but that is exactly what Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid continues to do in with his latest column built around a letter he received from an anti-gay activist in Uganda thanking him for his support for the legislation: 

"I am a Ugandan and I'm writing to thank you for your bravery," [Charles Tuhaise, chairman of the board of Agape Community Transformation] said in his message to AIM. "The articles you've written in support of the right of Ugandans to exercise self-determination on the issue of homosexuality have thrown fresh light on the American scene [and show] that not every American is scared of the loud-mouthed homosexual lobby."

He added, "Please continue to help Uganda by educating Americans about the bill and countering the lies. The American people should wake up and reclaim America from a dangerous subculture that is destroying their children and youth under the guise of liberty and human rights."

...

Showing disdain for Uganda's sovereign right to chart its own course in domestic and foreign affairs, the "gay rights" lobby has mounted an aggressive strategy to undermine the government of Uganda and threaten the cut-off of foreign aid if the anti-homosexuality bill in Uganda is passed. All of this may have something to do with the fact, as AIM has disclosed, that billionaire George Soros, a major financial backer of the Democratic Party and the "gay rights" movement, has been funding efforts to promote homosexuality and legalized prostitution in Uganda and throughout Africa. The Open Society Institute of Soros calls these activities "the rights of sexual minorities" and "sex work."

...

Tuhaise told AIM that Uganda needed the support of conservatives from the U.S. but that there is an obvious problem in America itself. He explained, "We sometimes wonder why Americans are not rising up to stop many shocking things happening there, like the predators who are luring children into dangerous sex rings and destroying their lives...In Africa we think of the welfare of the community and we care what is going on in the neighborhood, because whoever takes over your neighborhood has got your kid, too."

• Think Progress: SC Lt. Gov. compares people getting gov’t help to ‘stray animals’ who ‘breed’ because they don’t know better.
• Steve Benen: The way forward on health care reform in 2010.
• Towleroad: Tim Tebow Defends Participation in Super Bowl Ad for Evangelical Anti-Gay, Pro-Life Group Focus on the Family.
• David Weigel: Tea Partiers and FreedomWorks Craft a 2010 Agenda.
• Minnesota Independent: Bachmann to be part of Quist’s health care forum (that would be this Quist.)
• RH Reality Check: "Personhood" the Priority at American Life League's Training Conference.
• Finally, Rickrolling takes on an ingenious new form.

• Is the author of Uganda's anti-gay bill going to be attending the National Prayer Breakfast? There are conflicting reports.
• Is there a political litmus test for football coaches now?
• Good As You: A vote for Scott Brown is a vote for the National Organization for Marriage.
• TPM: Conservative Vision Ascendant In Latest TX History Textbooks Draft.
• It looks like nearly 3 in 4 Americans don't want to see Sarah Palin run for President.
• Finally, check out Rick Scarborough on last week's "The Daily Show":

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
No Gay Out
www.thedailyshow.com
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Last year, Bishop Harry Jackson declared war on Washington DC in an effort to prevent the District from recognizing marriage equality.  He's fought it every step of the way and repeatedly lost, but he's not giving up and yesterday brought together dozens of pastors and right-wing activists for a "National Marriage Summit" to plot strategy for the battled in DC and across the nation:

Christians nationwide are mobilizing to oppose gay marriage as a landmark trial under way in California seeks to determine whether limiting marriage to one man and one woman is constitutional.

...

San Diego pastor Jim Garlow, who led California's Yes on 8 campaign, joined 100 church leaders in Washington, D.C., Monday for a National Marriage Summit aimed at developing strategies to preserve traditional marriage nationwide and to protect DOMA, which President Obama has said he hopes to repeal.

Convened by Bishop Harry Jackson, a Maryland pastor and chairman of the Stand4Marriage DC Coalition, the summit began Monday and ended Tuesday with a press conference on Capitol Hill lobbying Congress to uphold DOMA. Participants included Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and the Rev. Sammy Rodriquez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

"The institution of marriage is in grave danger," said Jackson, who has been at the forefront of a battle to keep gay marriage from becoming law in Washington, D.C.

"The redefinition of marriage will permanently impact businesses, education and the family unit without the voice of the residents being heard, and all traditional marriage supporters need tools to confront the battles ahead," Jackson added.

The group of mostly African-American ministers also delivered a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Barbara Lee calling on lawmakers to allow District of Columbia residents to vote on the definition of marriage. They also want Congress to veto a bill passed in December that legalized gay marriage in the district. The measure is currently awaiting a required 30-day congressional review.

Jackson also showed up on CBN yesterday to discuss the effort, where he accused his opponents of engaging in "reverse prejudice and intimidation" and said the solution was for everyone to speak out because "there is no way they can target all of us."  The Marriage Summit, he explained, was designed to get Black pastors involved in the fight against "radical gay activists" who are "going to try to enforce and impose their will on the rest of the nation by hijacking the democratic process and keeping the people from voting":

UPDATE: According to this separate CBN report, the summit also featured Rep. Steve King and Lou Engle:

After their two-day summit, they took their message to Capitol Hill, where a couple of lawmakers joined them to say they will fight hard in Congress for traditional marriage.

"Everything that we are as a people is taught to the next generation through that foundation stone of marriage between a man and a woman," said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa. "And if this civilization is going to survive and prosper and go to the next level up to its destiny, then we're going to have to have the kind of relationships that have built this country and built this civilization, and that's marriage."

"Law restrains certain things," said Lou Engle, founder of the organization, The Call. "Once law is removed it opens the floodgate, proliferates it and makes it commonplace. It mainstreams it into education and everything else. That's the difficulty we have with gay marriage."

"Marriage will probably be abandoned in the future if we go this way and that's not good for children," Engle added.

It has now been more than a week since Lisa Miller disappeared with her daughter Isabella rather than abide by a court order transferring custody to her former partner, Janet Jenkins, due to Miller's consistent refusal to abide by custody arrangements, and still her attorneys at Liberty Counsel remain "unavailable for comment."

But others on the Right are weighing in and they seem utterly unwilling to condemn Miller's actions.  Take, for instance, this blog post by Victoria Cobb of the Virginia Family Foundation:

The circumstances of this case are as heart wrenching as they are frustrating. It is our belief that the courts have failed to apply the law correctly, relying on Vermont’s civil union statute over Virginia’s constitution and the federal Defense of Marriage Act that is supposed to protect Virginia’s marriage laws. Instead, judges at nearly every turn have ignored our law in favor of Vermont’s.

..

One thing is for certain, the homosexual lobby’s attempts to portray civil unions as something less than marriage have been destroyed by their own words.

It’s interesting to note that I was asked over and over again by CNN about Lisa’s decision to “violate the court order,” but I was never once asked about the judges in this case who over and over again violated Virginia law. Instead of asking about Lisa’s actions, we should ask how judges simply can ignore the parts of the law and constitution they don’t like in favor of other parts.

Finally, we need to continue to pray for Lisa, Janet — and perhaps most importantly Isabella — in this entire mess. It’s difficult to predict the effect this situation will have on Isabella’s future, but it’s hard to believe that it will be positive.

Instead of condemning Miller for violating court orders and disappearing with her daughter, Cobb lays the blame entirely on the judges.

But that is nothing compared to this truly remarkable screed by Deacon Keith Fournier in Catholic Online in which he blames everyone and everything but Miller for the current situation:

This tragic case sets up what is called a conflict of laws issue, pitting the law of one State against another. This specter hangs over many such homosexual relationships as the patchwork of court enforced schemes of calling them a “marriage” unfolds. It is a deliberate result of the strategy of cultural revolutionaries in the Homosexual Equivalency movement who are setting up what they hope will be their vehicle for enforcing their cultural revolution Nationally through the Courts ... These activists are advancing their Cultural Revolution not by vote of the people but by judicial and legislative fiat in a kind of new alchemy ... These new Caesars call a relationship which is constitutively incapable of accomplishing the ends of marriage to be a marriage ... They have developed a verbal strategy and a legal strategy. Their goal is to use the Police Power of the State in order to force a new social and legal order whether we all want it or not.

...

Lisa Miller is a mother who could no longer stand to see her child force fed what she contended was poison. She felt that after each visit the harm that was being inflicted on her daughter was increasing. The record indicates that even though Lisa asked the Vermont Judge to listen to evidence of the violent reactions of Isabella after each of these few visitations, the Judge refused. He treated this case like an ordinary domestic breakup between a husband and a wife. After all, that is what happens when a State treats such living relationships in a manner equivalent to marriage.

...

The Lisa Miller Case brings together the misuse of fertility technology, the new Cultural Revolution, the threat of Judicial Tyranny and the assault on the authority of the Family in a case of monumental societal implications. It sounds a clear warning which must be heard before it is too late.

It seems that the unrelenting opposition to all things gay is rendering those on the Right fundamentally incapable of so much as acknowledging that disappearing with your child might be a rather improper reaction to a court ruling that you do not like. 

Amazingly, anti-gay groups are simultaneously trumpeting a story about an Illinois woman who wants to take her children to live with her partner in Oregon, calling it "radical, subversive, insidious, pernicious, and stupefying."

Unbelieveable.

• Big donors are not happy with RNC Chair Michael Steele and are withholding donations, to which he defiantly replies "fire me or shut up."
• According to WND, Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., is a Birther and "has written to President Obama asking him to prove his eligibility to hold the office of U.S. president."
• The World Congress of Families says it is standing Don Schmierer, who was one of three Americans mentioned in the recent New York Times article against the anti-gay legislation in Uganda.
• The Susan B. Anthony List, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum and others are planning a press tour to pressure House Democrats to kill healthcare reform over the issue of abortion.
• Finally, Rep. Mark Kirk insists that he is not gay.

• Pam's House Blend reports that Oklahoma's Sally Kern is trying to make it harder to get divorced in her state.
• Good As You covers Mike Heath's recent appearance on Wallbuilders Radio.
• Richard Pombo is back and TMP provides a look back at his ethical troubles.
• Steve Benen notes that Michele Bachmann's anti-Census crusade could potentially end up costing her her seat in Congress.
• Joe.My.God takes great pleasure in the fact that Glenn Beck is at war with the Birthers.
• Towleroad reports that marriage equality in Iowa is safe, at least for this year.
• Finally, Alvin McEwen exposes the latest nonsense from Cliff Kincaid, who claims that the outcry over Uganda's anti-gay bill is all part of a conspiracy to save Kevin Jennings.