Media Matters Founder David Brock: Right-Wing Media Helps Make Anti-LGBT Agenda Welcome In Republican Party
May 03, 2012 8:38 pm ET
From the May 3 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:
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I'm pretty sure that the anti-LGBT agenda of the Republican Party is meant mostly to bait certain Democrats (and 'paint' them too) into advocating the pro-LGBT agenda... while millions of Americans variously shake their heads in wonder and frustration and even annoyance, waiting for actual national policy issues of importance to them to be discussed, which mostly doesn't happen.
The same is true of torture (and torture memos!), it's just emotionally charged stuff meant to blot out any real talk of policy issues that concern most of us, and all too often are brought up at very precise and strategic times.
And of course that other issue too, the intensely personal issue involving an intensely private surgical procedure that only women in the most distressing of circumstances elect to have... and one that Republicans just love to bait certain Democrats into publicly advocating.
However I cannot completely agree with you that the anti-Gay agenda of the Republican Party is meant mostly to bait certain Dems into advocating the Pro-LGBT agenda.
Yes, some Republicans do and will do it for that reason, but sadly, I know that most of the R-Wing base which is Anti-LGBT will fight the entire LGBT and Pro-LGBT population with every fiber of their being and in every way available to them, to defeat any Pro-LGBT legislation, National policy and any Right Wing politician who dares to be Pro-LGBT.
Not only will they vigorously fight against anyone and anything LGBT and/or Pro-LGBT, they fight tirelessly to legislate Anti-LGBT laws and reinstate Anti-LGBT policies everywhere they can.
They want LGBT's back in hiding in the closet and out of their eyesight. Period.
If the truth could be told by them, many even prefer the Old Testament Biblical Solution to the LGBT Question.
You are actually spot on with this. A group called the Family, who has deep pockets in Washington to "Christian" candidates like John Ensign and Bart Stupak, backed a bill in Uganda that made homosexuality a criminal offense and made execution possible for "repeat offenders." This is what the right-wing Christians want, a dogmatic, Draconian enforcement of moral code, even to those who don't believe it. It's why us who believe and treasure a secularist society (and leave religion to Churches, synagogues, mosques, and charities) need to fight this absurd notion of the "Christian Nation."
Critical thinking is not their friend.
Since the Republicans seem all too willing to wrap themselves in religion, I wonder if they'll ask Romneybot about the racist doctrines found in the Book of Mormon? I kind of doubt it.
One of my favorite statistics is that, though most fundamentalist Christians believe the Bible is inerrant, very few actually study it. They still get their notions of spirituality from what pastors, teachers, and politicians have told them. I think if more people actually read the Bible with an open mind, they'd see that the notion of sex being the worse sin is highly flawed. Greed and selfishness get far more vitriol in the Gospels and the letters of Paul, and compassion and forgiveness are really central to the doctrine. If my belief is true, I know Atheists who are better Christians than actual Christians. And those moron Goldman-Sachs execs who say they are "doing God's work" are the ones who really deserve to burn.
As far as the Book of Mormon goes, that's not an area of familiarity with me (though I am familiar with passages about the lost tribes of Israel in America, God having crazy God-sex on his God-planet, and the really poor way black people are portrayed). I don't doubt Romney's conviction to faith, but at the same time, I think it would be suicidal for Romney to do a bullet-point type apologetic on his faith and expect people (especially the fundamentalists in his own part who openly call him a member of a cult) to come away more enlightened and tolerant of Mormonism.
The Evangelical Nutbags think Mormonism is just a big cult, as you say, but their inherent racism and brainwashed hatred toward Obama will overcome their fear of odd religions. Besides, they think the Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, but they didn't hesitate to embrace the Reactionary Catholic Bishops in the recent fight over contraceptives.
You know, things like job security, housing security, the right to marry their natural (to them) partner, that sort of thing. In MO, however, a person can be evicted for being gay, fired for being gay, and in the USA thanks to the DOMA among other federal statutes if they DO get married in a state that allows it, they still aren't recognized at the federal level and aren't in any state that doesn't allow it - said recognition being required by the constitution, I believe it is that pesky article 4, section 1, and unless that was amended out by DOMA that I didn't know of overrides DOMA.
Thumbs Up!
The sad news is that we live in a society where a bill like this could even make it as far as this one did.
I still have high hopes for the good & decent Tennessean's to overcome the ever shrinking number of idjuts that are still running around down there.
I seriously don't think I'll live to see another Democratic Governor in Tennessee, or even a Democratic U.S. Senator from this state. I hope I'm wrong.