Mitt Romney Grilled By Gay Vietnam Vet During Stop At NH Eatery

Bob Garon of Ebson, N.H. is a veteran of the Vietnam War. He also happens to be gay.

Garon had an opportunity to ask Mitt Romney a question when Mitt sat down at his table during a campaign stop at a local restaurant.

Mitt had no idea what he was in for.

Watch:

Conservatives Fear Rampant Bestiality In The Military

Religious right nutjobs Michele Bachmann and Bryan Fischer are very worried that our military is going to start having sex with animals.

Yes, really.

Last week, the US Senate voted to repeal Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The repeal was part of a larger piece of legislation, the National Defense Authorization Act.

While the Defense Act has certainly been controversial, bestiality hasn't been the reason.

You see, Article 125 is an archaic statute which bars troops from engaging in consensual sodomy, and its repeal was tacked on to the defense act (hardly unusual in legislation) -- a move applauded by LGBT rights advocates.

However, since the article defines sodomy as "unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal," the nutjobs read this as the military condoning bestiality.

Here's World Nut Daily asking White House press secretary Jay Carney if the president approves or disapproves of sex with animals:


Last night, Michelle Bachmann and Glenn Beck watched that video together on Beck's web show.

Bachmann reacted:

It’s absolutely abhorrent, reprehensible and you think, this is the kind of thing parents try to keep from their children because parents want to have their children enjoy innocence. Children need that latency period, they need innocence and your own government legalizes this? … Are we really going to say ho hum and laugh and go back to sleep? There’s got to be something we stand for...So the big question is, is there anything that’s wrong? That’s my question. If that’s not wrong, Glenn what’s wrong? Is there anything that’s wrong? Then you have a very serious problem on your hands.

Here's that clip:


Bryan Fischer, of hate group American Family Association, stated:

You have an instance of bestiality now, and the military has no legal way to deal with it. That's been now normalized...Once you cross the threshold that sexual intimacy is between for a husband and a wife in marriage...once you cross that boundary, there is no place to stop."

Here's that clip. It's a little long and painful, but feel free to watch if you're so inclined:


Next thing you know, military animals will be requiring separate shower and bathroom facilities.

Hi, I'm Rick Perry, And I Don't Understand Things

The Rick Perry campaign released a Hail Mary ad yesterday. It's a doozy -- thirty seconds of gay-bashing, patronizing declarations of faith, anti-Christian accusations, and a fundamental misunderstanding of constitutional law.

The video features a Marlboro Man-esque Perry (and his belt buckle) walking in nature, perhaps somewhere on Niggerhead Ranch.

He states:

"I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again.”




There's so much here, it's hard to know where to start. It's sad, but not surprising, that Perry would take a swipe at our gay and lesbian service members (although you'd think he might realize that many Christians actually support the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell), but last time I checked, kids can pray in school, and there's no law stopping them from celebrating Christmas. The difference, Rick, is in something called the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. Certainly the governor of a state with one of the highest immigration populations might understand that when people become citizens of America, they aren't required to leave their entire culture behind. Many immigrants - maybe not so much in Texas -- practice other religions. Perhaps the 22% of the population who don't call themselves Christians should be forced to recognize and take part in a religion that is not their own.

Rick, kids can pray. They can celebrate Christmas. They just can't have public school prayer-a-thons or Jesus parties. They simply need to refrain from pushing their religion on other kids. That's called being a dick. It's also kind of a violation of rights. Public schools are not in the business of endorsing religion, and are prohibited by the Establishment Clause from endorsing one religion over the other. This is basic stuff -- something that a president should understand and respect. Do we want a leader who disregards the rights of nearly a quarter of the US population?

And that thing about Obama's 'war on religion'? You mean like when he retold the story of Jesus' birth? Or his speech on prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast? Or maybe when he issued a National Day of Prayer proclamation? Perhaps when he expanded Bush's faith-based initiatives? How about when he invited Rick Warren to pray at his inauguration? Or opening rallies with prayer?

I guess we shouldn't be surprised. It's not like Rick Perry has been the poster boy for factual accuracy. This was quite simply a desperate attempt to court Christian conservatives, to raise tired (and misguided) questions about Obama's faith, and to curry favor with the segment of the population that is anti-LGBT, who feel that white Christians are being persecuted, and who believe Obama is a Muslim.

Fischer, Citing Quran, Calls For Military Ban On Muslims, Apparently Forgetting All That Bible Violence

Bryan Fischer, douchenozzle

If I didn't know any better, I would suspect that The American Family Association's Bryan Fischer is an invention -- brilliant comedy-slash-performance art for the ages, joining the ranks of Tony Clifton and Neil Hamburger.

His anti-LGBT, xenophobic, extreme Christian Right views are so ridiculously over the top, you'd be crazy not to wonder if he's simply an elaborate hoax.

If his extreme ideology wasn't enough, Fischer also lacks any hint of self-awareness, spouting blatant hypocrisy at every turn.

Take his recent post at World Nut Daily, in which he doubles down on his belief that Muslims have no place in the US military.

To my knowledge, I was the first voice in America to call for stopping the practice of Muslims serving in the U.S. military. I did so the day after the Fort Hood shootings in November of 2009.

I endured a withering firestorm of criticism from friend and foe alike, and was summoned to both CNN and the Alan Colmes radio show to explain myself.

Now a prominent Tennessee legislator, Rep. Rick Womick, is joining me in this call. Said he, at a Sharia-awareness-event over the weekend, "If you believe it (the Quran), you are commanded to kill anybody who will not convert to Islam."

And of course he is right about what the Quran teaches the followers of Muhammad and Allah. There are 109 verses in the Quran, by one count, that call for violence against infidel Christians and Jews. One example will suffice: "Slay the idolaters wherever you find them. Arrest them, besiege them, and lie in ambush everywhere for them" (Sura 9:5).

What part of "slay the idolaters wherever you find them" do brain-addled idolaters not understand? Muslims have been ordered by their god to kill you! What about that do you not get?

Further on:

Arresting, besieging and lying in ambush is exactly the kind of thing the United States military does to our enemies. Who are Muslims obligated to do that to? Who are the enemies of Islam that devout Muslims are ordered to arrest, besiege and ambush? Why, their fellow soldiers who believe in the God of Christianity.

It would be one thing if this ideology were covert and we were just finding out about it. But it's right there in their holy book where it has been for 1,400 years, where everybody, including our next commander in chief, can read it. It is sheer lunacy not to take this seriously.

In fact, I would suggest that I am showing more honor to Muslims than anyone else, because I am taking their religion more seriously than they are. I believe what Allah said through his Prophet, peace be upon him, that his followers have a sacred duty to slay infidel Americans. It shows a shameless lack of respect for Islam not to believe what their holy book says about their own religion. I have too much respect for Muslims and their sincerity and devotion to make that mistake.

That last paragraph is classic Fischer: Pure unadulterated hatred slathered in smarmy, patronizing righteousness.

While he is certainly correct in that the Quran is not in short supply of violent rhetoric and barbaric ideology, he seems to not also be aware that his Christian Bible is also not in short supply of the same violent rhetoric and barbaric ideology.

If Fischer wishes to ban all adherents of one religion based on the barbarism of its holy book, and the actions of some of its most extreme followers, then he might want to just call for a ban of Christians and Jews as well.

In a comparison of the Quran and the Bible for NPR, religion historian Philip Jenkins stated:

"Much to my surprise, the Islamic scriptures in the Quran were actually far less bloody and less violent than those in the Bible," Jenkins says.

"By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane," he says. "Then we turn to the Bible, and we actually find something that is for many people a real surprise. There is a specific kind of warfare laid down in the Bible which we can only call genocide."

It is called herem, and it means total annihilation. Consider the Book of 1 Samuel, when God instructs King Saul to attack the Amalekites: "And utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them," God says through the prophet Samuel. "But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey."

When Saul failed to do that, God took away his kingdom.

"In other words," Jenkins says, "Saul has committed a dreadful sin by failing to complete genocide. And that passage echoes through Christian history. It is often used, for example, in American stories of the confrontation with Indians — not just is it legitimate to kill Indians, but you are violating God's law if you do not."

Jenkins notes that the history of Christianity is strewn with herem. During the Crusades in the Middle Ages, the Catholic popes declared the Muslims Amalekites. In the great religious wars in the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries, Protestants and Catholics each believed the other side were the Amalekites and should be utterly destroyed.

Let's have a look at some of the passages from Fischer's Bible:

If there be found among you, within any of thy gates which the LORD thy God giveth thee, man or woman, that hath wrought wickedness in the sight of the LORD thy God, in transgressing his covenant; And hath gone and served other gods, and worshipped them, either the sun, or moon, or any of the host of heaven, which I have not commanded; And it be told thee, and thou hast heard of it, and enquired diligently, and, behold, it be true, and the thing certain, that such abomination is wrought in Israel; Then shalt thou bring forth that man or that woman, which have committed that wicked thing, unto thy gates, even that man or that woman, and shalt stone them with stones, till they die. (Deuteronomy 17:2-5)

If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage. And all Israel shall hear, and fear, and shall do no more any such wickedness as this is among you. (Deuteronomy 13:6)

Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. (1 Samuel 15)

Surely, Fischer would be the first to state that the above passages are out of context, relate to a particular time and place in human history, and don't represent modern Christianity.

Most Muslims would say the same thing about the passages Fischer has cherry-picked from the Quran.

Violence in the Quran, [Jenkins] and others say, is largely a defense against attack.

"By the standards of the time, which is the 7th century A.D., the laws of war that are laid down by the Quran are actually reasonably humane," he says.

And certainly, Fischer has a point when he points to some of the sensational stories of Islamic-fueled violence in recent times. We also must understand that these acts are a whole other animal, and most modern Muslims are far less extreme in their religious views than is Fischer.

That may be the popular notion of jihad, says Waleed El-Ansary, but it's the wrong one. El-Ansary, who teaches Islamic studies at the University of South Carolina, says the Quran explicitly condemns religious aggression and the killing of civilians. And it makes the distinction between jihad — legal warfare with the proper rules of engagement — and irjaf, or terrorism.

"All of those types of incidences — [Sept. 11], Maj. Nidal Hasan and so forth — those are all examples of irjaf, not jihad," he says. According to the Quran, he says, those who practice irjaf "are going to hell."

So what's going on here? After all, we all have images of Muslim radicals flying planes into buildings, shooting up soldiers at Fort Hood, trying to detonate a bomb on an airplane on Christmas Day. How to reconcile a peaceful Quran with these violent acts?

El-Ansary says that in the past 30 years, there's been a perfect storm that has created a violent strain of Islam. The first is political: frustration at Western intervention in the Muslim world. The second is intellectual: the rise of Wahhabi Islam, a more fundamentalist interpretation of Islam subscribed to by Osama bin Laden. El-Ansary says fundamentalists have distorted Islam for political purposes.

"Basically what they do is they take verses out of context and then use that to justify these egregious actions," he says.

El-Ansary says we are seeing more religious violence from Muslims now because the Islamic world is far more religious than is the West. Still, Jenkins says Judeo-Christian cultures shouldn't be smug. The Bible has plenty of violence.

"The scriptures are still there, dormant, but not dead," he says, "and they can be resurrected at any time. Witness the white supremacists who cite the murderous Phineas when calling for racial purity, or an anti-abortion activist when shooting a doctor who performs abortions.

In the end, the scholars can agree on one thing: The DNA of early Judaism, Christianity and Islam code for a lot of violence.

Pot, meet kettle.


Further reading: 30 Reasons Why Bryan Fischer is Dangerous and Must Be Stopped

In Which I Am Rankled By An Annoying Anti-Occupy Wall Street Image

An old high school acquaintance circulated an image of American soldiers carrying a wounded soldier on a stretcher through a war zone. The text surrounding the image reads: "Sorry, we're too busy protecting your freedom to occupy Wall Street."

This image has circumnavigated the Internet, as such things tend to do. It usually is met with responses such as: "The OWS movement is filled with a bunch of lazy, spoiled, far-left, frauds," or "'Nuff said."

We all love these Internet-ready mini-billboards which attempt to drive home a point with an economy of words and a searing image. They can be powerful and persuasive. But this one rankled me.

To be clear, I have nothing but respect and admiration for our men and women in uniform, and for our veterans, but, one could insert any movement, cause, or daily activity in the last part of this text: 'attend your tea party,' 'walk for breast cancer,' 'vote democratic.' Sadly, we have to go about our lives here and do what we need to do, whether that's attending a football game, leading a scout troop, or exercising our right to protest.

Perhaps what this image underscores more than anything is the sad fact that no matter what is going on in the homeland, our soldiers are in foreign lands risking their lives for what are, arguably, dubious causes. (Anyone who thinks the war in Iraq is about 'our freedom' is fooling themselves.)

Undoubtedly, many of these soldiers would rather be here occupying Wall Street, like many other fine service men and women.

"For 10 years, we have been fighting wars that have enriched the wealthiest 1 percent, decimated our economy and left our nation with a generation of traumatized and wounded veterans that will require care for years to come," said Joseph Carter, a 27-year-old former Army sergeant and Iraq war veteran who marched Wednesday to Zuccotti Park.