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Yesterday I posted about WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah blasting Ann Coulter’s “betrayal” of him regarding the anti-gay “culture wars” by keynoting GOProud‘s HOMOCON. You could almost feel Farah’s raging on the keyboard at other luminaries of the right who are also abandoning the professional anti-gay agenda:
…”Conservative” icon Glenn Beck, in a conversation with Bill O’Reilly, said basically he doesn’t care about the attack on traditional marriage. Asked if the California ruling will harm the country in any way, he responded: “No I don’t. Will the gays come and get us? I believe that Thomas Jefferson said: ‘If it neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket what difference is it to me?’”
Rush Limbaugh, the iconic leader of American conservatism, hired the noted homosexual singer Elton John to perform at his wedding. He has not aired one of his bitingly satirical “gay community updates” in years.
“Conservatives,” it seems, are on the verge of not only accepting homosexuality’s domination of the culture, but embracing it.
We can now add Bryan Fischer to the far-right public meltdown. He’s the host of the “Focal Point” radio program on the American Family Radio talk network (one of the arms of Don and Tim Wildmon’s American Family Association). This is a man who actually said that society must “put active homosexuals through an effective reparative therapy program.”
Look at this crazed column, “Coulter, Beck go AWOL in culture war.” The anger-generated spittle is dripping onto his keyboard.
Count Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck as the latest deserters in the culture war and in the battle for sexual normalcy. They have flinched at “precisely that little point which the world and the devil are … attacking,” and so have forfeited the right to consider themselves any longer culture warriors.Let’s be clear: Endorsing homosexual behavior is not a conservative position, period. Supporting special rights based on aberrant sexual behavior is not conservative, period. Supporting either civil unions or marriages based entirely on using the alimentary canal for sexual purposes is not conservative, period.
You [Ann Coulter] will be received with a standing ovation [at HOMOCON] for pandering to a group that wants to put open homosexuals in the same showers and barracks with sexually normal soldiers (priority No. 4) and is fiercely opposed to any attempt to elevate protection for natural marriage to the Constitution (priority No. 7 – see GOProud website).
…Glenn Beck has completely and shamelessly surrendered on the issue of gay marriage, and did so on Bill O’Reilly’s program, only the most-watched cable news program in all TV land…Even O’Reilly, who is a notorious squish on the subject of the acceptability of homosexual behavior, was taken aback by Beck’s capitulation and rightly accused him of “ignoring the profound change in the American family.”
Folks, we are starting to see real damage to core of the professional homo-hate machine. The fiscal conservative/libertarian lite wing of the GOP, as well as those like Beck and Coulter, who depended on that demo for their meal ticket in the past, sees the legal handwriting on the wall for the social conservatives (aka loonies) and are publicly making a break for the door to more credibility), with the alignment now toward the burgeoning Tea Party wing.
It’s pretty clear that a corner has been turned, with the green light foor Beck and Coulter likely being the 138-page Prop 8 legal ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker that decimated the pathetic case presented by the defenders of marriage discrimination. The sorry-ass, religious, culture, and bias-based excuses to prevent opening civil marriage to lesbians and gays couldn’t stand up to the reality-based legal standard, as Olsen and Boies smacked down the so-called “experts” who bothered to show up to testify. Just a peek at Walker’s Findings of Fact alone put those ridiculous arguments completely to bed.
Beck and Coulter, who are thinking about their professional bottom lines, are placing their bets on the legal wind blowing away from the bible-beating theocrat wing of conservatism.
Again, while I can’t always agree with their political positions on issues, credit also has to go to GOProud, which has managed to become a deeply lodged splinter into the social conservative movement in a very short time (the LCR was never this effective). It was first an irritation, and now it’s making the bible-beaters hurt badly if they are taking this infighting public over HOMOCON. Makes we wish I could get up there to cover the event, which is on September 25 in NYC.
GOProud’s Chris Barron recently took The Peter to task over his expected eruption over Coulter’s gig:
“I strongly encourage Mr LaBarbera to head out to his local bookstore, buy an Ann Coulter book and actually read it. For a guy who claims to be a “fan,” he seems completely clueless about what Ann has actually written and said about gay people and gay conservatives.If Mr. LaBarbera spent less time obsessing about gay sex and hanging out at gay Pride events, maybe he would have a little more time to read one of Ann’s books.”
14 Comments
Ok, Ms. FischerMethinks the “lady” doth protest too much!
1) Name ONE “effective reparative therapy program”, just one. Even one of NARTH’s minions only claimed a 33% “success” rate.
2) “Supporting special rights…”. Name ONE right which I would have which goes over and above what you have, just one. The way I see it, I’m not yet on an even par with you, rights-wise, much less having any rights which surpass yours.
Alimentary canal?Someone was paying attention in 8th grade science!
Though not very well: The alimentary canal includes the mouth. I guess anyone who gets a blowjob should never be allowed to get married, either.
Seriously, how do these people still have enough of a working brain to remember to breathe?
And Fischer and his ilk refuse to acknowledge that Rushbo neverwas with the religious loonies of the party.
I will never forget back in the Clinton era (or early Bush era?) Rush saying that moneyed conservatives really didn’t like the Religious Reich; he specifically mentioned the abortion issue.
I think a part of this too, though, is that conservatives see an opening to pick up gay votes and gay money.
And you’re right Pam, gotta give credit to GOProud where it’s due.
OBAMA™ to the right of COULTER™“god”, like pudding, is IN THE MIX™
Special rights??? Equal rights!!!Equal rights does not EQUAL Special rights. Oh my goodness what planet of hate do these people come from?
If they need someone in a dress as a spokespersonCardinal Sandoval in Mexico might be willing
I suspect that a lot of the high-profile conservative defections from the anti-gay movement are part of the fallout from the Haggard and Rekers scandals. The Rekers luggage-lifting, in particular, exposed Anti-Gay, Inc. to more widespread public ridicule than I’ve ever seen. More and more, siding with the anti-gays is seen as defending whackjob hypocrisy, period. The likes of Beck and Coulter, crazy as they are themselves, can’t afford to be seen siding with George Rekers and Ted Haggard. It’s the equivalent of endorsing the Flat Earth Society, and more and more people are realizing that all the time.
George Rekers: the gift that keeps on giving.
Permission GrantedCoulter and Beck are not our garden variety opportunists. Hard core conservatives love’ em. I’m hoping that their recent shoulder shrugs in the direction of the Bible beaters will give other conservative talking heads the freedom to chill out on their rhetoric as well.
I am even more interested to see how the genuinely confused conservatives, as opposed to the knee jerk homo-haters are affected by Coulter and Beck. If C and B have to start defending their less exclusive definition of marriage in public, will that give those on the fence the language they need to form more inclusive positions as well?
A long and successful run on center stage…From my perspective what we’re seeing is simply a change in the target of GOP fear mongering. After saint Ronnie Ray-Gun saved us from the godless soviet commies, the GOP needed a new target to focus it’s fear and hate and thereby keep the fundamentalists agitated enough to vote against their own economic self interests. The entrance of the AIDS crisis fueled the selection of gays for that purpose.
It was the supreme court of Hawaii that first ruled in the 1996 that the “state” had no “compelling state interest” to justify the denial of equal protection under the law. That court made all of the same fact based conclusions that judge Walker has made in the Prop 8 trail and thus precipitated the cascade of state constitutional amendments which have finally brought our fight to the federal courts.
Now, after a long and successful run on center stage, enough of the LGBT community has exited the closet to preclude most of the population from viewing us as the “other”. This open visibility has resulted in the courts having a far harder time accepting the fundie’s demands that we be denied equality under the law.
Just as the GOP saw the loss of the soviet commie boogie man coming, they now see the loss of the LGBT boogie man coming. But do not worry that the GOP will give up on using fear and hatred, 9-11 has provided the new Muslim boogie man to take our place.
The fundies will have a bit of a hard time moving their sights to the new target of GOP fear mongering. It’ll be tricky climbing onto the Muslim-hater’s band wagon while waving their “freedom of religion flag” but I’m sure they’ll manage to do it somehow. They’ve already proven they have an ample supply of crazy for any task they set for themselves.
Remember, Love does not require god’s justification but only god can justify hate.
A fascinating tangent…
A propos of nothing, I find it fascinating that Glenn Beck is using this particular quote of Thomas Jefferson’s – since, as most people will remember, it doesn’t refer to tolerance of gays but the separation of church and state.
Specifically, the line before the section Glenn Beck is quoting goes (I’m paraphrasing): “It matters not whether my neighbor believes in no god, or one god, or twenty gods.”
Does this mean Glenn Beck and his ilk now officially believe in separation of church and state?!
YesConservatism is ultimately about freedom, independence, and self reliance. Forcing your religion on other people is not really conservative, in fact it is big government intrusion into private life. The GOP has hit a wave of popular support with a small government, low taxes message, they do not the American Taliban and their dream of American theocracy.
do not *need*
The GOP’s claimthat they represent small government (and “fiscal responsibility”) is every bit as fraudulent as Obama’s claim to be an advocate for gay equality. For that matter, so is their claim that they differ from the Democrats in any significant way.
TrueCan’t argue that, Republicans have been just as bad if not worst on fiscal issue. But the ordinary people that will kick the Democrats out of power this November and again in 2012, are serious about fiscal conservatism, and they are not above kicking non compliant Republicans out of office.
Either way, there is no longer room for gay bashing in American politics. Gay rights is not about right vs left, it is about right vs wrong.