Oh, nos!!!

This is not good. ;-)

This, on the other hand, would be amusing -- even satisfying, in a schadenfreude kind of way (it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of intolerant hypocrites!) -- if I didn't think they were just trotting out yet another prevarication parade in an effort to separate gullible people from their money.

Clear Skies in Denver

In case the wingnuts were wondering how God feels about Barack Obama, here's the forecast for Denver tomorrow night (that middle column is the chance of precipitation -- so much for the power of hateful prayer):

First Convention Night

I'm eating and arugula and spinach salad with some squash soup (how elitist is that, huh?!?) and tuning into the beginning of the convention coverage. There's a great lineup for the evening, and while I'm watching, I'll be tossing out a few links from the weekend:

• Tennessee Liberal Blogosphere Weekly Roundup: Biden Edition!
• Dobson on McCain.
• Save the dates! The debate schedule has been announced!
• Majority of U.S. Voters Open to Electing Gay President.
• McCain to announce VP pick on Friday.
• Things Obama needs to do.
• John McCain's devolution on abortion.
• Faux Outrage™, or Whither GOP concern trolling?

Focus on Being a Jerk

This is an incredible illustration of why James Dobson's Focus on the Family is a just a steaming pile of -- well, a sham.

A video producer for Focus on the Family is asking people to pray for rain when Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois) makes his speech at the end of the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

Obama is giving his acceptance speech outdoor at Invesco Field at Mile High on Thursday, Aug. 28.

What?!? Praying for the event to go poorly? What is Christian about that?!? What's next? Praying for Obama to stub his toe? Have a car accident?

What if they pray for rain, and it does rain -- and someone is struck by lightning and dies? Will they be proud of themselves for properly disrupting the event?

I've always known that James Dobson -- who encourages people to beat their children -- is a mean, petty man, and the fact that he hasn't condemned this suggestion just confirms my opinion. He should focus on his own problems before he turns his beady little eyes on others.

UPDATE: if they're ashamed enough to pull the video, why don't they condemn the suggeston?

UPDATE: Christianity's greatest patriot is on it (or is that patriotism's greatest christian?).

UPDATE: And the drama continues!

Ignorance Never Works

How many times does abstinence-only "education" have to be debunked before conservatives (like Daddy Dobson) finally stop pushing ignorance?

A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.

The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant. State lawmakers said the myths are spreading because of Florida's abstinence-only sex education, Local 6 reported.

UPDATE: Abstinence-Only Sex Ed Does Not Work:

Stoking the fire, a study published in the April edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health found that those who received comprehensive sex education were 50 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received abstinence-only education. The study also found that those who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to become pregnant than those who received no sex education at all.

"I do think that there's strong evidence that comprehensive sex education is more effective at preventing teen pregnancies," said Pamela Kohler, lead author of the study and program manager at the University of Washington's Center for AIDS and STD. "I think we pretty much debunked the myth that comprehensive sex education causes teenagers to have sex."

Dobson endorses Huckabee

Gee, there's a surprise.

Oooh! Daddy Dobson puts his foot down!

If the Republicans choose John McCain as their nominee, professional hatemonger James Dobson will not vote Republican (or won't vote at all?).

[By the way, this bozo's political organization (Focus on the Family) doesn't still have tax-exempt status, does it?]

Dobson Hearts Huckabee

It will be of little surprise to my regular readers that I consider Mike Huckabee's endorsement from James Dobson, a deranged and hateful man who encourages parents to beat their own children, to be just as humiliating as Rudy Giulaini's thumbs up from the unhinged Pat Robertson. The good news, though, is that the religious right is splitting themselves into irrelevancy.

ps: Mr. Dobson, how about you lay off my family for a while and focus on the Oral Roberts tribe? And if that doesn't keep you busy, cast your gaze over to Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn and their respective kin. And then, if you ever manage to get that whole religious right(eous) glass house in order, then you can resume all your whining and sputtering about all us regular folks...

UPDATE: will he? or won't he?

Where Are the Young Christians?

Fortunately in places like Chattanooga, there are churches that don't preach intolerance, so young people can find a safe place to worship. But in other parts of the country, that is not the case. Combine that with the hateful message prominent (supposed) Christians like James Dobson project on a national level, and you've got a recipe that has kids turning away from the church entirely (more at Pam's House Blend).

Today, the most common perception is that present-day Christianity is "anti-homosexual." Overall, 91% of young non-Christians and 80% of young churchgoers say this phrase describes Christianity. As the research probed this perception, non-Christians and Christians explained that beyond their recognition that Christians oppose homosexuality, they believe that Christians show excessive contempt and unloving attitudes towards gays and lesbians. One of the most frequent criticisms of young Christians was that they believe the church has made homosexuality a "bigger sin" than anything else. Moreover, they claim that the church has not helped them apply the biblical teaching on homosexuality to their friendships with gays and lesbians.

When young people were asked to identify their impressions of Christianity, one of the common themes was "Christianity is changed from what it used to be" and "Christianity in today's society no longer looks like Jesus."

There are no homosexuals in Iran!

I know! Let's send Pat Robertson to live there! Then he'd be out of harm's way! After all, if there are no homosexuals, then the country will be safe from things like earthquakes, tornadoes, terrorist bombings and meteors!

Seriously, though, I hope James Dobson was watching, because now he knows what kind of government and national culture are necessary to "eliminate" homosexuality. And then he can ask himself if that's what he really wants (and can he be proud of the work he's done so far?).

Dobson Group is Willfully Stupid

Where do they get this stuff? And do they really think they're turning people's hearts in the proper direction? Are any of these people aware of the monster they're creating?

(image recently spotted on postsecret)

James Dobson, the Rosa Parks of Intolerance

The fact that James Dobson, of all people, is whining about persecution is mind-boggling. He really does have no shame (via AB).

Watch the video here!

Happy Easter

I'll be enjoying the day in my usual Sunday way, which basically involves getting stuff done and enjoying the company of friends and family, hopefully with a good meal thrown in the mix somewhere. I'll be more tempted by the idea of church once the ranks of Chrisitanity manage to cull the herd a bit, ridding yourselves of the Dobsons, Falwells, Haggards, and other types who pretend to be Christian while really chasing the trappings of politics and wealth.

It's troubling to listen to "Christian radio" and hear the kind of hate spewing out of the mouths of my brothers and sisters in the faith.

In fact, I've grown tired of people who pimp God. That's right; we have a litany of individuals today who are holy, holy, holy, sing hallelujah, talk about how they love the Lord, but when it's time to walk the walk, somehow the spirit evaporates.

I mean no disrespect to the people closing their businesses to celebrate Good Friday, or those joining the throngs at church on Easter Sunday. But the joy of religion is long since past for me. And until it becomes more about quietly setting the highest example for others to follow and less about judgement and scorn, it will probably remain that way.

To quote the words of Ian Hunter (formerly of the groundbreaking band, Mott the Hoople):

There's no religion
you did that
it helps to keep your little leaders fat
Like faith 'n superstition stay
to help you pass the time away

More here, with lots of discussion in the comments.

White House 2008: Non-evangelicals need not apply

Whoops. Just kidding.

Well, someone did actually make the suggestion, but the person proposing such a ridiculous idea was none other than the deranged James Dobson, who is famous for encouraging parents to beat their children to tears and then stop, unless the children cry too much, in which case they should be beaten some more.

Why anyone takes this medieval throwback at all seriously is a mystery. Check out these other examples of "insight" from Dobson:

"[P]ain is a marvelous purifier. . . It is not necessary to beat the child into submission; a little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely." (from Dobson's Dare to Discipline, pages 6-7)

"If children cry for longer than five minutes, the child is merely complaining...I would require him to stop the protest crying, usually by offering him a little more of whatever caused the original tears." (from Dobson's "Complete Marriage and Family Reference Guide")

"I strongly recommend that parents of strong-willed and rebellious females, especially, quietly keep track of the particulars of their daughters' menstrual cycles." (from Dobson's "Challenges In The Family Years: Understanding Early Adolescents")

Yikes! Is it any wonder, then, that Dobson's favorite 2008 candidate is the ethically challenged, thrice-married, admitted philanderer, Newt Gingrich? What a shining model of evangelical Christianity!

Once In a Lifetime

Salon.com published an interesting piece today by Gary Kamiya, titled How Bush helped the GOP commit suicide, which is largely based on the results of a long-term study by the Pew Research Center which shows Americans are turning away from the Republican party (and, though, not necessarily turning to the Democratic party instead).

The Iraq War, regressive taxation, Enron, Katrina, and scandal after scandal after scandal -- there are many reasons to blame Bush, Cheney and Rove for recent GOP tribulations, but there are also structural issues at work.

The Republican party as long relied on intolerant right-wing Christians to turn out their vote, without giving that crucial base much in return. It was easy for the GOP to put off this group by blaming the evil liberals for their own lack of action on abortion and "family values" issues back when the Democrats still had some power in DC, but once Bush and Republicans took over all three branches of government, they didn't have that excuse anymore. And what we saw was that the real problem was a lack of support for the Republican base's extreme positions on those issues. No one wants to live in a world of James Dobson's making -- probabaly not even James Dobson, if he was really being honest about it. Or Jerry Falwell, or Ted Haggard, or any of the rest of the flabby, white men who claim moral superiority over the rest of us. These are people who live in the shattered remains of glass houses with their third wives and secret lovers and offshore bank accounts while they preach conservative values to the rest of us.

In the meantime, the rest of us go about life. And the rest of us are, by and large, good people. We're Democrats and Republicans, Christians and non-Christians. And we're starting to figure some of this stuff out. Just because George Bush mumbles something about Jesus once in a while doesn't mean that he's a good Christian man, or that the Republican agenda is a Christian agenda. But we're not there yet, as demostrated by this disturbing tidbit in Kamiya's article:

The survey does not paint a uniformly flattering picture of America. A scary 43 percent of Americans think torture can often or sometimes be justified -- perhaps a tribute to the work of "24" creator and Rush Limbaugh pal Joel Surnow. In a singularly telling finding, 45 percent of those who identified themselves as liberal Democrats said torture was never justified, compared to 18 percent of conservative Republicans. These contrasting responses should be deeply troubling to traditional conservatives; they show how badly their movement has degenerated under Gingrich and Bush. When did being a conservative start meaning signing off on torture? Isn't there a ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" in the Eighth Amendment of some old document drawn up by some geezers in powdered wigs that conservatives are supposed to care passionately about? And what would Jesus think about torture? Apparently being a conservative no longer means believing in a transcendental morality.

Torture, people? Really? Have you seriously thought about this, read about it, prayed about it, discussed it with your mom and your preacher and your philosophy prof and your kids and decided, yeah, torture -- that's what we need? I don't think so. I think y'all have been letting Karl Rove get to you a little bit too much. I suspect if you really think about this, America, you'll realize that torture is not a place a Great Nation goes. We're better than that. We don't have to go there.

We might be stuck with this twisted, immoral administration for another 665 days (at most), but we don't have to sling ourselves down there in the gutter with them. Let's not go there, OK?

And you may ask yourself
What is that beautiful house?
And you may ask yourself
Where does that highway go?
And you may ask yourself
Am I right? ...am I wrong?
And you may tell yourself
My god! ...what have I done?

Thank you, Ann Coulter

Her bizarre behavior has finally forced some conservatives to to admit that they're not as obsessed with homosexuality as James Dobson thinks they should be, and that maybe they're even tired of homosexuality as a political issue (via AmericaBlog).

At some point, Republicans will need to get over their issues with homosexuality. Regardless of whether one believes it to be a choice or a hardwired response, it has little impact on anyone but the gay or lesbian person. We can argue that homosexuality doesn't require legal protection, but not when we have our front-line activists referring to them as "faggots" or worse. That indicates a disturbing level of animosity rather than a true desire to allow people the same rights and protections regardless of their lifestyles.

Not a bad day's work for a professional pot-stirrer.

In other news, I had a pretty busy weekend, but some of it was fun. If you haven't seen Little Miss Sunshine yet, you're really missing out -- I saw it Friday night and it was awesome. Now that I'm hooked up with the Netflix, I'll hopefully get to see a few other films that got Oscar nods...

Mary, Mary... you're so contrary

The Cheney family is still trying to figure out how to hide from questions about the upcoming birth of their lesbian daughter's baby after they have spent years promoting an anti-gay agenda. So far, it's not working.

Mary is lashing out, but perhaps she's having trouble figuring out just who the enemy is (apparently she doesn't own a mirror).

Dick Cheney's daughter, and former gay rights activist and professional homosexual and head of the vice president's re-election campaign, Mary Cheney publicly declared today to an open panel discussion, and then in a personal interview with the New York Times (circulation 1.1 million), that her lesbian out-of-wedlock pregnancy is a private matter and it's none of anybody's business. Apparently, irony isn't big in the Cheney family.

Mary then laid into the #1 religious right leader James Dobson, accusing him of distorting scientific research in order to slam gays.

The religous right has a real problem with Mary. She claims she doesn't want to get political, but she already has, and continues to do so. And in the end, she's daddy's little girl. And everyone knows that daddy is the real president of the United States. If the religious right is trying to figure out why their agenda has disappeared from the Republican agenda, they need go no further than Mary.

In the meantime, Jon Stewart's response is, as usual, brilliant.

Let's say Strom Thurmond, who advocated for segregation, let's say he ended up having a black daughter. Would it not point out the rank hypocrisy of his political positions and the cowardice in not fighting for the human rights for your own flesh and blood?

And Stacy Shiff weighed in as a guest at the New York Times.

There are now officially only two people left in America who don't want to talk about their kids. When Jim Webb bowed out of that White House receiving line, President Bush tracked him down and asked after his son. Senator Webb is a former Navy secretary; he knows his protocol. He is also one of only a few members of the U.S. Senate with children serving in the military. "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Mr. Webb replied. "That's not what I asked you," Mr. Bush snapped. Mr. Webb didn't really mean to answer, either. Evidently, he meant to slug the president.

Last week Wolf Blitzer asked Dick Cheney about his pregnant lesbian daughter. The vice president looked as if his arm had made contact with that meat grinder. Mr. Blitzer was, he growled, seriously out of line.

Neither Senator Webb nor Vice President Cheney wins points for his social graces. But what Letitia Baldrige said of the Webb encounter — "It was an uncivil reply to an uncivil remark" — does not apply equally to the vice president. Mr. Cheney has openly promoted an anti-gay agenda. His own base has called his daughter's pregnancy unconscionable. Family values have been his calling card. And our Prohibitionist vice president can't summon the courage to address the gin mill in the basement?

Mr. Webb was rude on principle; Mr. Cheney rude out of hypocrisy. One man took a stand. The other scurried away.

What the vice president's nonresponse did deliver was a very cogent message: the rules apply to you, but not to us. It's our privacy, your patriotism; our delusion, your sacrifice; our tax cuts, your kids. After all, as Mr. Cheney so tellingly said of his Republican critics, "I'm the vice president, and they're not." The part for which some of us have no stomach is the sense of entitlement.

An annoying thing about children is that they nudge you toward the high road and the long view. They demand pesky things like open-mindedness, self-denial, accountability, leadership and occasionally even integrity — qualities that appear to have packed up and gone home with Hans Blix. Once upon a time, you might have termed them family values.

Mary, Mary... you're so contrary

The Cheney family is still trying to figure out how to hide from questions about the upcoming birth of their lesbian daughter's baby after they have spent years promoting an anti-gay agenda. So far, it's not working.

Mary is lashing out, but perhaps she's having trouble figuring out just who the enemy is (apparently she doesn't own a mirror).

Dick Cheney's daughter, and former gay rights activist and professional homosexual and head of the vice president's re-election campaign, Mary Cheney publicly declared today to an open panel discussion, and then in a personal interview with the New York Times (circulation 1.1 million), that her lesbian out-of-wedlock pregnancy is a private matter and it's none of anybody's business. Apparently, irony isn't big in the Cheney family.

Mary then laid into the #1 religious right leader James Dobson, accusing him of distorting scientific research in order to slam gays.

The religous right has a real problem with Mary. She claims she doesn't want to get political, but she already has, and continues to do so. And in the end, she's daddy's little girl. And everyone knows that daddy is the real president of the United States. If the religious right is trying to figure out why their agenda has disappeared from the Republican agenda, they need go no further than Mary.

In the meantime, Jon Stewart's response is, as usual, brilliant.

Let's say Strom Thurmond, who advocated for segregation, let's say he ended up having a black daughter. Would it not point out the rank hypocrisy of his political positions and the cowardice in not fighting for the human rights for your own flesh and blood?

And Stacy Shiff weighed in as a guest at the New York Times.

There are now officially only two people left in America who don't want to talk about their kids. When Jim Webb bowed out of that White House receiving line, President Bush tracked him down and asked after his son. Senator Webb is a former Navy secretary; he knows his protocol. He is also one of only a few members of the U.S. Senate with children serving in the military. "I'd like to get them out of Iraq, Mr. President," Mr. Webb replied. "That's not what I asked you," Mr. Bush snapped. Mr. Webb didn't really mean to answer, either. Evidently, he meant to slug the president.


Last week Wolf Blitzer asked Dick Cheney about his pregnant lesbian daughter. The vice president looked as if his arm had made contact with that meat grinder. Mr. Blitzer was, he growled, seriously out of line.


Neither Senator Webb nor Vice President Cheney wins points for his social graces. But what Letitia Baldrige said of the Webb encounter — "It was an uncivil reply to an uncivil remark" — does not apply equally to the vice president. Mr. Cheney has openly promoted an anti-gay agenda. His own base has called his daughter's pregnancy unconscionable. Family values have been his calling card. And our Prohibitionist vice president can't summon the courage to address the gin mill in the basement?


Mr. Webb was rude on principle; Mr. Cheney rude out of hypocrisy. One man took a stand. The other scurried away.


What the vice president's nonresponse did deliver was a very cogent message: the rules apply to you, but not to us. It's our privacy, your patriotism; our delusion, your sacrifice; our tax cuts, your kids. After all, as Mr. Cheney so tellingly said of his Republican critics, "I'm the vice president, and they're not." The part for which some of us have no stomach is the sense of entitlement.


An annoying thing about children is that they nudge you toward the high road and the long view. They demand pesky things like open-mindedness, self-denial, accountability, leadership and occasionally even integrity — qualities that appear to have packed up and gone home with Hans Blix. Once upon a time, you might have termed them family values.

The Right Wing Goes After Cheney

This is all so strange. First came the attack on Mary Cheney from an organization that purports to be concerned about families: Two Mommies is One Too Many. In this screed, James Dobson picks on what is probably the least common source of families that don't have one mother and one father: the gay family. Dobson is probably aware that divorce and abandonment are the big culprits when it comes to the breakdown of our families, and he does allude to that here:

Isn't there something in our hearts that tells us, intuitively, that children need a mother and a father? Admittedly, that ideal is not always possible. Divorce, death, abandonment and unwed pregnancy have resulted in an ever growing number of single-parent families in this culture.

Now, James Dobson has never asked for a constitutional amendment banning divorce. But perhaps that's because it's not really the children that motivate Dobson, it's the politics. Calling for a Til-Death-Do-Us-Part Amendment wouldn't motivate people to get to the polls nearly as well as hating gays does (especially when you consider the divorce rate among Dobson's followers). But this story gets even stranger when you see how Cheney responds to an an attack from his biggest supporters -- people who believe that his daugher Mary is not fit to be a mother and that she won't be fit until she finds herself a man:

[O]ur conviction is that birth and adoption are the purview of married heterosexual couples.

He just shuts down. Perhaps this is evidence that Cheney has reached a point of cognitive dissonance -- in this situation, he can only come off as a bad father or a hypocrite, and he knows it. He doesn't want to hurt his daugher, but he also can't piss off his base, so he's covering his ears and shrieking "la lala lala" and waiting for the subject to change (he never thought he'd be relieved to hear the conversation return to the disaster in Iraq!). You can watch Cheney's response here, or read the transcript here.

I wonder if Cheney privately told James Dobson to mind is own freakin' business? Or perhaps that's yet another occasion for Cheney's multiple standards.

Ironically, Cheney hasn't said anything that I've seen to defend his daughter, or his future grandchild, against the incredibly vicious attacks from his own supporters. But when CNN asks about the controversy, suddenly CNN is out of line for bringing the issue up. So, it's okay for Cheney's religious right buddies to openly attack his daughter and grandkid, but it's not okay for the media to ask about the controversy.

What does the Bible tell me?

What does the Bible say about homosexuality? Filmmaker Daniel Karslake explores the question in For the Bible Tells Me So, which has been selected as a featured documentary film at Sundance.

With a keen sense of irony, Karslake focuses on the family. Through the unfolding of five very moving stories of Christian families with a gay or lesbian member and the reflections of major biblical scholars, the film examines what, if anything, the Bible actually says about homosexuality as we know it today.

Karslake is not alone in suggesting that religious leaders who use the Bible to encourage their followers to hate homosexuals might need to check their theology. Dianne tipped me off to the movie, and also recommends a book that examines this topic, What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality. Perhaps this could be the beginning of a dialogue on the topic -- especially if the film is well-received at Sundance...