In re: Ann Coulter, Andrew Sullivan, pictured above with Compassionate Conservative™ Mary Matalin, almost gets it right, once in a while:  Read more 

Personally, I don’t give two shits. As Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the actress, once said:

Does it really matter what these affectionate people do—so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses!

But the Christianists, having disguised their own warped sociological and psychological reasons as theology, care deeply. And so Ted Haggard, erm, went down.

Now there’s another one! Via TPM, this:

On Sunday, Paul Barnes, founding pastor of the 2,100-member Grace Chapel in this Denver suburb, told his evangelical congregation in a videotaped message he had had sexual relations with other men and was stepping down.

On the videotape, which The Post was allowed to view, Barnes told church members: “I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy. … I can’t tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.”

Thanks, Christianists. Thanks a bunch, you twisted fucks. Thanks for twisting and wrecking the mind and soul and spirit of this five-year-old boy, and so many like him.

Try reason. Here are the reasons I can think of why the Gof of Paul Barnes’s Choice didn’t “take this away.”  Read more 

(Sorry for the redundancy of “bogus Christianists. And mad props to Dan Savage for that Santorum Improvised Informational Device.) Savage speaks:

Well, my fundie friends, did you see that letter of apology Haggard wrote to his congregation? I’d like to wrap it around a brick and shove it up all of your fat asses. … Haggard copped to “sexual immorality” and described himself as “a deceiver and a liar.” Those details made it into most of the headlines. These details didn’t:

“Describing a lifelong battle against temptations that were contrary to his teachings,” says the Denver Post, “[Haggard] had sought assistance ’in a variety of ways,’ and while he had stretches of ’freedom,’ nothing proved effective. ’There is a part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I’ve been warring against it all of my adult life,’ Haggard wrote.” [Emphasis added.]

If you believe that Jesus Christ can change the sexual orientation of a believer, why on earth did he refuse to cure Haggard? Haggard founded a church that has 14,000 members! Thousands were brought to Christ by Haggard’s preaching. Mixed in with Ted’s meth-fueled gay-sex romps and hypocritical gay-bashings were, without a doubt, thousands of good works.

Did Jesus help Haggard out? No. Haggard struggled with temptation all his life. He tried to battle off his “dark” desires, but nothing proved effective. There was no cure for Haggard, no miracle. No matter how long he struggled, no matter how much faith he had, Haggard’s sexual orientation remained unchanged. Nothing helped. Not prayer, not Jesus H. Christ on his cross.

Nothing.

If giving his heart to Jesus couldn’t cure Haggard, what hope is there for the likes of me? If Jesus can’t be bothered to work a miracle for the most powerful evangelical minister in the country, what “hope” is there for the average dyke?

None.

The ex-gay thing is over. It’s dead. It was bullshit from the start, and it’s bullshit now. And I will personally track down and bitch-slap the next fundie douche who sends me an e-mail explaining how Jesus can cure me.  Read more 

From USA Today, the newspaper in front of the door at every hotel in America, the mainstream view:

Religion’s only real commodity, after all, is its moral authority. Lose that, and we lose our credibility. Lose credibility, and we might as well close up shop.

It’s happened to Christianity before, most famously when we dug in our heels over Galileo’s challenge to the biblical view that the Earth, rather than the sun, was at the center of our solar system. You know the story. Galileo was persecuted for what turned out to be incontrovertibly true. For many, especially in the scientific community, Christianity never recovered.

This time, Christianity is in danger of squandering its moral authority by continuing its pattern of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the face of mounting scientific evidence that sexual orientation has little or nothing to do with choice. To the contrary, whether sexual orientation arises as a result of the mother’s hormones or the child’s brain structure or DNA, it is almost certainly an accident of birth. The point is this: Without choice, there can be no moral culpability.

So, why are so many church leaders (not to mention Orthodox Jewish and Muslim leaders) persisting in their view that homosexuality is wrong despite a growing stream of scientific evidence that is likely to become a torrent in the coming years? The answer is found in Leviticus 18. “You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is an abomination.”

As a former “the Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it” kind of guy, I am sympathetic with any Christian who accepts the Bible at face value. But here’s the catch. Leviticus is filled with laws imposing the death penalty for everything from eating catfish to sassing your parents. If you accept one as the absolute, unequivocal word of God, you must accept them all.  Read more 

Truthout:

Palmer, who shares a townhouse with Hastert when they are in town, is more powerful than all but a few House members. Members know that he speaks for Hastert.  Read more 

Gay Republicans — we can’t get away from them. Andrew Sullivan is in the kitchen now, drinking me wife’s tea! Gaah! They’re even now peeking out from inside me wife’s blouse! I can’t even take a bath without six or seven gay Republicans jumping in with me! Oh, God!

CBS’ Gloria Borger, after Foley’s former chief of staff, Kirk Fordham, who is gay, claimed he warned GOP leaders about Foley: “CBS News has learned that several other top Republican staffers who handled the Foley matter are also gay. Their role in this controversy has caused a firestorm among Republican conservatives….”

Excuse me, did you just say “CBS News has learned that several other top Republican staffers who handled the Foley matter are also gay”?  Read more 

I mean, really- some of this stuff just writes itself. From the ever delectable Fox News, one of the spawn of Phelps and a daily Bobblehead get touchy feely:

“What would you do if you had a son in the military?” an outraged Banderas asked. “Would you damn him to hell as well? Because you’re gonna join him there if you had a son!”

“I have eight sons and I have three daughters,” responded Phelps-Roper, “and none of them would dare, dare fight for a nation who has made God their No. 1 enemy.”Who’s a terrorist, again?  Read more