Family Research Council a hate group?

You betcha.

Well, the Southern Poverty Law Center declared them to be such and they took umbrage. Must have hurt their little feelings to think all they do for Jay-zuz could ever be characterized as hate speech. As one link at TMC says: "FRC's Tony Perkins Rips SPLC ... For 'Slanderous Attack And Attempted Character Assassination'."

Clutch the pearls, Tony. (And I would not be surprised if Mr. Perkins has some pearls to clutch.)

John Aravosis has a lengthy list of comments from them over the years that pretty well demonstrates what I consider hate speech against gays. If all you knew of homosexual persons came from the FRC you'd assume we all hate children (when we're not molesting them), family, and Jesus and are bent on destroying society. You would be convinced, despite all logic, that equal rights are "special rights."

Of course, if gays disappeared from the planet tomorrow FRC would go broke, losing the bogeyman they use to raise money. They need us like lung cancer needs a lung.

If you're one of the folks being talked about by the Family Research Council, you know hate when you hear it. Mr. Perkins can shove his indignation and his pearls somewhere quivering with guilty desire. And yes, that's hate speech. I am not about to play nice with those vile people.

--the BB

It would be an act of charity

It would be an act of charity to articulate a fourth option on the Mosquemania that is sweeping the country. Here are the three I see.

1. Certain sincere individuals are woefully ignorant. They are ignorant concerning Islam, al Quran, and Sufism; concerning the United States Constitution; concerning geography; concerning history; concerning the proper respective roles of the federal, state, and local governments; and concerning reality in general. They are to be pitied.

2. Other individuals are unreconstructed bigots who cannot see beyond their fears and hatred. They may also fall into the first category or they may, conceivably, even know better, but their desire to defend their imagined status leads them to harbor, and currently spew, the most toxic fear and venom. The first step in casting out a demon is naming it, so let's all admit they're bigots and stop listening to their poison.

3. A third category are the demagogues who manipulate ignorance, fear, and hatred to achieve their political ends. This would include Pam Geller who started this whole thing, Newt Gingrich and the others who rile the masses over NOTHING in order to distract from real issues, tear down the current administration, mobilize voters, and raise money. They are detestable and are nothing but manipulative hypocrites. They should be denounced at every opportunity.

So, if you have some more categories for people allegedly or actually freaking over a Muslim community center that is not even in sight of Ground Zero, please share them.

I suppose there is an adjunct category of Democrats who wet their pants every time the right wing suggests they might be communists, fascists, socialists, Muslims, weak on defense, anti-American, or any other category that makes the Baby Jesus cry. We need some leaders on all sides to stand up and say, "This is bullshit. Now get back to work." I am pleased that several Republicans have called BS on this. Kudos to them.

Faux News, of course, falls in category 3. The mainstream media need to calm the temperature on this by not falling for the machinations of the manipulators. And they need to call out bigotry. There is nothing more un-American than saying no mosques should be built in this nation. It is nothing but ignorance, bigotry, or demagoguery.

While the nations roils in this crap the corporations continue to work behind the scenes to hang on to their power and extend it when possible. Whether we start combat operations or "end" combat operations, KBR makes out like a bandit. There is nothing in so-called health care reform to keep insurance premiums from rising. Google and Verizon are working very hard to undermine net neutrality and wrest power from the people and put it into the hands of the corporations. Corporations may now spend unlimited money to influence elections thanks to the Roberts Court. The employment situation sucks and is getting suckier while corporations still make profits (this is what we call a "jobless recovery"). Companies are hanging on to their capital (for what? executive bonuses?) instead of investing it in hiring. People who are willing to listen to science instead of reject it are well aware we are heading into a global crisis with climate change, which means more extreme weather and its sequelae: floods, heat waves, drought, rising ocean levels, crop failures, increased competition for scarce resources, and the movement of populations and wars that always attend these. Yet we lag horribly in shifting our economy and investment strategies toward renewable energy and more responsible ways of living together and commuting. One fifth of Pakistan is under water. There are immense crop losses and loss of life in Russian from the heat wave and fires. Haiti has still not recovered from the earthquake.

And we get riled up over a community center in a neighborhood that is already full of various houses of worship and establishments of sleaze. There is nothing sacred about the street on which the center was to be built.

I predict the United States will fall through stupidity. I don't know when but no empire has lasted forever. I do not wish this, but it is increasingly difficult to believe otherwise.

--the BB

NSFW

Most words fail me. [The obscenities will come through. After all, the topic is a vast obscenity.]

What is it with 2010? Is this? "THE YEAR OF TRYING TO OUT-BIGOT ALL THE OTHER ASSHOLES"?

Granted, I have never had any use for the American Family Association, a bunch of christianist fear mongers raising lots of money off the anxieties of people they regularly stir up. Whatever position they take on anything, the odds are excellent that I will hold the opposite, as I have no use for heterosexist dominionists.

But really, folks, the levels of ignorance, fear, intolerance, hatred - and let's call it by its name - bigotry that has risen like a gigantic shitstorm over the proposed building of an Islamic center in New York leaves one whomperjawed.

Folks who gain power or make money on other people's fears have entered some dark pact and conjured up a dark, mindless, slavering being that threatens to take over the land. Sweet church-going people are being led to fall down before the beast (whose name is IGNORANCE and BIGOTRY, let the reader understand).

I'm gonna name it: it's fucking satanic.

Get a grip, people! If you know that little about another major religion of the world you need to shut up and educate yourself.



Jillian Rayfield reports at TPM:

Bryan Fischer, the "Director of Issues Analysis" for the American Family Association, wrote a blog post yesterday on the AFA's site arguing that the United States should have "no more mosques, period."

"This is for one simple reason," he writes. "Each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government."

How's this little tidbit?

If a mosque was willing to publicly renounce the Koran and its 109 verses that call for the death of infidels, renounce Allah and his messenger Mohammed, publicly condemn Osama bin Laden, Hamas, and Abdelbaset al Megrahi (the Lockerbie bomber), maybe then they could be allowed to build their buildings. But then they wouldn't be Muslims at that point, now would they?

What if a church had to renounce the Bible and all the verses that call for the death of infidels, renounced G-d and his son Jesus, condemned the crusades of every era and their leaders (including all the religiously motivated Christian terrorists of our day) before being granted building permits? Hmm?

Am I hearing crickets now?

People like this are why Anne Rice felt she couldn't follow Christ without renouncing Christianity.

This is not something that arose spontaneously.

The Times report, however, descends into a kind of "liberal" media known-nothingism when it comes to how this became a controversy, suggesting that " a combination of arguable naïveté, public-relations missteps and a national political climate in which perhaps no preparation could have headed off controversy." This is a remarkable formula that manages to place the blame everywhere except where it belongs -- on a right-wing smear machine that went into overdrive in an effort to portray Rauf and Khan as terrorist sympathizers, an experience no one outside of contemporary partisan politics could have possibly been prepared for. The conservative media lied about the location of the project, they lied about Rauf's background, they lied about the project's funding, they lied about when the project would be built, and they lied about Rauf's political beliefs. And it would have been one thing if it had just been a small group of people lying, but they had an entire cable news station to lie for them, and politicians who were willing to amplify their smears. This controversy isn't about the "political climate." It's the fruit of a conscious, deliberate, and sustained effort. [Crooks and Liars]

Digby comments:

Normally I would think we could ride out this latest wave of nativism and racism, but there are two factors that make it more dangerous than usual. The first, of course, is the economy which looks like it's not going to recover smartly thus giving this impulse more oxygen than it might otherwise have. The second is that the right wing demagogues have an entire industry now devoted to creating and nurturing these wedge issues for political and financial gain. The culture warriors have just shifted their strategy away from "family values" to their other stand-by, "stop the boogeyman." It's all part of the same throwback tapestry, but different times require difference emphasis. We're officially in the "the foreigners and blacks are ruining everything" portion of the show.

At least one cretin on the right have suggested building a gay bar next to the center to freak out the Muslims. It is to laugh.

If you look at this picture, and you’re not too stupid to breathe (sorry, wingnuts!), you should immediately see two things that make this whole “let’s put a gay bar by the Cordoba House and see liberal heads explode!” wishful thinking look even stupider than it is on its surface: 1) There are three gay bars within .1 mile of the Cordoba House and 2) They are all as close or closer to the Cordoba House than the WTC is. [Amanda Marcotte at Pandagon]

Furthermore, you might want to check out what Maha has to share with us:

Someone here had said that Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, the main guy behind the Cordoba House Islamic center, is a Sufi. This is a detail I have yet to see in a news story, but I can confirm it is true. He is the imam of a Sufi mosque in lower Manhattan, about ten blocks north of the proposed Cordoba House site.

Thus, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf is not connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. I can say this because there is no way the Muslim Brotherhood, or al Qaeda, or the Taliban, or any other organization dedicated to enforcing dogmatic Sunni Islam would have anything to do with a Sufi. In fact, Sufis in the Middle East have suffered terribly from attacks by Sunni terrorists.

[snip]

Sufism is mystical Islam. Dogmatists don’t get mysticism. This is true of the dogmatists of all religions. It is often the case that mystics from different traditions understand each other better than the dogmatists of the same tradition.

The idea that all Muslims are somehow part of the same conspiracy is absurd enough, but to put Sufis in the same boat as jihadist is just plain ignorance.

The endless stream of deliberate lies and misinformation filtered through blind passion makes one feel that an immense pustule has been burst and we are drowning in a flood of sanguinopurulent hatred. [Yes, I've been waiting for decades to use the word "sanguinopurulent" in a sentence.]

And before you denounce the small minority of hate mongers in Islam you really should look to your own house and denounce the hate mongers in Christianity. I mean, really. Way overdue.

Jesus weeps.

--the BB

I'm obviously not very original - a follow-up

Someone came to this site this morning via a Google search on "kenneth starr asshole." There were plenty of hits.

I have become a cliché machine in my own lifetime. Sigh.

Then again, I'm Number Two on the list.

Just did the search myself. There are 57,100 hits for it (in case you are curious about statistics).

Did I mention that Ken Starr is an asshole?
--the BB

He's still a sex-obsessed asshole

Ken Starr, I mean.

The sponsors of Proposition 8 asked the California Supreme Court on Friday to nullify the marriages of the estimated 18,000 same-sex couples who exchanged vows before voters approved the ballot initiative that outlawed gay unions.

The Yes on 8 campaign filed a brief arguing that because the new law holds that only marriages between a man and a woman are recognized or valid in California, the state can no longer recognize the existing same-sex unions.

"Proposition 8's brevity is matched by its clarity. There are no conditional clauses, exceptions, exemptions or exclusions," reads the brief co-written by Pepperdine University law school dean Kenneth Starr, the former independent counsel who investigated President Bill Clinton....

The measure's backers announced Friday that Starr, a former federal judge and U.S. solicitor general, had signed on as their lead counsel and would argue the cases.

From the Sacramento Bee

And some people think we are overreacting to Rick Warren. I think they fail to grasp that he is part of a much larger whole and that he embodies it for us.

Now, I'm not kicking Obama to the curb over this, but I am ticked. I am in a "wait and see" mode overall. But if I were an Obama fund-raiser, I would not want to be calling me any time in the immediate future.

I would also like to see the media and progressives respond quite firmly whenever anyone pulls out this "marriage has always been between one man and one woman" line by saying, "That's not true." Because it isn't. Not even in the Bible. Perhaps especially not in the Bible. (700 wives and 300 concubines for the man who built the Temple in Jerusalem, for instance.) We need to make it known, as clearly and as loudly as necessary that some things are simply not true.

And granting falsehoods equal time with truth is not fair and balanced; it's stupid, disingenuous, and perpetrates gross harm on public discourse.

Did I mention that Kenneth Starr is a sex-obsessed asshole?

h/t to eugene