Things That Make Me Go Hmmm….

So, I’m trolling the ‘web and come across this story about the ACLU and SPLC making some noise over wretched conditions at a private Mississippi prison, right? The story is in the Salt Lake Tribune because the prison operator is based out of Utah. So far, so good.

And I click on the linkie and see this picture:

And read this photo caption:

(Jane Marquardt, right, is vice chair of Management Training Corporation. She is seen here with her spouse Tami Marquardt. MTC operates a Mississippi prison the ACLU calls “barbaric.” Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune) ; 11/18/2003

I just found that kinda strange. That’s the picture you run with this story? The one that screams LESBIAN LESBIAN LESBIAN all over it? I find it odd. Especially since, as the story clearly states:

Centerville, Utah, company Management and Training Corp. operates the prison, but is not named as a defendant.

No, the defendant is the Mississippi Department of Corrections. But fine, the operator is based out of Utah, so there’s a local angle to the story. I get that. But the LESBIAN LESBIAN LESBIAN photo thing? Seems weird.

Is it me?

[UPDATE]:

I just threw this post up last night, but the more I think about it, the weirder this is. Why didn’t they use a picture of this dude?

That’s Bob Marquardt, the company’s founder. I’m guessing he’s the father or some other relative of Jane Marquardt, the LESBIAN in the picture they did use.

Or how about this dude:

That’s Scott Marquardt, the actual president of the company.

According to the MTC website, Jane Marquardt is vice chair of the company’s board of directors, and the company’s “international business development director.” She’s also an attorney, so maybe that’s why they used her photo in this story? But it really seems odd editorial judgment to me. Again, the company isn’t even a defendant in the Mississippi case. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the Salt Lake Tribune is trying to draw some nefarious connection between a “barbaric” prison in Mississippi and ZOMG LESBIANS.

It’s that liberal media again.

Republican Lady Doesn’t Understand Gay People AT ALL

This from Georgia GOP Chairwoman Sue Everhart confuses me:

“Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this, but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” Everhart said. “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

Umm …. Whew. Okay, you know? Let’s just let that one slide. Maybe someone in Georgia can send Sue Everhart a video or something so she can figure it out.

No, here’s the part that’s gotten all of the headlines today:

Everhart said while she respects all people, if same sex marriage is legalized across the country, there will be fraud.

“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow,” Everhart said. “Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

LOL. Yes, it’s always, always all about the free ride with Republicans, isn’t it? Hilarious.

I just have one question: say you’re a straight person wanting a “free ride” — maybe it’s getting on someone’s health insurance. Why would a straight person marry someone of the same sex to get that free ride? Why wouldn’t they just marry someone of the opposite sex? I mean, I’m sure that’s happened. We’ve all heard of green card marriages and whatnot. It’s not like straight people didn’t invent the marriage of convenience a thousand years ago.

So, that made no sense to me. Also, this:

Everhart said if she had a young child, she wouldn’t want them to have gay parents who would influence that child’s sexual orientation.

You know, there’s this amazing fun fact that Sue Everhart needs to consider: the vast majority of gay people had straight parents! I know, totally weird, huh?

I think this Republican lady just doesn’t like gays and lesbians. Who agrees with me? When your arguments are that half-baked and flimsy, you’ve gotta admit that the problem isn’t the “free ride” or “the children” or “the sex.” The problem, Sue Everhart, is you.

By the way, if you read the comments on that Marietta Daily Journal story you’ll be treated to cavalcade of twisted logic (and also some good common sense). I liked poster Just A Thought, who had this to offer:

If the argument being used in the court is gays have an inherant civil right to marry, doesn’t that argument then apply to the unborn having an inherant civil right to life? There is a much bigger argument here than gay marriage being right or wrong.

Huh? Not seeing what same-sex marriage has to do with the anti-abortion issue at all. Maybe someone can clue me in.

Leaving The Cult

Following the exit of people like Libby Phelps-Alvarez, two women have left the cult known as the Westboro Baptist Church; one, Meghan Phelps-Roper, was in charge of the group’s “social media.” From this interview she gave to gay Christian author Jeff Chu, social media played a big part in her release from the cult’s ideological grip:

Her departure has hurt them already—she knew it would—yet there was no way she could stay. “My doubts started with a conversation I had with David Abitbol,” she says. Megan met David, an Israeli web developer who’s part of the team behind the blog Jewlicious, on Twitter. “I would ask him questions about Judaism, and he would ask me questions about church doctrine. One day, he asked a specific question about one of our signs—‘Death Penalty for Fags’—and I was arguing for the church’s position, that it was a Levitical punishment and as completely appropriate now as it was then. He said, ‘But Jesus said’—and I thought it was funny he was quoting Jesus—‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.’ And then he connected it to another member of the church who had done something that, according to the Old Testament, was also punishable by death. I realized that if the death penalty was instituted for any sin, you completely cut off the opportunity to repent. And that’s what Jesus was talking about.”

I’m always fascinated by cults, cult-like groups, and those belief systems which offer their members certainty, but only so long as no one looks outside the bubble at opposing views. It seems like a very delicate balance to strike: “our belief system is the One True Way to salvation/prosperity/greatness/ whatever but by all means, don’t look at any other alternatives because that would be Wrong.”

In particular I’m curious about the precipitating events which cause people to suddenly “wake up” — the thing that penetrates the shield of indoctrination and pops that bubble. For Meghan Phelps-Roper it was a Jewish person pointing out the error of WBC’s devotion to one passage of Leviticus and blindness to the rest. For Paul Haggis, it was reading Scientology’s Tommy Davis lie to the press about the church’s disconnection policy, a church-ordered shunning of “suppressives,” since the Haggises had been forced to do this to members of their own family who had left Scientology. Vyckie Garrison left the Quiverfull movement when one of her kids attempted suicide, and she realized the promise of perfect Christian family life was a hoax.

I know several Mormons who broke from the church-induced fog after realizing that nothing in the Book of Mormon is archeologically accurate: horses, oxen, goats, cattle, barley and wheat were all introduced to the New World after Columbus’ arrival, though they are mentioned several times in the Book of Mormon. That got them wondering why, for instance, you can go to Israel and visit places named in the Old Testament and archaeologists are still uncovering shards of antiquity in that part of the world, but nothing from the Book of Mormon has been uncovered in America.

It seems like the precipitating event is always something comparatively small or inconsequential; I mean, Paul Haggis, really? The whole Xenu thing didn’t get you but church officials lying to the St. Petersburg newspaper did? But I get it, I do. It’s easy to believe the fantastical thing, it’s the mundane day-to-day stuff that trips people up.

These aren’t epiphanies, they’re drops of reality that boink a person on the head at just the right time, causing them to have one of those “hey, wait a minute” moments. In America’s political world, I’m convinced Hurricane Katrina was just such a moment, it was a bucket-load of reality that hit millions of people square in the face and showed that government really isn’t the enemy, small government really doesn’t work, and Republican government really doesn’t function. That started it and the right-wing bubble kept getting hit with more bunker-busting reality bombs: the real estate bubble bursting, the economic collapse, Republican Senators embracing TARP, Alan Greenspan’s mea culpa, and on, and on.

Another important reality bomb was the last presidential election. This one hit people waaay inside the bubble, the Kool-aid drinkers who really, truly believed the polls were skewed and Fox News was the only unbiased media source. The election results proved every one of their experts wrong, and Fox is now scrambling to regain its credibility.

Conservatives are frantically at work at their rebranding effort, though if columns like this RedState piece are any indication, they still seem to think the problem is not their failed ideas but their failed image. Here’s an actual screenshot from that RedState.com story:

In other words, don’t change the thing that needs to be changed. Awesome! Enjoy repeating this process over and over again then, because these reality bombs will keep falling.

Leaving cults is scary because you really do feel alone. You can’t cross over to the other side, which has been your sworn enemy for so long. But you can’t go back to that old way of thinking, either.

I suspect Karl Rove is trying to offer a life raft to those folks who feel disillusioned and abandoned by the failures of conservatism these past few years. Problem is, he’s so associated with those failures that I don’t think anyone wants to climb aboard with him.

What The Hell Is Wrong With Stacey Campfield

[UPDATE]:

Check out this hilarious exchange wherein Campfield (or someone posting as him) defends his “out the gay kids” part of his legislation.

———————————-

Fresh off his “suffer the little children” legislation, State Senator Stacey Campfield, R-Sociopath, has brought back his “Don’t Say Gay” legislation for the third time, this time with an extra helping of hate:

The bill, SB 234, still bars Tennessee teachers from discussing any facet of “non-heterosexual” sexuality with children in grades K-8. But the newest iteration also includes a provision requiring teachers or counselors to inform the parents of some students who identify themselves as LGBT.

What could possibly go wrong! Gee, I think if a kid felt safe talking to their parents about issues of sexual orientation, they wouldn’t be bringing it up with a school counselor in the first place, now would they? Dumbass.

Look, three things need to be said about Stacey Campfield:

1- What the hell is wrong with you, son? Did you not get enough titty when you were a baby? Were you born without a compassion gene? Are your shoes too tight?

2- The culture wars are over. Republicans lost. Give it up.

3- Finally, rumors about Campfield’s own orientation have been rampant for years. If they’re true, then dangit I sure wish someone would please just out Stacey Campfield already.

You know what? I’m only half joking here. Good grief, but I’ve never seen a straight man so obsessed with all things gay who didn’t eventually end up on the wrong end of a rentboy scandal. Certainly not these guys. There has to be a reason Campfield is focused like a laser on all things gay, and self-hate seems as good a reason as any.

Campfield’s hate is damaging GLBT kids. And no, teen suicide is not “a lark.” Just ask the family of Jadin Bell. If Campfield thinks it’s perfectly fine for the state to mandate outing gay or possibly gay or maybe not even gay but confused kids to their parents — to leave these kids with nowhere safe to go to talk about what’s happening in their lives — then I hope someone returns the favor.

Also, thank you very much New York. Campfield is yours, he’s from Binghamton and didn’t move to Tennessee until he was 25 years old. I’m tired of Tennessee getting blamed for his fuckery; we’ve got plenty of our own home-grown bigotry, please don’t saddle us with the blame for this asshat. I spent a summer in that part of the world and let me tell you, there are as many rednecks in upstate New York and Pennsylvania as in Tennessee.

And finally, hope you’re enjoying your Republican super-majority, Tennesseeans. This is what you get when you vote Republican: a bunch of bullshit about gays, and constitutional amendments banning stuff we’ve already banned three times before, because Tennessee Republicans are too lazy to vote unless the General Assembly uses the ol’ carrot-and-stick approach. So much for the important stuff.

A Restaurant Chain For The 27%

UPDATE:

Oh, shit.

—————————-

Niche Marketing

So, now that Chick-fil-A has become the latest battleground in the culture wars, I just have to wonder what kind of freak-out is going on in their corporate offices. The battle lines have been drawn — Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum vs the Jim Henson Company, the city of Chicago, the city of Boston, and these three ladies. Now the war has moved to social media sites, where Chick-fil-A has lost control of its Facebook account amid accusations of sockpuppetry.

With bigots and attention whores like Rick Santorum now serving as the face of your brand, I have to wonder if Dan Cathy isn’t wishing he’d kept his fat yap shut? You know, most fast food chains try to appeal to as broad a range of customers as possible. Chick-fil-A is narrowing its consumer base. They are now the face of right-wing, reactionary, Bible-thumping intolerance. Who thinks that’s a good brand identity?

This is a fast food chain which now appeals to the low-information, Fox News-watching, bigoted, spelling-challenged wing of the electorate.

Maybe this explains why they spell “chicken” incorrectly in their ads.

Stacy Campfield Follies

Crackpot “don’t say gay” State Senator Stacy Campfield’s homophobic statements have pissed off people in his hometown:

If the Vestal Board of Education doesn’t have a way to remove a controversial Tennessee state senator from its Hall of Fame, high school teacher Charlie Arbuiso has a suggestion: a screwdriver.

Sen. Stacey Campfield’s portrait hangs on Vestal High School’s Hall of Fame, alongside surgeons, an astronaut, educators and other prominent graduates. However, some Vestal alumni, staff and students feel the conservative senator’s picture should be taken down, based on comments he has made concerning homosexuality and AIDS. Campfield, who sponsored his state’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill that would ban teachers from discussing homosexuality, made national headlines in January following an interview on Sirius XM radio during which he discussed the origin and transmission of AIDS.

“If I as a teacher spewed his homophobic rhetoric, I would be fired on the spot,” said John Perricone, a Vestal Class of 1977 graduate who has taught at Maine-Endwell High School for 29 years. “If the students of your school made the comments, they would likely be suspended.”

Vestal High is in upstate New York. This was interesting:

Campfield, a member of the Class of 1986, was inducted in 2008. The Hall of Fame committee vetted Campfield at that time and didn’t encounter any statements similar to those he made in the past year, LaRoach said.

Seriously? Your vetting process is pretty piss-poor. It didn’t uncover Campfield’s attempt to join the legislative Black Caucus when he was a member of the Tennessee House. That was back in 2005, another one of his outrageous attempts to grab headlines by calling the Black Caucus racist. You missed his “let’s give aborted fetuses death certificates” bills. And a whole mess of “vaginas are scary” legislation. There’s been a lot of crazy, racist, misogynistic, ignorant crap issuing forth from Stacy Campfield long before this latest flap. Campfield is, in fact, a Tennessee laughing-stock, attention whore, and headline chaser. He’s the living embodiment of click-bait. So cut the crap. “Vetting” obviously didn’t happen.

I’m just curious how he got into his alma mater’s Hall of Fame to begin with. The application form is available online here, and it doesn’t look too complicated. Campfield is just the kind of fame whore to have nominated himself. I don’t know that he did that, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

Things That Make You Go WTF?

[UPDATE]:

Flip and FLOP….

——————————————–

Mitt Romney now says he supports the right of gay couples to adopt children.

This after stating unequivocally that he does not support marriage equality or even civil unions.

Note: back in February he bragged about trying to allow Massachusetts adoption agencies to discriminate against gay couples.

Holy flip-flop, Batman! In what universe is it okay to let gays adopt kids but not get married? How exactly is that supposed to work, Mittens? So a couple is supposed to just make do with some bizarro gray area of legal guardianship for their kids? I can see all sorts of problems with that scenario, things related to emergency care, travel overseas, and also: what about custody when a gay couple breaks up? No one ever talks about one of the main arguments for gay marriage which is, frankly, gay divorce. If you think a property settlement when you’re not married in the eyes of the law is a mess, just wait until you throw a couple kids into the mix. Or, I know: let’s ask Florida.

I mean, really. WTF?

You know what I think? I think someone’s views are “evolving,” in the sense that someone looked at some poll numbers and stuck his finger in the air and figured out which way the wind is blowing. And now he looks like a giant dumfuck because what he’s really advocating is some strange legal limbo for the children of gay couples.

I think what he’d really like to do is go back and say, “well, maybe civil unions … ” or something — anything — to cover his ass now that he looks like an intolerant bigot, especially after that whole bullying his gay classmate at prep school incident came out. Which he doesn’t remember but he’s really sorry for anyway.

Jesus, Mittens. Just learn to shut your gob if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

*POP*

It’s a gorgeous day in Nashville today. The sun is shining, the humidity is low, the temperatures are mild. The birds are singing and rabbits are hopping through the yard.

So, we survived the first sitting president of the United States coming out in support of marriage equality. The earth has not swallowed America and the skies have not been darkened by an army of Sodomite angels.

Heh.

But the response from right-wingers has been more like this:

Dramatic Frog Is Ready For His Close-Up

People, I do not have the patience for another round of right-wing hysteria over being on the wrong side of the culture wars. I do not have the stomach for another “national conversation” over this shit. I’m so over it. I don’t want to hear the half-truths, exaggerations and outright lies, where Fox News pundits outline the extreme, fact-free position (“Obama will force churches to perform gay weddings!”) and the “mainstream media” soberly muses that they may have a point!

I am not sure I can handle another round of commentary from the likes of Jim “Dim” Hoft, the dumbest man on the internet, who writes:

I don’t have a problem with gay unions. I do have a problem with a president pushing a law on the people with the specific intent of punishing the Church and Christian Americans.

What law is Obama pushing here? Anyone? Bueller?

Ah, the irony of Rush Limbaugh bloviating about the president launching a “war on traditional marriage”! It has been lost on no one:

Shut Yer Pie-Hole You Hypocritical Oaf

Time for a news fast. The world is just too lovely to wade into the cesspool of right wing hysteria today.

Dear Log Cabin Republicans: STFU

Oh fer fuck’s sake. Someone needs to explain to me why the Log Cabin Republicans even exist. Within minutes of President Obama telling an interviewer that ..

“…for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married…”

… the Log Cabin Republicans responded thusly:

“That the president has chosen today, when LGBT Americans are mourning the passage of Amendment One, to finally speak up for marriage equality is offensive and callous,” said R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director. “Log Cabin Republicans appreciate that President Obama has finally come in line with leaders like Vice President Dick Cheney on this issue, but LGBT Americans are right to be angry that this calculated announcement comes too late to be of any use to the people of North Carolina, or any of the other states that have addressed this issue on his watch. This administration has manipulated LGBT families for political gain as much as anybody, and after his campaign’s ridiculous contortions to deny support for marriage equality this week he does not deserve praise for an announcement that comes a day late and a dollar short.”

Oh really? And which party has brought shit like Amendment One into existence? Would it be the Republican Party? Why yes it would. Here’s an idea: stop supporting Republicans who hate you! Idiots.

Here’s another idea: stop blaming the Democratic president for shit that’s more your fault than his.

And here’s a final thought: maybe you should rethink your reason for existence. Really. I don’t get you people, in the same way I didn’t get the black Confederate dude marching through Dixie a few years ago.

Seems like if your interest is free market lollipops and a muscular national defense, you’d have a better chance of achieving those goals with the party that lets you have a seat at the table, not the party who tells the presidential candidate’s gay spokesman to “shut up” in a media conference call before he’s sent packing. Just sayin’ guys.

And you dare reference “leaders” like former Vice President Dick Cheney? How many public statements supporting marriage equality did he make in his eight years as vice president? That would be zip. Nope, he never showed any “leadership” in support of his gay daughter’s civil rights, but whoo boy the Cheneys sure called for the fainting couches when John Kerry mentioned Mary’s orientation at a debate. Then it was all, “how dare you!” What a hideous bag of hypocrisy.

I mean, seriously. If you want all of those bipartisan unicorns and a “divided government” where right and left are forced to come together to hash out a happy compromise, well by all means, ignore the Republicans. They’ve established their position, and it ain’t budging a whit. The Republicans wear cement shoes with soles of super glue. If you want give and take, compromise, I’ll-accept-some-of-what-you–want-if-you-accept-some-of-what-I-want, then what you want is to ditch the Republicans. Because the Democrats have a big tent and they’re undisciplined and loyalty is not synonymous with a life sentence for them. Progressives have been thrown under the bus so many times we have tire tracks permanently tattooed on our asses.

But no. The Log Cabin Republicans care more about the “Republican” part than the Log Cabin part. They are either completely divorced from reality, believing they can somehow change the ossified GOP, or else they really don’t give a shit about gay issues.

You will never, ever change the Republican Party, folks. This is the party still fighting birth control, fer crissakes. You think they’re going to welcome you with open arms?

Please.

And this is somehow Obama’s fault? Get a clue, folks.

Today In Tennessee Gay Hate

The hits just keep on a-coming:

LENOIR CITY — An article in the Lenoir City High School yearbook describing the life of a gay student has ignited a storm of controversy that has spilled over onto local blogs and is threatening to disrupt upcoming graduation ceremonies.

The article — “It’s OK to be Gay” — was written by the yearbook’s student staff to profile the experiences of gay student Zac Mitchell.

An article titled “It’s OK to be Gay” in the student yearbook? What could possibly go wrong!

According to students, petitions were being circulated urging others to tear the page from their yearbook as a sign of protest during graduation or to deny Mitchell the right to attend the ceremony.

The 17-year-old student who wrote the article said she was afraid to have her name published.

“There have been threats made starting with, ‘If I found out who wrote the story,’ ” she said.

On his blog, Loudon County school board member Van Shaver called for a criminal investigation into the faculty advisers. Shaver said he believes in being tolerant of an others’ life choices but said he is concerned that the students are being unduly influenced.

This comes right on the heels of national attention for Krystal Meyers, the Lenoir City High student who was denied permission to publish her personal essay, “No Rights: The Life Of An Atheist” in the school newspaper she edits.

This, and the recently-defeated “don’t say gay” legislation, has me wondering if the “controversy” hasn’t been ginned up. Then again, who knows: maybe the halls of the Lenoir City High School really are ground zero for the culture wars.

I dunno. Are students really petitioning the high school to not allow Zac Mitchell to graduate? This sounds like some adult’s idea, like maybe Loudon County school board member Van Shaver’s? Again, I haven’t been in high school since dinosaurs walked the earth, but really? Kids are gonna rip out a page of their yearbook to protest a gay student telling his story? This doesn’t smell right to me. This looks like the 2012 version of rainbow parties.

It would be nice if we could hear from the actual students on this.