Robert O'Brien Nominee: Rick Santorum

Last updated on: August 12, 2011 at 9:03 am By Ed Brayton

Here’s Rick Santorum in an interview with Tony Perkins:

Santorum: Yeah. They want to force their worldview on us and they’re using this idea of ‘equality,’ which is absurd. This has nothing to do with how two people want to live their lives. It has everything to do with an agenda that is ultimately going to destroy the family, weaken the family and weaken our religious liberties in this country. This is going to transform, you know, the left is very enthusiastic about this agenda because it is an opportunity to get after the things that they see standing in the way of them taking control, more control of your lives, which is the family and the church. And so what better to do that than by destroying the institution of marriage and by saying anybody who opposes them is a bigot and therefore, and that includes people in the clergy.

You see, on Planet Wingnuttia, using the law to prevent gays from getting married increases liberty, while allowing them to do so means more government control. Also on that planet, allowing gays to get married destroys all straight marriages. Any similarities between Wingnuttia and Earth are entirely non-existent.

Robert O’Brien Nominee: Rick Santorum

Last updated on: August 12, 2011 at 9:03 am By Ed Brayton

Here’s Rick Santorum in an interview with Tony Perkins:

Santorum: Yeah. They want to force their worldview on us and they’re using this idea of ‘equality,’ which is absurd. This has nothing to do with how two people want to live their lives. It has everything to do with an agenda that is ultimately going to destroy the family, weaken the family and weaken our religious liberties in this country. This is going to transform, you know, the left is very enthusiastic about this agenda because it is an opportunity to get after the things that they see standing in the way of them taking control, more control of your lives, which is the family and the church. And so what better to do that than by destroying the institution of marriage and by saying anybody who opposes them is a bigot and therefore, and that includes people in the clergy.

FRC Hates Being Called Terrorists

Last updated on: August 8, 2011 at 11:01 am By Ed Brayton

People are freaking out about Vice President Joe Biden allegedly accusing the Tea Party crowd of acting like terrorists. I have no idea if he said it or not but he denies it and there’s not much evidence that he did. But the sheer hypocrisy of the Family Research Council on this one is simply breathtaking, as Right Wing Watch points out. On an American Family Association radio show, Tony Perkins and Ken Blackwell fired up the faux outrage machine:

Perkins: You have the comments being made by the Vice President of the United States … and he’s equating conservative members of Congress who are identified with the Tea Party as being terrorists and holding the nation hostage.

Blackwell: Well, that is just consistent with the strategy of define and destroy that the Left, headed up by the President and the Vice President, have been putting on us for the last couple of years … Look this is an attempt to define those who are asking tough questions not just as being rabble-rousers or folks who are really tough in pressing the issue, but as being terrorists. And this really has to stop.

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From the Department of Hyperbole

Last updated on: July 24, 2011 at 8:55 am By Ed Brayton

Here’s uber-bigot Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council saying he doesn’t think America can survive a second Obama term. Well as long as you’re being rational about this…

The Weakness of Christian Nationalism

Last updated on: June 30, 2011 at 9:23 am By Ed Brayton

Rep. Todd Akin, one of the leading members of The Family (aka the Fellowship, the shadowy group that owns the now-infamous C Street house), shared his outrage over NBC taking “under God” out of the pledge of allegiance with the ever-hysterical Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. The results were predictably ridiculous.

Akin: This was something that was done systematically, it was done intentionally, and is tremendously corrosive in terms of all of the values and everything that’s made America unique and such a special nation.

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Trump Could Get Religious Right Support

Last updated on: April 4, 2011 at 11:33 am By Ed Brayton

I don’t take a possible Donald Trump presidential run at all seriously, but apparently some prominent religious right figures do:

Some key national Evangelical leaders tell The Brody File that Donald Trump “may find support among social conservatives” if he runs for President and there’s a “growing curiosity” about him within Evangelical circles…

Ralph Reed, one of the top GOP strategists in the country and Chairman of the Faith and Freedom Coalition tells The Brody File, “There is a nascent and growing curiosity in the faith community about Trump. Evangelicals will like his pro-life and pro-marriage stances, combined with his business record and high-wattage celebrity all but guarantee he will get a close look from social conservatives as well as other Republican primary voters.” Tony Perkins, President of the Family Research Council is curious to hear more as well. “Given Donald Trump’s background in the gambling industry and his flamboyancy one would not think he would be a fit with Evangelical voters. However, given the wide open field of candidates, strong statements that Trump has recently made on core social issues combined with an overarching desire to see a new occupant in the White House, he may find support among social conservatives. “

A twice-divorced casino owner who trades in supermodel wives for newer models every 10 years is going to find support in the “family values” community? How amusing.

Santorum: Law Should Comply With Bible

Last updated on: April 1, 2011 at 9:03 am By Ed Brayton

Rick Santorum filled in for Tony Perkins on a radio show last week and he explained why, despite all that “render unto Caesar” stuff, our laws should line up with the Bible:

Jesus said “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s” and that huge piece of wisdom has really set the course for western civilization where you have civil laws and have civil penalties – we exact justice in a civil fashion – and then we have higher laws, we have God’s law. Now our civil laws are supposed to comport with God’s laws but sometimes they don’t, and so it is always the obligation of those, for example, the issue of abortion – the civil law does not comport with God’s law, in my opinion and I think the opinion of many people in this country and it is our obligation to continue to try and change that law. We have to live under the civil law, we have to obey that law because it is the civil law but we need to continue to try to change it to make sure that these laws, the laws our country, comport.

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Anti-Gay Whining in the Christian Post

Last updated on: March 30, 2011 at 11:04 am By Ed Brayton

The Christian Post has a typically whining bit of persecution posing that claims that their side of the gay rights debate is being “shut down.” And their big example for this is that a press conference for a new book by a totally obscure figure didn’t get any media attention:

Although his newly published book A Queer Thing Happened to America: And What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been sits near the top of Amazon’s Gay and Lesbian Nonfiction bestsellers list, author Michael L. Brown’s Wednesday press conference kicking off his Washington, D.C., book tour failed to garner any members of the mainstream press.

“I was disappointed that Beliefnet, Washington Post (On Faith), no one was at the news conference,” said friend and colleague the Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney.

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Conservatives Sign Hypocritical Declaration

Last updated on: February 18, 2010 at 9:30 am By Ed Brayton

I’m sure by now you’ve seen all the hoopla over the Mount Vernon Statement, signed by 80 or so influential conservatives. It’s great rhetoric, of course, and I agree with most of the principles stated in the declaration. It begins:

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.

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The Right’s Glaring Hypocrisy on Judicial Filibusters

Last updated on: June 3, 2009 at 9:16 am By Ed Brayton

Sen. Jon Kyl is not alone in displaying rank hypocrisy on the subject of judicial filibusters. A conservative group called the Third Branch Conference, headed by Manuel Miranda, has written a letter to all 40 Republican Senators demanding that they filibuster the Sotomayor nomination. Oh, they try and make a distinction between what they call a “Democratic filibuster” and a “traditional filibuster” but we’ll see how little that means in a moment. Here’s their fanciful rationalization:

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Dumbass Quote of the Week 4

Last updated on: April 10, 2009 at 9:09 am By Ed Brayton

From the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins:

Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins today condemned the vote of the Vermont State Legislature to overturn the Governor’s veto on same-sex “marriage” as well as the vote by the District of Columbia City Council to recognize same-sex marriages performed in the 50 states.

“Same-sex ‘marriage’ is a movement driven by wealthy homosexual activists and a liberal elite determined to destroy not only the institution of marriage, but democracy as well. Time and again, we see when citizens have the opportunity to vote at the ballot box, they consistently opt to support traditional marriage,” said Perkins.

Fascinating. The overwhelming majority votes of elected legislative bodies is an attempt to destroy democracy. He keeps using that word; I do not think it means what he thinks it means.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Michael Steele

Last updated on: March 17, 2009 at 9:30 am By Ed Brayton

Wow, this is getting almost difficult to watch. You know that feeling you get when you watch someone bomb on American Idol, that feeling we don’t have a good word for that is really a kind of embarrassment for them? I’m starting to get that feeling for Michael Steele, who seems absolutely intent on making himself look like a buffoon on a daily basis.

It was bad enough when he made entirely true comments about Rush Limbaugh on CNN and than had to not only retract them and publicly genuflect before the King of All Republican Media, but then went on Fox News and flat out lied about what he had said even though everyone has seen the video of it and knows damn well what he said. But now he’s really done it. He’s touched the third rail of GOP politics, abortion, and now finds himself buried up to his neck in shit.
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