Tag: Congress

Wake Up Rove, Coulter: War Protests No Longer Considered Unpatriotic

Trish

Sometimes you really don’t need a weatherman — or a pollster — to see which way the wind’s blowing. Support for the United States’ war in Iraq has come full circle in St. Augustine, Fla., the “Nation�s Oldest City.”

Instead of being flipped off, war protestors are being high-fived

Protests have taken place weekly or monthly since before the invasion and occupation, from the time Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, and Rice began beating the drums of war. In the beginning the protestors got flipped off. Now they’re being high-fived.

Now, in the fourth year of protests, the reaction demonstrators are getting is overwhelming positive, they say…

In the two hours the protesters spent under the hot sun Saturday, the number of people who screamed pro-Bush phrases and hateful words could be counted on one hand. The number of approving honks, thumbs up, thank yous, smiles and words of encouragement were in the hundreds.

“There’s another whole sector that’s changed their minds in the last six months,” [71-year-old protestor Pattie] Hunt said.

Still, protesting is oldster territory in my adopted hometown, and I suspect, in the larger environs. Younger people seem content, for whatever reason, to leave the heavy lifting to others.

“Most people are not supporting the war and not supporting Bush, but they’re not coming out,” [56-year-old Barbara] Mitchell said.

The protesters, who are mostly ages 50 to 80, said they keep showing up at the peace rallies to make their message seen, make someone stop and think, or even encourage someone to start a conversation with those near them about Bush and the war in Iraq.

[St. Augustine People for Peace and Justice] member Anne Galloway, 60, who also protested during the Vietnam war, said, “No one expects immediate gratification out here. I know there’s not a whole lot I can actually do, but I can do this.”

Nearby, Sue Davis, 54, held a sign reading “Honorable soldiers. Dishonorable ‘leader.'” Her son is in the military and is expected to be leaving for Iraq soon.

Is Heterosexuality a Lifestyle Choice?

Jon Ponder
Conservatives’ internalized homophobia is like bulimia of the spirit. Its victims starve their psyches by regurgitating their self-loathing.

A new study has identified a small but significant biological factor that influences the sexual identity of males. The study proves that “having one or more older brothers boosts the likelihood of a boy growing up to be gay — an effect due not to social factors, but biological events that occur in their mother’s womb…”

While the study does not provide the ultimate proof that sexual orientation is innate, it does offer definitive evidence that biological forces have a role.

This is significant because, according to a 2003 Pew poll, 42 percent of Americans believe that homosexuality is a lifestyle choice — and it is among this group that we find the conservatives’ consensus of opposition for equal treatment under the law for gay people.

What fascinates me about rightwingers’ belief that sexual orientation is a choice is that, while they project this decision making onto those of us who grew up to be gay, they are apparently blind to the converse decision-making that it implies about themselves.

If homosexuals “decide” to be gay, then the corollary must be true: Heterosexuality must be a lifestyle choice, too.

What this means is that, at some point in their lives, these conservatives seriously considered becoming gay but then decided to pass.

This decision must have been wrenching. And over time, their suppressed desires turned into self-loathing — a disgust which they came to project onto others who, they believe, did not have the fortitude to conquer their attraction for members of their own gender.

This internalized homophobia is like bulimia of the spirit. Its victims starve their psyches by regurgitating their self-loathing.

Truly straight people do not — cannot — make a choice about their sexual orientation, just as gay people don’t, and can’t, choose. People who are comfortable in their own sexual personae are not threatened by the way the sexuality of others is expressed.

More on Top Three GOP Adulterers Running for President in ’08

Jon Ponder

Earlier this month our list of the top 10 GOP adulterers created a bit of stir. Now Steve Benen, writing in the Washington Monthly, has a related story on the three men on our list who are running for the GOP nomination for president in 2008, including the two frontrunners, Sen. John McCain and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, as well the candidate I have endorsed to be the GOP’s 2008 standard bearer, former House Speaker New Gingrich:

McCain was still married and living with his wife in 1979 while, according to The New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof, “aggressively courting a 25-year-old woman who was as beautiful as she was rich.” McCain divorced his wife, who had raised their three children while he was imprisoned in Vietnam, then launched his political career with his new wife’s family money. In 2000, McCain managed to deflect media questioning about his first marriage with a deft admission of responsibility for its failure. It’s possible that the age of the offense and McCain’s charmed relationship with the press will pull him through again, but Giuliani and Gingrich may face a more difficult challenge. Both conducted well-documented affairs in the last decade–while still in public office.

Giuliani informed his second wife, Donna Hanover, of his intention to seek a separation in a 2000 press conference. The announcement was precipitated by a tabloid frenzy after Giuliani marched with his then-mistress, Judith Nathan, in New York’s St. Patrick’s Day parade, an acknowledgement of infidelity so audacious that Daily News columnist Jim Dwyer compared it with “groping in the window at Macy’s.” In the acrid divorce proceedings that followed, Hanover accused Giuliani of serial adultery, alleging that Nathan was just the latest in a string of mistresses, following an affair the mayor had had with his former communications director.

But the most notorious of them all is undoubtedly Gingrich, who ran for Congress in 1978 on the slogan, “Let Our Family Represent Your Family.” (He was reportedly cheating on his first wife at the time). In 1995, an alleged mistress from that period, Anne Manning, told Vanity Fair’s Gail Sheehy: “We had oral sex. He prefers that modus operandi because then he can say, ‘I never slept with her.'” Gingrich obtained his first divorce in 1981, after forcing his wife, who had helped put him through graduate school, to haggle over the terms while in the hospital, as she recovered from uterine cancer surgery. In 1999, he was disgraced again, having been caught in an affair with a 33-year-old congressional aide while spearheading the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton.

J’Ville Church ‘Outs’ Gay-Marriage Haters

Buck Banks

Naming names: Christ Church of Peace, a nondenominational church in Jacksonville, Fla., has published on the Internet the names of 400,000 Floridians in 60 counties who signed a petition supporting a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. While publishing the names violates no privacy law, wingnut supporters of the amendment are predictably crying foul, according to the Miami Herald.

”It’s a gross invasion of people’s privacy,” said John Stemberger, president and general counsel of the Florida Family Policy Council, an offshoot of James Dobson’s national Christian conservative group Focus on the Family.

‘It’s time for another voice that is Christian to be heard.’
– Gary Debusk, pastor of Christ Church of Peace

Stemberger argued that, if Christian conservatives published the names and addresses of gay-rights activists, they would likely be condemned as hatemongers. ”A lot of people would be outraged and say it’s a hateful, un-Christian gesture,” he said.

Yes, John, it would be a hateful, un-Christian thing to do, much like the hateful, un-Christian act of signing a petition in support of a repressive, discriminatory constitutional amendment.

Gary Debusk, pastor of Christ Church of Peace, said the church began the ”Know Thy Neighbor” effort Monday to encourage dialogue and prevent voter-signature fraud. As the head of a congregation that supports same-sex marriage, Debusk said he also wanted to add a new perspective to a debate that he said has been dominated largely by religious conservatives. ”It’s time for another voice that is Christian to be heard,” he said.

The website, knowthy neighbor.org/florida, is linked to the church’s home page and contains a searchable database of names. The names on such petitions are part of the public record, according to the Florida Department of State.

I went on the site and searched for my last name, and out of four pages of names found that neither my mother nor my siblings had signed up. Checking under my mother’s maiden name, however, revealed an aunt in the town where I was born who did sign the petition. A page of folks with the same last name as Editor Trish who might or might not be related to her also signed up.

Are you a Floridian? Have relatives who live in Florida? Want to find out if they are intolerant, would-be discriminators and hatemongers? Go to the site at http://www.knowthyneighbor.org/florida/ and look them up. And then let us know what you discover.

Cheney-Poe Amendment Fails

Jon Ponder

The Senate failed to pass a constitutional amendment today that would have banned the marriage of the daughter of the vice president of the United States, Mary Cheney, to her lesbian partner, Heather Poe.

Senators voting against the anti-gay “Federal Marriage Amendment” were all members of the Cheneys’ own party, except for Robert Byrd of West Virginia, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, and Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, whose toupee may be on a bit too tight. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who is 50 years old and unmarried, and about whom gay rumors have been swirling, voted for the bill.

Senators voting for the gay-bashing amendment:

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Allen (R-VA)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burns (R-MT)
Burr (R-NC)
Byrd (D-WV)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID) 		DeMint (R-SC)
DeWine (R-OH)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Frist (R-TN)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Lott (R-MS)
Lugar (R-IN) 		Martinez (R-FL)
McConnell (R-KY)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-NE)
Roberts (R-KS)
Santorum (R-PA)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Stevens (R-AK)
Talent (R-MO)
Thomas (R-WY)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)

The Real Threat to Marriage: Top 10 GOP Adulterers

Jon Ponder

Ten Commandments

The traditional media may be interested almost exclusively in the sex lives of Democratic politicians, but on the hypocrisy index, it is hard to score higher than Republicans pontificating about saving the institution of marriage while so many of their leaders are serial and long-time adulterers:

1. President George H.W. Bush allegedly had an LTR with British-born Jennifer Fitzgerald that lasted at least two decades, all while married to Bar, who said, “He didn’t even notice when I stopped coloring my hair.”

2. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, famously married to Maria Shriver since 1986, is allegedly a purveyor of prostitutes, the father of at least one child out of wedlock and a serial groper of women in workplace situations.

3. Sen. John McCain, 2008 Republican presidential frontrunner, and admitted adulterer and alleged philanderer. [Update July 2008: McCain’s Extramarital Affair with Cindy Ended His Friendship with Reagans in the 1970s]

4. Rudolph Giuliani, former mayor of New York City and another GOP 2008 presidential contender, betrayed his second wife, TV presenter Donna Hanover, with his “very good friend” Judith Nathan, whom he has since married. Hanover also publicly accused Rudy of having an affair with a staffer, Cristyne Lategano-Nicholas.

5. Rush Limbaugh, comedian, (a.k.a. “Rusty Sharpe”) dated Marta Fitzgerald while she was married to someone else. Marta later became his third wife. (He and CNN’s Daryn Kagin recently stopped dating.)

6. Bill O’Reilly, propagandist, who is married to Maureen McPhilmy, tried to have phone sex with Andrea Mackris, who sued him for sexual harrassment.

7. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, is probably the most audacious serial adulterer in any political party.

8. Former Rep. Bob Barr’s notoriety as an adulterer was one of many ironies around the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA) which he wrote, and which was passed with the leadership of fellow adulterers Sen. Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

9. Rep. Henry Hyde, who served as chairman of House Mangers in the adultery-related impeachment of President Clinton, was a home-wrecker himself. Hyde had an affair when he was a young and foolish man of 41 while he and his girlfriend were both very much married. Her husband later said Hyde broke up his family.

10. Gary Bauer, professional moralizing Christian nationalist, experienced a mutiny when he was running for president when actual Christians on the staff of his 2000 presidential campaign quit in protest over Bauer’s “inappropriate” behavior with a 26-year-old deputy campaign manager. Euww.

11. (Updated) Had to add this one sent in by reader S.O. that probably should have bumped poor old Henry Hyde on the list: Neal Horsley, and rightwing religious nut, freely admitted to a kinky sex life, including this outrageous exchange on Fox’s Hannity & Colmes:

AC: “You had sex with animals?”

NH: “Absolutely. I was a fool. When you grow up on a farm in Georgia, your first girlfriend is a mule.”

AC: “I’m not so sure that that is so.”

NH: “You didn’t grow up on a farm in Georgia, did you?”

AC: “Are you suggesting that everybody who grows up on a farm in Georgia has a mule as a girlfriend?”

NH: It has historically been the case. You people are so far removed from the reality… Welcome to domestic life on the farm…”

UPDATE: Thanks for all the emails. Our list attempts to identify the top 10 adulterers so there were several top contenders that didn’t make it:

  • Rep. Bob Livingston, the man who would have been House Speaker after Newt if Larry Flynt hadn’t uncovered some very kinky dirt on Livingtston. He was a top contender but since he never really served as Speaker, was bumped for Bauer.
  • It is true that Nancy Reagan was pregnant when she married Ronnie, but neither of them was married to anyone else at the time. By Republican standards of “abstinence only,” Nancy clearly did not say “no.”
  • We covered the rumors of troubles in the marriage of the president and Laura Bush but the evidence of this is spotty.
  • A definite top 10 contender is the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund, a sanctimonius Clinton-hater, who, as reader TL reminds us, “[Apparently] had a fling with the DAUGHTER of someone he was having an affair with and then arranged for (or at least condoned) the abortion of their child.”
  • Back-bencher Rep. Don Sherwood of Pennsylvania, whose adultery with a younger woman was revealed after he tried to strangle her, didn’t make the cut, but someone please tell us he won’t be re-elected. (And thanks, M.H. and others, for the reminder!)
  • Reader Tim pointed out the track record of Rep. Jim Nussle of Iowa, who used his wife and autistic child as family values props then left them for a high-powered lobbyist after he was elected.

Keep ’em coming!

DOMA Rewind: Successful 1996 Anti-Gay Marriage Fight Was Led by GOP Adulterers

Jon Ponder

This week the Republicans who run the nation are undertaking another cynical attack on the issue of gay marriage. As a wedge issue that enflames the GOP’s homobigot base, same sex marriage has occasionally returned dividends. In fact, conventional wisdom has it that an anti-gay initiative on the Ohio ballot in 2004 tipped the state into the Bush-Cheney column, giving them another term in office they would have otherwise lost. (Others believe the votes in Ohio were stolen.)

The real threat to the institution of marriage does not come from gay people but rather from heterosexual adultery, which is the cause of most divorces.

Ten years ago, the leaders of the GOP in Congress — including Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole and House Speaker Newt Gingrich — were successful in passing the Defense of Marriage Act (DoMA), a law that banned states from recognizing same-gender marriages sanctioned in other states. Timed to arrive on President Clinton’s desk just before the 1996 presidential elections, DoMA was intended to insert a wedge between the President and gay Democrats and supporters of civil rights.

The real threat to the institution of marriage does not come from gay people but rather from heterosexual adultery, which is the cause of most divorces. Now, as Republicans return once again to the well of homophobia, it is important to remember that in 1996 the men who led the fight to pass DoMA were all adulterers themselves.

The GOP adulterers of DoMA included:

  • Rep. Bob Barr (R-Georgia), the author of the bill:
    According to an affidavit filed by Barr’s second wife Gail Barr, Bob Barr paid for and did not object to her having an abortion in 1983. This is rather amusing for two reasons: first of all, Barr is a member of the pro-life caucus. The fact that Barr did not discourage her from having an abortion is rather interesting in light of his strong pro-life stance. Second of all, Barr, in divorce court in 1986, stated that the did object to the abortion. Gail Barr’s affidavit, if true, proves that he committed perjury in divorce court…Bob has been divorced twice, failed to pay child support to the children of his first two wives and while married to his third and present wife was photographed licking whipped cream off of a few chesty strippers at his inaugural party.. this guy is deciding that a whole segment of the population is less moral than him and is unfit to claim marriage benefits?
  • Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas), Majority Leader of the Senate:
    Sen. Dole dumped his first wife and child. Dole on his child: �Sooner or later, you have to make a decision � is the child going to become fatherless? � If you become married to politics, something else is going to suffer.�
  • Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia), Speaker of the House:
    In 1981, Newt dumped his first wife, Jackie Battley, for Marianne, wife number 2, while Jackie was in the hospital undergoing cancer treatment. Marianne and Newt divorced in December, 1999 after Marianne found out about Newt’s long-running affair with Callista Bisek, his one-time congressional aide. Gingrich asked Marianne for the divorce by phoning her on Mother’s Day, 1999. [Source: New York Post, July 18, 2000, Newt’s Ex Wife Aiming to Pen Book by Bill Sanderson, available on lexis].

Of course, DoMA was signed into law by President Clinton, who — if my calculations are correct — was in the midst of his affair with Monica Lewinsky at the time.

There is a move afoot in the Capitol to examine the married lives of all the leaders in the House and Senate who are pushing the Federal Marriage Amendment.

There’s no telling what they might find under those rocks.

Dueling Crises in November 1978 Forged the Political Careers of a Pair of San Francisco Women — Dianne Feinstein and Jackie Speier

Jon Ponder

November 1978: Jackie Speier and her boss, Rep. Leo Ryan, arrive at the airstrip at Port Kaituma near Jonestown in Guyana. Two days later, as they attempted to rescue defectors from the People’s Temple, the delegation was attacked at the airstrip by gunmen from the cult. Ryan was killed and Speier was shot five times and left to die.

In November 1978, the shocking news of back-to-back assassinations of San Francisco political leaders dominated headlines around the world.Two decades later, the tragic events reverberate in the careers of two powerful California politicians, Sen. Dianne Feinstein and state Sen. Jackie Speier, both of whom are candidates for office this year. Feinstein is running virtually unopposed for her fourth reelection, and Speier is a contender for lieutenant governor in the June 6 Democratic primary.

On November 19, 1978, Congressman Leo Ryan, whose district included parts of the San Francisco, was gunned down on an airstrip at Port Kaituma, Guyana, by members of the People’s Temple. Ryan and his delegation, which included 28-year-old Jackie Speier, were attempting to rescue a group of defectors from the bloodthirsty cult run by the Rev. Jim Jones. Speier was shot five times and left to die on the tarmac. That night, while she and a handful of survivors from Rep. Ryan’s party waited at the airstrip for help to arrive, horror descended on the cult’s jungle compound where Jones ordered his followers to commit mass suicide. Over 900 people, including about 250 children, died after drinking his poisoned Kool Aid.

Nine days later in San Francisco, Mayor George Moscone was killed in cold blood at City Hall, along with Harvey Milk, the city’s first openly gay supervisor. Their killer was Dan White, a conservative who had recently resigned from the board and who had become enraged when the mayor refused to reappoint him. Feinstein, age 45, was the city’s first female president of the board of supervisors (San Francisco’s city council) and became acting mayor upon the death of Moscone.

Americans were introduced to Dianne Feinstein that evening when video of the dramatic news conference in which she announced that Dan White had murdered Moscone and Milk led the news coverage. Feinsteni went on to be elected mayor twice. She ran for governor in 1990 and lost to Republican Pete Wilson. Two years later, she won the special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Wilson when he ran against her for governor. She was reelected in 1994 and 2000, and is running virtually unopposed this year.

Speier went on to represent San Francisco in the state Assembly and the Senate. Back in the dark days when the GOP still dominated Sacramento, she made a name for herself fighting the good fight for the liberal cause. She is currently running for lieutenant governor and has Feinstein’s endorsement. She is trailing in the June 6 primary against Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi, who has much higher name recognition statewide, 30 percent to 16 percent, but she is ahead of her colleague, Sen. Liz Figueroa, who is at 11 percent. The primary winner will face ultra-conservative (and therefore unelectable) state Sen. Tom McClintock in the fall.

Women were still rarities in politics in 1978, so the mere fact that Speier and Feinstein played roles once strictly reserved for men was news in itself. What was truly signifcant, though largely unspoken, about the events was the fact that these two women shouldered on as well as men in their situations could have done, or better. Their individual exceptional performances helped to counter charges of tokenism endured by high profile women in that era and paved the way for the women who followed them onto the political stage.

Divorce Rate of Evangelicals Was Higher Than Non-Believers in Christian Study

Jon Ponder

The source for this post is the Baptist Standard, no less, and even though the data are six years old, these are stunning statistics — especially since these are the very people who are desperate to “save” “traditional marriage” from gays:

The Christian group whose adherents have the highest likelihood of getting divorced are Baptists.

“Born-again” Christians are more likely to go through a marital split than are non-Christians, according to a new study by the Barna Research Group.

Using statistics drawn from a nationwide survey of nearly 4,000 adults, the Barna data show 11 percent of the adult population currently is divorced but that 25 percent of all adults have experienced at least one divorce.

Among “born-again” Christians, 27 percent currently are divorced or previously have been divorced, compared with 24 percent among adults who are not “born again.”

Surprisingly, the Barna report said, the Christian group whose adherents have the highest likelihood of getting divorced are Baptists. The only group to surpass Baptists were Christians associated with non-denominational Protestant churches.

According to the company website, Barna Group, which is located in Ventura, California, provides research on Christian issues.

The Party’s Over Lieberman But He Won’t Go Home

Trish

Independents everywhere might want to give more thought to signing on with one of the two major parties. CBS is reporting that Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is considering running for re-election as an Independent.

Lieberman isn’t going down alone but plans to take the whole party with him.

“I have not foreclosed the option,” Lieberman said at a news conference at the Capitol. “If I wanted to run as an independent, I would. I’m running as a Democrat. I’ve been a Democrat all my life.”

Well, maybe not quite all his life.

I always wondered what Al Gore was thinking in 2000. It was bad enough to be stuck running against Bush. But to be running with Lieberman? Why?

“I feel very strongly the world is safer without Saddam Hussein in power. We have to complete the job in Iraq,” Lieberman said.

Are they sure Lieberman said that? I know I’ve heard every member of the Bush White House say it too.

Lieberman isn,t going down alone but plans to take the whole party with him. In a year when Democrats finally have a chance at gaining ground in both the Senate and the House, Joe is thinking of himself first, and staying in the race even if “his” party backs someone else.

Ned Lamont, a Democratic activist and anti-war candidate, is challenging Lieberman for the party’s nomination this year. He has been garnering support from some Connecticut Democrats dissatisfied with Lieberman’s stance on Iraq and his perceived closeness with President Bush’s administration…

Paul Streitz, who is seeking the Republican nomination, said he would gain if Lieberman is upended by Lamont and runs as an independent.

“A Republican would win, obviously,” he said. “It would split the Democratic vote.”

I bet Zell Miller is proud. Or jealous.