Falwell's Rise and Fall

Falwell and friend at Liberty University commencement, 2017.

The putrid truth comes out:  Vanity Fair has just published an in-depth interview with Jerry Falwell, Jr., and his wife, whose scandalous fall from grace was headline news a couple of years ago.  In it, the former Liberty University president admits candidly that he was not "a religious person" but certainly enjoyed the power and prestige that came with pretending to be one.  Of course, this is an old story among wealthy American evangelists.  Excerpt:

On August 24, 2020, Falwell resigned from Liberty in the wake of a sensational tabloid scandal that could have been dreamed up in the writers’ room of The Righteous Gemstones. A former Miami pool boy named Giancarlo Granda claimed he had a nearly seven-year affair with Falwell’s wife, Becki—and that Falwell often liked to watch them have sex. Granda went on a national media tour—he gave interviews to ABC News, CNN, Reuters, Politico, and The Washington Post—and said the Falwells began “grooming” him when he was 20 and bought his silence with luxury vacations, rides on Liberty’s private jet, and an ownership stake managing a Miami Beach hostel. To bolster his claims, Granda released screenshots of Facetime calls and text conversations with Becki (“I’m not wearing any panties,” she allegedly wrote Granda in one message). Falwell released a statement that acknowledged Becki and Granda’s relationship, but he vehemently denied watching the trysts. Instead, Falwell said he was the real victim of a “Fatal Attraction–type” extortion plot after Granda demanded $2 million to keep the affair secret.

Viewed in hindsight, the scandal was the combustion of a self-immolating fire that Falwell had been stoking for months, if not years. Liberty had spent the better part of 2020 lurching from one PR crisis to the next brought on by Falwell’s boorish and reckless behavior, his race baiting, COVID-19 denials, and slavish devotion to Donald Trump. Two days after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, Falwell tweeted a picture of a COVID mask that showed a man in blackface posing with a man in a KKK hood. In early August 2020, Falwell posted a photo on Instagram of himself aboard a yacht with his pants unzipped, a drink in one hand, and his other arm wrapped around a pregnant Liberty employee with her belly exposed. The controversies turned Falwell into an avatar of the rank hypocrisy, know-nothingism, and toxic masculinity that explained why 81 percent of white evangelical Christians voted in 2016 for Trump, a thrice-married reality TV star who literally boasted of grabbing women by the pussy.

Read the full interview here.  Falwell and his wife are very candid about their mistakes and misdeeds - but it seems to me that the one thing lacking is any sense of remorse.  The multi-millionaires, having plied a lucrative racket of misleading the gullible for years, are now living in very comfortable retirement on their scenic estate in the Blue Ridge Mountains.  It is not stated whether there is a pool on the property or not.

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Five Minutes of Hot Tea

Fabulous, funny, and true:  a Texas native tells it like it is, bitch. And I can tell you that everything he says about small-town Texas people is the God's truth.





By the way: As spot-on as this satire is, there is a greater point to be made here. It's not just about Texas, and it's not just about the South. I'll just say two words: Minneapolis. Brooklyn.

Racism and bigotry know no borders.

The Dickopath

Embed from Getty Images

Your word for the day from the Manley-Webster dictionary:

dickopath, n. (from OE dick, a penis + Gr. pathos, suffering, feeling, emotion, sickness, calamity): a massively self-centered hypocrite with an offensive, grandiose ego who lacks any semblance of a conscience and who displays a pervasive disrespect for the rights and dignity of others; usually a chronic, self-serving liar, seeking to mislead, manipulate, or overpower friends and enemies alike for his own sadistic amusement or enrichment.

Cf. sociopath, narcissist, egomaniac, shithead.

(I just made this word up.  You're welcome.)

Okay, So Just WHO Is Destroying the Traditional Family?

Breaking news out of Alaska: Noted Christianist, TV dancer, and unwed mother Bristol Palin is pregnant - and unmarried - again. And her righteous, God-fearing, Bible-believing, gun-toting, born-again mother says that is just oh-so-wonderful, and best of all, God is totally fine with it, too. Heck yeah! Jump ahead to the 3:20 mark:




Meanwhile in Ireland, that country's first same-sex marriage took place today as Cormac Gollogly and Richard Dowling, a barrister and a banker, tied the knot in County Tipperary, after 12 years as a committed couple, as reported by the Irish Times. All good wishes to the happy couple.




I could say more, but I'll let you fellas judge for yourselves which story is praiseworthy and which is just total bullshit.

Newsbites, 4/8/14

Mickey Rooney Dies at 93 - a comedic genius and a highly underrated performer.  The Los Angeles Times reports:

When such leading actors of his generation as Cary Grant and Anthony Quinn were asked who was the best actor in Hollywood, they both immediately named Rooney, Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne recalled while interviewing author Gore Vidal, who said the same.

"Tennessee Williams, who knew more about actors than anybody in our time … said, 'There's only one great actor in the United States and that is Mickey Rooney.... He can do anything. He sings, he dances, he can make you weep. He can play tragedy, he can play comedy,'" Vidal said in 2007 while introducing "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the 1935 film with a teenage Rooney as Puck.

May he rest in peace with Judy and all his other fabulous co-stars from 90 years of delighting audiences around the world.

LBJ's Daughters Say Daddy Would Have Supported Marriage Equality:

“I think my father felt very strongly that when there was bigotry anywhere, prejudice anywhere, all of us lose out,” said Luci Baines Johnson. “Because it’s just one more expression of hate.”

Added her sister, Lynda Bird Johnson Robb: “It’s hard to project what Daddy would have thought about that because that wasn’t an issue that had come upon the States at that time. But I know he really wanted everybody to be able to live up to the best that God gave them.”

I think he would too if he were still alive. Texans who aren't brainbound by religious fundamentalism have an instinct for fair play and root for the underdog. But oh my gosh, I remember Lynda and Luci as teenagers, watched their weddings on TV - and now here they are old women, immaculately dressed and groomed, but grandma age. Of course, I'm not far behind them, and getting pretty damn long in the tooth myself.

UVA Swimmers Embrace Their Gay Teammates - Okay, so which two do you think are the gay ones?


Louisiana Congressman Defends "Our Christian Way of Life" by Making Out with Staffer - Another lying, hypocritical sack of shit Tea Party Republican has been busted - on video - because he just can't keep his Traditional Family Values in his pants. But it's cool - he's asked the wife and five kids to forgive him, so that's just all right with God then.  He was elected just last November; here's a campaign ad of McAllister promising to do his duty to God and his country:



The betrayed husband of the woman McAllister was putting a lip lock on says:

I know his beliefs. When he ran one of his commercials, he said "I need your prayers," and I asked, "When did you get religious?" He said, "When I needed votes." He broke out the religious card and he's about the most non-religious person I know. He's apologized to everyone in the world except me. I’m just freaking devastated by the whole deal, man. I loved my wife so much. I cannot believe this. I cannot freaking believe it. I feel like I’m going to wake up here in a minute and this is all going to be a bad nightmare. It was just a kiss, that was all it was, but it embarrassed me and my family.

Westboro Protesters Chased Away by Mob in Oklahoma - Hundreds of local residents jeered and put to flight a group of Westboro Baptist Church protesters in Moore, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, on Sunday. The Westboro gang were there to praise God for sending a tornado that killed several children last year. KFOR in Oklahoma City reports:

Westboro’s permit to picket was for half an hour. They had been there a mere eight minutes when several people took matters into their own hands. Some Moore residents crossed the picket line to go after Westboro members. Dan Eccles said, “I was afraid of a riot really. I didn’t know how long Westboro would stay, which they were smart to leave.” Police were able to hold back the Moore residents while the Westboro bunch rushed to pack their signs in their cars and leave.

Dan Eccles said, “They shagged tail, got in them cars and was leaving in a hurry. Oh yeah, they was gone!” "I thought it was hilarious. I mean I really did. We sat there and laughed the whole time,” said Tina Johnson. “They were running, yeah.”

This week's New Yorker cover just makes me laugh out loud.  Brilliant.

The Best Medicine by Barry Blitt.

The Quality of Mercy - Regarding the flap over the resignation of Mozilla's CEO last week, Andrew Sullivan says:

The ability to work alongside or for people with whom we have a deep political disagreement is not a minor issue in a liberal society. It is a core foundation of toleration. We either develop the ability to tolerate those with whom we deeply disagree, or liberal society is basically impossible. Civil conversation becomes culture war; arguments and reason cede to emotion and anger. And let me reiterate: this principle of toleration has recently been attacked by many more on the far right than on the far left. I’m appalled, for example, at how great gay teachers have been fired by Catholic schools, even though it is within the right of the schools to do so. It’s awful that individuals are fired for being gay with no legal recourse all over the country. But if we rightly feel this way about gays in the workplace, why do we not feel the same about our opponents? And on what grounds can we celebrate the resignation of someone for his off-workplace political beliefs? Payback? Revenge? Some liberal principles, in my view, are worth defending whether they are assailed by left or right. . . .

A civil rights movement without toleration is not a civil rights movement; it is a cultural campaign to expunge and destroy its opponents. A moral movement without mercy is not moral; it is, when push comes to shove, cruel. For a decade and half, we have fought the battle for equal dignity for gay people with sincerity, openness, toleration and reason. It appears increasingly as if we will have to fight and fight again to prevent this precious and highly successful legacy from being hijacked by a righteous, absolutely certain, and often hateful mob. We are better than this. And we must not give in to it.

And Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin concurs:

Mozilla describes itself as “an open source project governed as a meritocracy.” Eich had been with Mozilla since the very beginning and developed the ubiquitous Javascript that powers much of the web today. If meritocracy means anything at any company, it should certainly mean something to the company’s most visible job at the very top. But Eich was caught in an impossible quagmire that had nothing to do with merit. In the name of tolerance, he learned that we don’t have to tolerate his opinions, opinions which he kept private and away from the workplace.

Which means that everyone who has had to endure corporate diversity training now has the same lesson lodged in their heads. Until now, they had been told that they can do whatever they want and believe whatever they want outside the workplace, but when they crossed the company’s threshold, they had to treat their fellow workers with dignity and respect, and to respect and encourage diversity in the workforce. They’ve now learned that it was all a lie. We do care about what they do outside of work and we can demand their ouster if we don’t like it. Eich learned that lesson the hard way and resigned yesterday. I can’t think of a better way to encourage even more cynicism toward company diversity programs than that.

In a highly interesting development in this affair, Mother Jones reports that OKCupid's CEO, Sam Yagen, contributed $500 to an antigay congressman's campaign back in 2004.  OKCupid announced last week that it would block all users with Mozilla's Firefox browser from OKCupid's site while Eich remained at the head of that company. Yagen has now apologized for his thoughtcrime, saying he had no clue about the candidate's antigay views.

And Joe Jervis disagrees with Sullivan but says:

Demands for ideological purity are killing the Republican Party and are no less a danger for the LGBT rights movement. . . . My larger point is that there is room for people for have different ideas about how to get to the same place. Every social movement in history has been torn by infighting and ours is definitely no exception. So yes, call out our own and call them out strongly when you think they are wrong about tactics. We can do that without the same vitriol we direct at our actual enemies.

Homosexuality and the Bible, Part 1

John Corvino is chair of the Philosophy Department at Wayne State University in Detroit.

WTF? Church of England Drops Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage Bill

Yesterday, the Most Reverend Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin "Whatajerk" Welby, went out of his way to utterly trash the idea of same-sex marriage, saying it would "abolish" true marriage between men and women and replace it with "a less good option that is neither equal nor effective," thereby handing our homo-hating enemies a wonderful cache of ammo to use against us for years to come. Here's the video of his speech in the House of Lords:



Today, however, a church spokesman declared that after seeing large majorities in both Houses of Parliament vote in favor of the same-sex marriage bill, the Church has no further objections to make, and the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords will now work on amendments to refine and "improve" the bill. Which it seems is not so evil after all.

Politics. What a difference a day - or a vote - makes.  What a fucking turnaround.  What sheer, unmitigated hypocrisy.  I'm glad the Church, and presumably the two-faced Archbishop too, is going to stand out of the way now - but I am totally underwhelmed by their transparent, self-serving motives.

Just Close Your Eyes and Thank God You're in America

Televangelist Pat Robertson piled a shitload of oh-so-pious advice on a woman who is struggling to forgive her husband's adultery. "Men have a tendency to stray," Robertson said by way of defending the dude. He advised her, "Ask yourself, 'Is he a good provider? Is he nice to the children? Is he handsome?'" and other such irrelevant points. Listen for yourself, fellas:



Now your Head Trucker isn't advising anyone what to do or not do if their spouse strays (address those letters with full particulars to Dear Russ, in care of this blog). But I am pointing out the utter, complete hypocrisy of this con artist and all the others who call down hellfire and damnation on the gays - oh but if a straight boy breaks the rules, well that's okay then - "He's a man," after all - no problem. Not a word, not even a hint about his eternal salvation being in danger.  It's just normal behavior.

Compare this screed via Joe.My.God. from Minnesota evangelist and pompous ass John Piper - emphasis mine:

Living in a sexual relationship with a person of the same sex is forbidden in Scripture with terrifying clarity. 'Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God' (1 Corinthians 6:9–10). This means putting a child in the personal care of a same-sex couple would put the child’s soul at jeopardy along with the couple’s souls. The couple would be endorsed by the adoption, and thus their hell-bound pattern of life would be endorsed, implying that we don’t care if they go to hell, which would be unloving. And the child would be taught that a damning behavior is normal and acceptable.

Oh, that good old terrifying clarity!  So the gays are going straight to hell for all eternity. But as for the straight boys - oh honey, just reach out and touch his handsome face, why don't you. And think of all the good times.  You'll get over it, like a good wife should.

Right. What a stinking sack of shit.  Which just goes to show, once again, that the Bible was written by straight men for straight men.  A lot of good stuff is in there - but also a lot of self-serving, self-justifying, self-excusing (remember who gave poor Adam the apple) patriarchal crap.

South Carolina Sends Adulterous Liar to Congress

Once again proving that the whole "family-values" bandwagon is just a stinking sack of shit that does not apply to straight boys and girls, the righteous, God-fearing voters of South Carolina have turned out by the thousands to vote for for former Governor and unrepentant adulterer Mark Sanford, giving him their seal of approval as their representative in Congress.

Which was only to be expected.  You may recall that while Governor, Sanford famously told reporters he was "hiking the Appalachian Trail" when in fact he was shuttling back and forth to Argentina at the taxpayers' expense to bang his Latina lover.  But I guess the fine, upstanding, oh-so-Christian people of the Hellhole Palmetto State figured, hey, boys will be boys.

Rachel reports on this hot mess of hypocrisy and prevarication:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

 

Sanford says not to worry about him being all alone up there in his new job: "I'll have plenty of friends in Washington."   See also the Borowitz Report: "Mark Sanford's Comeback Gives Hope to Liars."

Fools, Frauds, and Fanatics

The Blind Leading the Blind,
Pieter Breugel the Elder, 1568.
Click to enlarge.

This may or may not become a regular feature of the Blue Truck. As I said in my New Year's Eve post, there's just not much point in my complaining about the state of the world and the people in it. Nobody wants to hear yet another grumpy old man's rant, and the intertubes are already choked with suchlike.

Still, sometimes I run across items that in my younger days I might have expatiated on at length. Being older and wiser now, not to say wearier, I think I will just throw some out and let you fellas make of them what you will. Today's choices:

1. From Andrew Sullivan, talking about the fiscal cliff deal, but making an important and accurate observation about economics and the history of nations:

I do not see why the Pentagon is immune from real sacrifice, when we have no serious military rival in the world and are spending more in real terms than we did when Reagan out-spent the Soviets. . . .

History is replete with examples of great powers who undid themselves by spending on war and empire - in the end often with debt - while neglecting the core concerns of the domestic economy. Hegemonic America is following imperial Spain and imperial Britain into the same morass. But it is a choice, not a fate.

2. Also from Andrew Sullivan, on "the broken American polity":

Senator Ben Nelson said recently that many Republicans have yet to accept the presidential election of 2008, let alone the re-election of 2012. I see no real evidence to the contrary. Whether this is due to race, or culture, or fanaticism (they regarded Bill Clinton as illegitimate as well) I do not pretend to know. We know also, of course, that the corrupt gerrymandering of House districts allows those with power to rig the system so they can retain power - even when they have no broad public support. And we know that the whitest, rightest part of the Republican base controls the primaries and is determined to destroy any member of Congress who votes against the religion of permanent insolvency - which is what "no-revenue-increases-ever" means as we near a demographic wave of older folks. What a perverse cause: a party dedicated above all to the permanent, chronic insolvency of the American government. The cuts they need without any new revenues would simply end the welfare state in America and would never be tolerated by the middle classes in practice. And tax reform will only get us so far.

This, then, remains a country in a Cold Civil War - not far off the geographical contours of the first, but with the inheritors of the Confederacy concentrated in the South and now also with serious pockets of absolutists in the more rural parts of the country as a whole. Maybe it was precisely because Barack Obama campaigned against partisan polarization that the GOP has decided to ratchet it up. The right-wing media-industrial complex - from Limbaugh to Hannity to Drudge - earns money from conflict, not compromise. And these lucrative media institutions have taken over from what's left of the conservative intelligentsia (three decades ago a flourishing, growing and open group, now shrinking fast into calcified, partisan hacks).

3. Yeats prophetically wrote, "the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." Here's an example of the former, who happens to be a Georgetown law professor and means exactly what he says in the title of his article, "Let's Give Up on the Constitution" - which was published in the New York Times, no less.

I won't even dignify this goofball's asininity by quoting him, but it just goes to show that it is entirely possible to be a very well-educated fool. Where would we be without the Constitution now, hmmm? If I had any say in the matter, he would be dismissed from his job immediately, and posted to one of those couple dozen African countries where nobody gives a damn about constitutions already, and see how he prospers.

4. Joe.My.God. quotes the Rev. Franklin Graham, Billy's son, who pontificated last week on the decline of the nation being largely due to "same-sex couples lining up at courthouses in several states to receive their marriage licenses," among other things: "a reflection of the moral corruption that has infected our entire nation. These are indeed dark days."

Of course you know the Pope and many other petrified religious leaders have said the same thing before, ad infinitum et ad nauseam. A new thing in the world: for centuries, the religionists decried gays for being promiscuous libertines, with dead-end lives that contribute no good to society. Now that we are finally able to marry and form long-lasting, publicly recognized unions, the religionists shout about how immoral that is. Which just goes to show that it is entirely possible to be a blind guide and hypocrite, though claiming to be a man of God.

GOP Translator

Don't leave home without it:

Honk to Truth Wins Out.

Blind Faith

A lone Penn State student confronts his peers in their mad fury to uphold their Leader against all reason and against all concept of justice:



Of course, as we in Texas know only too well, the Church of Football is the biggest religious outfit in the country, demanding total unquestioning allegiance from its tens of millions of followers, and is practically the state religion down here. Andrew Sullivan nails it:

Does anyone not see the extraordinary ironies and parallels here? Yes, this is a classic "father" figure, like a priest or bishop or Pope. The man is even called "Paterno". And what Paterno did is what the current Pontiff did when he was an archbishop in Munich, where he was told of a priest under his jurisdiction who had raped children. He didn't alert the police; he merely sent the rapist on to a psychiatrist and the man went on to rape many more children. And we might as well face it: college football is a kind of religion for many. Challenging the Pope of Penn State was unthinkable.

I regard the current actual Pope as an accessory to child-rape, as I do Paterno. But their paternal authority within religious institutions allowed them to carry on. And this is another thing one can say about this profoundly fucked-up culture of abuse: once condoned or treated lightly, the abuses often get worse and worse. I am not surprised that prescient Mark Madden is now hearing rumors that Sandusky was "pimping out young boys to rich donors." Pedophiles find each other.

All they need is for good people to look the other way. And a cult of authority that never challenges the father figure.

The actual grand jury report, with all its shocking details, is here. And there's this note in the Washington Blade today from a gay Penn State alum who is still involved with the campus LGBT center:

Surveying the faces of the Penn State scandal — Sandusky, Paterno, Spanier, coach Mike McQueary, athletic director Tim Curley, vice president Gary Schultz — all are straight men. This scandal isn’t about gay men; it’s about greed and a culture that prized money over doing the right thing. . . .

But the scandal raises deeper questions about our society. There’s been much indignation expressed about then-graduate assistant McQueary’s actions. He witnessed Sandusky raping a 10-year-old boy in the showers yet reportedly did nothing. Commentators and bloggers have insisted they would have intervened. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Last month, a two-year-old toddler was struck by two vans on a busy street in China. Eighteen pedestrians and cyclists passed by the child, who later died, before someone finally stopped to help.

That incident — and the Sandusky scandal — reminds me of a lecture I attended while at Penn State. My political science professor was talking about nationalism and the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. It was a frigid February morning and just before class started, she walked to the back of the room and opened a window. As she spoke, the classroom grew colder and colder and students began donning coats and hats. As the professor talked about the circumstances under which societies turn to nationalism and xenophobia, student after student expressed their doubt and indignation — “That could never happen in the United States.” Finally, when the cold became too much even for the professor, she said, “How can you be sure you would stand up to the government and its weapons and tanks, when none of you even had the nerve to ask me to close the window?”

It’s a lesson that rings tragically relevant today. Were senior officials afraid to call police because they wanted to protect the lucrative revenue stream provided by the football team? Were custodial staff who reportedly witnessed Sandusky’s crimes deterred from reporting him out of fear for their jobs? It’s comforting to think we’d all have helped that 10-year-old boy, but an entire network of adults failed him. And so many others.

What I Say:  Unless you've been traveling with your eyes shut, once you pass the 50 mark, long observation makes a lot of things plain. And the truth is, people are not by default naturally wise, or kind, or just. The default, my friends, is ignorance, cruelty, and selfishness. The virtues require long training, and much practice.

The unexamined life is not worth living.  --Socrates.

Where It's All Headed

Everybody in this country, high and low, young and old, on the right and on the left, loves to mouth about freedom.  Which puts everybody in a rah-rah, wave-the-flag, let's-all-march-together-mood; and it just sounds so good, don't it?

But your Head Trucker would like to point out that nine times out of ten, what people really mean when they say the word is something else entirely.  What they really mean might be a number of different things; much of the time it's Obey me, bitch - or else.

As evidence of which, I submit the following stories for you all to think about.  And yes, whoever you are and whatever you do - your turn will come next, and sooner than you think.

Is It Fair to Fine Fat People for Not Dieting?


NYC Condo Tower Bans Smoking

Rachel's Helpful Hints

. . . for hypocrites, as the Republican family-values Class of '94 continues to fill the history books with a record of infamy.  This arrogant, self-righteous asshole is so deep in Denial, half of Egypt is probably underwater by now.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Casualities of the Culture Wars

Hey guys, you have to check out Frank Rich's brilliant summation of George Reker's obscene hypocrisy in the NYT, along with some very perceptive observations on sex, hypocrisy, and the culture wars.  Excerpt:

OF all wars, only culture wars offer the hope of sheer, unadulterated hilarity. Sex and hypocrisy were staples of farce long before America became a nation, and they never go out of style. Just listen to the roaring audience at the new hit Broadway revival of the perennial “La Cage aux Folles,” where a family-values politician gets his comeuppance in drag. Or check out the real-life closet case of George Rekers, who has been fodder for late-night television comics all month. . . .

But once we stop laughing, we must remember that culture wars are called wars for a reason. For all the farcical shenanigans they can generate, they do inflict real casualties — both at the micro level, on the lives of ordinary people, and at the national level, where, as we’re seeing right now, a Supreme Court nominee’s entire record can be reduced to a poisonous and distorted debate over her stand on the single culture-war issue of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” . . .

By late last week, double-entendre wisecracks about Kagan’s softball prowess were all the rage on Fox News and MSNBC. These dying gasps of our culture wars, like Rekers’s farcical pratfall, might be funnier if millions of gay Americans and their families were not still denied their full civil rights.

Physician, Heal Thyself

Via Joe.My.God.:

There is a moral crime here. We are, after all, talking about men in positions of authority and reach, men who could make laws and influence public perception and who used that power against their own.

Put yourself in the shoes of the teenager, bewildered and frightened by these feelings he or she is not "supposed" to have, feelings of sexual attraction to people of the same gender. You try to deny them, try to ignore them, try to suppress them, but they will not go away. You are all alone, isolated behind a secret that presses down on you like weights, a fear of rejection that haunts you like ghosts.

And here comes Dr. Rekers telling you that you are abnormal, telling you that you are bad, telling you he can cure you, as if you had a disease like measles or the flu. Then, in his off hours, after he's done curing you, he's trolling rentboy.com looking for young men to handle his, ahem ... baggage.

That's more than hypocrisy, more even than self-loathing. It is a betrayal of one's own, a sellout of the most vulnerable. And what's sad is not just that a George Rekers would do this, but that ours is a culture that would encourage and reward such duplicity in the first place.

He purported to heal homosexuals? One is reminded of an injunction from the book of Luke: "Physician, heal thyself" (4:23). Rekers would be wise to heed that advice.  Homosexual urges are the least of his afflictions.

--Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts, Jr.

On a lighter note, via Box Turtle Bulletin:  Reker's I-am-completely-heterosexual defense was anticipated by The Onion five years ago.

The Straight Politician's Guide to Managing Your Gay Crisis

Brian Safi nails the gay crisis sweeping through straight Republican circles.  Chuckle.

Hypocrisy Check

Sullivan, as is his wont, celebrates the news that more Boomers - now senior citizens - are using marijuana to ease the aches and pains of old age.  He also quotes approvingly this line from Bill Maher:

"I want to live in a country where being stoned is a good thing, not a bad thing."

Now let me see if I get this straight:  No adult gathering, large or small, is complete without plenty of beer.  Wine sales are enormous.  Hard liquor is advertised on television now.  And more and more grayhaired grannies and grandpas are toking up without the slightest tinge of conscience.

But you look down your nose at me for lighting up a Marlboro as I've been doing every single day for nearly forty years.

What's fucking wrong with this picture?

Newsbites

• In a major reversal of attitude, General Colin Powell comes out for DADT repeal, saying "In the almost 17 years since the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ legislation was passed, attitudes and circumstances have changed.  I fully support the new approach presented to the Senate Armed Services Committee this week by Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen."  As chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Clinton, Powell opposed allowing gays to serve openly, and presided over the application of the DADT policy.

• Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) says if gays are let loose in the military, it will "lead to alcohol use, adultery, fraternization, and body art. If we change this rule of 'Don't Ask, Dont Tell' what are we going to do with these other rules?"  Joe Jervis responds:  "[He's] worried that if DADT is repealed, soldiers will get drunk, visit whorehouses, and get tattoos. Unprecedented!"

• Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council not only doesn't want the big, bad, drunken, tattooed, rapist gays in the military - he wants Lawrence v. Texas overturned, so homosex in civilian life can be recriminalized. 

• Rob Tisinai reacts:  "We see what their position is — and how can you compromise between full civil equality and being thrown in prison? What would that compromise even look like?"

• The ACLU and Lambda Legal are planning to sue the state of Hawaii over marriage equality, after the Hawaii House defeated a civil-unions bill last week by voice vote - the same bill they had already approved in two previous sessions, and which had passed the Hawaii Senate.

• Nine Republican senators have introduced a bill to block same-sex marriages in Washington, D. C., pending a voter referendum on the issue.

• Former Eagle Scout, Air Force Captain, and Congressman, and current Republican Governor of South Carolina Mark Sanford, who came to national attention last summer while hiking the Appalachian Trail some Argentinian tail at taxpayer's expense, insisted on removing the fidelity clause from their marriage vows when he wed his wife Jenny in 1989, Mrs. Sanford has revealed in a Barbara Walters interview that will air this Friday.  They are the parents of four sons; Mrs. Sanford filed for divorce in December.  Governor Sanford has publicly opposed civil unions, same-sex marriage, and gay adoptions.  Of course.

• And finally, not only does it seem to this old dude totally astounding that the world has changed so much that a Cosmo centerfold can grow up to be a United States Senator; and likewise totally amazing that there has not been one single fucking word of objection to that fact on anyone's part, most specifically the oh-so-holy "family values" right; but it also seems totally pornographic to watch this blonde newswoman getting her panties soaking wet right on national television at the very thought of stroking some good, solid Republican cock, even the plastic kind:

Obviously, for the Republican gals, Brown has that same "starburst" effect that Palin has for the men.  And they all think that's so cute, so funny, so adorable, so Christian.  So "normal."  So "natural."  Oh, yes, all the good Republican heteros are so upright, so moral, so totally on God's side.

But me and my husband and the little dog, living a quiet, obscure life in a tiny town far out on the prairie, we were a "locus of evil" in the world. 

Fuck 'em all, is what I say, the filthy grandstanding hypocrite lying bastards.  And you can quote me on that, boys.

Fox/GOP Inaugurates Goddess Worship

Hear, O America, Sarah is our God, and Glenn Beck is her prophet. . . . 



"I think a voter first needs to sincerely know who that candidate is, to see what their track record is, and to see if they have lost their soul along the way."  Sarah Palin.

Andrew Sullivan:

The Ailes launch of a new political-media party is being framed around Palin as a "reluctant to serve" outsider, a new Washington combined with Esther. Hence her resignation is a reason to support her! It proves that she was too pure, too Godly, to survive the worldly political corruption that infects everything in Satan's capital city, Washington. And that's why the elites will do everything to destroy her - not because they have some idea that a political leader should not be a congenital liar or ignorant of fifth grade history or devoid of any relevant experience - but because they are on the side of Satan.

Ailes' new political-media party is fueled by Beck's integration into the paranoid far right, aided by O'Reilly's fading but still significant grip on ageing Reagan-Democrats, and galvanized by Hannity's nightly unvarnished propaganda and endless demonization of all things not-Republican. But until Ailes found Palin - a figure who instantly short-circuits rational thinking in those who support and oppose her, he had not yet found the sub-rational rallying point.

Now he does: the fusion of Fox Barbie-doll beauty, marinated in evangelical Christianity, mouthing every cliche that survives from the Reagan era until it has no relation at all to reality, propelled by what former Christianist Frank Shaeffer has called "the deepening inferiority complex suffered by the evangelical/fundamentalist community."

This FNC/RNC merger is another threat to reasoned discourse in public life, because it is a showman's concoction of very powerful emotional elements: resentment, sex, religion, anger. It creates its own reality. "We Do Not Torture"; everyone in Gitmo was the "Worst of the Worst"; the stimulus lowered growth; all the debt is Obama's fault; Obama is a Muslim and non-American; the White House is stacked with the Islamist/socialist enemy within; if we had not bailed out the banks, we would be roaring back from the recession; Obama wants to ignore the war in order to effect a radical transformation of America into some kind of scary version of France and Waziristan. And on and on. I'm not exaggerating. Listen to these maniacs.

The last idea was fomented by Dick Cheney. And they are waiting for their moment: another terrorist attack that they will blame on the deliberate negligence of Barack Obama. Then the Dolchstoss card, played only faintly so far by Cheney and Giuliani, will be played with a crudeness and radicalism that could well be explosive. You think they won't pull that trigger? Dream on.

This new political-media conglomerate endorses a supreme executive unrestrained in his or her conduct of the war against Islam (for that is the real import of the Giuliani complaint), and empowered to seize anyone anywhere and torture them in the name of national security. It is also critically connected to the settlement movement in the West Bank - for Palin's vision of more and more Jewish population expanding outwards in that region is part of the plan for the End-Times. Hence its belief in waging war on Iran.

Non-believing people have a hard time swallowing all this. It seems so wacko. Religious people who have had any experience of fundamentalism in their lives know it all too well.

Forget the RNC, Michael Steele or John Boehner. Ignore Romney.The new RNC is FNC. Roger Ailes is creating a new political entity that could redefine the right in America for a generation, and if it gets to power, will make the two terms of George W. Bush look like a golden era. No one in the GOP can stop this. Because Ailes now has their entire base in his hands. What he frames they will believe. When McCain surrendered to Palin, it was his last - and unintended - blow to a sane or responsible conservatism.