I See Gay People

This year's Jerry Falwell Teletubby Memorial Award goes to ... Tony Perkins!

These days, you can't get a sugar high without experiencing a cultural low. Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. There's trouble in candy land. After more than 70 years together, Mike & Ike are calling it quits. The duo is staging a gay divorce as part of a new ad campaign to draw in younger customers. In this society, even candy has an agenda! From Facebook to Tumblr, the fruity pair says, "The rumors are true. We just couldn't agree on stuff anymore." Starting this summer, the company will spend $15 million on billboards and TV commercials that poke fun at the breakup. It's just another subtle example of society chipping away at the value of marriage. And I don't know what's more disturbing--that advertisers think divorce appeals to kids or that sexualizing candy will make people buy more.

I suppose at least Perkins has the fact that Mike & Ike have two dudely-sounding names and are presented as being in a marriage -- all Falwell had to go on was Tinky Winky's triangle symbol and purple color. But it's tough to live up to a legend like Falwell -- kudos to Perkins for giving it his best shot.

Reconsideration Roundup

The problem with going big or going home is that sometimes ....

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Is Bibi thinking of selling the West Bank withdrawal to right-wing Rabbis by waving US security guarantees over their head?

Ahmadinejad blusters: "The United States doesn't understand what war looks like. When a war starts, it knows no limits."

Senate minority blocks the repeal of DADT. Relatedly: John McCain still a hack, Tony Perkins still a dick.

The stats of a "front-runner".

Like all other religions, Christianity has a broad array of different views on moral questions, and we shouldn't take the seemingly abhorrent perspectives advocated by some and paint the entire faith with a broad brush.

Nate Silver has a comperenehsive assessment of the likely impact of the Tea Party, on election day and beyond.

A neat map that tracks the racial divides in DC.

I'm Not Surprised, But....

No, I'm just not surprised. The FRC's Tony Perkins condemned the Vermont passage of a same-sex marriage bill (which overrode the governor's veto with a 2/3 majority in each house), as well as a DC vote recognizing gay marriages performed out of state, as something that would "destroy not only the institution of marriage, but democracy as well."

We all knew that the FRC's purported concern about "judicial activism" was a pure front that can be modified at will when it conflicts with its substantive political agenda of bigotry and intolerance. The same thing applies to its calls for maximum democratic ratification of policy decisions on gay marriage.

In other words, they're hacks. I'll tell you, even if I was ambivalent on the subject of gay marriage, I'd be cheering these developments just to watch the FRC lose.

Listen to Perkins!

Chief of the Family Research Council Tony Perkins is out blaming the moderates for GOP losses in 2008. What's needed, he says, is a party more committed to pure Republican principles -- fiscally and socially.

This, to put it mildly, is tough to swallow in the face of the evidence. The fact is that there are several seats in deep red territory that are now Democratic directly resulting from Republican intolerance of moderate politicians. The Maryland first, gerrymandered specifically to elect a Republican, will be sending a Democrat to Congress after a right-wing challenger knocked off a moderate incumbent who would have assuredly cruised to re-election. The Michigan 7th saw the same thing -- a right-winger who defeated a moderate incumbent in 2006 got defeated in 2008. Bill Sali, the furthest right-wing candidate in a multi-member primary in 2006, lost his Idaho(!) seat this year to a Democrat. The blood red 2nd Ohio district is competitive every year because Jean Schmidt is their representative. And so on.

Put more broadly, there is very little proof that "pure" conservative principles enjoy broad popularity in the United States (gay-bashing, alas, is a major exception). Most Americans voted for Barack Obama even though they (wrongly) believed he was raise their taxes. There isn't much proof that Americans really oppose spending on social welfare programs. Even on social issues, this was a pretty good year for liberals (outside of gay rights), winning battles on abortion, marijuana, and assisted suicide.

The fact is that, at the moment, conservative governance is not all that popular. They can talk all they want about how conservatives "abandoned conservative principles", but if they respond to this election by lurching even further to the right, they're going to spend a long time out in the cold.

Triple Play

I know anti-FRC blogging is like a bad drug habit, but I just can't kick. They are just so unbelievably hackish it manages to make my blood boil. Today's daily update by leader Tony Perkins is a perfect example.

The first item is an attack on Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, which they illustrate via someone holding a match to the constitution. Even if the Akaka Bill is a bad idea, I fail to see (and the FRC doesn't even purport to explain) what it has to do with the FRC's broader agenda -- except insofar as that agenda is "harass liberals," which, to be fair, is the only unifying thread I've ever seen in the FRC's work.

This is aptly demonstrated in the second item, which is a rant about Charlie Rangel's tax reform bill. What is breath-taking here is the perfidy with language. Rangel's bill would "increase taxes" on many "married couples" (what a meaningless phrase -- Bill and Melinda Gates are a "married couple"), but it would "increase welfare payments through the earned income credit," something you may know as the "Earned Income Tax Credit", but while the FRC can't stand policies that actually help working families, they wouldn't be caught dead opposing a tax cut, so hence we have our little omission. Perkins concludes:

The overall proposal resembles more a Marxist proposal of redistributing income than something worthy of the leaders of the free world. I'd agree with Congressman Rangel that the tax system needs a major overhaul, but more in the direction of simplicity and equality, not of a socialistic labyrinth.

Come on, Tony. Red-baiting is so 1950s.

Finally, the last item tries to diffuse the Democratic Congress' accomplishments writ large (on the occasion of the House's 1,000th roll call vote). Here, at least, some of their problems bear a relationship to the FRC's stated policy aims, such as "presents to the abortion/pro-death community by supporting Planned Parenthood and passing a bill to increase embryonic stem cell experimentation, and gifts to the homosexual lobby by voting on so-called 'hate crimes' legislation," they open the list with neither killing babies nor killing homosexuals, but rather by opposing the minimum wage hike (and here you thought that the anti-Marxism rant was a one-shot deal!). It is, as Perkins puts it, but a "gift to the labor unions." How horrid! The working class gets all the breaks.

If there is a difference between the FRC and the propaganda arm of the RNC, I'm just not seeing it.