Box Turtle Bulletin

Nobody Pays Attention To Preambles Anyway

When the Iowa-based Family Leader began asking GOP presidential candidates to sign its anti-gay “Marriage Vow,” it originally contained this statement in the pledge’s preamble:

Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.

Never mind the abject ignorance of that statement — slave marriages weren’t legally recognized in the south and families were routinely split up and sold, making the likelihood of actually being raised by a mother and a father rather shaky — that part of the preamble was criticized by the left and right alike for its suggestion that African-American children were better off under slavery. Late Saturday night, Family Leader bowed to criticism and quietly removed that statement from its preamble. But by then, Rep. Michele Bachmann had already raced to put her signature on the document, only to be followed a very short time later in a photo finish by Sen. Rick Santorum.

Bachmann’s campaign has been fending off criticisms for signing the racially-offensive document ever since.

A Bachmann spokeswoman said earlier Saturday that reports the congresswoman had signed a vow that contained the slavery language was wrong, noting it was not in the “vow” portion.

“She signed the ‘candidate vow,’ ” campaign spokeswoman Alice Stewart said, and distanced Bachmann from the preamble language, saying, “In no uncertain terms, Congresswoman Bachmann believes that slavery was horrible and economic enslavement is also horrible.”

Totally understandable when you think about it. I bet almost none of our founding fathers like John Quincy Adams paid much attention to the Preamble to the Constitution before they signed it either.

More Confirmation: Bachmann’s Clinic Offered Ex-Gay Therapy in 2004

The Nation has the details:

In the summer of 2004, Andrew Ramirez, who was just about to enter his senior year of high school, worked up the nerve to tell his family he was gay. His mother took the news in stride, but his stepfather, a conservative Christian, was outraged. … A few weeks later, his parents marched him into the office of Bachmann & Associates, a Christian counseling center in Lake Elmo, Minnesota, which is owned by Michele Bachmann’s husband, Marcus. From the outset, Ramirez says, his therapist—one of roughly twenty employed at the Lake Elmo clinic—made it clear that renouncing his sexual orientation was the only moral choice. “He basically said being gay was not an acceptable lifestyle in God’s eyes,” Ramirez recalls. According to Ramirez, his therapist then set about trying to “cure” him. Among other things, he urged Ramirez to pray and read the Bible, particularly verses that cast homosexuality as an abomination, and referred him to a local church for people who had given up the “gay lifestyle.” He even offered to set Ramirez up with an ex-lesbian mentor.

This comes on the heels of yesterday’s Truth Wins Out’s exposé in which TWO’s Director of Communications and Development John Becker went undercover and received several sessions of ex-gay counseling.

It’s Confirmed: Marcus Bachmann’s Clinic Practices Ex-Gay Therapy

Michele and Marcus Bachmann on the campaign trail.

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s political adviser and “Godly husband,” Dr. Marcus Bachman, denied in 2006 that his Minnesota clinic, Bachmann and Associates, practices ex-gay therapy — even though he promoted the ex-gay movement at a pastoral conference the year before, and in 2010 he spoke of gay children as “barbarians” that “need to be disciplined.” That last bit of advice — disciplining gay children — is eerily familiar after BTB’s original investigation last month revealing that ex-gay therapist George Rekers’s most famous patient, four-year-old “Kraig”, was actually Kirk Andrew Murphy, who remained gay and committed suicide in 2003. Kirk was also “disciplined” as a very young boy while under Rekers’s direction.

Now we have confirmation that Bachmann and Associates does, in fact, offer ex-gay therapy. John Becker, Truth Wins Out’s Director of Communications and Development, attended five private sessions with Bachmann & Associates counselor Timothy Wiertzema:

During the sessions, Wiertzema claimed that it was possible to change from gay to straight through prayer and therapy. During the third session Wiertzema  said, “…it’s possible to be totally free of [same-sex attraction]. For sure.” and that “It’s happened! It really has happened to people.” In the fifth session, Wiertzema says, “…obviously your goal is not to have any feelings of attraction for men…And I really am going to recommend that we start working on how you can develop your attractions towards women.”

…During session 5, Wiertzema advised Becker to “further develop your own sense of masculinity.” Reparative therapy reinforces strict gender roles and works to erase outward appearances of femininity in men and masculinity in women. Because these programs do not genuinely change sexual orientation, much focus is placed on changing behavior so an individual can “pass” as heterosexual, even if the gay person has not changed on the inside.

“Passing” is all that a substantial number ex-gay programs really care about, simply because it is the best-case scenario anyone can truly hope for. Exodus International president Alan Chambers often says that he struggles daily to keep from doing “what comes naturally to me.” But constantly struggling to pass can carry with it enormous consequences. Again, Kirk Murphy’s case is illustrative. As a very young boy, he was taught that revealing who he really was would have dangerous physical consequences for him, and so as he got older he continued to suppress his emerging sexuality, fully aware that “I can’t act that way or people will know that I’m different.” He suppressed it so successfully that his doctors at UCLA did not notice that Kirk not only wasn’t straight, but also was under tremendous emotional duress.

Today, all major medical, mental health, and counseling organizations oppose ex-gay therapy. In an exhaustive review of the professional peer-reviewed literature, the American Psychological Association concluded (PDF: 816KB/138 pages) that “enduring change to an individual’s sexual orientation is uncommon” and that “there was some evidence to indicate that individuals experienced harm” from such therapies. But of course, patients going into clinics like Bachmann’s will never know it. There is no such thing as informed consent in those kinds of settings:

[Becker] was never informed about possible alternative treatment options such as gay-affirmative therapy. Nobody ever told Becker about the potential for harmful side effects like depression and suicidal thoughts. And although he was asked to sign a treatment plan outlining his problem, desired outcome, and treatment strategy, he was never given nor asked to sign any kind of informed consent document that disclosed the above information about “ex-gay” therapy. As such, we believe Bachmann & Associates to be practicing unethically, even by the standards of the American Association of Christian Counselors. This is particularly disconcerting given the fact that Marcus Bachmann’s clinic has received significant funding from the State of Minnesota and the federal government.

You can read Becker’s first hand account here.

Bachmann Is First To Sign Iowa Anti-Gay Pledge

Michele and Marcus Bachmann

GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was the very first out of the gate to sign a new Anti-Gay pledge drafted by Bob Vander Plaats and Iowa’s Family Leader. Titled, “The Marriage Vow – A Declaration of Dependence upon Marriage and Family” (PDF: 1.02MB/8 pages), its points include (page 3):

Social protections, especially for women and children, have been evaporating as we have collectively “debased the currency” of marriage. This debasement continues as a function of adultery; “quickie divorce;” physical and verbal spousal abuse; non-committal co-habitation; exemplary infidelity and “unwed cheating” among celebrities, sports figures and politicians; anti-scientific bias which holds, in complete absence of empirical proof, that non-heterosexual inclinations are genetically determined, irresistible and akin to innate traits like race, gender and eye color; as well as anti-scientific bias which holds, against all empirical evidence, that homosexual behavior in particular, and sexual promiscuity in general, optimizes individual or public health.

Under “The Candidate Vows,” candidates are required to affirm that they will perform “Vigorous opposition to any redefinition of the Institution of Marriage — faithful monogamy between one man and one woman — through statutory-, bureaucratic-, or court-imposed recognition of intimate unions which are bigamous, polygamous, polyandrous, same-sex, etc.” The vow also requires the “Steadfast embrace of a federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman in all of the United States.”

Michele Bachman at the New Hampshire debate

During last month’s GOP debate in New Hampshire, Bachmann reaffirmed her support for the federal marriage amendment.

Footnote 8 of the document includes an explicitly pro- ex-gay plank, indicating the political utility that social conservatives find in the movement: “No peer-reviewed empirical science or rational demonstration has ever definitively proven, nor even has shown an overwhelming probability, that homosexual preference or behavior is irresistible as a function of genetic determinism or other forms of fatalism.”

The footnote also claims that LGBT people have an average life expectancy of about 40 years, and cites a 1997 report by Robert S. Hogg et al., from the International Journal of Epidemiology. That study, which has become a favorite study for anti-gay extremists to distort, was based on research performed in Vancouver from 1987 through 1992, at the very height of the AIDS crissis The question that they were trying to answer was not about the mortality of gay men overall, but rather the impact that HIV might have on the Vancouver’s gay population. Vancouver was one of the epicenters of the epidemic in the early 1990s. When anti-gay extremists misrepresented that study to claim that the average lifespan was forty years, Hogg and his colleagues responded in a 2001 letter to that same journal, saying:

The aim of our research was never to spread more homophobia… [I]f we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996. As we have previously reported there has been a threefold decrease in mortality in Vancouver as well as in other parts of British Columbia .

In fact, several recent studies have shown that people with HIV have near-normal life expectancies, and there is no peer-reviewed data showing that gay people overall have a life expectancy that is any different from anyone else’s.

The same vow also requires candidates’ “rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control.” Because, you know, the imminent imposition of sharia law is the pressing issue right now in the U.S.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman has declined to sign the pledge, saying that he has a policy of not signing any pledges. Rep. Rom Paul (R-TX) has said he has reservations. Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty said last night he was reviewing the pledge. The agreement to “personal fidelity” to his or her wife could be a thorn to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, and retired Georgia businessman Herman Cain have not yet responded to the pledge. Vander Plaats has set a deadline of August 1.

Marcus Bachmann’s Ex-Gay Problem

This is very old news, but it certainly is worth bringing up again now that Rep. Michele Bachmann is mounting a serious campaign to capture the GOP nomination for the presidency. In 2006, the Minneapolis alt-weekly City Pages ran an extensive profile of Michele Bachmann (via archive.org) just as she was about to be elected to Congress for the first time. The profile delved into Bachmann’s extremist religious and political background, and how her use of anti-gay politics as a wedge issue drove a wedge between Bachmann and her own family — which includes a gay stepsister.

The profile also revealed that her husband, Marcus Bachmann has played an important part in her political and religious development. In the Bachmann’s worldview, the man is the head of the household, and the wife is subservient to her husband. As Marcus Bachmann’s older brother explains it, “He is her godly husband… The husband is to be the head of the wife, according to God.” Michele told one church congregation in 2006 that she pursued her degree in tax law only because her husband had told her to. “The Lord says: Be submissive, wives. You are to be submissive to your husbands,” she is quoted as saying. All of which makes Dr. Bachmann’s views all the more relevant, and the 2006 City Pages report (via archive.org) pertinent:

While Michele Bachmann was rising through the political ranks, her husband Marcus—a lumbering, soft-featured man—was working toward a psychology doctorate and a practice in Lake Elmo. There is an overt Christian theme attached to the practice. “Bachmann and Associates believes in providing all clients with quality counseling in a Christian environment,” reads the mission statement on the business’s website. Some of the listed specialties of the clinic and its counselors include “abuse issues,” “co-dependency,” “men’s and women’s issues,” “shame,” and “spiritual issues.”

But some observers claim that the mission of the practice includes counseling homosexuals in an effort to “ungay” them. “It is absolutely sincere,” adds former school board member (Mary) Cecconi. “They specialize in ‘reparation’ regarding sexual orientation.”

Marcus Bachmann, who is also 50, denies that is part of his clinic’s practice. “That’s a false statement,” he says, refusing to answer any questions that don’t have to do with Bachmann and Associates. “Am I aware that the perception is out there? I can’t comment on that.” Still, Bachmann offers, “If someone is interested in talking to us about their homosexuality, we are open to talking about that. But if someone comes in a homosexual and they want to stay homosexual, I don’t have a problem with that.”

City Pages found evidence that Dr. Bachmann has more than a passing interest in the ex-gay movement:

Last November (2005), the Bachmanns attended a “Minnesota Pastors’ Summit” at Grace Church in Eden Prairie. Some 300 religious leaders participated in the event, which was organized by the conservative, antigay Minnesota Family Council. Michele Bachmann was there to lead a session on the gay marriage amendment, while Marcus offered a presentation titled “The Truth About the Homosexual Agenda.”

Curt Prins, a 35-year-old marketing executive from Minneapolis, attended. Prins, who is gay, says he went because he was “curious” and wanted to “understand the language” of the antigay movement. “There was so much bile, I nearly had to leave,” Prins recalls. For Marcus Bachmann’s session, Prins says there were more than 100 people crammed in a room at Grace, and most of the presentation involved stereotypes of gays. “He was saying how homosexuality was a choice, that it was not genetics,” Prins says. “He was claiming there was a high predominance of sexual abuse in the GLBT community. There was no research to back any of this up.” (Marcus Bachmann refused to answer questions about the seminar.)

The climax of the presentation was when, according to Prins, Bachmann brought up “three ex-gays, like part of a PowerPoint presentation.” The trio, two white men and a black woman, all testified that they had renounced their homosexuality. “One of them said, ‘If I was born gay, then I’ll have to be born again,'” Prins recalls. “The crowd went crazy.”

While Bachmann claims that charges that he engages in ex-gay therapy are “a false statement,” he clearly has an interest in the ex-gay movement. In a radio interview last year, he discussed what kind of advice he would give to parents who came into his practice with a child who they feared might be gay. Speaking specifically of those children, Bachmann said:

We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps.

Likening gay kids to barbarians who “need to be disciplined” raises all sorts of red flags for the kind of treatment those children might experience based on Bachmann’s advice. Just last month, we revealed the story of five year old Kirk Andrew Murphy who was treated to a draconian disciplining program under the direction of George Rekers. Rekers would go on to hold Kirk up as his most dramatic success story throughout his career. That career, like the Bachmann’s, took a turn towards anti-gay politics in the 1980s when he co-founded the Family Research Council, and then further in the 1990s and 2000s with the ex-gay movement when he served on the Board of Directors and the Scientific Advisory Committee for the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Bachmann’s statement indicates that he would favor an approach to gender-variant children that would share similarities to Rekers’s, with all of the potential that has for further suffering and tragedy.

Questions about Bachmann’s practice go beyond the ethical. There are also legal considerations as well,  specifically the reported $100,000 in Medicaid payments his practice has taken in over the years. Did U.S. tax dollars go towards financing that scientifically discredited and dangerous practice to “cure” something that is not an illness? Again, we are reminded that Kirk Murphy’s “treatment” by George Rekerswas also paid for by taxpayer dollars through grants from the National Institute of Mental Health. And we also know that, according to Rekers, at least one hundred other children endured similar therapy at UCLA in the 1970s and 1980s, much of it on the government dime.

Today, all major medical, mental health, and counseling organizations oppose ex-gay therapy. In an exhaustive review of the professional peer-reviewed literature, the American Psychological Association concluded (PDF: 816KB/138 pages) that “enduring change to an individual’s sexual orientation is uncommon” and that “there was some evidence to indicate that individuals experienced harm” from such therapies. If Bachmannis performing ex-gay therapy, either directly or indirectly through the advice he is giving parents, then an investigation into what those Medicaid payments goes for is warranted.

Marcus Bachmann: Gays are Barbarians Who “Need To Be Disciplined”

Last Summer, Marcus Bachmann, husband and political strategist to GOP Presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) appeared on a conservative radio talk show to explain his views of gay people:

(at 3:36) We have to understand: barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps.

And let’s face it: what is our culture, what is our public education system doing today? They are giving full, wide-open doors to children, not only giving encouragement to think it, but to actually encourage action steps. That’s why when we understand what truly is the percentage of homosexuals in this country, it is small. But by these open doors, I can see and we are experiencing, that it is starting to increase.

It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that Bachmann reportedly operates an ex-gay therapy program in Minnesota (via archive.org).

Michele Bachmann isn’t insane

I mean, not as in literally incapable of perceiving reality. She’s not actually mentally challenged.

Right?

I mean, surely it would be obvious. Surely someone in the Republican leadership would say, “hey, she’s not just opinionated, she’s actually certifiably nuts!”

Right?

But I just have no other way of explaining this story:

In April 2005, Pamela Arnold wanted to talk to her state senator, Michele Bachmann, who was then running for Congress. A 46-year-old who worked at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Arnold lived with her partner, the famed Arctic explorer Ann Bancroft, on a farm in Scandia, Minnesota. Bachmann was then leading the fight against gay marriage in the state. She’d recently been in the news for hiding in the bushes to observe a gay-rights rally at the Capitol. So when members of the Scandia gay community decided to attend one of Bachmann’s constituent forums, Arnold, wanting to make herself visible to her representative, joined them.

A few dozen people showed up at the town hall for the April 9 event, and Bachmann greeted them warmly. But when, during the question and answer session, the topic turned to same-sex marriage, Bachmann ended the meeting 20 minutes early and rushed to the bathroom. Hoping to speak to her, Arnold and another middle-aged woman, a former nun, followed her. As Bachmann washed her hands and Arnold looked on, the ex-nun tried to talk to her about theology. Suddenly, after less than a minute, Bachmann let out a shriek. “Help!” she screamed. “Help! I’m being held against my will!”

Arnold, who is just over 5 feet tall, was stunned, and hurried to open the door. Bachmann bolted out and fled, crying, to an SUV outside. Then she called the police, saying, according to the police report, that she was “absolutely terrified and has never been that terrorized before as she had no idea what those two women were going to do to her.” The Washington County attorney, however, declined to press charges, writing in a memo, “It seems clear from the statements given by both women that they simply wanted to discuss certain issues further with Ms. Bachmann.”

Ya know, you can be a little eccentric and still be elected to Congress. It might even help. And you can be, shall we say, less than fully informed about the minutia of American History (okay, you may not have the faintest clue about much of anything including where Russia is located and what Paul Revere’s ride was all about) and still have many Americans give you the benefit of the doubt.

But while we like Aww Shucks home folk and Good ‘ol People like us, Americans aren’t so fond of crazy. And we really don’t like it when you demonstrate irrational fears of little ol’ nuns (or killer rabbits). We want our presidents to have irrational bravery instead. We expect our presidents to take a bullet and walk to the hospital. We want them to stare into the cameras and demand that African presidents resign. We like them best when they take on the Challenges of The Day in a bigger, grander, and definitely braver way than we would. It’s gravitas.

So if Michele Bachmann hopes to win the Republican nomination for 2012 Loser to Obama, she’d best be reeling in the crazy, especially the paranoid fear of tiny women. It just doesn’t seem… presidential.

(Read the entire Daily Beast article here. Go on. Read it.)

GOP Presidential Candidates Debate Marriage, DADT

Last night, seven candidates for the GOP presidential nomination appeared in a debate in New Hampshire, home to the nation’s first primay. Participating were Godfather Pizza magnate Herman Cain, former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, and former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. And of course, LGBT issues came up in the debate.

Only Herman Cain and Ron Paul opposed a Federal Marriage Amendment to ban marriage equality in the states.

Herman Cain said that he didn’t support repealing DADT, but he didn’t want the distractions that it would take to put it back into effect. Pawlenty says that he would seek the advice of “combatant commanders.” This wiggle room leaves open the likelihood that he would re-instate DADT. Ron Paul appeared to say the would keep it in place. He talked about punishing behavior, without specifying whether a consensual relationship between two people of the same gender would be punishable. Romney dodged the question altogether, saying that DADT should not have been repealed “until this conflict is over.” Gingrich answered by building a case for its reinstatement, an indication that he would work to restore the discriminatory policy. Bachmann said she “would keep the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.” When asked to clarify, she indicated that she would reinstate the policy after sufficiently cloaking it with “advice” from the military. Santorum took a lot of words to more or less repeat what Ron Paul said, but given the context of Santorum’s overall policies and attitudes toward gay people, I don’t think his eagerness to reimpose the policy would be much in doubt.

Not one candidate spoke about gay people as though they were taxpayers, patriots, or fellow citizens.

Newt Gingrich Promises To “Slow Down” Gay Rights Progress

New Gingrich is running for President like it’s 1996.

Gingrich is the third major GOP figure running for president to appear on American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer’s radio program. Fischer has said that LGBT people should be legally disqualified from holding public office because “gay sex is a form of domestic terrorism” and should be declared a felony. And he is attracting a line of GOP presidential hopefuls to his microphone. Warren Throckmorton asks, “Is Bryan Fischer the new GOP Kingmaker?“

Far Right gathers for Value Voters weekend

Earlier this month we discussed the wackadoodle extravaganza which was the Taking America Back convention. But this weekend, that seminar’s cousin the 2010 Value Voters Summit is meeting for roughly the same purpose: rallying the troops to impose their religious beliefs on non-believers by use of governmental force. And while Taking America Back consisted primarily of the delusional, the excitable, and the social misfits, the Family Research Council’s Value Voters Summit draws “respectable” activists and recognizable politicians.

But make no mistake, the agenda of the Voter Voters Summit is no less radical or unAmerican than that of its low-rent cousin. And no small part of their obsession is on the extent to which gay people should be disallowed from participating in society.

The plenary session presentations consist of:

* We Still Hold These Truths: Rediscovering Our Principles, Reclaiming Our Future
* ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Panel
* We the People: The Tea Party’s Place in American Politics
* Parental Choice Education: Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Schools
* Hollywood Panel

Although only one of the five plenary discussions focuses solely on gay issues, it is without question that much of the other sessions will also be dedicated to “opposing the homosexual agenda”. That is, after all, the number one complaint that social conservatives have with the schools and Hollywood. And for those who really want to spend their weekend on nothing but “evil sodomites”, they can attend Saturday’s 3:30 breakout session entitled The falsehood of the inevitability of same-sex “marriage”.

The entire event will be filled with speeches and presentations by familiar names in the anti-gay movement. But unlike Taking America Back, most of these have social grace and appearance of sanity. With one notable exception: the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer will be speaking tomorrow morning and is likely to spout things that are so irrational as to confuse even that sympathetic audience.

These conferences are useful; they help us separate political opponents from those who truly are devoted enemies of our lives, freedoms and liberties. Many conservative Republicans hold positions that are unfavorable to us, but do so more from ignorance or distorted principle than out of zealous animus. But those who participate at these conferences do so because the believe that they are authorized by God to destroy our cause and our lives.

This year, perhaps even more than most, participation at the Value Voters Summit is a clear indication of animus towards the gay community. And by going there this year, politicians are making a visible statement that they are not just in disagreement with some of our cause but rather that they see us as a threat and an enemy and that they will do whatever they can to harm us.

Most of these names will not surprise us:

Governor Mike Huckabee
Senator Jim Inhofe (R-OK)
Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.)
Representative Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.)
Representative Mike Pence (R-Ind.)
Governor Mitt Romney
Senator Rick Santorum
Christine O’Donnell
Newt Gingrich
Governor Bob McDonnell (R-Va.)
Governor Tim Pawlenty (R-Minn.) (via video)
Representative Gregg Harper (R-Miss.)

A Wackadoodle extravaganza

In times past it hasn’t been always easy to distinguish between the garden variety of conservative activist, and the wackadoodles. You had to pay attention; both held conservative positions, but some did so because of logic or principles or tradition or even hesitancy towards change while others came across as obsessed, irrational, or frankly (in some cases) insane.

For example a conservative may oppose President Obama’s healthcare policies, but yet not believe that the President really was born in Kenya. He may favor controlled immigration policies without thinking that Hispanics are seeking to take over the Southwest and make it part of Mexico. She may oppose marriage equality and yet not declare that opposing the rights of gay people is the last best hope of saving Western Civilization from utter and immediate destruction.

But lately its becoming ever easier to distinguish between conservatives and raving loons on the right (and, yes, the left has their raving loons as well). In a somewhat unexpected move the conservatives and the wackadoodles seem to be sorting themselves out for our convenience and gay rights seems to be the determining factor.

Some conservatives have either dropped or repackaged their positions on gay issues, now stating objections to nomenclature or timing rather than just displaying animus towards gay people in general. Now it isn’t gay people serving in the military that is concerning, but just waiting for reports and analysis and opinions. It isn’t gay couples that are destroying society, but just the words used to describe them. Policies may not have moved significantly for all (but certainly have for some) but the language and the attitude has markedly changed.

Even gay and gay-supportive Republicans are not enemies seeking to destroy from within, but good Republicans with whom we disagree on some issues. In fact, rather than be RINOs, they may even be wives of Republican Presidents or nominees.

But while some conservatives have had a change of heart (or figured out which way the wind is blowing), others have abandoned all pretense of reasonableness and have run shrieking into crazyville. They see those who have moderated their position as traitors, and with each new act of treason they lash out at their newfound enemies and band closer with the purists, the true conservatives… oh what am I saying… the raging loons.

And now, in a display of what can only be seen as total meltdown, the wackadoodles have now broken from CPAC, the convention of very conservative ideologues, to form their very own extra-special-uber-conservative convention, the Taking America Back National Conference sponsored by World Net Daily. And I certainly hope there are enough red noses and clown shoes to go around.

Not just anyone is quite wackadoodle enough for this convention. They booted Ann Coulter for daring to speak to GOProud – a very conservative gay group which endorses politicians that Log Cabin would never get near. Although I think GOProud verges on loony themselves, they have Teh Gey!!

You see, hating Teh Gey is a very very important distinction for this wackadoodle extravaganza, and they aren’t going to forgive anyone who does it by half. To get a sense of WND’s purpose and criteria,

WND’s “Taking America Back National Conference” in Miami, Sept. 16-18, was conceived and organized, in part, because of the conservative movement’s capitulation to the radical homosexual agenda:

* The Conservative Political Action Conference welcomed GOProud as a co-sponsor of the largest annual gathering of conservatives this year. CPAC has already gleefully announced the return of GOProud as a sponsor next year – even though GOProud’s inclusion cost the conference Sarah Palin and other top-notch speakers and some long-time co-sponsors.

* The executive director of CPAC is actively promoting GOProud’s “Homocon” conference in New York later this month.

* Conservative leader Grover Norquist, founder of Americans for Tax Reform, serves on the board of GOProud.

* One of the most well-established conservative media companies in America is run by a homosexual activist.

* Conservative celebrity Glenn Beck announced on Fox News that he doesn’t believe same-sex marriage will hurt America.

* Conservative celebrity Ann Coulter agreed to deliver the keynote speech to GOProud’s “Homocon” event in New York later this month – an engagement being shamelessly exploited by the group as further affirmation of its conservative bona fides.

While all of this was happening, there was no more than an undercurrent of conservative protest.

And why is this important? Remember that whole Western Civilization thing I mentioned? I wasn’t kidding.

Because I don’t believe there is any development that could more quickly destroy America’s ability to remain a self-governing society and the very fabric of western civilization than the tacit acceptance of [pro-gay] ideas – ideas that are steamrolling over our political and media culture.

There is no compromising with radical ideas like this. They need to be soundly rejected, repudiated, exposed and discarded.

Yes, my friends, there is a growing separation between the conservatives and the true-blue wackadoodles. And they are ever so gracious as to let us know exactly where they stand. True most conservatives are not going to start championing our rights any time soon, but as this divide grows I believe that we will find fewer and fewer rational conservatives willing to be seen as part of the coalition of birthers and the conspiracy theorists and the wild-eyed loons.

In addition to the WND staff and few obscure politicians, the wackadoodle extravaganza includes:

Michele Bachmann – US House of Representatives
Alan Keyes – political gadfly and onetime presidential candidate
Tom Tancredo – Former Congressman and illegal immigrant opponent
Chuck Missler – Koinonia House (post-prison) Ministry
Rusty Humphries – The Rusty Humphries Show
Matt Barber – Liberty Counsel
Gary DeMar – American Vision
Michael Farris – Home School Legal Defense Association
Robert Knight – Coral Ridge Ministries
Jerry Newcombe – Coral Ridge Ministries
William Federer – American Minute
William Murray – Religious Freedom Coalition
Doug Giles – Clash Radio
Gary Cass – Christian Anti-Defamation Commission
Judith Reisman – Freud revisionist
Victoria Jackson – Conservative Activist/Celebrity
RC Sproul, Jr. – Biblical Economics
Tim Daughtry – Patriot Coaching
Floyd Brown – ExposeObama.com
Mark Graham – First Founders Financial

And that, my friends, is a whole lotta crazy. I wonder if Brian Brown is going to join them.

NOM’s rally in wackadoodle St. Cloud church proves uneventful

Today the National Organization for Marriage held a rally at Granite City Baptist Church in St. Cloud. This is the same church which paid for an ad in a local paper claiming that The Moslems were a threat to America and were trying to “take control” by “supporting the gay agenda.”

According to the Trial Tracker (thanks guys for being the most reliable source of info about NOM’s Tour of Mostly-Empty City Plazas (and church lawns)):

Today, 73 NOM supporters gathered on a lawn in front of Granite City Church.

There is no report as to whether The Moslems tried to infiltrate the rally, but one NOM supporter made an unintentional statement when they brought their rainbow umbrella.

A handful of protesters stayed on the sidewalk about 250 feet away to maintain a presence, but the main equality event was across town in a park by the university where 89 folks showed up to support marriage for all.

Phyllis told me a community organizer, Justin Michael, spoke to the crowd largely composed of students from St. Cloud State University, the second largest in the state (the rally is being held in Barden Park, next to the University). There’s a lesson here: St. Cloud is part of Rep. Michele Bachmann’s district, a virulent opponent of equality (and many other progressive issues). But this goes to show again that even in the reddest bastions of homophobia, we can find the future in younger supporters of equality like the students from St. Cloud State. We cannot write off areas of the country that may seem more conservative by their representation or character.

The “reddest bastions” comment refers to the fact that St. Cloud is represented by Michele Bachmann, a congresswoman obsessed with opposing civil equality for gay people (on religious grounds). Here are just a couple of her doozies:

If you’re involved in the gay and lesbian lifestyle, it’s bondage. It is personal bondage, personal despair and personal enslavement.

and

It’s part of Satan I think to say that this is “gay.” It’s anything but gay.

The speakers today seemed to be the same formula: Brian Brown, Catholic Priest, local “family” activist, Baptist Pastor, black person. However Michele Bachmann was not among the speakers on the church lawn. I’m not sure about Satan.

UPDATE: NOM’s Louis Marinelli has blogged about the St. Cloud event. The man is truly delusional.

Like I mentioned, we had at least two hundred attendees today and the best part is that they were an active crowd. You could sense that they were engaged and excited to be there and I know that when they left our rally today they were going to go home and spread the word.

At least two hundred? I guess that doubling the crowd hasn’t been impressive so now NOM is just taking the actual turnout and multiplying by three. Here’s the accompanying photo that Louis provides of the audience.
There are 61 people in this photo, including children.

As for the protesters, there were enough to count on one hand and they stayed closer to the street, held and few signs and kept to themselves. They weren’t an issue.

Yup, because the bulk of theme (outnumbering NOM’s crowd) were across town, in my opinion a wise move.

Although Bachmann didn’t make an appearance, State Representative Steve Gottwalt (District 15A) did show up. Still no word on either Bishop Battle or Satan.