Justin's Political Corner

AARP strives to serve the interests of all people over the age of 50, and that includes members of the LGBT community. The organization has a webpage dedicated to AARP Pride, with resources related to issues like marriage equality’s legal benefits, nondiscrimination protections in nursing homes, and unique health concerns like HIV. Because of AARP’s inclusiveness, the American Family Association is specifically targeting the retirement group for contributing money to the “homosexual agenda.” AFA Executive Vice President Buddy Smith offered this warning:

SMITH: When you reach the age of a person like myself and you begin to get information from the AARP saying that they will represent you and your values and standards, you’d better be careful. This group is a very, very powerful Washington lobby, and you just may be very surprised and disappointed to see those things that they are promoting and those things they are opposing.

Be very careful that you know what your fees are going for because the AARP is not on your side. If you are a Christian and believe in Biblical values, you can pretty much count on the fact that everything that you are in favor of, the AARP is opposing.

LGBT older adults face many unique challenges, especially in regards to their very economic well-being. Because of discrimination and alienation throughout their lifetime, as well as their inability to claim partner benefits like Social Security, LGBT older adults are much more likely to be living in isolation and poverty.

H/T: Zack Ford at Think Progress LGBT

The American Family Association announced yesterday that it has parted ways with Buster Wilson, the host of AFA Today and the general manager of its radio network. Wilson says he will continue to write for his personal blog.

Certainly Wilson isn’t leaving because he is too extreme (see: Fischer, Bryan) or vacuous (see: Wildmon, Tim) for the AFA, but we are going to miss him in particular because we have always appreciated Wilson’s tendency to respond to nearly every single Right Wing Watch post about him and even completely make up things we’ve said.

But most of all we really enjoyed watching him conclude many of his conspiratorial rants with the phrase, “I’m just asking the question.”

Since Wilson is a member of the extremist Oath Keepers, we were not surprised to see him push several anti-government conspiracy theories, wonder about the existence of FEMA concentration camps and assert that he was “staying neutral” on the matter of whether it is appropriate to shoot U.S. Marshals. He also maintained that the government was going to classify Christians as mentally ill in order to “get us out of the picture,”confiscate the guns of conservative Christians and ban celebrations of Christmas. Furthermore, he has promoted the birther conspiracy theory and posted a hoax photo of President Obama’s “foreign student ID.” 

Wilson has also been no friend of the gay community. He warned that gay men are bent on molesting Boy Scouts, linked the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell to an increase in the military’s suicide rate, warned that legalizing gay marriage will lead to dog, building and automobile marriages and blamed Hurricane Isaac on an LGBT festival. At one point, Wilson even floated a boycott of Google over the company’s strong stance in support of gay rights. 

h/t: Right Wing Watch

The Religious Right went into a frenzy this week over charges that the military was deliberately blocking access to SBC.net, the official website of the Southern Baptist Convention’s, as part of an anti-Christian ploy.

“What we are seeing here, I want to be very clear here, we are seeing under the Obama administration a Christian cleansing underway in the United States military,” Fox News’ Starnes maintained.

David Limbaugh accused the military of acting like a “thought police” who “selectively suppress[es] First Amendment freedoms” that “our armed forces are charged to protect,” and the SBC’s top ethicist Richard Land said it was an “outrageous” move and the person who blocked the website “needs to be fired.”

The American Family Association called the incident an example of the military’s “hostility towards faith and religious freedom” and its spokesman Bryan Fischer claimed it was part of an Islamist-secularist conspiracy to classify the entire denomination as a “hate group that spews nothing but ‘hostile content.’”

SBC.net was in fact blocked, but not as a result of anti-Christian bias, but because of malware on the SBC’s website.

Don’t just take our word for it, the Baptist Press, the news arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, reported that “the military’s software filters detected malware at SBC.net and blocked the website.” Due to malware, not the content of the website, SBC.net was considered “hostile content.”

But don’t hold your breath for Land or Fischer to retract their inflammatory claims.

H/T: RWW

What is making the right-wing mouthpieces angry today? It is the fact that the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)’s website was blocked on some military bases.

The Tennesseean:

The website for the Southern Baptist Convention has been blocked from some US Army computers.

That’s caused some conservative activists to accuse the Pentagon of being hostile to religion.

Ties between conservative evangelicals and the military have been strong in the past. But the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and other recent incidents have strained those ties.

A Southern Baptist spokesman said that he spoke to Army officials who confirmed that some computers have blocked access to SBC.Net

Those officials say the problem is a glitch, said Roger “Sing” Oldham, convention spokesman.

Even SBC spokesman Sing Oldham admits the the site’s blocking as accidental, but according to the conservative minsinformation chamber, the incident was viewed as “sinister,” “anti-Christian,” and even “pandering to Islamists.”

Right-Wing Reactions:
Todd Starnes, Fixed Noise Radio:

The U.S. Military has blocked access to the Southern Baptist Convention’s website on an unknown number of military bases because it contains “hostile content” — just weeks after an Army briefing labeled Evangelical Christians and Roman Catholics as examples of religious extremism, Fox News has learned.

The censorship was made public after an Army officer tried to log onto the denomination’s website and instead — received a warning message.
“The site you have requested has been blocked by Team CONUS (C-TNOSC/RCERT-CONUS) due to hostile content,” the message read.
Team CONUS protects the computer network of the Dept. of Defense. The SBC’s website was not blocked at the Pentagon.
It’s unclear what the “hostile content” might have been. The SBC is pro-life and opposed to same-sex marriage.

Bryan Fischer, host of AFA Radio’s Focal Point:

Bryan Fischer has produced the latest anti-Christian conspiracy theory and of course rather than do any research, rather than do anything as simple as picking up the phone or sending an email, he’s decided to go on the air to tell his million or so listeners about this latest “attack” on their religious rights by their government.

In this video, below, Fischer explains that he has “breaking news,” that the U.S. government is blocking access from military or government personnel to the Southern Baptist Convention’s homepage. The SBC is the nation’s second-largest Christian group, after Roman Catholics, and they boast about 16 million members, or about five percent of the nation’s population.

By the end of the video clip, Fischer has convinced himself that this seems like a vast government conspiracy to label the Southern Baptist Convention a “hate group,” making the giant leap from “hostile content” to “hate group.”

“Basically, the U.S. military has classified the Southern Baptist Convention as a hate group — the entire denomination,” Fischer repeatedly cries, adding, “it’s like porn.”

Lucianne Goldberg, founder of Lucianne.com:

Was access to Islamic radical websites also blocked? I would sure be more concerned about that! The DOD is working diligently to investigate what might be causing access issues. Uh huh.

AFA Action Alert:

This is just another example of the Christian faith coming under attack in the military. Earlier this month, an Army email listed prominent Christian ministries like the Family Research Council and American Family Association as “domestic hate groups.”

FreeRepublic:
Here are some of the more out there comments on that site:

Actually, it seems that some U.S. Army officers are hostile to the Southern Baptist Convention. - righttackle44

Muslims good, Christians bad. -  E. Pluribus Unum

Military chaplains and bibles in the foxhole have a long history. Now because sodomites are celebrated by a corrupt culture, sin has been redefined by the government. That is still prohibited by the First Amendment. - a fool in paradise

but not a negative word about Islam.

Time for Christians and conservatives to not join the military and to advise their relatives not to. - GeronL

They’re getting this information from the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). A very far Left Wing outfit that labels any and everything conservative a hate group. The SPLC is now a traning contractor for the US government.

Originally hired by “Big Sis” Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, who claimed military veterans were potential terrorists deemed watching by DHS, the SPLC is now training the entire FedGov.

Write your Congressman! The SPLC contract HAS TO GO! - Alas Babylon!

The comments on that page are what you would expect— blaming it on Muslims, gays, liberals, Obama, et al.

Ken Kluklowski at Breitbart.com’s Big Government:

Lt. Col. Damien Pickart insists the Pentagon is not intentionally blocking access for Southern Baptists but has not provided any official explanation for the multiple reports of the military blocking access to Southern Baptist material. On its face, this looks like a brazen show of hostility by the Obama administration against devout Christians in the U.S. military.
Breitbart News legal columnist Ken Klukowski is senior fellow for religious liberty at the Family Research Council.

Today on AFR’s Focal Point, Bryan Fischer hosted Todd Starnes on this topic. As expected, it’s full of complaining that “Muslims have more rights than [Conservative] Christians in this country” crap.

The right will continue to declare this an “intentional sabotage of our Christian freedoms,” but the fact is this: the Southern Baptist Convention’s website getting blocked is more likely to be a glitch. Flip the story for a second: If it was Planned Parenthood, Media Matters, Alternet, pro-LGBTQ sites, or this very site getting blocked on the bases, the right would cheer it.

(cross-posted from Daily Kos) 

On his radio program yesterday, Bryan Fischer declared that liberals and Muslims are allies because they are united by “their distaste for America as founded and they share a contempt and a hatred for Christianity and for Christians.”

H/T: Right Wing Watch

With Republican Party leaders pushing a plan for the GOP to broaden its appeal by softening its stance on social issues, a group of leading social conservatives sent a letter to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus promising an exodus from the party if it stops opposing gay marriage.

But in the letter, the signatories — who included Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, former presidential candidate Gary Bauer, and Focus on the Family’s James Dobson — also expressed indignation that anyone would suggest they haven’t been nice to gays — or “homosexuals,” as they say.

“We deeply resent the insinuation that we have treated homosexuals unkindly personally,” they wrote.

So, of course, we had to dig through the archives to find some of the uniquely kind things these conservative activists have said about gays and lesbians over the years.

Schlafly, who has a gay son, may believe she’s kind to homosexuals, but she doesn’t respect them. She made that clear in a 2010 interview where she outlined her opposition to gay marriage, something Schlafly and many of the others who signed the letter to Priebus have fought tooth and nail.

step further. Not only does he not respect gays, he doesn’t want them to respect themselves. Wildmon made this clear in a 2010 statement criticizing a Gay Pride parade that had a 10-year-old grand marshal.

“There is nothing about homosexual conduct to be proud of, and much to be ashamed of,” said Wildmon.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who also signed the letter, is also not a fan of Gay Pride celebrations. He made this clear in a 2012 broadcast on the AFA’s radio network in which he implied being gay is similar to being an alcoholic or unfaithful to one’s spouse.

“The month of June is Gay Pride Month. Now, I have not yet seen where they have declared Adultery Pride Month, I have not seen where they have declared the Drunkenness Pride Month,” Perkins said. “Whether it’s adultery, whether it’s any type of sexual immorality it’s a problem, but we’re not celebrating those other forms as a society, we’re not promoting it and teaching it as normal in our schools.”

How kind!

The signatories of the letter have also blamed gays and lesbians for all sorts of societal ills. An2012 “action alert” from the AFA said gays are damaging to your health.

“Homosexuality is a poor and dangerous choice, and has been proven to lead to a litany of health hazards to not only the individuals but also society as a whole,” the alert said.

Another AFA radio personality who signed the letter, Sandy Rios, used her time on the organization’s airwaves to blame gays and lesbians for all sorts of societal ills. In February 2012, she said gay friendly school programs were responsible for falling test scores.

“Whether they are teaching radical environmentalism or homosexuality. Can you imagine that they are teaching this instead of math and science? … That’s the reason our test scores are so shockingly low compared with the world.”

Just under nine months later, Rios upped the ante.

“They are clamoring for gay marriage,” said Rios of LGBT activists. “Of course it isn’t just gay marriage, it’s instruction, explicit instruction in public schools, it’s really I think the rape of our children’s innocence.”

Dobson, ever so kindly and politely, of course, managed to accuse LGBT activists of causing something even more dramatic than raping young minds — the total destruction of our world.

“Homosexuals are not monogamous. They want to destroy the institution of marriage, Dobson said at a 2004 rally in Oklahoma. “It will destroy marriage. It will destroy the Earth.”

The signatories have also accused gays and lesbians of wanting to attack American values. InMarch of this year, Wildmon said gay marriage could have a disastrous effect on the founding fathers’ vision for this country.

“Condoning sexual immorality and same-sex marriage may be a good way to make political friends, but it is diametrically opposed to the Word of God. The American Family Association is concerned more about the future of America and how moving away from God’s purpose and intent for marriage destroys the foundations of our Republic.” 

Another signatory, Reverend Louis P. Sheldon, authored a book on the “homosexual plan to change America” in 2005 that described the gay “deathstyle” as being driven by angry, unpatriotic individuals.

Perhaps the kindest words of all came from Bauer in 1999 after the Vermont Supreme Court ruled gay couples should have the same legal protections afforded to married couples.

“I think what the Vermont Supreme Court did last week was in some ways worse than terrorism,” Bauer said.

It looks like Family Research Council president Tony Perkins is embracing a conspiracy theory first floated by Buster Wilson of the American Family Association about how the Obama administration may begin preventing conservative Christians from purchasing guns.

Yesterday on Washington Watch, Perkins said he opposes a new Senate bill that expands background checks because such a system may prevent anyone identified as an “evangelical, bible-believing fundamentalist” from acquiring a firearm.

H/T: Right Wing Watch

Back2Stonewall.com has gotten its hands on the piece of anti-gay propaganda on same sex marriage being sent around the country by Peter Sprigg of the GOP backed hate group the Family Research Council warning citizens against same-sex marriage.

Lies include: Taxpayers would be forced to subsidize homosexual relationships. Birth rates would fall, Demands for legalization of polygamy would grow.

And the ever popular. Fewer children would be raised by a married mother and father.

This particular “memo” was sent out by the FRC to Cincinnati’s Citizens for Community Values an umbrella group of the FRC and “proud affiliate” of the American Family Association.

Total lies, garbage, bullshit and hate.

Be a homophobic bigot for the children.

Family Reseach Council’s Anti-Gay Propaganda EXPOSED! - Top Ten Harms of Same Sex Marriage

h/t: Back2Stonewall.com

Buster Wilson of the American Family Association is no stranger to spreading anti-government conspiracy theories on his radio show, even sharing them with listeners who threaten President Obama’s life.

On his show this Tuesday, Wilson lauded a caller who said that “our boys will never use force against our own country but they will use it to protect this country and Obama, look out,” and went on to once again promote the Oath Keepers, of which he is a member.

At another point of his show, Wilson received a call from someone who wondered if he should “shoot somebody who is going to come in my house” and take his weapons.

Wilson, rather than give the obvious answer that it is not OK to kill federal authorities, responded by telling the caller that he is “neutral” on whether it is appropriate for someone “to shoot down United States Marshals when they come to take our weapons.”

Caller: I’ve got some information, what you guys were saying, about the government buying millions of rounds of ammunition and Homeland Security buying these 2,700 assault vehicles that are supposed to be for homeland security and what goes through my mind immediately, looking at the fools that are running our country, what am I going to do when they come to my house and say: ‘We want to come in.’ ‘What did I do wrong?’ ‘Nothing, we want to look and see.’ ‘No, you’re not coming in my house.’ Am I willing to protect my home and my family and my constitutional rights because I know where I’m going when I die, but am I willing to shoot somebody who wants to come in my house and basically devastate — if they can take your weapons they can come in and take your wife or your children or whatever.

Wilson: I appreciate that and I’m going to comment on what you said. You and I right now are talking about things at the level of anarchy. I want to tell you what I don’t want to do on this program; I don’t want to have a discussion about how we are ready, willing and able to shoot down United States Marshals when they come to take our weapons. I’m not saying you wouldn’t do that or you shouldn’t do that, I’m just staying neutral on that right now. But I don’t want to talk about it because if our society breaks down that far then we are really in trouble.

H/T: Right Wing Watch