Justin's Political Corner

In an interview with Janet Mefferd yesterday, pastor Jim Garlow elaborated on his theory that gay people don’t actually want to get married. In fact, Garlow told Mefferd, gay people want to “destroy marriage” and “force us to affirm an immoral behavior.”

Garlow further warned that if the Supreme Court affirms marriage equality, Christians will be “forced underground. Their buildings will be taken away from them, many of their rights will be taken away from them.”

h/t: RWW

During the debate over the Shepard-Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act, Religious Rightgroups like the American Family Association warned that the law would “criminalize negative comments concerning homosexuality” and “take away our religious freedoms.”

Of course, none of that happened, but that hasn’t stopped anti-gay activists from making the exact same false claims again and hoping more people will fall for it.

Yesterday, AFA president Tim Wildmon appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show and alleged that if the Supreme Court overturned Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) then we will see “persecution against Christians” and restrictions on the freedom of speech.

Ironically, the AFA’s own legal counsel, Pat Vaughn, admitted that “the Defense of Marriage Act is probably unconstitutional.”

Incensed that she was not invited back to CPAC, the annual gathering of conservative activists, Pamela Geller took to The Janet Mefferd Show to once again claim that she is a victim of Sharia law. She accused CPAC of “enforcing the Sharia” and “blasphemy laws” as a result of “the influence of what can only be described as Muslim Brotherhood facilitators or operatives like Suhail Khan and Grover Norquist.”

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW

Conservative leaders are continuing to rally opposition to a proposed plan to end the national ban on gay members in the Boy Scouts of America with warnings about pedophilia and “indoctrination.”

Family Research Council vice president Rob Schwarzwalder told Janet Mefferd yesterday that fathers cannot trust their sons to be around gay people.

Mefferd called gay rights advocates “totalitarian” for opposing the ban and lamented that the “violins are playing full blast” in the media when they cover stories about gay youths kicked out of the Boy Scouts.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel said in a statement that “people like Jerry Sandusky” would be “permitted to be Scoutmasters” if the policy changes, adding, “To allow homosexual Scoutmasters or homosexual Scouts will put young boys at risk.”

Concerned Women for America started a letter-writing campaign against the move before gays attempt “to infiltrate the next generation.” The group even claimed that if gays are allowed to join the Boy Scouts, it would mean that “our religious liberties are being taken away”…somehow.

2000 presidential candidate Alan Keyes in WorldNetDaily warned of “homosexual indoctrination” and “idolatry” in the Boy Scouts if they change the policy.

H/T: Brian Tashman at RWW

Former South Carolina senator Jim DeMint, the incoming president of the Heritage Foundation, spoke with Janet Mefferd yesterday about immigration reform and the future of the GOP.

DeMint was unhappy with President Obama’s immigration proposal and the bipartisan framework presented this week in the Senate, both of which include a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Democrats, he claimed, “are much more interested in new voters and union members than they are in fixing the system and honoring our heritage of immigration.”

DeMint, the architect of the 2010 Tea Party takeover, also denied that the GOP needs to moderate its positions to appeal to more voters after its drubbing among women, young people, African-Americans, Latinos and Asian-Americans in 2012. “We’re just not telling our story well and we’re not doing a good job of showing the victims of progressive liberal policies,” DeMint said. “And there are a lot of them around the country and minorities are the biggest victims of these policies.”

H/T: Miranda Blue at RWW

For example, American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer suggested the move would allow Jerry Sandusky-like pedophiles to become troop leaders:

Conservative talk show host Janet Mefferd followed suit.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, which launched a boycott of UPS after the company stopped donating to the BSA for failing to meet its non-discrimination guidelines,said that the inclusion of openly gay members undermines “the well-being of the boys under their care”:

“The Boy Scouts of America board would be making a serious mistake to bow to the strong-arm tactics of LGBT activists and open the organization to homosexuality. What has changed in terms of the Boy Scouts’ concern for the well-being of the boys under their care? Or is this not about the well-being of the Scouts, but the funding for the organization?

“The Boy Scouts has for decades been a force for moral integrity and leadership in the United States. Sadly, their principled stances have marked them as a target for harassment by homosexual activists and corporations such as UPS which are working to pressure the Boy Scouts into abandoning their historic values.

“The mission of the Boy Scouts is ‘to instill values in young people’ and ‘prepare them to make ethical choices,’ and the Scout’s oath includes a pledge ‘to do my duty to God’ and keep himself ‘morally straight.’ It is entirely reasonable and not at all unusual for those passages to be interpreted as requiring abstinence from homosexual conduct.

“If the board capitulates to the bullying of homosexual activists, the Boy Scouts’ legacy of producing great leaders will become yet another casualty of moral compromise. The Boy Scouts should stand firm in their timeless values and respect the right of parents to discuss these sexual topics with their children,” concluded Perkins.

In an email to members, Perkins claimed that any policy change would have “devastating” consequences:

A departure from their long-held policies would be devastating to an organization that has prided itself on the development of character in boys. In fact, according to a recent Gallup survey, only 42 percent of Americans support changing the policy to allow homosexual scout leaders.

As the BSA board meets next week, it is crucial that they hear from those who stand with them and their current policy regarding homosexuality. Please call the Boy Scouts of America at 972-580-2000 and tell them that you want to see the organization stand firm in its moral values and respect the right of parents to discuss these sexual topics with their children.

The Christian Post, whose editor Richard Land leads the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm, interviewed a top Southern Baptist who said the potential shift in policy “boggles the mind.”

A source who has knowledge of the situation told The Christian Post last week that the BSA’s top executives had met with top leaders at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, among others, over the last few weeks to inform them of the possibility of this policy shift.

…

“It boggles my mind to think the BSA would make such a move,” said an executive in the Southern Baptist Convention who asked not to be identified. “If they have counted the cost of this decision in terms of relationships and numbers, then I believe they have miscalculated that cost.”

H/T: Right Wing Watch

For decades, the gay community and its allies have been doing incredible work combating HIV/AIDS and providing care for people with the virus, but according to anti-gay activists Janet Mefferd and Peter LaBarbera, gay rights supporters have tried to whitewash the epidemic and show little compassion to HIV-positive people.

While discussing LaBarbera’s “20 Resolutions for Pro-Family Advocates Battling the Homosexual-Transgender Agenda in 2013” on her radio show, Mefferd said that the Religious Right had an opening to exploit the issue of HIV/AIDS “because we’ll say, we care about people who are having terrible diseases because of the behavior and where is the compassion on your side for these people who have these illnesses?”

Of course, Mefferd and LaBarbera both support the criminalization of LGBT status, which only exacerbates the spread of HIV. 

H/T: Brian Tashman at RWW

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show this week to report on his group’s so far unsuccessful lawsuit against California’s new law prohibiting the use of ex-gay therapy on minors. Barber asserted that “anecdotal, unsubstantiated, politically motivated claims of suicidal thoughts” that frequently result from the unsafe and degrading therapy techniques “have nothing to do with science.” “Simply on the science alone they just don’t have a leg to stand on,” Barber said.

But as we’ve reported before, the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, National Association of Social Workers and American Psychiatric Association have all found that sexual orientation conversion therapy is a dangerous sham.

Barber, who just yesterday he claimed that nearly half of all gay people are victims of sexual abuse as children, doesn’t really care about the findings of the country’s leading medical organizations, he just cares about preserving extremely harmful practices under the pretense of defending children against the supposed gay menace.

“The homosexual activist lobby is an insatiable beast” intent on “throwing children under the bus,” Barber claimed. He warned that gays are working to “turn our public schools into indoctrination centers” and “using these kids as pawns in a dangerous and selfish political game of chess.”

H/T: Brian Tashman at Right Wing Watch

Todd Akin’s campaign continues to sponsor The Janet Mefferd Show, as Mefferd has hosted Akin surrogates like Janet Huckabee and Linda Becker of “Women Standing with Todd Akin.” Finally, the embattled Senate candidate himself appeared on the far-right talk show, where he said that Missourians know that people who “believe in traditional marriage” and “believe in freedom” are able to “understand the threat that Claire McCaskill and Barack Obama pose to our country,” which is why he believes he will in in November.

Akin went on to suggest that Obama is raising taxes on people who simply turn on their lights or purchase a wheelchair.

You remember how Barack Obama specifically promised nobody making less than $250,000 is going to be taxed, well that’s absolutely ridiculous, he’s taxed them with dozens of taxes on people that make less than $250,000. His energy policy, anybody who flips a light switch is going to get taxed. He’s got taxes—these people tax some of the weirdest things. Would you ever even in a wild moment would you ever consider taxing a wheelchair? I mean these people are bizarre.

Of course, there is no wheelchair tax or a “light switch tax,” but as we already know Akin has never had a problem with making stuff up.

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW

The Christian Broadcasting Network’s terrorism analyst Erick Stakelbeck has no credentials to report on security issues (he is a sports reporter), but that hasn’t stopped him from playing the role as “expert.” Stakelbeck appeared on The Janet Mefferd Show to repeat right-wing talking points to claim that President Obama is a failed leader. He said Obama is “using the bin Laden raid as his sole, only foreign policy talking point,” arguing that it doesn’t reflect “foreign policy” and that “anyone in their right mind” would have made the call to go into Pakistan to find bin Laden (unless you’re Mitt Romney). But then Stakelbeck claimed that mission didn’t really matter since bin Laden “was basically isolated and neutralized at that point anyway.”

He went on to talk about how Obama is “empowering and emboldening the Muslim Brotherhood,” “throwing Israel under the bus” and “appeasing the Iranians,” and even said that Obama may pull of an “October surprise” by making a deal with Iran or sending troops into Libya. “Who knows what else they have up their sleeve, I have to say these are people who are leftist ideologues, they are hell-bent in their words ‘fundamentally transforming America,’ and I don’t think they’re going to go quietly,” he said.

Stakelbeck also discussed with Mefferd the non-scandal in Benghazi, arguing that the President has turned into “Imam Obama” over his UN speech where he said: “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. But to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see in the images of Jesus Christ that are desecrated, or churches that are destroyed, or the Holocaust that is denied.” Stacelbeck decried the speech and lamented, “This is an American president saying that in front of the UN? This is madness,” apparently forgetting that President George W. Bush made similar statements during the Muhammad cartoon controversy. He concluded that Muslim countries can never have democracy because “Islam and true democracy are not compatible.”

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW

Sarah Posner brings to us an emerging controversy surrounding Dinesh D’Souza, the conservative pseudo-intellectual who has been on the Religious Right media circuit pushing his anti-Obama “documentary,” as he is apparently seeing another woman who is not his wife. The evangelical WORLD Magazine reports that D’Souza has been introducing his fellow right-wing activists “a young woman, Denise Odie Joseph II” as his fiancée, even sharing a room with her, while at a conference with Alex McFarland, who interviewed D’Souza when he guest hosted The Janet Mefferd Show. He told WORLD editor Warren Cole Smith that he had filed for divorce from his wife, Dixie, but according to court records he only filed the day Smith spoke to him and “under California law, that starts the clock on a six-month waiting period for divorce.”

D’Souza styles himself as a fierce defender of marriage against gays and lesbians and it appears that Odie Joseph II, seen here with D’Souza’s new book, also has strong views on marriage, cohabitation and divorce. In a post on a conservative blog, she rails against feminists and “RINO men” for ruining marriage and traditional morality. “Feminists/liberals who intended to destroy and transform that sacred cornerstone of American society—the traditional family” she explains, adding that today’s state of the family proves that “the 19th Amendment was never the best idea ever.” She blames feminist academics for increases in adultery, failed marriages and cohabitation, and even goes on to say that America’s children “are going the way of black ghetto society” thanks to feminists and Ke$ha.

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW

Washington Times columnist Jeffrey Kuhner, while speaking to Janet Mefferd yesterday,insisted that listeners should not believe claims that President Obama is a Muslim but instead argued that he is a “cultural Muslim” who is working to bring down the US in order to further the cause of anti-American Islamists. After delivering a tirade of already-debunked myths regarding the Obama administration’s response to the Libyan embassy attack, Kuhner said Obama is “literally unleashing radical Islam” in the Middle East and predicted that Obama will be impeached and ultimately removed from office if Republicans win control of both houses of Congress.

KUHNER: The Obama White House literally left our U.S. officials to die, he cannot get around that. So I think this will eventually engulf him—I’m not saying today, I’m not saying tomorrow—like Watergate, these things take time. But even if he wins re-election, this will haunt him throughout his second term, it will be a cloud over his entire presidency and if the Republicans manage to lose this election but manage to get control of the Senate he will be impeached and I believe he will be convicted.

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW

Pamela Geller discussed with Janet Mefferd her new campaign with ads that read, “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man,” and the arrest of journalist Mona Eltahawy for vandalizing one the ads in a New York subway station. In ablog post, Geller called Eltahawy’s actions “a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome” since she survived physical and sexual assault while detained by Egypt’s Interior Ministry. Geller backtracked in the interview and said she didn’t refer to her actions as a case of Stockholm syndrome, even though she did exactly that on her blog, but went on to say that Eltahawy now stands up for the “savage” (i.e. Muslim) only “once they become Jew-haters.” Or maybe, because unlike Geller, Eltahawy does not paint all Muslims with the same brush and blame every single Muslim for the attack she faced in Egypt.

Mefferd: This is interesting, you write today about this woman Mona Eltahawy who went and defaced your ad in the name of free speech, it was just vandalism, the Stockholm syndrome angle was new to me, I had not realized she had been assaulted last year. Why in the world would she go from being assaulted in Cairo to doing this, wouldn’t she think these people were savages after what she went through?

Geller: Why indeed. Actually the word that she used for them at the time was beasts, they were beastly, she said. I guess they cease being beastly once they become Jew-haters, once they’re Jew-haters they are I guess cleansed of any beastliness. I don’t mean to be funny but it’s really true, it’s the same jihad, it’s the same mandate that possessed them in Tahrir Square that possess them in their war on the Jews in Israel. Yes I agree it was decidedly—I know people have called it Stockholm syndrome, I don’t, because when the attacks were on her she saw it in crystal clear moral terms, when the attacks are against the tiny state of Israel, then all the sudden she is attacking.

Geller, who literally runs a group called the American Freedom Defense Initiative, told Mefferd that “it’s interesting how fascists always cloak themselves in the word ‘freedom’” and claimed that anti-fascists are the new fascists. She even blamed the vandalism on a culture of “lawlessness” promoted by the media, the “very violent and misogynist” Occupy Wall Street movement and Obama, who she says is also “aiding and abetting of Al-Qaeda and jihadist elements.”

Not to be outdone, Mefferd claimed that the “radical left agenda” is pushing a “creeping anti-Semitism” reminiscent of the Holocaust.

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW

We know that when Michele Bachmann speaks, even fact-checkers can’t fully cover all of her dubious and debunked claims in just a single article. Now that Bachmann is completely engrossed in promoting her latest conspiracy theory focusing on the supposed Muslim Brotherhood “penetration” of the US government, she took to The Janet Mefferd Show to misrepresent President Obama’s address to the United Nations General Assembly to claim that Obama is not only refusing to defend the freedom of speech but may be even actively backing the curtailment of speech rights in favor of Sharia law.

The congresswoman told Mefferd that Islamic countries may be using “riots and terrorism” to ensure that “Sharia law will dominated over our United States Constitution.” “Our president either doesn’t know what’s happening or he’s playing along with what their goal is,” Bachmann said. “Either option is very dangerous for the free speech rights and the protection and safety of the American people.”

She also failed to mention that when Obama criticized “those who slander the prophet of Islam” it was part of a larger chastisement of religious bigotry, including against desecration of images of Jesus Christ, the destruction of churches and Holocaust denial.

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW