bigotry

Examples in history of this kind of governmental enforcement of religion are not all that appealing.

Via AMERICAblog: A great nation deserves the truth:

So many people so insecure about their sexual orientation that they demand a Constitutional Amendment! So Rudy Giuliani has flip-flopped his position and now finds room for Constitutional homophobia in his vision of a police-state America:

Still liking Giuliani, all you moderates out there? Giuliani was against bashing gays in the US Constitution before he was for it. What a freaking hypocrite, the man is pretending on every single issue to be a "real" conservative when he's simply lying. Giuliani just might give Romney a run for his money as the biggest phony and flip-flopper among the GOP candidates....

Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, told The Hill Saturday that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) would support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

I suppose that's one way for social conservatives to prevent themselves from "choosing to be gay."

Why is Ann Coulter even on the air, anyway?

DEUTSCH: ... but you said I should not -- we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or --

COULTER: Yeah.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Well, it's a lot easier. It's kind of a fast track.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly -- you're too educated, you can't -- you're like my friend in --

COULTER: Do you know what Christianity is? We believe your religion, but you have to obey.

DEUTSCH: No, no, no, but I mean --

COULTER: We have the fast-track program.

DEUTSCH: Why don't I put you with the head of Iran? I mean, come on. You can't believe that.

COULTER: The head of Iran is not a Christian.

DEUTSCH: No, but in fact, "Let's wipe Israel" --

COULTER: I don't know if you've been paying attention.

DEUTSCH: "Let's wipe Israel off the earth." I mean, what, no Jews?

COULTER: No, we think -- we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?

COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we're all sinners --

Why is religious bigotry being invited onto television shows over and over, anyway? What is the purpose?

By now, many of you have probably already seen this, or at least heard about this: Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a "faggot." (Why, I have no idea. If the epithet fits anywhere, it's on the homophobic politicians who so obsess over other people's sex lives. But anyway...)

What's truly telling is the reaction of the audience. These are conservatives -- or at least the loudest conservatives out there.

I'm quite certain there are many people who see themselves conservative and don't suffer from trembling homophobia.

Links:

• C&L run-down
• Think Progress on Mitt Romney's praise of Coulter
• Pam Spauling, on Pandagon, lacerates the Democrats for failing to confront how the conservativist agitators debase the entire political dialogue:
  

  I can’t even begin to address the fact that the Edwards campaign used this as an e-fundraising tactic right out of the box. It cheapens the message beyond all reason. This required a separate response not tied to an ATM request.

And yet, as the likes of Bill Donohue, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin and James Dobson continue to get loving camera time from mainstream media -- you know, the people that like to crow about how superior they are by focusing on "what's important" and all that -- there seems to be precious little push-back.

Whether you've followed the right-wing hits on the John Edwards bloggers or not, this is a must-read. (And well worth the brief on-screen ad required for Salon non-subscribers.)

That Donohue easily succeeded where a hundred right-wing bloggers failed is also unsurprising. Donohue has a long, dirty, but bizarrely successful career of conservative hit jobs. As Frances Kissling has noted, Donohue seems to take particular pleasure in silencing women.

In venues ranging from the New York Times to the major cable news networks, Donohue demanded that the Edwards campaign fire McEwan and me. The left blogosphere, furious that a smear artist might try to snap his fingers and bully a Democratic campaign into firing a staffer, pushed back hard. Liza at Culture Kitchen collected just a sampling of the hundreds of blog posts and letters that were protesting the very idea that such a manufactured controversy should have any impact on the staffing of presidential campaigns.

To me, it's rather shocking how such radical hate-filled bigots have gained currency in the mainstream media claiming that they are being oppressed by criticism of their bigotry.

Then again, maybe it's just a natural result. Most mainstream news outlets and reporters seem to work just hard enough to get a headline and a lead paragraph, and to hell with the details. The well-financed right-wing noise machine makes for convenient news. Even the respected NewsHour routinely hosts dogmatists from the well-funded Republican shill foundations to "analyze" the news.

If you build it, they will come. If you shout it loud enough, they will report it. QED.

Still, it is disturbing how these wingnut operatives -- whether freelance or funded -- wage political terrorism in American media. Amanda's Salon article offers some startling and offensive details:

Amanda Marcotte has resigned the Edwards campaign.

I was hired by the Edwards campaign for the skills and talents I
bring to the table, and my willingness to work hard for what’s right.
Unfortunately, Bill Donohue and his calvacade of right wing shills
don’t respect that a mere woman like me could be hired for my skills,
and pretended that John Edwards had to be held accountable for some of
my personal, non-mainstream views on religious influence on politics
(I’m anti-theocracy, for those who were keeping track). Bill
Donohue—anti-Semite, right wing lackey whose entire job is to create non-controversies in order to derail liberal politics—has been running a scorched earth campaign to get me fired for my personal beliefs and my writings on this blog.

In fact, he’s made no bones about the fact that his intent is to
“silence” me, as if he—a perfect stranger—should have a right to
curtail my freedom of speech. Why? Because I’m a woman? Because I’m
pro-choice? Because I’m not religious? All of the above, it seems.

Regardless, it was creating a situation where I felt that every time
I coughed, I was risking the Edwards campaign. No matter what you think
about the campaign, I signed on to be a supporter and a tireless
employee for them, and if I can’t do the job I was hired to do because
Bill Donohue doesn’t have anything better to do with his time than
harass me, then I won’t do it. I resigned my position today and they
accepted.

The bedwetting set can sure do the hysterics thing. They're hysterical over gays. They're hysterical over women's rights. And they're famously hysterical over barefoot gangbangers in rural Islamic countries.

Now they've been just beside themselves over two bloggers who were attacked by a hatemongering bigot, then fired by John Edwards campaign, then rehired by the John Edwards campaign.

They're also wonderful offering threats.

John Edwards ought to pray (softly, because you don't want your
staffers muttering about you being a "godbag" behind your back, right?)
that he doesn't get hit.

Hear me now, believe me later, Johnny E.: If you lay down with nutroots, it will be hard to get back up.

At MyDD, Chris Bowers writes:

William Donahue is scared to death of you. He just promised a
nationwide campaign to fight the success you have made possible. Ha!
Bring it on. It is about time this wingnut is exposed, and the media
shamed for treating him like a mainstream Catholic figure in the first
place.

Of course, this goes right to the heart of the radical right's claims that the rest of us must be tolerant of their hate.

Unfortunately, Edwards' public statement on his campaign's blog is rather middlin' and, to some extent, cowardly:

Sometimes this guy out-does even himself:

To Rush Limbaugh on Monday, Michael J. Fox looked like a faker. The actor, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, has done a series of political ads supporting candidates who favor stem cell research, including Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin, who is running against Republican Michael Steele for the Senate seat being vacated by Paul Sarbanes.

"He is exaggerating the effects of the disease," Limbaugh told listeners. "He's moving all around and shaking and it's purely an act. . . . This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting."

So says Doctor Limbaugh, whose "expertise" in medicine gave him above-the-law license to illegally medicate himself. (Why isn't he in prison anyway? Didn't he preach "no tolerance" for drug addicts?)

"Now people are telling me they have seen Michael J. Fox in interviews and he does appear the same way in the interviews as he does in this commercial," Limbaugh said, according to a transcript on his Web site. "All right then, I stand corrected. . . . So I will bigly, hugely admit that I was wrong, and I will apologize to Michael J. Fox, if I am wrong in characterizing his behavior on this commercial as an act."

Then Limbaugh pivoted to a different critique: "Michael J. Fox is allowing his illness to be exploited and in the process is shilling for a Democratic politician."

More like Limbaugh is taking Michael J. Fox's political views as an indication that he's somehow not entitled to any sort of humane treatment or consideration or decency. Such is the hate-filled heart of your wingnut media luminaries.