Here’s a look at what I’ve been Tweeting and Facebooking today.
* After Promising To ‘Repeal And Replace’ Obama’s Health Law, Republicans Have No Replacement. Gee, is anyone surprised? Think Progress:
When Fox News contributor Juan Williams challenged [The Weekly Standard’s Bill] Kristol to explain “what are you going to replace it with?”, Kristol told Williams not to worry, because there would be hearings in a few months and Republicans would probably come up with something by then.
* Karen Ocamb @ LGBTPOV: Does Sen. John McCain Owe Gay Servicemembers an Apology?
* Joe My God – This Week In Holy Crimes. So many pious pedophiles – from all around the country – it gives you agita. Just one example –
Florida: Pastor Gordon Libby charged with kidnapping a 14 year-old from a Walmart and then masturbating in the victim’s presence. Libby is the founder of the clergy recruitment firm Pastors4U.
* Is the Black Church Dead? Debate Flares Among African-American Christians. This is about the “prosperity gospel” ministers of black megachurches:
They’re pastors, but they’re really in the Halloween costume of a Fortune 500 CEO. And in the process they’re trick-or-treating the people,” Jonathan L. Walton, an assistant professor of African-American religion at Harvard Divinity School, told an appreciative audience three days earlier at Ebenezer Baptist Church in downtown Atlanta.
* David Badash: Best Palin “Surveyors Marks, Not Crosshairs” Debunking Ever.
* QNotes: S.C. GOP strategist: Gays want ‘special protected class’. Consultant Wesley Donehue:
There are many Republicans in the General Assembly who will flat out try to kill any bill providing more gay rights. They aren’t the problem for the S.C Alliance (sic). Their problem will be the many forward-thinking Republicans who are sympathetic to their cause, but won’t go for putting more laws on the books and creating a special protected class.
Matt Comer of QNotes:
Unfortunately, Donehue is right on one point: Many South Carolina Republicans (and even some Democrats, mind you) will fight tooth-and-nail to stop pro-equality legislation. What’s sadder is that some legislators, like state Rep. Greg Delleney (R-Chester), will also fight to specifically exclude LGBT people from what should be relatively non-controversial health and education legislation.”
* MetroWeekly: A Kinder, Gentler DOMA? News Analysis: DOJ’s continued defense of DOMA may have taken on a softer tone, but it can’t erase the sharp underpinnings of the discriminatory 1996 law.
* Towleroad: Tea Party Holds Anti-Same-Sex Marriage Rally In Iowa.
The marriage debate in Iowa continues to heat up. About 35 people gathered in Council Bluffs, Iowa yesterday as part of a Tea Party sponsored rally in support of a ban on same-sex marriage in that state. Headlining the event was wingnut freshman Republican State Representative Kim Pearson who, along with Republicans Tom Shaw of Laurens and Glen Massie, has helped draft legislation to impeach the remaining four justices on the Iowa Supreme Court.
And this money quote from Pearson:
“The definition of marriage is between one man and one woman. God is our ultimate lawgiver.”
* And how about this great news from across the pond: Christian therapist who claims she can help gay men go straight faces faces being stripped of her psych accreditation.
Lesley Pilkington, 60, will appear before a professional conduct panel and faces losing her accreditation with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
…Mrs Pilkington, a devout Christian who says she ‘understands the issues’ because her son is gay, has treated around ten patients using the controversial Sexual Orientation Change Efforts programme over the past decade.
In tapes of her sessions with Mr Strudwick he asks her if she views homosexuality as ‘a mental illness, an addiction or an anti-religious phenomenon’.
She replies: ‘It is all of that.’
