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Watch: Top Anti-Gay Bigot’s Marriage Fibs Decimated By Conservative Lawyer-And Fox News Anchor

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Tony Perkins appeared on Fox News Sunday thinking he could spread his anti-gay marriage hate to a friendly audience, but his claims were decimated and debunked by one of America’s top conservative attorneys and the Fox News host.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins just had a very bad visit on “Fox News Sunday.” His center seat apparently was the designated hot seat. On the left was former Bush Solicitor General Ted Olson, one of the two attorneys who sought the demise of Prop 8 by bringing it all the way to the Supreme Court, then went on to win marriage equality in Virginia. On the right was Fox News anchor Chris Wallace. 

Perkins might have expected a grand old time where he could spew his packaged talking points about poor persecuted Christian wedding cake vendors and victimized parents forced to find their children learning that gay people aren’t the monsters their parents portray. 

But he was wrong.

Perkins tried to tell Olson his comparison of court decisions on same-sex marriage to court decisions on interracial marriage were wrong.

“Apples and oranges,” Perkins insisted, “because we’re talking about an arbitrary boundary created by man between the races. That doesn’t exist in nature. There is a boundary between people of the same sex getting married. They can’t procreate. They can’t — there’s nothing in nature to say that’s normal.”

Except, of course, the hundreds of species in which homosexuality have been widely documented.

Perkins’ career as an anti-gay activist is so rabid under his leadership the Southern Poverty Law Center was forced to designate the Family Research Council as a certified anti-gay hate group. 

So it’s not surprising he would claim on Fox News that the U.S. Supreme Court’s explanation of the purpose of marriage is wrong.

“I’d like to ask Ted [Olson],” Perkins says, “what’s the purpose of marriage?”

“The purpose of marriage is what the Supreme Court has said 14 times,” Olson replies. “It’s a fundamental right that involves privacy, association, liberty, and being with the person you love and forming a part of the community and being treated equally with the rest of society.”

“That’s not true,” is Perkins’ retort.

And there was more:

PERKINS: Well, we know from the social science that children do best with a mom and a dad. That’s why our policies in this country have preferred marriage and given benefits to it.

But let me — if love is the factor, what boundaries are there?

OLSON: You want the sky to fall because two people living next door to you —

PERKINS: No, I —

OLSON: What court after court after court has said, that allowing people of the same sex to marry the person that they love, to be part of the community and to be treated equally, does no damage to heterosexual marriage.

(CROSSTALK)

OLSON: And court after court after court has said children living in a same-sex relationship do as well or better than people in other communities.

PERKINS: The court doesn’t study this social —

OLSON: The court heard evidence.

PERKINS: Let me ask you, what are the boundaries, though? If it’s just love, what are the boundaries? Where can we go with marriage?

WALLACE: What are you suggesting? That they’re going to be polygamy. That people will be marrying their pets?

(CROSSTALK)

PERKINS: No, I didn’t say that. If we remove the natural established boundaries for marriage, the union of a man and woman, we have removed those boundaries, those guardrails.

There’s no arbitrary boundary —

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: What about the argument that Ted Olson makes, which is, all right, you and your wife live happily in this house, there’s a same-sex couple living here. What’s the damage to you?

PERKINS: Let’s talk about that. Let’s talk about the wedding vendors that have been put out of business. Let’s talk —

WALLACE: I’m not talking about that. That’s a different issue.

PERKINS: No, it’s —

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: It’s a different issue. I’m asking you, what’s the impact on you and your family to have these people living next door?

PERKINS: Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about my children all of a sudden, in school are taught values and morals that contradict what I teach as a parent at home. That’s happening already across the country in those states that have recognized and forced same-sex marriage on the states.

Let’s talk about the business place, let’s about Aaron and Melissa Klein, a bakery in Oregon, forced out of business, forced to pay $150,000 in fines, simply because they didn’t want to participate in a same-sex marriage.

WALLACE: We’re gong to get to that in a second. But your argument as to whether somehow this damages the Perkins to have another couple next door?

OLSON: Well, everyone who has ever talked about this says there’s no heterosexual couple that is going to decide to get divorced or not to get married or not to raise children just because another couple next to them is treated equally and with respect and decency under our Constitution. That is why we have courts.

The same argument Mr. Perkins was making was made with respect to interracial marriages in 1967 — 30 some states at one point prohibited interracial marriages.

And talk about the color of the skin? People were making the same arguments. Marriage is wrong between people of different races. We have to stop that.

When the Supreme Court finally acted, 16 states were still prohibiting interracial marriages.

As far as the marriage vendors, the people in the flower business or in the — in the cake business or whatever it happens to be, we have a civil rights law that say if you’re going to engage in commerce, you’re not going to discriminate against people on the basis of their religion, sex or race. That’s a simple solution to the problem. Massachusetts —

PERKINS: Driving them out of business?

OLSON: Massachusetts allowed same-sex marriage 10 years ago. Nobody has been put out of marriage —

(CROSSTALK)

OLSON: It’s a canard.

PERKINS: It’s not.

Clearly, if “traditional marriage” advocates have lost Fox News, same-sex marriage has won.

And for the record, Perkins is, to be kind, twisting facts.

First, the “wedding vendors that have been put out of business,” claim is false. No wedding vendor — say, cake baker or event space owner — who has refused to do business with a same-sex couple has been “put out of business.” They may have been fined for violating civil rights laws, they may have even voluntarily chosen to move their business online or close up shop, but that was their decision, not the state’s or any same-sex couple’s.

Next, Perkins needs to stop fibbing about the Massachusetts adoption agency. The fact is Catholic Charities, despite the vote of its board, opted to stop doing business in Massachusetts rather than allow gay people or same-sex couples to adopt the children in their care. It was their choice, they were not, “driven out of business.”

Finally, those “studies” Perkins like to bring up were of heterosexual couples raising children compared to heterosexual single parents raising children. Same-sex parents weren’t part of the equation. 

Watch:

 

Image via YouTube
Transcript via Fox News

Hat tip and video: David Edwards at Raw Story

 

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News

Lawmaker Slammed for Claiming College Basketball Players Were Actually ‘Illegal Invaders’

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Michigan MAGA Republican state Rep. Matt Maddock is under fire after claiming three buses were “loaded up with illegal invaders.” The buses, according to multiple reports, were actually loaded with the Gonzaga University basketball team arriving for March Madness.

“Happening right now. Three busses just loaded up with illegal invaders at Detroit Metro. Anyone have any idea where they’re headed with their police escort?” Rep. Maddock wrote on social media Wednesday evening, tagging far-right former U.S. Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who served as U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands under Donald Trump and is now the state’s Republican Party chair.

Informed of his error on social media, Rep. Maddock doubled down, and attacked.

READ MORE: Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

“Probably teams for the NCAA Mens Sweet 16 playing at LCA on Friday and Sunday,” a user on X wrote.

“Sure kommie. Good talking point,” Maddock quickly shot back.

ABC affiliate WXYZ executive producer Maxwell White, responding to the Maddock’s original post wrote: “Just to be clear, this was the Gonzaga basketball team. Photos show Gonzaga getting on an Allegiant plane to Detroit for the Sweet 16, and Flight Radar shows a plane from GEG to DTW landed at 7:25 p.m., around the time this photo was posted.”

“This is a wild tweet,” White added, before adding more evidence.

Hoekstra, who was accused of using racism and xenophobia to win his campaign for a U.S. Senate seat (he lost), did not respond directly to Maddock but did repost the apparently false claim.

Michigan State Senate Democratic Majority Whip Mallory McMorrow denounced Maddock’s claim as “dangerous.”

Maddock’s remark also made the national stage when U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell responded.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

“Hey Einstein,” the California Democrat wrote, “your state is hosting the Sweet 16. Could it be a team bus? If it is, will you resign for your spectacular stupidity?”

In 2021 The Washington Post reported, “Michigan state Rep. Matt Maddock and his wife, Michigan Republican Party co-chair Meshawn Maddock, have repeatedly been called out by fact-checking journalists for promoting baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and falsely suggesting that covid-19 is comparable to the flu.”

See the social media posts above 0r at this link.

 

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OPINION

Ronna McDaniel Is Just a ‘Normal’ Person Who ‘Never Denied the Election’ Says Hugh Hewitt

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Right-wing talk radio show host Hugh Hewitt is facing backlash after declaring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who was ousted after her hiring cost NBC News a tumultuous five days, a “normal” person who has “never denied the election.”

Last summer, The Washington Post‘s Philip Bump reported McDaniel “is still elevating 2020 election skepticism,” and “won’t say the election was fair.”

“I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t. I’m not going to say that,” McDaniel had said to CNN.

“CNN teased an upcoming interview between host Chris Wallace and Ronna McDaniel,” Bump wrote. “In the clip, Wallace asks McDaniel when she stopped being an ‘election denier’ — that is, someone who espouses skepticism about the validity of the election results. And, surprise! McDaniel never stopped.”

Bump also explained the danger in election denialism: “McDaniel won’t say Biden was legitimately elected because the base doesn’t want to hear it — but the base doesn’t want to hear it in part because leaders such as McDaniel won’t simply admit without qualifications that Biden won.”

READ MORE: Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

“Establishing a system in which any loss can easily be framed as illegitimate means establishing a system in which no loss is accepted as valid,” Bump continued. “It means institutionalizing the idea that elections are inaccurate gauges of public opinion and, therefore, that the winners of those elections have no mandate to serve.”

On Wednesday Hewitt, a Washington Post columnist and former Reagan White House aide, said on Fox News that McDaniel “is a fine Republican. She is not an election denier. She has never denied the election.”

Former Republican Congressman Joe Walsh responded to that clip.

Bullshit Hugh. With Trump, she pressured MI canvassers to not certify the results; with Trump, she pressured other state attorney’s to sue & invalidate results in MI, PA, & WI; she worked with Trump on the fake electors scheme; she lied about charges of voter fraud well after those charges had been debunked. No major party chair in American history has done more to dispute a legit election. Shame on you,” Walsh wrote.

Media Matters’ Eric Kleefeld, also responding to that clip: “Somebody who helped coordinate fake electors and passed a resolution calling Jan. 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’ is not normal, and we must at all steps refuse to treat them as such.”

READ MORE: Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

Hewitt had also told Fox News, “I don’t know who is going to keep MSNBC informed of what normal people think, because Ronna McDaniel is about as normal as they come. She’s a Michigan mom, she’s been in the job seven years. She represents the Republican Party.”

McDaniel, it could be said, does not represent the Republican Party, not the MAGA America First Republican Party of today, neither literally nor figuratively. Donald Trump engineered her ouster and installed his handpicked replacements, including his daughter-in-law and Michael Whatley, a right-wing attorney who was part of the Bush recount team during the contested 2000 presidential election.

The Atlantic’s Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), blasted Hewitt, calling him “an utter disgrace,” while adding, “shame on those like the Washington Post who showcase him.”

Adam Cohen, vice chair of Lawyers for Good Government, pointedly responded to Hewitt: “Hate to tell you this, but normal people don’t try to foment a coup, or deny the truth about election results Like Ronna McDaniel did.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: Trump Campaign Says It Will Deploy ‘Soldiers’ to Polling Places

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News

Comer Refuses to Investigate Trump Family Member Over ‘Influence Peddling’ Allegation

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Last year House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer acknowledged former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House advisor Jared Kushner had “crossed the line” when he accepted $2 billion in foreign investment funds from the government of Saudi Arabia as he started up a private investment firm just months after leaving the White House.

Now, Chairman Comer says he will not open an investigation into any possible wrongdoing, Huffpost reports, despite top Democrats alleging Kushner engaged in “apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals.”

On Tuesday, the top Democrat on Comer’s Oversight Committee, Ranking Member Jamie Raskin, and Democrat Robert Garcia, the Ranking Member on the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs, formally requested Comer “convene a hearing regarding Jared Kushner’s apparent influence peddling and quid pro quo deals involving investments in exchange for official actions and to examine the resulting threats to our national security.”

“This Committee cannot claim to be ‘investigating foreign nationals’ attempts to target and coerce high-ranking U.S. officials’ family members by providing money or other benefits in exchange for certain actions while continuing to ignore these matters,” Raskin and Garcia wrote. “We therefore urge you to work with us to finally investigate Mr. Kushner’s receipt of billions of dollars from foreign governments in deals that appear to be quid pro quos for actions he undertook as senior White House adviser in Donald Trump’s Administration.”

READ MORE: Greene Says She Won’t Take Responsibility if Johnson Loses Speaker’s Gavel Before Election

The American people are deeply concerned about these business dealings and Mr. Kushner’s apparent influence peddling. We must address
those concerns with a fair, impartial, and public process to understand the truth and to institute meaningful reforms to safeguard public confidence in our executive branch.”

The two Democrats in their letter say their “request comes in light of allegations that Jared Kushner is pursuing new foreign business deals, just as Donald Trump becomes the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency. Last year, well before these new allegations came to light, Chairman Comer had already conceded that Jared Kushner’s conduct ‘crossed the line of ethics’ and promised that the Oversight Committee would ‘have some questions for Trump and some of his family members, including Jared Kushner.'”

Raskin and Garcia paint a picture of “Kushner’s pattern of profiting off of his time in the White House.”

Citing The New York Times (apparently this article), they write, “Jared Kushner was closing in on investments in Albania and Serbia, leveraging relationships he built during his time as a senior adviser in his father-in-law’s White House. Reportedly, Mr. Kushner is considering an investment on the site of the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense.”

“Mr. Kushner is reportedly being advised by Richard Grenell, another former senior Trump Administration official who served as U.S. Ambassador to Germany and, concomitantly, as ‘special envoy for peace negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo.’ Mr. Grenell reportedly ‘pushed a related plan’ for redevelopment of the same site during his time in the Trump Administration.”

READ MORE: Trump Says He Thinks He’s ‘Allowed’ to Accept Foreign Money to Pay Fines

“In pursuing investment opportunities in Albania, Mr. Grenell and Mr. Kushner have been openly leveraging their relationship with Edi Rama, the Prime Minister of Albania. While Commander-in-Chief, President Trump received unconstitutional payments from Prime Minister Rama and other senior Albanian government officials who spent thousands of dollars at theTrump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., over three separate stays,” Raskin and Garcia write.

They also allege, “Mr. Kushner successfully overruled State Department officials, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to make President Trump’s first foreign trip as President to Saudi Arabia. Mr. Kushner personally intervened to inflate the value of a U.S.-Saudi arms deal and to finalize the deal President Trump signed, which was worth $110 billion. Mr. Kushner
also provided diplomatic cover and support to the Crown Prince after the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, an American permanent resident and journalist. Mr. Khashoggi’s murder was assessed by American Intelligence to have been approved by the Crown Prince himself.”

Despite their extensive allegations, Chairman Comer is refusing to open an investigation.

“Unlike the Bidens, Jared Kushner has a legitimate business and has a career as a business executive that predates Donald Trump’s political career,” Comer said, as HuffPost reports. “Democrats’ latest letter is part of their playbook to shield President Biden from oversight.”

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