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Opinion: NOM Shill Mark Regnerus’ Long History Of Using Religion To Attack Gays

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In its dirty War Against Gays, the National Organization for Marriage never has hesitated to tell lies, more lies, and even more lies towards perpetuating the absolute evil of sexual orientation apartheid.

So it came as no surprise whatsoever that NOM’s co-founder Robert George — who has a history of publishing anti-gay lies in supposed scholarly journals — went out and found a willing theocratic shill in Mark Regnerus, to pump out, and then to promote heavily a hack propaganda “study” that does not at all measure same-sex-headed households, in order to communicate to the public the anti-gay hate speech message that same-sex parents are dangerous to children.

READ: Why Is Princeton University’s President Shielding NOM’s Founder?

The message is not far from the NOM specialty of inciting people to conflate homosexuality with pedophilia.

One of the oddest things about Regnerus’s anti-gay hate study is that it asked potential study subjects if, between their birth and the time they left home, one of their parents had ever had a same-sex romantic relationship.

Anybody who said yes, qualified to take the rest of the survey.

That is suspicious on its face, as not every parent has had an affair, and not every parent who has, has talked about it with their children.

Do you talk with your parents about their supposed extra-marital affairs? Then too; Regnerus alleges that he had to ask such a question, because through to the 1990s, there were no gay adults raising children. That is false, actually. There were, for example, through to the 1990s, gay uncles and lesbian aunts who took guardianship of children after the children’s heterosexual parents passed away. And, with the $785,000 funding that NOM’s Robert George secured for Regnerus to do a study, Regnerus could have focused on finding such families to evaluate them, instead of carrying out his malicious anti-gay hit job.

Regnerus was raised in a viciously anti-gay ambiance and is himself a theocratic heterosupremacist.

In one strikingly peculiar revelation, Regnerus wrote: “My father, a minister, told me that he’d rather ‘bury people than marry people.'” We must not ignore that Regnerus’s writings often have been used in the past by anti-gay groups to promote anti-gay ideas. In an article sub-section titled “Changing Ideals,” Regnerus wrote: “Our Creator clearly intended for male and female to be knit together in covenantal relationship.”

READ: Opinion: How Anti-Gay Regnerus ‘Study’ Was Corrupted By NOM From Beginning To End

In that connection, everybody must take note that the “Social Science Research” editor James Wright, who published Regnerus’s study simultaneously with another anti-gay parenting study by the theocrat propagandist Loren Marks, has published books promoting “Covenant Marriage.” Wright furthermore has, in his published academic papers, written about the supposed “threat of gay marriage as a potentially destructive influence on the institution of marriage.”

Regnerus is a 1993 graduate of Trinity Christian College; even today, that school’s diversity statements say nothing about sexual orientation, or gender identity and expression. Regnerus later taught at Calvin College, which is one of the most resolutely and aggressively anti-gay schools in the country.  The Calvin College Board of Trustees only recently issued an edict that “advocacy by faculty and staff, both in and out of the classroom, for homosexual practice and same-sex marriage is unacceptable.”

As part of the gay-bashing promotional blitz of his hack job that Regnerus has been coordinating with his NOM funders, Regnerus has been lying his head off. On the evangelical website Patheos, Regnerus held a Q&A with himself, to promote his study, and his and NOM’s faith-based anti-gay hate, in which he fraudulently alleged that his personal religious viewpoint had nothing to do with his study. Meanwhile on his Trinity Christian College alumnus biography, Regnerus says:  “After I graduated, I went to seminary.” Regnerus goes on to say: “As Christians, our lives should reflect our relationship with God and our desire to glorify Him. I’ve noticed that some Christian professors see a disconnect between their faith and their profession. I believe that if your faith matters, it should inform what you teach and what you research.” Regnerus further says: “When I teach . . .  my worldview colors what I do in the classroom.”  He also says: “I want my students to recognize the connection between my faith and my work.”

Which religions does Regnerus follow, incidentally? The University Of Notre-Dame profile of him reports this: “his academic interest in family formation trends and processes had arisen while still an evangelical and his recent entrance into the Catholic Church has shaped his own thinking about fertility and family life.” Pope Benedict, the erstwhile member of the Hitler Jugend, has fraudulently alleged, in an anti-gay hate-mongering outburst, that the entire future of humanity depends on banning same-sex marriage. Arch-bigot Timothy Dolan sent President Obama a letter threatening a church state conflict of unprecedented proportions over gay rights.

Meanwhile, the NOMzi theocrat gay-bashers are pushing, pushing, pushing Regnerus’s faith-based contempt for gay people. NOM ratfink Thomas Peters posted about the Regnerus theocratic poison, on CatholicVote.org using this title: “5 Reasons the Kids-of-Gay-Parents Study Means Its (sic) Time for Gay Marriage Supporters to Revisit Their Assumption.”

Peters is a Robert George protege in political gay-bashing; in his post, he articulates Robert George’s motives in hiring Regnerus as a NOM shill: “My particular hope in all of this is that individuals who originally changed their views about marriage because of previous misleading research about child outcomes display the intellectual honesty to revisit their support of same-sex marriage now that we have more conclusive evidence to the contrary.”

Got it?  The NOMzi-Regnerus theocrats are using blatant lies about gay people to push their demands that gay people not be given their inalienable rights. And to boot, the NOMzis are using, as anti-gay propaganda, a “study” that did not measure gay parenting, to say that gay rights supporters should now use that same defamatory study to apply “intellectual honesty” to their positions.

That is a typical twisted NOMzi incitement to anti-gay hate.

Regnerus himself is promoting his study to incite to anti-gay hatred and discrimination, though exactly what he says about the study depends on the venue to which he is giving an interview. Consider what he told The National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez.

Regnerus told Lopez that his study confirmed that married heterosexual parents provide the “gold standard” for child rearing. Where in Regnerus’s study does one see anything about a supposed “gold standard”? Did peer review perceive any “gold standard” in the data showing that a married heterosexual mother and father produces “Gold Standard Children” and that married gay and lesbian couples produce something else, maybe, for example, a silver or bronze standard? Is that what Regnerus’s research data prove? Regnerus is telling right-wing interviewers that his study proves a “gold standard” in parenting, when it absolutely does not. Regnerus studied adult children of heterosexual — perhaps bi-sexual parents — one of whom allegedly had had a same-sex affair.

Regnerus is telling the right wing media dirty gay-bashing lies about what his study says, when his study does not say those things at all. Further prior evidence of his manifest contempt for gay human beings and their rights can be found in many places on the internet.

NOM very actively is demonizing all gay parents on the basis of the Regnerus study it got funded; Regnerus is doing nothing to demand that NOM stop misrepresenting his work.

In this context, we must not forget that NOM tells its followers that gays are not human, and are “worthy to death.” During an all-day anti-gay hate symposium at Liberty University, NOM’s William C. Duncan led a session titled: “Homosexuals or Homo Sapiens; Who Deserves Protected Class Status?”

That is the level of hatred that the LGBT community is dealing with during the 2012 elections. Here, you can see Mitt Romney’s signature on the NOMzis’ gay-bashing “pledge.”

Mark Regnerus is a despicable, gay-bashing, duplicitous theocrat NOMzi shill. He has knowingly taken $785,000 to produce anti-gay propaganda for NOM’s Robert George, with a premeditated intent to demonize gay human beings in an election year, when their rights hang in the balance of who wins the election.

 

New York City– based novelist and freelance writer Scott Rose’s LGBT– interest by– line has appeared on Advocate .com, PoliticusUSA .com, The New York Blade, Queerty .com, Girlfriends and in numerous additional venues. Among his other interests are the arts, boating and yachting, wine and food, travel, poker and dogs. His “Mr. David Cooper’s Happy Suicide” is about a New York City advertising executive assigned to a condom account.

 

Related:

Anti-Gay Parenting Study May Support Gay Marriage, Some On The Right Say

LGBT Groups Unite Against Flawed Conservative-Funded Anti-Gay Parenting Paper

NOM Founder And Mormon Church Tied To First Report Of New Anti-Gay Parenting Paper

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News

‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

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April 25, 2024

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Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.

“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”

The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”

Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”

“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”

NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”

Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.

During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”

But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.

“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

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21 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity early on appeared at best skeptical, were able to get his attorney to admit personal criminal acts can be prosecuted, appeared to skewer his argument a president must be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted, and peppered him with questions exposing what some experts see is the apparent weakness of his case.

Legal experts appeared to believe, based on the Justices’ questions and statements, Trump will lose his claim of absolute presidential immunity, and may remand the case back to the lower court that already ruled against him, but these observations came during Justices’ questioning of Trump attorney John Sauer, and before they questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Michael Dreeben.

“I can say with reasonable confidence that if you’re arguing a case in the Supreme Court of the United States and Justices Alito and Sotomayor are tag-teaming you, you are going to lose,” noted attorney George Conway, who has argued a case before the nation’s highest court and obtained a unanimous decision.

But some are also warning that the justices will delay so Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump will not take place before the November election.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“This argument still has a ways to go,” observed UCLA professor of law Rick Hasen, one of the top election law scholars in the county. “But it is easy to see the Court (1) siding against Trump on the merits but (2) in a way that requires further proceedings that easily push this case past the election (to a point where Trump could end this prosecution if elected).”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie appeared to agree: “So, big picture: the (already slim) chances of Jack Smith actually getting his 2020 election-subversion case in front of a jury before the 2024 election are dwindling before our eyes.”

One of the most stunning lines of questioning came from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into Office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is, from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

She also warned, “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate because, OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents, from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning, but once we say, ‘no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

“Why is it as a matter of theory,” Justice Jackson said, “and I’m hoping you can sort of zoom way out here, that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts?”

“So,” she added later, “I guess I don’t understand why Congress in every criminal statute would have to say and the President is included. I thought that was the sort of background understanding that if they’re enacting a generally applicable criminal statute, it applies to the President just like everyone else.”

Another critical moment came when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “If a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune?”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub observed, “This is truly a remarkable moment. A former U.S. president is at his criminal trial in New York, while at the same time the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing his lawyer’s argument that he should be immune from prosecution in an entirely different federal criminal case.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

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