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Religious Right: Rob Portman’s Gay Son Living An ‘Abhorrent Lifestyle’ In ‘Delusion’

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The Religious Right took no time to attack U.S. Republican Senator Rob Portman, who announced last week his support for same-sex marriage after acknowledging his 21-year old son is gay. Extremists like Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel and Liberty University, World Net Daily (WND) founder and top birther Joseph Farah, Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition and president of Mission America Linda Harvey held little back as they ganged up on the Ohio Senator and his young son.

In a World Net Daily exclusive (as every article on WND seems to be), Joseph Farah — one of America’s top birthers — writes, “Be glad Portman’s son isn’t serial killer“:

I’ve heard some wacky excuses by politicians for changing their minds on some of the most important moral issues facing American, but Ohio Sen. Rob Portman’s rationale for flip-flopping on same-sex marriage takes the proverbial wedding cake.

In case you haven’t heard, his son is a homosexual.

I guess we should all be grateful Rob Portman’s son didn’t choose to become a polygamist or a serial killer.

I have no doubt Rob Portman is sincere in his newfound opinion.

However, that’s all it is – an opinion.

And opinions don’t determine what is right and what is wrong. Opinions don’t determine what is sinful and what is not sinful. Opinions don’t determine what is truth and what is a lie.

Few are willing to say it anymore, but I will: Morality is determined by God, not men.

Portman’s statement about two people making a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other is very touching. But it’s not what marriage is about. People make such commitments all the time. Parents make lifetime commitments to love and care for their disabled children. They don’t generally marry them. Siblings sometimes do the same thing. I trust Portman is not advocating incestual relations as next on his list of reflective changes in the law.

And then there’s the question no one in the same-sex marriage camp wants to answer: Why should such marriages be limited to couples? Isn’t that narrow-minded and bigoted? Why not legalize polygamy or group marriages?

But wait, there’s more!

After far too many biblical quotes, Farah ends with:

“Whom are you going to believe – the Creator of the universe or Rob Portman?”

But wait, there’s more!

“… Perhaps [the senator’s] love for his son has deceived him in not being able to differentiate between loving his son and helping his son to do the right thing, versus changing his entire worldview and his view of the natural institution of legitimate marriage in order to accommodate his son’s abhorrent lifestyle,” Matt Barber said, according to American Family Association’s One News Now:

“This provides us a perfect example of the danger of looking at things through the jaundiced prism of our own feelings rather than on objective truths,” says the Liberty Counsel attorney.

The Bible clearly states repeatedly that homosexual conduct is a sin and an abomination to God. And as Barber points out: “God is unchanging. He is the same now and forever.”

Meanwhile, Andrea Lafferty with Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) wonders how the senator would have reacted if his son had instead revealed he is a drunk driver.

“If your child tells you that they’re a drunk driver [you don’t respond by thinking] - I love my kid, and so therefore because I love my kid I’m going to say that drunk driving is okay. And My child has caused me to revisit an issue which up until now had been based simply on morality, but now I don’t see the morality of drunk driving being a problem.”

The TVC executive director believes Ohio voters might have been misled when Portman ran for the Senate in 2010.

“I’m not sure that he’s been fully candid about when he knew about his son; therefore, maybe he ran under false pretenses. Number two he’s done it just before the Supreme Court is going to hear the homosexual marriage issue, the DOMA, the Prop 8 issue.”

And like Matt Barber, Lafferty believes Portman should have given his son sound moral guidance on the issue. “If we believe something is right or wrong, we don’t change it because our child engages in wrong, immoral, or illegal activity,” she adds.

Linda Harvey, apparently an Ohio resident, writes: The Gaying Of America: My Senator Caves To The Sin Lobby:

He opines about “civil marriage rights” as if they don’t exist now. These unions will be a stabilizing force bringing “renewed strength” to the institution, he thinks – but Portman is either woefully uninformed or deliberately ignores the mounting evidence against these lifestyles and the political militancy they are unleashing . There is no excuse for a sitting senator to jump on board a movement that viciously targets challengers, forces indoctrination of children in taxpayer- funded schools and bullies the corporate culture as well as the Boy Scouts into bowing before its altar of deviance.

And it’s so unnecessary. Every person out there who claims a “gay” identity has the ability to get married in Ohio or anywhere else now. He or she can marry someone of the opposite sex, because that’s what marriage is and because a “gay” identity is a delusion. Two men, no matter how sincere they feel, or two women, will never be a marriage. The person who believes this disorder is “who he is,” as apparently Portman’s son does, has tragically internalized a lie.

The sky is not green; it’s still blue – and Jesus’ identification of marriage as one man and one woman in Genesis 2 (where He was present as our eternally existent God) and again in Matthew 19 was not a joke. Just because Portman’s pastor misunderstands doesn’t mean Portman has to. One man/one woman marriage is a good and beautiful thing, not a hateful one. Jesus didn’t hate anyone – He came to save us from sin, and homosexuality is always a sin in Scripture.

Homosexual “marriage” is wrong because homosexual behavior is wrong.

Portman’s capitulation is not an “evolution.” He’s a “cave” man, not progressing but regressing to put a stamp of approval on something two other Bible verses call an abomination (Leviticus 18:22, 20:13). He has endorsed ancient, Old Testament sin, which is rearing its head again in modern America with eerie similarity.

And yes, wait for it… here it comes!

“We need a new Republican or perhaps tea-party senator for Ohio, one strong enough to overcome struggles at home while standing up in the public square. Is that too much to ask of a public servant?”

This post is already too long, but please, click on the names at the top to learn more about these religious right, um, “activists.”

Hat tip: Right Wing Watch

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Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation

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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.

Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”

“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”

In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”

He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”

“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”

“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”

“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”

The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.

“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”

Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”

Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.

Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.

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Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs

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President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.

“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”

The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”

Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”

TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”

Critics blasted Trump.

“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.

One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”

Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”

The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.

U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”

 

Image via Reuters 

 

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One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won

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President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.

According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.

Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”

“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”

Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”

Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.

Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.

The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.

“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.

The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.

“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”

 

Image via Reuters

 

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