Rick Perry: Homosexuality Is Like Alcoholism, Radical Gays Intolerant
Rick Perry, a Republican presidential candidate, equated homosexuality to alcoholism in his 2008 book, “On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting for,” and suggested “radical gay rights groups” are intolerant.
For the record, alcoholism is classified as a substance use disorder. Homosexuality is not a mental disorder at all.
Time Magazine’s Mark Benjamin writes today, “in a little-noticed passage in his first book, “On My Honor,†a encomium on the Boy Scouts published in 2008, Perry also drew a parallel between homosexuality and alcoholism. ‘Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink,’ he wrote. ‘And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender’.”
“In ‘On My Honor,’ Perry also punted on the exact origins of homosexuality. He wrote that he is ‘no expert on the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate,’ but that gays should simply choose abstinence. Perry’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether he maintains this view.”
Benjamin reminds us that, “President Obama has said repeatedly that people are born gay. Perry’s leading GOP rival, Mitt Romney, has remained coy about whether he thinks gays are born or made, recently saying that he is ‘in favor of gay rights,’ but not the right to marry. Rep. Michelle Bachmann called homosexuality a ‘sexual dysfunction’ as recently as 2004. ‘It is a very sad life,’ she said of homosexuality. ‘Its part of Satan to say that this is gay. It is anything but gay’.â€
“All of the GOP candidates, however, risk drifting away from the mainstream when it comes to civil rights for gays, a potential liability in the general election. A poll released late last month by the Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group, found that a majority of Americans now support marriage for same-sex couples, three quarters of men say they could be friends with a gay man and nearly 60% of Americans would not mind if their grand child were gay.”
Add to this what Igor Volsky of Think Progress just reported, that “Perry went on to say that he was ‘tolerant toward those who have a different sexual preference,’ but condemned ‘the agenda of radical gay rights groups that want to throw their sexual activity into the face of society, despite the decision by millions of families not to teach the gay lifestyle as an acceptable alternative’.†(Volsky has a screen shot from the book – go take a look.)
Steven Benen of the Washington Monthly, the man who delivered a stinging critique of Perry’s attempt to explain why Texas has the third-highest teen pregnancy rate in America, and why he thinks that’s OK, adds, “If, on the Crazy-O-Meter, Michele Bachmann calling homosexuality “part of Satan†registers as a 10, Perry’s published argument has to be at least a 9.5.”
“Greg Sargent asked, ‘[S]eriously: Does the Rick Perry campaign have any strategy at all to deal with the fact that a whole host of extreme views that almost certainly render him unelectable in a general election are right there in black and white, right under his own byline?'”
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(Hat tip to our friends at The Political Carnival)
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President Donald Trump is promising mass pardons to White House staff, and has done so repeatedly, the Wall Street Journal reports.
“I’ll pardon everyone who has come within 200 feet of the Oval,” Trump said in a recent meeting, to laughs, the Journal reported, citing people familiar.
“That radius,” the Journal added, “appears to be expanding as the president repeats the line. Another person who met with Trump earlier this year said the president quipped about pardoning anyone who had come within 10 feet.”
Trump at one point said he would hold a news conference to announce the mass pardons.
“The president has repeatedly raised the specter of pardons with White House aides and other administration officials, particularly when staff have suggested they could face prosecution or congressional investigations over decisions, people familiar with the comments said,” the Journal reported.
The Journal did not state if the pardons would be blanket pardons, but reported that those familiar with his remarks “said they weren’t aware of specific pardons being offered to specific people for specific acts.”
READ MORE: White House Fires Back After President’s Doctor Is Asked to Test Trump’s Mental Fitness
The report also noted that Trump has often seriously pursued actions he initially had joked about.
“It seems like he previewed many times his intent to use the pardon power to bail out those who carry out his agenda faithfully,” Liz Oyer, a former Trump Justice Department pardon attorney told the Journal. She also “said the offers could spur Cabinet officials and administration officials to behave more aggressively.”
While Trump did not pardon White House or other officials in conjunction with the events of January 6, 2021, on his first day back in office he did issue sweeping pardons to roughly 1,500 of those who were at the Capitol that day and later arrested.
READ MORE: ‘Only Reason They Are Alive’: Trump Again Threatens Iran in Unhinged Truth Social Post
Image via Reuters
The White House is fighting back after a prominent House Democrat demanded that the Physician to the President test Donald Trump’s mental fitness, citing the president’s recent remarks.
“At a time when our country is at war—especially when the war was initiated by the President without congressional declaration or consent—the American people must be able to trust that the Commander-in-Chief has the mental capacity to discharge the essential duties of his office,” Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin wrote to the President’s Physician, Captain Sean P. Barbabella, D.O., in a letter published by Punchbowl News.
“I therefore request that you conduct a comprehensive cognitive assessment of President Donald Trump, provide those results to Congress, and make yourself available to brief Congress on your findings.”
Congressman Raskin noted that experts “have repeatedly warned that the President has been exhibiting signs consistent with dementia and cognitive decline.”
“And, in recent days, the country has watched President Trump’s public statements and outbursts turn increasingly incoherent, volatile, profane, deranged, and threatening. His apparently deteriorating condition has caused tremendous alarm across the nation (and political spectrum) about the President’s cognitive function and continuing mental fitness for the office of President, and prompted concerns about the President’s well-being.”
Raskin noted that during the Biden presidency, Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer called President Biden’s mental acuity “one of the greatest scandals in our nation’s history,” and subpoenaed the White House Physician.
He also noted that during that time, Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan declared that a president who is not cognitively fit, “isn’t fit for office.”
Raskin offered some examples, including Trump’s recent message to Iran, which the Congressman described as combining “vulgarity and profanity, unprecedented threats of mass civilian destruction, and a sarcastic invocation of Islam on Easter morning—a bizarre display that shocked tens of millions of Americans and astonished observers across the political spectrum.”
Trump had written: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F——’ Strait, you crazy b——, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”
The New York Times had described Trump’s remarks as a “blistering threat” that “would have stood out on any day, much less on what most Christians consider the holiest day of the year.”
Raskin is insisting that Dr. Barbabella conduct “a comprehensive neuropsychological assessment of the President, including a formal cognitive screening instrument, and publicly release the results.”
Also, it asks him to provide “a detailed report on the President’s current mental and physical health status, including any medications he is currently taking and their potential,” and make himself available for a briefing under oath.
The White House wasted no time in responding, telling Courthouse News’ Benjamin S. Weiss: “Lightweight Jamie Raskin is a stupid person’s idea of a smart person.”
“President Trump’s sharpness, unmatched energy, and historic accessibility stand in stark contrast to what we saw during the past four years when Democrats like Raskin intentionally covered up Joe Biden’s serious mental and physical decline from the American people,” the White House added.
Image via Reuters
Ahead of diplomatic talks starting Saturday, President Donald Trump once again threatened Iran with violence as critics charge his tenuous cease-fire has fallen apart.
“As Vice President JD Vance was heading to Pakistan on Friday for peace talks with Iran, a senior Iranian official laid out new conditions for the negotiations, adding even more uncertainty about the durability of the cease-fire and whether the two sides could reach a long-term deal,” The New York Times reports, noting that President Trump “warned Tehran not to overplay its hand.”
“The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” the President wrote on Truth Social.
“The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!” he declared.
His remarks seemed to echo his highly-criticized comments earlier this week:
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
On April 1, Trump wrote, “we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!”
Some ridiculed the president.
“Completely controlling the Strait of Hormuz and charging ships a $2 million toll to pass through seem to be a couple of pretty good cards,” noted attorney Adam Cohen.
Reason’s Matthew Petti added, “You might say that Iran’s only cards are…a strait flush.”
Image via Reuters
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