Watch: Evangelicals Franklin Graham And Ralph Reed Bash Gays For Easter (Video)
For Easter, ABC News’ “This Week” hosted three top evangelical Christian leaders who spent a good portion of the segment obsessing over homosexuality, bashing gay people, and bearing false witness about same-sex couples raising children. The triumvirate at the table were Franklin Graham (image), the son of the 95-year old Rev. Billy Graham; Ralph Reed, the disgraced grifter, campaign finance law breaker, and Pat Robertson‘s former executive director of the Christian Coalition; and Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission who replaced the disgraced Richard Land in that role.
Host Martha Radditz invited Graham to “stand by” his recent infamous comments that gay people adopt children in order to sexually abuse them and to “recruit” them into homosexuality, and that Vladimir Putin signing his archaic anti-gay laws “was probably a pretty smart thing to do” in “protecting his nation’s children.” After watching video of himself making those comments, Graham was only too happy to stand by them. Graham trumpeted that President Putin thinks “taking advantage of children, exploiting children is wrong,” suggesting that gays are “taking advantage of children, exploiting children,” and that Barack Obama does not. He also added, “We used to have a president in this country who did what’s right for this country but we don’t seem to have that right now.”
Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart this morning called Graham “beneath contempt” and his comments “offensive” and “detestable.”
Moore pushed back only slightly, professing, “I agree that every child deserves both a mom and a dad.”
And then Ralph Reed pushed his way in, tossing to the table — and the millions of viewers watching across America — lies from the thoroughly-discredited Regnerus study. “And by the way, Martha, the social science on this is clear. This isn’t about Vladimir Putin, this is about what’s best for children here in the United States and the social science is irrefutable. And it is a child who grows up in a home without the mother and father present — and they both play very unique, procreative, nurturing, and socializing role — they’re nine times more likely to end up dropping out of high school, they’re five times more likely to end up in poverty, and they’re three times more likely to end up addicted to drugs and alcohol.”
//www.youtube.com/embed/H9a6qIyK7YI?start=308&end=520
Of course, most of America doesn’t know that just last month a federal judge who presided over a case on same-sex marriage in Michigan sat listening to the state’s lead witness, Mark Regnerus, and concluded that the “Court finds Regnerus’s testimony entirely unbelievable and not worthy of serious consideration, and that Regnerus “certainly cannot purport to have undertaken a scholarly research effort to compare the outcomes of children raised by same-sex couples with those of children raised by heterosexual couples.”
But Ralph Reed chose to tell falsehoods about gay people by couching them in the phrase, “a child who grows up in a home without the mother and father present,” while talking about same-sex couples raising children.
Cokie Roberts stepped in and took Reed to task.
“But the social science is also irrefutable that a child raised in an orphanage is in much worse shape than a child raised in a home,” the ABC News anchor told Reed. “And the fact that people are willing to take these children and raise them, and raise them in a loving way is clearly better for these children.”
His response?
“I think the social science is just simply not in yet on same-sex couples and I think the law has every right to set an ideal. And the ideal is a mother and a father.”
Reed of course is lying out of both sides of his mouth.
From one side, he spouts Regnerus “facts,” which have nothing to do with gay parents, and from the other, “the social science is just simply not in yet on same-sex couples.” Which is it?
Meanwhile, the social science is in on same-sex couples.
Every major medical association has stated that children raised by same-sex parents turn out no different than their peers raised by different-sex parents.
“Decades of social science research also confirms that children of same-sex parents have similar levels of psychological adjustment and are no more likely than their peers raised by heterosexual parents to report behavioral issues. All of the leading national child welfare and social service organizations agree that children raised by lesbian, gay, and bisexual parents are just as happy, healthy, and well-adjusted as children raised by different-sex parents. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, Child Welfare League of America, and National Association of Social Workers all have published organizational statements confirming that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people make excellent parents who raise developmentally healthy children.”
— March 4, 2014, Amici Curiae Brief Of Family Equality Council, Colage, Voices For Utah Children, And The Children’s Center Of Salt Lake City, Kitchen v. Herbert.
Hat tip: Daily Kos and Mediaite
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U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), Kevin McCarthy’s hand-picked temporary successor and acting Speaker, operated outside of carefully crafted House rules when he evicted Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, the former Democratic Majority Leader, from their Capitol Hill offices just hours after Republicans ousted McCarthy as Speaker.
That’s according to the top Democrat on the powerful House Rules Committee, Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-MA), who previously served as the Chair of the Rules Committee. He says the “Speaker pro tempore” has one job only: help elect a new Speaker of the House.
“I want to clear up some confusion,” McGovern wrote late Wednesday afternoon.
“As an unelected acting Speaker pro tempore, @PatrickMcHenry’s job is to guide the House toward the election of a new Speaker. That’s it.”
“His power is constrained by the plain text of Rule 1, Clause 8 of the Rules of the House,” said McGovern.
Rep. McGovern said he is “alarmed” by McHenry’s order evicting Pelosi and Hoyer.
“Given the plain text of the rule, I don’t think he has that power,” McGovern added.
McGovern further explained, “The rule says he can only exercise as much authority as is ‘necessary and appropriate’ towards the end of electing a Speaker. The Rules Committee narrowly described this rule in 2004: an acting Speaker pro tempore serves ‘for the sole purpose of electing a new Speaker.'”
“These rules were put into place after 9/11 to ensure continuity of government & quick election of a new Speaker in an emergency. Not to provide for a short-term Speaker due to Republican dysfunction,” concluded McGovern, who has served in Congress since 1997.
News
‘My Job Is Not to Put Pool Noodles Around Hard Corners for Republicans’: AOC Blasts Critics Over McCarthy Vote
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) blasted critics across the political spectrum who are angered House Democrats did not vote to keep Kevin McCarthy as Speaker, after Republicans ousted him on Tuesday.
“Contrary to how McCarthy’s defenders are behaving, men failing up is not a Constitutionally protected right,” Ocasio-Cortez said on social media. “The man made risky decisions and faced the natural consequences of them. I am not his mom, and my job is not to put pool noodles around hard corners for Republicans.”
AOC also blasted 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, who is now a former Democrat, after he criticized Democrats on CNN.
READ MORE: Karine Jean-Pierre Schools Peter Doocy for Asking if White House Is ‘Loving’ GOP House Chaos
“Why did Dems vote along party lines to oust Kevin McCarthy? Not because they thought it was good for the country but because that’s what they were told to do,” Yang said on social media when posting his remarks.
“Yes,” Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez responded, “because strengthening someone who voted to overturn the election, held the entire US economy hostage, launched a baseless impeachment inquiry without a vote, and refuses to honor his word is what is in the best interest of this country.”
“Do some of you hear yourselves?” she asked rhetorically.
Tuesday night she also defended Democrats for not, as some have put it, “saving” McCarthy.
“Does anyone believe for one minute that McCarthy would help elect a Dem speaker ‘for the institution’?” she asked. “McCarthy’s hubris is a theme. He loudly stated he wouldn’t negotiate w/Dems, called virtually none, trashed those who helped w/CR, and then expected Dem votes for free?”
In the middle of an interview with U.S Senator John Kennedy, Fox News interrupted the Louisiana Republican for some “breaking news,” as the right wing cable network’s Peter Doocy began to ask White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the chaos far-right wing Republicans caused by ousting Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday.
“All right. Senator, thank you for joining us. We got a little bit of breaking news here. We got to jump back to the briefing. Our Peter Doocy is questioning the Press Secretary,” John Roberts told viewers as the camera cut to the White House Press Briefing Room.
“Is any part of the West Wing here, just loving the fact that Republicans don’t appear to be able to govern the one part of the government that they actually control?” Doocy asked.
“Nobody’s ‘loving’ anything when it’s when we’re not when we’re not able to deliver for the American people. Nobody’s loving that,” Jean-Pierre replied, as she explained to Doocy what the White House believes is actually important.
“It is important for Congress to work, not for us, but on behalf of the American people. It is important to make sure that we meet the challenges of the American people. That’s what’s important. What we saw, you heard from the President, what we saw on Saturday should have never have happened, but we’re glad that a deal was made. We’re glad that we’re not in a shutdown. But House Republicans should have never gotten us that far.”
Jean-Pierre went on to tell Doocy that since Republicans “are the majority in the House, they can fix this.”
“They’re creating the chaos. That is not helpful to the American people.”
“That’s why you saw the President today talk about student debt relief, and talk about what else he’s doing to make sure that we’re giving a little bit of breathing room to the American people. That’s why you heard from the President yesterday talking about or our announcement, talking about how we’re continuing to beat Big Pharma so we can lower prescription drug costs for the American people. That’s what the President cares about. That’s what he wants to see – what can we continue to do to help Americans as they face really tough challenges? So this is not, we’re not loving it. It is not helpful to any any American across the country.”
Doocy, went on to ask if “anybody in the West Wing has heard anybody talking about the possibility of ‘Speaker Trump.'”
Watch below or at this link.
Fox News cuts off interview with senator for “breaking news,” which is Peter Doocy asking KJP the following questions:
– is the West Wing “loving the fact” that the GOP doesn’t appear able to govern the House?
– are you guys talking about a possible Speaker Trump? pic.twitter.com/Csr2E2CYI5
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) October 4, 2023
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