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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

‘Absolutely Blockbuster Evidence’: Experts Stunned Over Trump ‘Espionage Act’ Bombshell That Pressures ‘DOJ to Indict’

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Legal experts wasted no time Wednesday responding to an exclusive CNN report revealing federal prosecutors have obtained audio evidence of Donald Trump in a 2021 meeting at his Bedminster golf course admitting he had held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, admitting he wanted to share the document, and admitting he knew he legally could not because he did not have the authority to declassify it post-presidency.

“War plans are among the most highly classified documents. Puts pressure on DOJ to indict, and a jury to convict,” writes NYU Law professor of Law Ryan Goodman, a former U.S. Dept. of Defense Special Counsel.

“Make no mistake. This is squarely an Espionage Act case,” Goodman continues, calling the news a “bombshell.”

“It is not simply an ‘obstruction’ case,” says Goodman. “There is now every reason to expect former President Trump will be charged under 18 USC 793(e) of the Espionage Act. The law fits his reported conduct like a hand in glove.”

READ MORE: ‘Will Make a Great Trial Witness’: Experts Thrilled Jack Smith Is Investigating Trump’s Firing of Election Security Expert

“Audio recording is a meeting with several people who don’t have security clearances. If Trump discussed content of document it is even worse – and raises its own criminal exposure,” Goodman also writes.

On-air, CNN reported in the audio recording a piece of paper could be heard ratting in the wind.

Calling it “a critical find,” MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin says the alleged audio recording of Trump “reveals another new, significant fact: In summer 2021, Trump had at least one classified document with him at Bedminster. Trump lawyers told DOJ in December 2022 that a search of Bedminster by private investigators yielded no such records.”

Rubin sums it all up: “That DOJ & the Special Counsel have apparently spoken to witnesses from Milley to Fitton and back suggests they have evidence regarding Trump’s motives and state of mind in addition to his actual taped statements.”

Rubin is not the only one focused on the Bedminster aspect.

Pete Strzok, the former FBI Counterintelligence Deputy Assistant Director, pointed to a tweet he wrote last year that reads: “Better check Bedminster… On May 6, NARA [the National Archives] emails Trump to say material is missing and may be at MAL [Mar-a-Lago].”

“On May 9, Trump gets on a private plane from Palm Beach to Bedminster. On video, several boxes are seen loaded onto the plane,” Strzok also tweeted.

READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Want Reality’: Senate Republican Explodes Over Origin of Concept of Race – Calls to Teach ‘Jesus Loves Me’ Instead

On Wednesday he wrote: “AND the meeting in question appears to have been at Bedminster. As I’ve said for a while, better check Bedminster.”

“Appears Trump – in his own voice,” Strzok adds, “- knew the procedures for declassifying information – knew he hadn’t done it – may have disclosed it to someone not authorized to receive it Huge. Filling in those 18 USC 793 elements of the crime.”

18 U.S. Code § 793 is the federal statute for “Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information.”

Other experts also weighed in.

“Holy shit,” exclaimed white collar criminal defense attorney Robert Denault, “Hugely significant piece of evidence.”

Attorney George Conway appeared to agree, citing the late, iconic Washington Post executive editor: “Fair to say Ben Bradlee would have called this a ‘holy-shit story.'”

Conway, a former Republican and devout never-Trumper did not hold back: “It would actually be perfect for the most colossally nihilistic moron the world has ever seen to go to prison for doing something so brazenly illegal, yet at the same time so unimaginably pointless and stupid.”

READ MORE: DeSantis Kicks Off Presidential Campaign Tour With Claim Teachers Are ‘Forcing’ Students to Pick Pronouns

Richard Painter, the former Bush 43 chief White House ethics lawyer points out that Trump “lied about it,” and called that a “felony.”

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti calls it “absolutely blockbuster evidence.”

“It proves that Trump *knew* he kept highly classified documents after he left office, that he shared the classified info with people who didn’t have clearance, and ‘suggests … he was aware of limitations’ on his ability to declassify.”

Image via Shutterstock

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CRIME

Feds Have Trump on Tape Admitting He Kept Classified Pentagon Document of Possible Iran Attack: Report

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Federal prosecutors have an audio recording of Donald Trump admitting in 2021 that he had kept a classified Pentagon document about a possible attack against Iran.

CNN, which published the exclusive report, notes the recording undercuts Trump’s “argument that he declassified everything.”

“The recording indicates Trump understood he retained classified material after leaving the White House, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation. On the recording, Trump’s comments suggest he would like to share the information but he’s aware of limitations on his ability post-presidency to declassify records, two of the sources said,” CNN adds.

READ MORE: ‘I Don’t Want Reality’: Senate Republican Explodes Over Origin of Concept of Race – Calls to Teach ‘Jesus Loves Me’ Instead

“Prosecutors have asked witnesses about the recording and the document before a federal grand jury,” CNN also reports. “The episode has generated enough interest for investigators to have questioned Gen. Mark Milley, one of the highest-ranking Trump-era national security officials, about the incident.”

The recording was apparently made in July of 2021 at a Trump golf course. People without security clearances were part of the meeting during which it was discussed.

The damning revelation gives credence to political analysts who pointed to Trump’s recent remarks at the highly-controversial CNN town hall, when he was asked if he had shown classified documents to anyone.

“Not really,” Trump said. “I would have the right to,” he claimed, falsely.

“By the way, they were declassified after,” he also claimed, falsely.

Watch CNN’s report below or at this link.

 

 

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News

‘I Don’t Want Reality’: Senate Republican Explodes Over Origin of Concept of Race – Calls to Teach ‘Jesus Loves Me’ Instead

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U.S. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) exploded in a committee hearing on child care on Wednesday after he introduced a book designed to help children understand race, and declared he opposes socialism and wants schools to teach about Jesus Christ instead.

Sen. Mullin, a former U.S. Congressman who once told a House Democrat to “shut up,” began by explaining how expensive it is for private companies to set up child care – the topic of the hearing – but quickly transformed the hearing into one on race, socialism, and religion.

He wove a web that started with his concerns over “federalizing” education, which he declared is socialism. He then attacked the committee chairman, Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who heads the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), for being a “self-declared democratic socialist.” That led to his claim that the book he opposes, “Our Skin: A First Conversation on Race,” would be taught nationwide.

Sen. Mullin said he opposes the book because it teaches young children that the concept of race, especially the white race, was created by white people to place themselves above other people with different skin – which has been documented in numerous studies, reports, articles, and books.

READ MORE: DeSantis Kicks Off Presidential Campaign Tour With Claim Teachers Are ‘Forcing’ Students to Pick Pronouns

Senator Mullin, who supports a federal vigilante “Don’t Say Gay” bill,  tried to get members of the panel to support his desire for schools to teach about Jesus instead.

“I have a book here in here in front of me called ‘Our Skin,'” Mullin told the committee, “and I’m going to read exactly what this book says. You guys might find it interesting. ‘A long time ago, way before you were born, a group of white people made up an idea called race. They sorted people by skin color and said that white people were better, smarter, prettier, and they deserved more than everybody else.’ This would be taught if we socialized our pre-K system, this would be taught.”

“How about we teach Jesus Loves Me?” Mullin demanded. “How about how about this? And teaching ‘Jesus Loves the Little Children.’ The lyrics go, ‘Red and yellow, black and white. They’re all precious in our sight.’ Now, which one would you think would be better? I’ll ask everybody on the panel, which is better to teach? This, that is a story that was made up to teach kids, three year olds who have no idea what race is.”

“Now all of a sudden being taught that white people said this as a truth, someone pointed me that this being a truth, that white people developed race, that white people develop that. That all of a sudden that was our word that we developed. By the way, I’m Cherokee, Native American. I think we have experienced a little bit of racism before in my life,” Mullen said.

READ MORE: ‘Will Make a Great Trial Witness’: Experts Thrilled Jack Smith Is Investigating Trump’s Firing of Election Security Expert

“So I ask everybody on the panel, which one is better to teach? This,” referring to the book he had brought, “or the ‘Jesus Loves Me’ lyrics? Ma’am. I’ll start on here.”

“I think it’s important to teach that all children are seen and valued for who they are,” one panelist told Sen. Mullin. He was not pleased.

Another panelist who appeared to agree with Sen. Mullin on teaching Jesus responded, “It is important that we teach Jesus. Jesus is what we teach. But the reality is –” she said before being interrupted by Mullin.

“I don’t want reality,” Mullin proclaimed, which evoked immediate laughter.

“Got it on tape,” one person announced.

“I misspoke,” Mullin claimed.

Watch portions of Mullin’s remarks below or at this link.

 

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