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“Values” vs. Science: America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments

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“Values” vs. Science is part two in our week-long series, “America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments.” Read part one, The Conservative Mind, then come back tomorrow for part three, Gays And Parenting.

Part Two: “Values” vs. Science. Actual Science.

America’s Right Wing has steeped itself in a vessel of religion, history, and its own bigotry. It refuses to look at any new information or science, and certainly none that would shed a different light than what it needs Americans to believe to further its stranglehold on the intangibility of “morality” — and against America’s LGBT community.

Conservatives are not fond of things like science. Or, “peer-reviewed studies.” Why use knowledge and science when we have our “moral values” and our “beliefs?” (Not to mention that their entire business model is dependent upon Americans believing that America’s Right Wing holds the key to their salvation.)

For proof, all you need to do is look at America’s Right Wing’s fierce resistance to the science of climate change (which they call “Climategate,”) or their current attack on the positive economics of deficit spending, or even the ludicrous theme espoused by the GOP leadership recently, that government regulation is to blame for the BP oil spill.)

But back to marriage equality. Let’s start with David Blankenhorn, founder and president of the Institute for American Values, and the only witness against marriage equality in the Prop 8 trial that ended earlier this month. Blankenhorn essentially “flip-flopped” by the end of the trial. In fact, at the end of the trial, Ted Olsen, the pro-marriage equality lead counsel, used Blankenhorn’s own quote at the end of his closing argument, stating, “we will be more American [the day we permit gay marriage.]”

To be fair, Blankenhorn has been a bit maligned, first by the Left, and now by both sides of the marriage equality argument. While he does not support same-sex marriage, he does support same-sex relationships. In an odd way. Last year, he, along with Jonathan Rauch, an esteemed author and same-sex marriage supporter, wrote a misguided op-ed for the New York Times, titled, “A Reconciliation On Gay Marriage.” It was not a “reconciliation.” It was a call to encode second-class citizenship upon same-sex couples. In, “An Embarrassing Reconciliation On Gay Marriage,” I called their ideas “sectarian mischief,” ensconced in “separate but equal” arguments, and all “in service to the church.”

Which is how America’s Right Wing likes to maintain their segregation of America’s LGBT community.

Blankenhorn recently wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Times (which refused it,) challenging “Weddings For Everybody,” a piece op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd had written. In his letter, Blankenhorn writes, “Maureen Down incorrectly reports that, in the California Prop 8 trial on gay marriage, I stated on the witness stand that ‘adoptive parents are as good as natural parents.’ I respect adoptive parents and value adoption as an institution, but numerous studies suggests [sic] that outcomes for adopted children often are not ‘as good as’ outcomes for children raised by natural parents.”

Hogwash. Times two.

First, the “numerous studies suggests” part. Blankenhorn doesn’t quote which studies, but I can all but guarantee the name Paul Cameron, or the Family Research Institute, have some involvement with them. (Cameron founded FRI and was discredited and expelled from the American Psychological Association.)

More importantly, two long-term studies recently published found just the opposite. In fact, one of them, a twenty-five year-long and vigorously peer-reviewed study published in the journal Pediatrics, found that adopted children raised by lesbian parents are better-adjusted and do better in school than their opposite-parented peers.

But relying on science won’t help conservatives make their case, so they have to make up “science,” or rely on outdated concepts, to try to give their fears credibility. Or, they have to turn to decades, or centuries-old “research” to try to prove their bigotry.

A new breed of conservative politicians, those of the “Tea Party,” have brought a special mix of virulent anti-science, “moral values,” and homophobia to the fore. Take Sharon Angle, now running against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada.

Talking Points Memo, run by the award-winning journalist Joshua Micah Marshall, just last week posted “Sharron Angle’s Fringe Third Party Sponsored Virulently Anti-Gay Flier In ’90s,” writing,

The ad insert, which approvingly cites an 1814 legal treatise titled “Consequences of Sodomy: Ruin of a Nation,” is a digest of articles that refer to LGBT people alternately as “homosexuals,” “sodomites,” and “brazen perverts.” The insert includes virtually every homophobic myth ever conceived.

Sample headlines include: “Homosexual Curriculum In The First Grade” … “Flawed Science Nurtures Genetic Origin For Homosexuality” … “No Constitutional Right To Be A Sodomite.” Here’s a passage from an item headlined “True Homosexual Character Revealed”:

Homosexuals argue that they are a peaceful and gay people. Yet … Dr. Paul Cameron of the Family Research Report writes “the top six U.S. male killers were all homosexuals.”

(By the way, Cameron — remember Cameron from the Family Research Institute? — is flat-out wrong by saying “the top six U.S. male killers were all homosexuals.”)

Unsurprisingly, not much has changed with America’s Right Wing’s hatred and fear of America’s LGBT community. They are working hard to not only maintain our second-class citizen status, but are trying to use corrupt “science,” along with religion, to further erode our status.

The once-and-future GOP presidential candidate and Baptist minister Mike Huckabee is never too far away from the anti-gay culture war. Just days ago, Huckabee shared this bit of personal ignorant homophobia:

“I do believe that God created male and female and intended for marriage to be the relationship of the two opposite sexes. Male and female are biologically compatible to have a relationship. We can get into the ick factor, but the fact is two men in a relationship, two women in a relationship, biologically, that doesn’t work the same.”

That alone should be worth a fair amount of cash for his Huck PAC.

America’s Right Wing believes by abusing science and morality to demean and disenfranchise America’s LGBT community, they will have won the culture wars. They believe that America’s gay and lesbian citizens should remain second-class citizens, with little to no rights — certainly not the right to serve in the military, be safe from being fired for being gay, marry, or parent children.

And they couldn’t be more wrong.

“Values” vs. Science is part two in our week-long series, “America’s Right-Wing’s Ridiculous Anti-Marriage Equality Arguments.” Read part one, The Conservative Mind, then come back tomorrow for part three, Gays And Parenting.

(image: kevindooley)

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News

‘Complicity With Authoritarian’: Booker Goes Ballistic on Democrats—‘Too Much on the Line’

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15 hours ago

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July 29, 2025

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U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) delivered a searing critique of some of his fellow Democrats, accusing them of being “complicit with an authoritarian”—a clear reference to President Donald Trump. He also chastised a range of American institutions for “bending the knee” and “paying tribute.” He warned that if Democrats fail to unite and confront Trump and his administration’s agenda, they “deserve to lose.” But, he added, if they stand together and speak out with conviction, they can prevail.

“The heated exchange arose after Booker objected to a motion from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, to swiftly pass a package of bills related to law enforcement,” CBS News reported. “Booker said he wanted to make a change to the bloc of measures to ensure resources are distributed equally among law enforcement agencies in response to the Justice Department’s changes to grant programs and cancellation of awards.”

Booker, standing on the Senate floor, at times almost appearing to shout, did not hold back.

READ MORE: ‘Our People’: Hawley Says Tariff Rebates for ‘Trump Blue-Collar Voters’—Not ‘Biden Voters’

“This to me is the problem with Democrats in America right now, is we’re willing to be complicit to Donald Trump, to let this pass through when we have all the leverage right now there is, to say, ‘if you’re as passionate about police as we are, then pass bills out of this body that will help the police officers in Washington, that will help the police officers in Illinois, that will help the police officers in New Jersey,'” he said, as CBS reported. “Don’t be complicit to the president of the United States.”

“The Democratic Party needs a wake-up call,” Booker declared in his rare rebuke, before shifting his focus to institutions that, in recent months, have capitulated to President Trump.

“I see law firms bending a knee to this president, not caring about the larger principles that those free speech rights, that you can take on any client—why are you bending the knee?” he demanded.

READ MORE: Loyalty Litmus Test? Trump Allies Quietly Prep SCOTUS Short List

“I see universities! They should be bastions of free speech, bending at the knee to this president. I see businesses taking late night talk show hosts off the air because they dare to insult a president. I see people who want mergers, suddenly think that they have to pay tribute to this president,” he observed.

“And what are the very people here elected to defend the Constitution of the United States, saying? ‘Oh, well, today, let’s look the other way and pass some resources that won’t go to Connecticut, that won’t go to Illinois, that won’t go to New York, that will go to the states he likes,'” Booker said, chastising his fellow blue state lawmakers.

“That is complicity with an authoritarian leader who is trashing our Constitution,” he charged.

“It’s time for Democrats to have a backbone. It’s time for us to fight. It’s time for us to draw lines.”

“And when it comes to the safety of my state, being denied these grants, that’s why I’m standing here. Don’t question my integrity,” he warned. “Don’t question my motives. I’m standing for Jersey! I am standing for my police officers. I’m standing for the Constitution, and I’m standing for what’s right.”

“And dear God, if you want to come at me that way, you’re gonna have to take it up with me, because there’s too much on the line right now in America,” Booker declared ominously.

“As people’s due process rights and freedom of the speech rights and secret police are running around this country, picking people up off the streets, who have a legal right to be here. There’s too much going on in this country.”

“When are we gonna stand together for principles that I just heard that were agreed with? When are we gonna stand together? If we don’t stand as Democrats, we deserve to lose. But if we stand united, if we stand strong, if we stand with other people, if we tell with a chorus of conviction that America, what this president is doing is wrong, if we stand up and speak that way, dear God, we will win.”

Senator Booker’s remarks elicited a wide variety of praise, as seen below, as well as criticism.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: Ex-Pence Chief Scorches Tariff Rebates—Likens Them to Soviet-Style Central Planning

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‘Our People’: Hawley Says Tariff Rebates for ‘Trump Blue-Collar Voters’—Not ‘Biden Voters’

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18 hours ago

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July 29, 2025

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U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) says the legislation he is filing to send $600 tariff rebate checks to Americans are not for “Biden voters,” but for “Trump blue-collar voters.”

“Well, you wouldn’t give it to everybody, you’d give it to the working people,” Senator Hawley told far-right podcaster Steve Bannon on Tuesday (video below). “You’d give it to our people.”

“I mean, you know, the rich people don’t need it, and but what I mean by that is all those Democrat donors of Wall Street, all these hedge fund guys who all hate the tariffs, by the way.”

Hawley said, “we’re on track to raise over $150 billion from tariff revenues this year alone, this calendar year alone.”

He did not mention that most of the tariff money is paid by U.S. consumers and U.S. companies.

“My view is, we ought to give a portion to that back to our working class blue collar voters who powered the Trump revolution, who got this president into office multiple times, and who are the backbone of this nation.”

READ MORE: Loyalty Litmus Test? Trump Allies Quietly Prep SCOTUS Short List

“Biden has crushed these people,” Hawley alleged. “What a legacy for Donald Trump to say, ‘I’m gonna take a portion of this massive money’ that he’s raising on these tariffs, and return it to the people who run this country and are gonna build our future.”

Hawley then got down to some specifics.

“It’d be $600 for every adult and child, so if you’ve got a big family, you’re gonna get more,” he said, calling his plan “fantastic.”

“And you’d phase it out for income, you know? So again, the wealthy—you start making six figures, you get into the big six figures—you’d phase the thing out.”

“So this is not going to the hedge fund managers or all the Biden voters. This is not going to the Wall Street king pins. So they don’t need any of it.”

READ MORE: Ex-Pence Chief Scorches Tariff Rebates—Likens Them to Soviet-Style Central Planning

“This is going to the Trump blue collar voters, the people who Joe Biden crushed, the people who didn’t get a raise under Joe Biden for four long years, the people who cannot afford their gas, because Joe Biden shut down our energy, who can’t afford their groceries, because Joe Biden drove up the price of everything,” Hawley claimed, despite prices on many items being higher under President Trump.

“And it is a message from us to them, from Trump to these folks that he is here to deliver for them.”

Senator Hawley is facing blowback from critics who say the $600 checks should not be issued, but rather, should be used to pay down America’s debt, which Republicans including President Trump just increased by about $3.4 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Watch the video below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Adios’ to GOP House Control if Trump Can’t Fix Issue That Got Him Elected: CNN Analyst

 

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Loyalty Litmus Test? Trump Allies Quietly Prep SCOTUS Short List

Published

20 hours ago

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July 29, 2025

By

Multiple allies close to President Donald Trump are preparing short lists of potential Supreme Court nominees should any of the nine justices retire or pass away. This time, the Trump administration is hoping to ensure none of the self-inflicted errors or challenges it faced during his first term arise again.

Justice Clarence Thomas, widely regarded as the most far-right member of the Court, is 77. Justice Samuel Alito, another staunch conservative, is 75. Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor is 71. And Chief Justice John Roberts—who has arguably expanded presidential power more than any other figure in modern judicial history—is 70, and facing mounting scrutiny.

While none are approaching the age of early 20th-century Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who retired at 90, it’s likely that at least one may opt to hang up his or her robe within the next three and a half years.

According to a TIME magazine exclusive, several conservative and right-wing allies have the ear of the Trump administration, even if it is not actively preparing for a vacancy.

READ MORE: Ex-Pence Chief Scorches Tariff Rebates—Likens Them to Soviet-Style Central Planning

The current guidelines for the next Trump Supreme Court nominee appear to favor a jurist in the mold of Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, or the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But according to Benjamin Wittes, the editor of Lawfare, loyalty may rule the day.

“I assume the competition here would be to have shown greatest loyalty to Trump,” Wittes told TIME. “I think one would worry that this person would be guided by loyalty rather than guided by something like principle.”

TIME says one of the leading names on the short lists is Washington, D.C. Circuit Court Judge Neomi Rao, who was appointed by Trump to replace now-Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in 2019. Rao clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, and if nominated and confirmed would become the first Asian American justice on the Court. At 52, she would be among the youngest. (Trump appointee Amy Coney Barrett, the youngest on the Court, is 53. Biden appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson is 54.)

Justice Thomas secretly lobbied to get Rao confirmed after she was nominated, The Washington Post reported in 2019.

READ MORE: ‘Adios’ to GOP House Control if Trump Can’t Fix Issue That Got Him Elected: CNN Analyst

A former Professor of Law, Rao served in the first Trump administration as well as in the Bush 43 administration.

During her confirmation hearing, Rao refused to say if she believed same-sex relationships are a sin.

As an appeals court judge, Rao has written, in a dissenting opinion, that “allegations of illegal conduct against the president cannot be investigated by Congress except through impeachment.”

Another “front runner,” TIME reported, is Fifth Circuit Appeals Court Judge Andrew Oldham, another Trump appointee. Oldham clerked for Justice Alito, served in the Bush 43 administration’s Office of Legal Counsel, and served as general counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

Mentioned as having been previously suggested for the short lists is Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump appointee who infamously delayed and ultimately dismissed Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of President Trump in the Espionage Act and classified materials case.

READ MORE: Ghislaine Maxwell Files SCOTUS Appeal as Trump Again Leaves Door Open to Possible Pardon

 

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