I have a record of killing people -- these are Rick Perry's words in Rick Perry's voice, I just edited it a little to make it tell the truth. Rick Perry is a Christian Pro-Life Serial Killer. You only have to prove a person is a sociopath ONCE, because there is no cure and they cannot change (although they can acquire better skills in lying to persuade you they have changed.) Any sociopath discovered once any time in their life is a sociopath all of their life. All of their behaviors should then be looked upon as sociopathic, with no further "innocent until proven guilty" since they have been proven guilty.
Rick Perry is politically correct to the Fox-Murdoch-Koch Tea Party, but Fox-Employee-Newt Gingrich is favored by the Fox Propaganda Network Echo Chamber. Fox attacked Perry instantly for his "Politically Correct" ad. Meanwhile Perry threw out red meat to the attack dogs of his own, calling foreign-aid "AIDS money" which sounds like aid to the heathen bum-frackers to his rabid dogs. If you don't understand these subtleties, y'all come down to Cainshead Ranch and he'll 'splain 'em to y'all.
You don't have to go to church every Sunday to know that it is wrong for religion to be pushed up kids butts.
This is wrong in America.
Kids in school are praying for Obama to stop the war of Christians against Children. One in four girls in Texas is sexually molested before age 16, and one in every six Texas boys is sexually molested before age 16. That means that, at least, one in six adult men in Texas is raping boys and girls before they are grown. Many of those girl rapers are Christians, and girl-rapers are, by definition, hater-o-sexuals. I am ashamed that Hate groups like "Family Research Council" tell lies about homosexuals to distract from the straight hater-o-sexual child molesters and pedophiles. Family Research Council is distracting attention from the real cause of child danger in schools and churches. If one in four girls are molested by men, that means that hater-o-sexuals are the majority of molesters.
Christians are NOT more moral than everyone else. Christians are not better in any way. Christians do not deserve special privileges. People who hate are Satanic. Satanic people have been lying that they are Christians. when they are not, ever since Jesus hollared at them for lying about it back then. Satanic people wage class warfare against the poor, against the old and weak, and against the sick. Satanic people steal from the poor and corrupt government. Class warfare is the rich stealing from the rest. Rick Perry distracts from class warfare by waging wedge warfare, pitting one group to hate on another to distract from his lords and masters stealing from everybody.
So the chances are slim to none that Texas Rick Perry will get any rain he prayed for as far back as April 2011. Perry may talk big about what he thinks of God, but the Drought in Texas is God talking back to Texas about Rick Perry's prayers. Here's 20 inches of rain coming next door and none for Perry. Oh, and God don't seem real thrilled about any Red States and their prayers. Bachmann-Pawlenty's Minnisota was part of the major flooding, Brownback's Missouri hosted the Joplin Tornado, The flood-islanded Nebraska nuke power plant just lifted their state of emergency while Eric Cantor's home district hosted an earthquake at their nuke plant. I think the TEAvangelists ought to shut up about being favored by God -- if you ask me, Allah is speaking pretty loudly this year.
There's tons of anti-miracle stuff out there, from any number of sources: Texas is dead last among states in percentage of population with health insurance; ranked eighth in percentage of population living below the poverty level; tied with Mississippi for the percentage of hourly workers earning the minimum wage or less; 27th in median household income (though we're near the top in state gross domestic product); 29th in average public teachers' salaries; near the bottom in high school completion rates; near the top in teen pregnancies; and worst in the nation in pollution.
Oh, and we're pretty fat, too.
As miracles go, the fact that Texas has been tops in job-creation during the recession — although we're still 26th in unemployment — seems more like one of those Jesus'-face-on-grilled-cheese kind of miracles than a real God-sent event, like, say, the parting of the Red Sea or the canceling of Kate Plus 8. It's the sort of miracle that makes a proud Texan want to drop to his knees and thank the Lord for creating Mississippi, Alabama and West Virginia and for making us look good.
Leading Texas Statewide Environmental Group Blasts GOP Presidential Contender’s Remarks
AUSTIN, TX—The following statement should be attributed to David Weinberg, Executive Director of the Texas League of Conservation Voters. Mr. Weinberg is responding to comments made today by Texas Governor and Republican Presidential Candidate Rick Perry (R-Texas) on global warming:
“As Texas experiences one of the most terrible droughts in the state’s history, Gov. Perry’s comments regarding global warming are irresponsible since global warming only exacerbates droughts.
“The Lone Star State releases more heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution – the primary greenhouse gas – than any other state in the union, but perhaps the significant political contributions Gov. Perry has taken from the fossil fuel industry has clouded not only our air but also his vision and understanding of sound science.
“The overwhelming consensus of the scientific community, as well as many in Gov. Perry’s own party, is that global warming is very real and poses a serious threat to our long-term health and prosperity.”
# # #
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Soft-on-criminal-polluters, Bachmann-Perry want to take the EPA cops off the beat because their paymaster puppeteers the Killer Koch Brothers (killed Danielle Dawn Smalley, google it) got fined $55,000,000 federal CRIMINAL fines for polluting six American states air, water and soil. Let's see, they are ORGANIZED and convicted of CRIME, and even David Koch's own twin brother Bill called Koch Industries "ORGANIZED CRIME" on CBS TV. (Google CBS Koch Organized Crime.)
So Bachmann is on her knees to the Koch Brothers, and Rick Perry is on his knees to Koch Industries. So they want to defnd the federal cops who once tried to put the Koch Brothers in prison for life until Bush's Attorney General Ashcroft dropped the charges and buried the case.
Jun 14, 2011 ... In an interview last month, Texas Governor Rick Perry explained how the economic crisis is part of God's plan, to return us to biblical ...
Mar 16, 2011 ... The severity of the state's $27 billion budget crisis was evident ...Texas Economic Miracle Beginning To Tarnish. Rick Perry Texas Budget ...
Texas Governor Rick Perry tells James Robison that we are going through an economic crisis for a purpose so that the national will return to biblical ...
Jun 3, 2011 ... Pinheaded theocratic…er, Texas Governor Rick Perry pontificates. “The current economic crisis will lead us…back to Biblical principles.” ...
Oct 31, 2010 ... For months, Rick Perry has done his best to cover-up the state's $25 billion budget ...Texas faces a budget crisis of truly daunting proportions, ... it is a major financial crisis that could be $21 billion large. ...
Jun 14, 2011 ... Latest shenanigans from Texas Gov. Rick Perry... Gov. Perry: Economic Crisis Is Part of God's Plan To Return Us To Biblical Principles ...
Jun 6, 2011 ... Texas Governor Rick Perry, a Republican, has proclaimed August 6 as a ... calling on Jesus is the best way to solve the financial crisis, ...
Multi-Billion Dollar Budget Shortfall? Texas Legislators Call Abortion Bills An "Emergency"
Across the state of Texas, public officials are watching the 82nd Legislature to find out when they’ll be forced to slash their budgets, and by how much, to accommodate a state financial shortfall that may be as much as $27 billion. Or, if we’re lucky, as little as $15 billion. Right now, the deficit is so huge and the books so complicated, nobody really knows what the final number will be.
In Dallas, where I live, the superintendent of schools recently told the Dallas Observer he may have to cut $260 million in funds for the education of area schoolchildren. He’s just got to wait and see what happens in the “lege.”
Meanwhile, down in Austin, the “lege” is dealing with an emergency. But it’s not a budget emergency. It’s not even a financial emergency at all. According to Governor Rick Perry, it’s an emergency that women in Texas are not asked to listen to a fetal heartbeat and have an abortion provider conduct a sonogram that they’ll describe to women in detail two hours before any abortion procedure.
Speaking before an anti-choice rally group at the Texas capitol on the 38th anniversary of Roe V. Wade, Perry told protestors:
“We can’t afford to give up the good fight until the day Roe v. Wade is nothing but a shameful footnote in our nation’s history books.”
Anti-choice legislators, led by influential Republican senator Dan Patrick whose Harris County District 7 is one of the wealthiest in the state, have jumped at this chance to push a bevy of abortion-related legislation in Texas this session, with multiple bills calling for pre-procedure sonograms, more calling to eliminate public funding for abortion and also demands to eliminate all public funding to anyone affiliated with abortion providers themselves. Other bills support Texans’ right to buy controversial “Choose Life” license plates, like these available in New Jersey.
But it’s the emergency thing that gets pro-choice activists here. Gov. Perry’s “emergency” designation permits the bills to be heard in the first 60 days of the session—they can’t be heard so early without it. How can medically unnecessary sonograms be an emergency in the face of a multi-billion budget shortfall and economic crisis?
“It never fails to amaze me what an unprincipled little political opportunist our governor is,” Sara Cleveland, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas told me in a phone interview. “When it comes to interfering in women’s health, suddenly it’s an emergency.”
The sonogram legislation is currently in committee and hasn’t been heard on the legislature floor yet. But Gov. Perry’s “emergency” decree has ensured a woman’s right to choose will be addressed well before anyone gets around to that pesky budget thing. Cleveland said she sees the sonogram bills as “paternalistic and unfair,” considering women opt for abortions only “after much careful soul-searching and thought.”
For legislation that claims to be about “informed consent,” the sonogram bills tell women nothing they don’t already know. Said Cleveland:
“We’ve yet to find a woman who believes that if she’s going in for an abortion, that she’s not going to emerge un-pregnant.”
At Planned Parenthood of North Texas, director of public affairs Kelly Hart said the sonogram legislation is about “shaming women” and infringing upon a doctor’s ability to say, “this is what a woman needs to get ethical, quality medical care.”
It’s worth noting that none of the sonogram bills include exceptions for victims of rape or incest, which means women who are pregnant as a result of these crimes will be forced to comply with the laws if they pass. It’s little more than saying, “Let’s just kick a woman while she’s down,” said Hart.
Abortion rights activists hope to see some conservative in-fighting in the legislature since there are multiple versions of these bills floating around at present. Once a single bill is solidified, they say they’ll know how to fight it.
“When anti-choicers get their political ducks in a row,” said Sara Cleveland, “we’ll know better how to respond.”
In the meantime, the state’s economic and budget crisis will continue to take a back-burner to punishing women who seek abortions. And that, says Hart, is a “slap in the face to the families in Texas who are un- or under-employed” who would benefit from “emergency” legislation that helps them—and public entities like, say, school districts--stay afloat financially.
Jun 8, 2011 ...Texas Governor Rick Perry will be holding a huge prayer event in August ... America is in crisis: we have been besieged by financial debt, ...
Fort Worth Star Telegram - Diane Smith - Jun 16, 2011
Lawmakers have recommended $21.7 billion to be allocated for Texas higher education in the next two years, but, as they continue working on the budget in the special session called by Gov. Rick Perry, some totals may be adjusted. "In the long run, ...
DALLAS, TX (KERA) - School districts will be able to pay public school teachers less and furlough them without pay under a bill passed by the House. The measure also allows the education commissioner to consider budget cuts in allowing larger class ...
In Texas, college tuition has risen by more than 70 percent since it was deregulated during a budget crisis in 2003. Those increases have prompted Gov. Rick Perry to ask college administrators to figure out a way to provide a college ...
by AP AP AUSTIN, Texas (AP) -- A poll by the Texas Lyceum has found that 9 percent of likely Republican voters would choose GOP Gov. Rick Perry for president. Results released Thursday from the non-partisan group show that 54 percent of likely voters ...
Texas Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) gestures as he speaks during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill March 7, 2006 in Washington, DC. (Mark Wilson, Getty Images) AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A poll by the Texas Lyceum has found that 9 ...
Texas, which has spent at least $110 million since late last year fighting more than 11000 fires, is hoping the federal government will pick up a majority of the tab. Governor Rick Perry is appealing the fed's denial of the Lone Star State's request to ...
Texas, which has spent at least $110 million since late last year fighting more than 11000 fires, is hoping the federal government will pick up a majority of the tab. Governor Rick Perry is appealing the fed's denial of the Lone Star State's request to ...
San Antonio Current - Scott Andrews - Jun 14, 2011
On May 31, Governor Rick Perry called the Texas State Lege in for a 30-day special session to pass bills that will legalize $4 billion in education cuts. The state's Rainy Day Fund, with almost $6.5 billion available for emergency use, ...
Abilene Reporter-News - Sommer Ingram - Jun 13, 2011
Texas ranks 44th out of 50 states in per-student spending, which ranges from $3000 to $13000 a year. Although administrators in some districts haven't laid off employees, many are just now seeing what effects the budget cuts would have on their schools ...
Governor Rick Perry sent lawmakers back to the drawing board last month after a Democratic filibuster killed school finance legislation on the last day of the session. The legislators are expected to get back to work this week. ...
Fort Worth Star Telegram - Steve Campbell - Jun 10, 2011
Rick Perry proposed suspending arts funding for two years. Perry also recommended shuttering the Historical Commission, which administers 20 state historic sites, heritage travel programs and the nationally recognized Texas Historic Courthouse ...
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who earlier this year proposed cuts to government spending, including spending on education and Medicare, in order to balance the national budget, may have had more than the public good on his mind when he presented a plan that would cut spending while also maintaining tax subsidies for oil, mining, and energy industries. According to the congressman’s mandatory financial disclosure report to Congress, Ryan and his wife own stakes in four family companies that lease land in Texas and Oklahoma to energy companies that benefit from the tax subsidies Ryan advocated.
Ryan’s father-in-law runs the companies that are currently leasing land for mining and drilling to Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK), Devon (NYSE:DVN), XTO Energy, and a subsidiary of ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM). Ryan’s stake in these companies immediately poses a conflict of interest, especially when Ryan is lining his pockets with big oil money while expecting senior citizens, children, and the disabled to endure cuts to already underfunded programs.
Of course, Ryan’s office says he hadn’t even considered his own interests when drawing up the budget plan, overlooking the $117,000 the properties earned him and his wife just last year, as well as the $60,000 from the year before that. According to Ryan’s financial disclosure, he has assets worth somewhere between $590,000 and $2.5 million, and he owns minority stakes in four of his wife’s family companies, including Ava O Limited Company, which holds mining and mineral rights, and Little Land Company, which is an oil and gas corporation. While Ryan only has a 0.8% stake in Little Land Company, it is still one of his most valuable assets, generating nearly $50,000 last year.
For the past week, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has been roundly criticized by religious and LGBT groups alike for inviting other governors to join him at an anti-gay prayer event hosted by stridently bigoted American Family Association. Not only has Perry courted the radical wing of the religious right for years, he has a history of bucking responsibility for tough problems by invoking God. For instance, while Texas was facing a historic drought and rash of wildfires, Gov. Perry extolled Texans to “pray for rain,” as he tried to cut funding for the agency battling the wildfires.
As Perry is poised to sign the most draconian state budget in recent history that slashes essential services for the poor and middle class while potentially laying off 100,000 teachers, Kyle Mantyla of Right Wing Watch Kyle digs up this gem of an interview from May in which the governor sheds some light on his motivations. During an appearance on James Robison’s Life Today television program, Perry says he sees a silver lining to the devastating recession that has cost millions of families their jobs, homes, and livelihoods: it will return America to “Biblical principles” and free us from the slavery of big government:
PERRY: I think in America from time to time we have to go through some difficult times — and I think we’re going through those difficult economic times for a purpose, to bring us back to those Biblical principles of you know, you don’t spend all the money. You work hard for those six years and you put up that seventh year in the warehouse to take you through the hard times. And not spending all of our money. Not asking for Pharaoh to give everything to everybody and to take care of folks because at the end of the day, it’s slavery. We become slaves to government.
Watch it:
Perry twists a famous Biblical story into a bizarre anti-government tirade, comparing the U.S. government to slave masters in ancient Egypt. Skewing religion to reinforce his personal political ideology, Perry chastises people not to rely on government for help in hard times, and suggests those who are suffering have no one but themselves to blame for not making adequate preparations.
Of course, the most alarming take away is that Perry seems comfortable plunging his own state into economic ruin because he thinks it will encourage people to come back to God. By signing this budget, a nonpartisan state commission estimates that Perry will cost more than 300,000 Texans their jobs and purge millions from the Medicare roles — but Perry apparently believes that to be God’s plan and himself just an instrument of it.
Rick Perry of Texas went on the air with televangelist James Robison and declared that our current economic malaise is God's will and he's putting us through this to bring us back to Biblical principles. PERRY: I think in America from time to time we ...
Gov. Rick Perry of Texas went on the air with televangelist James Robison and declared that our current economic malaise is God's will and he's putting us through this to bring us back to Biblical principles.
PERRY: I think in America from time to time we have to go through some difficult times -- and I think we're going through those difficult economic times for a purpose, to bring us back to those Biblical principles of you know, you don't spend all the money. You work hard for those six years and you put up that seventh year in the warehouse to take you through the hard times. And not spending all of our money. Not asking for Pharaoh to give everything to everybody and to take care of folks because at the end of the day, it's slavery. We become slaves to government.
Another potential candidate, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, offered this statement: “At this time, I can't decide whether to run for President of the US or secede from the US and become President of Texas.” Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney made the ...
So did Jesus cause the drought and the financial crisis? That what the presidential campaign needed was another oligarch-cum-Christian theocrat in the running. Is that his plan for fixing the Texas state budget? Jesus, if he existed at all, ...
Prior Democratic administrations wisely converted the surpluses into savings and created the Texas Rainy Day Fund for unanticipated circumstances. In 2006 Gov. Rick Perry passed legislation that contained substantial tax cuts to benefit certain big ...
In the past ten years, Rick Perry has brought our state to a budget crisis with a shortfall that cuts billions from public education, leaves seniors out in the cold, and defers the dream of higher education for tens of thousands of bright young people. ...
The years-long campaign against Californians by the state of Texas, its officials and industries has done anything but abate since the Lone Star State was revealed as having a worse budget crisis than California's, in addition to poverty ...
We'll start with the almost-good news: the Center for Reproductive Rights has officially filed a lawsuit against the State of Texas challenging the mandatory transvaginal ultrasound bill that Rick Perry and his (do we really need to say male? ...
... MSNBC’s The Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell discussed the influence that AFA’s director of issue analysis, Bryan Fischer, may have on Republican candidates as well as the implications of the Christian event.
The conversation with Peter Montgomery, senior fellow of People For the American Way, highlighted comments made by Fischer on his radio show targeting the LGBT community as the purported cause of Nazism. Montgomery called Perry’s decision to allow AFA to sponsor and fund the prayer event “outrageous.”
“The bigger problem with the show is that Bryan Fischer is an endless torrent of the most extreme kind of bigotry and divisiveness,” Montgomery said. “The fact that his show is a regular stop for Republican presidential wannabes and members of Congress is a sad commentary on the state of the Republican Party. It suggests that there is no bigotry so extreme and no McCarthyism so repulsive that they will not embrace or overlook it in order to get the religious right voters that they think are listening to [his] radio show.”
A study released by Montgomery’s group, titled “GOP’s Favorite Hate-Monger: How the Republican Party Came to Embrace Bryan Fischer,” documents Fischer’s incendiary remarks, including characterizing Pres. Barack Obama as a fascist dictator, arguing homosexuals should be prevented from holding office, that Muslims do not hold constitutional rights and should be barred from immigrating to the U.S., and that Native Americans should be thrown off their land for not converting to Christianity quickly enough. The report notes how Fischer frequently hosts likely presidential candidates looking to draw religious right voters, including current GOP presidential hopefuls Tim Pawlenty, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann, who have all appeared on his radio show. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour were also guests while they were contemplating presidential runs. In Texas, Republican Rep. Lamar Smith joined Fischer’s radio show as a guest.
When asked by O’Donnell why GOP candidates fail to worry about the political implication of associating with such an extremist organization, Montgomery said it is matter of the media and members of the public to give them “reason to worry,” by pointing to bigoted remarks and holding public officials accountability for going on the show. The Perry/AFA prayer event was also featured on Rachel Maddow‘s show earlier this week. ...
Shocking as it is, this book--a crucial source of original research used for the bestseller Hitler's Willing Executioners--gives evidence to suggest the opposite conclusion: that the sad-sack German draftees who perpetrated much of the Holocaust were not expressing some uniquely Germanic evil, but that they were average men comparable to the run of humanity, twisted by historical forces into inhuman shapes. Browning, a thorough historian who lets no one off the moral hook nor fails to weigh any contributing factor--cowardice, ideological indoctrination, loyalty to the battalion, and reluctance to force the others to bear more than their share of what each viewed as an excruciating duty--interviewed hundreds of the killers, who simply could not explain how they had sunken into savagery under Hitler. A good book to read along with Ron Rosenbaum's comparably excellent study Explaining Hitler. --Tim Appelo
From Publishers Weekly
Browning reconstructs how a German reserve police battalion composed of "ordinary men," middle-aged, working class people, killed tens of thousands of Jews during WW II.
In a work that is as authoritative as it is explosive, Goldhagen forces us to revisit and reconsider our understanding of the Holocaust and its perpetrators, demanding a fundamental revision in our thinking of the years between 1933-1945. Drawing principally on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen marshals new, disquieting primary evidence that explains why, when Hitler conceived of the "final solution" he was able to enlist vast numbers of willing Germans to carry it out. A book sure to provoke new discussion and intense debate. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Goldhagen's gripping and shocking landmark study transforms our understanding of the Holocaust. Refuting the widespread notion that those who carried out the genocide of Jews were primarily SS men or Nazi party members, he demonstrates that the perpetrators?those who staffed and oversaw the concentration camps, slave labor camps, genocidal army units, police battalions, ghettos, death marches?were, for the most part, ordinary German men and women: merchants, civil servants, academics, farmers, students, managers, skilled and unskilled workers. Rejecting the conventional view that the killers were slavishly carrying out orders under coercion, Goldhagen, assistant professor of government at Harvard, uses hitherto untapped primary sources, including the testimonies of the perpetrators themselves, to show that they killed Jews willingly, approvingly, even zealously. Hitler's genocidal program of a "Final Solution" found ready accomplices in these ordinary Germans who, as Goldhagen persuasively argues, had absorbed a virulent, "eliminationist" anti-Semitism, prevalent as far back as the 18th century, which demonized the Jews and called for their expulsion or physical annihilation. Furthermore, his research reveals that a large proportion of the killers were told by their commanders that they could disobey orders to kill, without fear of retribution?yet they slaughtered Jews anyway. By his careful estimate, hundreds of thousands of Germans were directly involved in the mass murder, and millions more knew of the ongoing genocide. Among the 30 photographs are snapshots taken by the murderers of themselves and their victims.
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Liann06.17.11
The truth is that it is satanic to lie. American Family Association tells satanic lies. Hitler had no problem whatsoever finding HATER-osexuals to be sadistic killers for him. The SS was 100% haterosexual and included Hitler’s personal bodyguards. All concentration camp and death camp guards were SS haterosexuals. It is true that Ernst Rohm was a homosexual leader of the brownshirts murdered during the Night of the Long Knives Purge, but he was not the only leader of the brownshirts nor Hitler’s favorite person — he just happened to be useful as a machinegun smuggler during Hitler’s rise. The PINK TRIANGLES were the homosexuals sent to death camps and concentration camps for homosexuality, and they were not favored by Hitler or the Nazis.
On August 6, 2011, Texas Governor and U.S. Presidential hopeful, Rick Perry, will take the stage in support of and collaboration with a certified hate group. Governor Perry called for a National Day of Prayer in response to the “crisis” faced by America. The event, aptly titled “The Response,” is sponsored by the American Family Association (AFA), which recently received a “hate group” designation from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
While Governor Perry guised his intolerance of equality in the shrouds of “religion” and “prayer” the real Truth of The Response became evident when the president of the American Family Association (AFA), Tim Wildmon, acknowledged that one of the purposes of the prayer event is to end the “increasing acceptance of homosexuality” by American society.
While purportedly Christian groups like the AFA vehemently target LGBTQ people and have developed political agendas to deny equal protection of queer Americans, not all Christians translate faith into bigotry. According to the Religion Poll conducted this year by the Human Rights Campaign,
The majority of Christians oppose the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, favor protecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people from discrimination, favor laws prohibiting bullying and harassment against LGBT students or the children of LGBT parents, [86%] believe their faith leads them to conclude that the law should treat LGBT people equally, and believe condemnation of LGBT people by religious leaders does more harm than good.
However, the remaining 14% of Christians opposed to equal protections under the law are the vocal minority.
But Perry has awakened the majority by his alliance with a hate group. The Houston Clergy Council released a statement requesting that Governor Perry leave ministry to the clergy and “refocus his energy on the work of governing our state,” noting that the AFA is not only an anti-gay hate group, but has also “been stridently anti-Muslim, going so far as to question the rights of Muslim Americans to freely organize and practice their faith.”
The event has grabbed the interest of non-clergy organizations as well, spawning an online petition to be hand delivered to the Governor’s office by members of GetEQUAL demanding that the Governor remove himself from the event or remove the AFA as a sponsor. But Perry hasn’t yet backed down. In fact, in a recent interview with Fox News, Perry and Fox News’ Neil Cavuto exchanged the following dialogue:
Cauvuto: You have kind of like the Chris Christie phenomenon: very popular outside your state, still popular but not nearly as popular within your state. There are even Tea Party groups within your state who like you but don’t love you. […] What do you say? Perry: I say that a prophet is generally not loved in their hometown. That’s both Biblical and practical.
Robin McGehee, the National Director of GetEQUAL, suggests the event deserves bold action, stating:
From conservative religious bashing to ballot bashing to queer bashing — too often these voices of hate dominate our communities in an effort to strip away our dignity. Sadly, these coordinated efforts lead to self-hate, self-violence and hate crimes. It is our hope that a unified voice of dignity, love and equality will take bold action in Houston and wherever the voices of bigoted prejudice, discrimination and hate exist to say, ‘enough is enough.’
But not all LGBTQ advocates concur with removal of the AFA from the event. Most notable were remarks made to the Houston Chronicle by the Mayor Annise Parker, who is openly lesbian and largely heralded as and LGBTQ civil rights hero. When asked if she considered the AFA holding an event in her city an insult, she said, “No, I’m glad to have anybody’s dollars coming to the city of Houston. They can come back on a monthly basis if they’d like as long as they spend money.”
The AFA has certainly spent money. The organization is accused of funneling roughly $25,000 for lobbying initiatives against the U.S. State Department’s condemnation of the Ugandan “Kill the Gays” bill, which would make homosexuality a criminal offense punishable by death. It has also invested significantly in teaching churches how to advocate for political causes while maintaining their tax-exempt status.
Several rallies and protests of the event have also been planned with varying messages, including “separation of church and state” due to reports that Perry used State resources in planning and organizing The Response.
