You know, the men who were caught cheating on their wives that have long been forgotten. Spitzer was wrong, but weren't they as well? Why are both still in office while Spitzer has resigned? Spitzer was wrong but I'm still trying to figure out how it is that he resigned within days yet Larry Craig and David Vitter are still in office. The GOP was rolling on the floor laughing this week when Spitzer went down but I'm almost surprised that Fox didn't interview Newt Gingrinch, Vitter or Craig and have them tell us about the evils of sex outside of marriage and how it's destroying America much the way the media has used Bill Bennett when they are seeking moral guidance on one issue or another. It's a tricky game to understand who is supposed to resign in disgrace when you see this.
Meanwhile while Wall Street and the GOP were all laughing Americans shoveled $200 billion to Wall Street all based on a guarantee of $200 billion in subprime loans that nobody was ever going to buy. Funny, isn't it? Ha, ha, ha. Joke's on us.
On Friday there will be a formal display of the full flowering of fundie creepiness in Daddy Dobson's territory (Colorado Springs) - a father/daughter purity ball -- complete with a dinner dance, ballet performance, live chamber music, a procession of the young women who will lay white roses at the foot of a huge wooden cross they and their fathers will dance in the ballroom -- and daddy with participate in a covenant signing ceremony pledging to protect her virginity.
In a "counter-cultural" event, fathers and daughters from across the nation are gathering tomorrow for the annual Father-Daughter Purity Ball in Colorado Springs.
Created in 1998 by Colorado Springs parents Randy and Lisa Wilson, the event has birthed a "purity ball" movement across the nation that has attracted international media attention. Journalists from Britain, Canada, Italy, Finland and Norway will cover Friday's gathering at the Broadmoor Hotel.
"This event is about restoring fatherhood one of the most critical issues facing our culture today," said Randy Wilson. "Research shows that the most important man in a daughter's life is her father."
The fathers will stand before their daughters and recite a pledge together:
"I, (daughter's name)'s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the areas of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and my family as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come."
There's not much left to say after this, is there? An obvious matter to point out -- is that we don't see any ceremony of this kind between mother and son, since I guess junior is either supposed to be chaste by default -- certainly he's not spilling any seed, right?
Unfortunately for dear old high priest dad, purity pledges aren't exactly keeping little Janie from carnal exploration. In March 2006, Byron Weathersbee, a chaplain at Baylor University in Waco, Texas (a school affiliated with the conservative Southern Baptist Convention), conducted a study on the effectiveness of abstinence ed and virginity pledges in Christians.
* 100 percent professed faith in Christ * 99 percent attended church * 84 percent grew up in church * 87 percent grew up in a two-parent home * 62 percent of males had premarital sex * 65 percent of females had premarital sex * only 27 percent of fundies surveyed managed to stay completely chaste, not engaging in intercourse or Clintonian "non-sex" acts.
The WaPo reported that those virginity pledges touted by head-in-the-sand organizations like True Love Waits and the Silver Ring Thing are doing nothing to stop STDs either Among the 20 percent of kids that took a virginity pledge, 61 percent of the consistent pledgers and 79 percent of the inconsistent pledgers reported having intercourse before marrying or prior to 2002 interviews. Almost 7 percent of the students who did not make a pledge were diagnosed with an STD, compared with 6.4 percent of the "inconsistent pledgers" and 4.6 percent of the "consistent pledgers."
And look at the Lone Star State, bastion of abstinence-only education. It ranked among the 10 worst states in the nation on almost all factors related to teen pregnancy including: · Teen birth rate 47th · Percent change in teen birth rate 44th · Birth rate for younger teens 48th · Percent teen births that are repeat births 44th · Teen births as a percent of all births 40th · Percent of births to teens receiving late or no prenatal care 44th.
Hope they all have a great time at the fantasy purity ball.
Sigh. Poor Michael Medved of Town Hall. He bloviates in his column that lifting Don't Ask, Don't Tell will result in an explosion of toe-tapping cruising in the latrines.
Imagine the impact on morale and unit cohesion if two guys from the same barracks engaged in toe-tapping hanky-panky (and perhaps much more) while occupying adjacent bathroom stalls in the military facilities?
Of course, advocates for gays in the military will insist that any such indulgence would involve a violation of the rules, with offenders facing stiff, severe consequences. But the impact of gay GI’s on bathroom atmospherics doesn’t just stem from the real chance of actual sex acts in the latrine, it involves whole sexualization of one of the most frequented and important conveniences on any base.
Does he not realize that Larry Craig has said he's not gay, and that the Atlanta police department found that the majority of men busted in his stings are married with kids? How, exactly then, will DADT prevent bathroom hookups if self-proclaimed heterosexuals are engaging in public, anonymous homosex? If you read on, it's clear the level of Medved's projection that he will be the target of amorous toe-tapping is, well, extreme.
The problem isn’t just the chance of molestation, it’s the radical change of mood and sensibility if you know you may be checked out as a sex object at a very private moment (of urination or defecation) when most normal people prefer to avoid any and all thoughts of physical intimacy.
...The national shudder of discomfort and queasiness associated with any introduction of homosexual eroticism into public men’s rooms should make us more determined than ever to resist the injection of those lurid attitudes into the even more explosive situation of the U.S. military.
Oh, please. How does the desire to serve one's country without being in the closet now turn into an orgy of bathroom sex? It's about the inappropriate nature and location of a sex act, not the orientation, Medved.
If Craig thinks he's straight and has to cruise public restrooms for same-sex encounters, it says more about homophobia and the pathology of the closet driving men like him to engage in this kind of public, anonymous, illicit behavior, particularly because of the deceit and the pain it causes their families.
Please, Senator Craig. Stay in the Senate and make my day. Prove to the religious right that the Republicans only pay lip service (oops) to all their talk about family values. We're not just talking about you "possibly" being gay. We're not just talking about you "possibly" having gay sex. We're talking about you "possibly" cruising public toilets in order to have sex with anonymous men who, for all you know, could have been 12 year old boys (are you sure none of them were underage boys - I mean, how would you know if you never saw their faces?). Now that's family values chutzpah for a guy who claims to be a conservative Republican.
Please, Senator Craig, stay in the Senate. I don't have a problem with you if you're gay. I have a wide stance on gays in the Congress - hell, I'd love to finally have an openly gay Senator - and all the better that he's a conservative Republican. I also don't have a problem with you if you're finding consensual adult outlets for your sexual desires. I do, however, have a problem with you bashing gays and lecturing others on morality while "possibly" trolling for gay sex in public toilets (something that doesn't just make you gay, it makes you uber-gay). You don't get to bash gays by day then suck up to them by cover of darkness.
Stay in the Senate, Senator Craig, and every time you or one of your Republican buddies in the Congress or in the religious right hate groups tries to talk about gays, or family values, or any other kind of moral judgment, we're going to be talking about GOP Senators who give blowjobs to anonymous men (and boys?) in public toilets. You're the best thing to happen since Mary Cheney.
So seriously, Senator Craig, where do we contribute to your defense fund?
PS I can already see the protests following you around the Hill and your home town now. People tossing toilet paper in the air, like a Rocky Horror midnight show. Oh, trust me, this is going to be fun.
You've got to be kidding me. On Meet the Press, GOP "sage" Mike Murphy, who has been on the payrolls of John McCain and Mitt Romney, decided to blow off some steam about all the fallout from the sexual hypocrisy of anti-gay pols in his party by blaming the messenger -- bloggers who dare to talk about or reveal the dual lives of legislators and elected officials that work hard to deny civil equality to LGBT citizens, while trolling for same-sex encounters or who are on their second, third (and counting) "sacred" marriages. (NBC):
MR. SHRUM: ...people are going to laugh if these wonderful family values candidates like Giuliani and Thompson get up there and start talking about these issues.
MR. MURPHY: Yeah, but there’s an ugliness in all this, too. I, I think Craig is an unsympathetic figure. But there has been this case of bloggers on the far left trying to expose closeted politicians if they don’t fall completely into lockstep with a certain liberal gay agenda. And I think that’s unfair. It’s a form of McCarthyism, really.
MR. SHRUM: Don’t you think the ugliness was voting against the hate crimes bill, as Craig did...
MR. MURPHY: No, no, no, but what Dems do is...
MR. SHRUM: ...and then going into a men’s bathroom...
MR. MURPHY: This is -- no, it’s...
MR. SHRUM: ...and soliciting a police officer?
MR. MURPHY: Of course, that was ugly, but, but the point is, there is a tendency to apply an identity politics test now, which, which has a real chilling effect on politics, that somebody’s private life has--or their, their race or their gender or their orientation--has to dictate where they stand politically. If you’re a woman, you have to be a pro-choice Democrat. I mean, that calculation cheapens politics, and it’s unfair to people in public life who do have private lives.
Talk about hypocrites. Where do you begin? No one is saying Larry Craig needed to support gay rights. As a far-right conservative elected on a "family values" agenda, it's pretty clear that he wasn't going to be on our side of the issues. What isn't acceptable is for the man to be out trolling for sex with men in a restroom, then heading off to the Senate floor to vote against taxpaying LGBT citizens. If a pol cannot reconcile his sexual desires, is full of self-loathing and takes it out on others who are able to separate sex acts from sexual orientation, IMHO that pol isn't psychologically stable enough be given such legislative power to vote on such matters. The public does have an interest in the sexual hypocrisy of legislators as long as their efforts continue to legislate against the privacy rights of individuals and deny civil rights to a group of citizens.
They need to stop peeping and leering into our bedrooms and get to the business of solving this country's real problems.
James Carville was also on MTP; he brings up the GOP's eager drop-kick of the loyal conservative Larry Craig:
Ah, schadenfreude.
MR. RUSSERT: James Carville, in 1999 Larry Craig was on this program talking about William Jefferson Clinton, the president of the United States, and his behavior. This is the way Senator Craig talked about the president.
(Videotape, January 24, 1999)
SEN. CRAIG: And I will tell you that the Senate certainly can bring about a censure resolution, and it's a slap on the wrist. It's a "Bad boy, Bill Clinton, you're a naughty boy." The American people already know that Bill Clinton is a bad boy, a naughty boy. I'm going to speak out for the citizens of my state who, in the majority, think that Bill Clinton is probably even a nasty, bad, naughty boy.
(End videotape)
MR. JAMES CARVILLE: You know, I've said many times that those who are not willing to give pardon and mercy are those that don't need pardon and mercy. Clearly, Senator Craig is not one of these people, nor, I suspect, is anybody on this television set or are very few people like that. And I couldn't -- I remember that, as you remember a lot of things. And I remember that people know the way that he, he used gays in, in terms of gay marriage or gays in the military. He was very, very far out there. And I think the American public has really sort of turned against this kind of thing, and I think he was exposed for being the kind of hypocrite that he was. By the same token, you could not look at that event yesterday and be a human being and not feel sorry for that man, to some extent, and feel sorry for his family. But, you know, the, the message here is just shut your mouth and lead the life. And I think that's what the American people want, want, want people to do.
What I found extraordinary about this is nobody came out and defended this guy. I mean, nobody said, "He's a good man, done a bad thing." "Here's a decent guy who's obviously been struggling with a problem." "Here's somebody who"-- I mean, nobody. No Republican, no, no, no, no operative, no journalist. Nobody said, "Well, Larry Craig's got nothing." And I mean, they didn't throw him under the bus, they hit him with the bus. I mean, he's like, boom! Flattened him.
Yes. All of Larry's friends, those fellow back-slapping pols, rushed for the exits as fast as they could.
He pleaded guilty, folks. This was kept under wraps for some time. The question is, will he take pointers from Florida State Rep Bob Allen when he discusses his public foray into man-on-man action for the press? It's all a big misunderstanding, you know. I wonder if there were any scary black men or lightning storms near the airport. Roll Call has the goods.
Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men's public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon.
Craig's arrest occurred just after noon on June 11 at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8.
A spokesman for Craig described the incident as a "he said/he said misunderstanding," and said the office would release a fuller statement later Monday afternoon.
After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report.
Idaho reactionary and well-known closet queen, Larry Craig, was arrested in a public toilet for misbehaving in a way closeted Republicans often do. So apparently it isn't just train stations' rest rooms that turn Senator Craig on.
* Voted YES on constitutional ban of same-sex marriage. (Jun 2006) * Voted NO on adding sexual orientation to definition of hate crimes. (Jun 2002) * Voted NO on expanding hate crimes to include sexual orientation. (Jun 2000) * Voted YES on prohibiting same-sex marriage. (Sep 1996) * Voted NO on prohibiting job discrimination by sexual orientation. (Sep 1996)
My, my, it is a busy week. I can hardly keep up with these guys...
Former NC lawmaker, retired Baptist minister -- and now-former Christian Action League president -- Coy C. Privette pleaded guilty yesterday to six counts of aiding and abetting prostitution. He has to perform 48 hours of community service and receive counseling.
* he paid for the hotel rooms under his own name on six occasions; * the prostitute took pictures of her with the former minister using her cell phone camera.
That left Privette with little other choice than to admit the hanky-panky. Outside the courtroom after the hearing, Privette passed out a statement that sounds vaguely familiar, right out of the Conservative Sexual Hypocrisy Manual.
Privette said he is going to dedicate considerable time and effort to "repair" himself.
"I am already seeking professional attention to this end," he said. "As I undergo much needed personal and spiritual reflection, I sincerely ask everyone to keep me in their thoughts and prayers on my journey to earn back the trust that I have lost."
A sad irony of the story is that the sex worker involved was arrested for prostitution by authorites, even though she cooperated with them on the bust, which involved a forged check case investigation.
According to the prosecutor the case started June 27 when a Cabarrus County bank refused to honor a check being drawn against Privette's account because it seemed high and called Kannapolis police.
A police investigator interviewed Tiffany Summers who said she had received the check from Privette. She also said she had sex with Privette on a number of occasions in two hotels.
For a touch of fun, take a look at the statement on morality on the Christian Action League's web site...
We are in the General Assembly of North Carolina with a full-time presence promoting legislation that is consistent with a Christian worldview. We advocate for those measures that strengthen the family and oppose legislation that would erode the family structure. We are the voice of conservative evangelical Christians in the State Legislature.
We discourage the promotion and use of beverage alcohol and other drugs, pornography, sexual immorality and other sinful practices that not only undermine the spiritual lives of those who participate in them, but also undermine the strength of our State and National character.
However, if you've not had enough servings of Republican sexual hypocrite schadenfreude and you would like to read a letter of support sent to the embattled Florida State Representative Bob Allen by one of my readers, click here.
Today's news is that BJ Bob's continuing the downward spiral. First it was the mysterious menacing stocky black men (one in the stall and the rest outside in the park) that forced him to offer to pay to blow the undercover officer in a unique self-defense maneuver; now he says he's perhaps "the most misunderstood guy on Earth." Why? The Florida state rep was stripped of his committee appointments by House Speaker Marco Rubio yesterday -- Allen stuck his foot in his mouth again. Howie Klein:
Republicans, embarrassed, especially because Allen is a notorious and loudmouthed homophobe, are trying to pressure him to resign and disappear before the election so that their party won't be tarred with yet another hypocritical sex deviant.
Instead of resigning, Allen lashed out at Rubio and seems to have attacked Cuban-Americans, a dominant force in the Florida GOP. "In Cuba, that's where you are charged by police, wrapped up and sent off as guilty without a trial. That's a Cuba thing, something Fidel Castro does." Rubio, "of course," is Cuban-American. But Allen said he meant any totalitarian regime, "Cuba is just the closest one."
Lest you think Allen is a tad delusional, check out this -- he plans to run for the state Senate in 2010: "I'm waiting for the politics to say it's OK to hug Bob Allen again -- and they will," he said.
State Rep. Bob Allen wanted to lure an undercover Titusville police officer to a Kennedy Space Center security gate, according to new court records released today.
The new court document filed in the case is a two-page report from Titusville Assistant Police Chief John Lau, who interviewed Allen after his July 11 arrest on a solicitation of prostitution charge. That interview was recorded and has previously been released.
Police say Allen, while in a Space View Park restroom, agreed to pay the undercover officer $20 for oral sex.
According to the report, Allen said he went to the bathroom to avoid a lightning storm that was about to start.
Ah, it's a bumper crop of new entries for the conservative family values monitor.
Case #1: Minnesota State Rep Mark Olsen. The co-sponsor of a (failed) state marriage amendment to ban gays and lesbians from marrying was convicted by a jury for domestic assault. Olsen cried before news cameras last year when he was charged -- he allegedly shoved his wife to the ground several times. He was not sent to the pokey; he received two years probation and must pay fines and court costs. Bonus points: his campaign literature boasts his support for "tougher penalties for crime" and "holding legislators accountable for unethical/illegal activities." Avidor at Dump Mark Olsen has courthouse video.
Case #2: Angelo Cappelli. In St. Petersburg, Florida, he was hailed as a rising GOP star, with an uncanny ability to raise funds, a hot banking job, lots of friends in the local Republican party and he made it a close race for a seat in House District 52. Unfortunately, Angelo's got a little problem.
After a six-week investigation, police arrested Cappelli on Wednesday morning at his lawyer's office on Central Avenue. He faces grand theft and perjury charges, according to St. Petersburg authorities.
Cappelli, 37, is accused of stealing more than $100,000 from the trust of a deceased bank client. By Wednesday evening, Cappelli was out of jail on $55,000 bail. He could not be reached for comment.
Case #3: Lewis County (Washington State) prosecutor Liam Michael Golden. As reader Paul Barwick noted, "another Republican can't keep it in his pants."
The tomcatting of the elected prosecutor in this conservative rural town has jeopardized as many as four cases brought by his office and prompted a complaint to the state bar association.
Liam Michael Golden, a Republican who ran unopposed for Lewis County prosecutor last November, is facing allegations that he did not properly disclose past sexual relationships with the mother of a victim in one case and the mother of a defendant in another. His office also charged someone with cyberstalking a woman Golden had slept with, though Golden recently turned that case over to a prosecutor from neighboring Thurston County.
You folks across the pond are simply too concerned about the planet and aren't spending enough time in the sack engaging in procreative sex. So says Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.
Thanks to the BBC's new emphasis on this crisis, Europe may finally wake up to the reality that its culture is on the verge of extinction. With global birth rates plummeting, the concern over saving the earth may soon be replaced by concern over whom we're saving it for. As the traditional family declines, fewer children are being born to replace and support the world's graying society.
As our friend Allan Carlson has observed, "Of the 10 nations with the lowest birth rates worldwide, nine are in Europe." Countries like Slovakia are producing only 50,000 children a year, compared to 100,000 in 1974. In nations like Russia, Belarus, and the Czech Republic, the birth rate is hovering at a mere 1.2 children per woman. The World Congress of Families (WCF) has warned of this "demographic winter" for years but only recently have the media begun to notice the chill. FRC has worked with the WCF to raise awareness of this trend. Now that we have the attention of the international community, FRC will continue to call on world leaders to implement pro-marriage and pro-family policies.
Actually, what Tony appears to be saying is that there aren't enough melanin-challenged people knocking boots. The brown folks are multiplying like bunnies. That's what John Gibson advised Americans on Faux News:
"By far, the greatest number [of children under five] are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic." Gibson later claimed: "To put it bluntly, we need more babies." Then, referring to Russia's projected decline in population, Gibson claimed: "So far, we are doing our part here in America but Hispanics can't carry the whole load. The rest of you, get busy. Make babies, or put another way -- a slogan for our times: 'procreation not recreation'."
The Republican Florida State Representative says he's not a criminal, a racist, or was trolling for sex.
Embattled state Rep. Bob Allen, who has been vilified by computer bloggers and lampooned on late-night talk shows since his arrest on a charge of soliciting prostitution, is not a criminal or a racist and has no plans to resign, his attorney said Wednesday.
"Based on the police officer's own report, this case should be dismissed," said attorney Greg Eisenmenger, adding that he would file a motion for dismissal. "The officer did all the soliciting."
...Allen, R-Merritt Island, told investigators he was just playing along when the undercover Titusville officer suggested oral sex and $20 because he was intimidated by the "stocky black guy," according to the statement.
Allen, who is white, also said that there "was nothing but other black guys around in the park" and that he thought he was about to be robbed. At the time, Allen was unaware the other men also were undercover officers.
Why was Allen in the park? His lawyer says he was there planning an unspecified event.
Man, this good Southern Baptist preacher (and Christian radio DJ) from Johnson City, TN was getting busy!
The minister of a Baptist church has been charged with indecent exposure and driving under the influence, and police officers say he propositioned them.
Tommy Tester, 58, of Bristol, Va., was wearing a skirt when he was arrested last week after allegedly urinating in front of children at a car wash, police said. Police also said Tester offered to perform oral sex on officers who were sent to the scene.
Authorities identified Tester as the minister of Gospel Baptist Church in Bristol and an employee of Christian radio station WZAP-AM in Bristol.
Bonus! WGAL reports that police found an open bottle of vodka and empty oxycodone prescription bottle in Tester's car.
Rising star of the family-values wing of the Republican party likes his hookers. And that's fine. But spare us the sanctimonious family values crap when you're cheating on your wife with prostitutes. More from the Times Picayune.
A headline that no political candidate wants to see. So why doesn't Rudy fix it? From Salon:
A grand jury accused Alan Placa of molestation and his diocese has suspended him, but the presidential candidate [Giuliani] continues to employ his lifelong best friend as a consultant....
Giuliani employs his childhood friend Monsignor Alan Placa as a consultant at Giuliani Partners despite a 2003 Suffolk County, N.Y., grand jury report that accuses Placa of sexually abusing children, as well as helping cover up the sexual abuse of children by other priests. Placa, who was part of a three-person team that handled allegations of abuse by clergy for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, is referred to as Priest F in the grand jury report. The report summarizes the testimony of multiple alleged victims of Priest F, and then notes, "Ironically, Priest F would later become instrumental in the development of Diocesan policy in response to allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests."
The Suffolk County grand jury report, released eight months after Placa's suspension, includes evidence from three alleged victims. It states that in Priest F's first assignment, "he appears to have made feeble attempts at abusing a boy who was an alter [sic] server. ... He pulled up a chair next to the boy and put his right hand on his thigh. Slowly his hand began to creep up towards the boy's genital area. Alarmed, the boy covered his crotch. … The conduct repeated itself within a week....
"After his first assignment," the report continues, "Priest F was transferred within the Diocese to ... a school. Priest F was cautious, but relentless in his pursuit of victims. He fondled boys over their clothes, usually in his office. Always, his actions were hidden by a poster, newspaper or a book. ... Everyone in the school knew to stay away from Priest F."
The report describes two alleged victims complaining to the school's rector about Priest F, and their "suspicions, later confirmed to be correct," that the priest was abusing a fourth boy. Eventually, one of the alleged victims told Priest F, in an encounter witnessed by another boy, "Don't ever fucking touch me again or I'll kill you."
Advocates for victims of abuse by Catholic clergy on Friday urged presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani to fire a priest who was suspended from the church and then hired by the ex-mayor's security consulting business. A spokeswoman for Giuliani said the firm had no plans to fire Monsignor Alan Placa.
I thought voters sent a pretty clear message last election that they don't take kindly to Republicans enabling child molesters.
Former NC lawmaker, retired Baptist minister -- and now-former 
Republicans, embarrassed, especially because Allen is a notorious and loudmouthed homophobe, are trying to 
Case #1: Minnesota State Rep Mark Olsen. The co-sponsor of a (failed) state marriage amendment to ban gays and lesbians from marrying was convicted by a jury for domestic assault. Olsen 
