Everyone knows The Gays are the root of all evil because the Bible tells us so. God compels Westboro Baptist Church to picket funerals that have nothing to do with gayosity. In California, God commanded a DMV clerk to access private records to mail anti-gay literature to a transgendered citizen. And Bryan Fischer, the American Family Association’s head of issues analysis ties Bradley Manning – the soldier who may be responsible for the world’s largest leak of wikis – to smite-worthy gaydom.

Of course Fischer’s take is nothing unusual. In the past, he’s equated gay sex with domestic terrorism (apparently foreign terrorists are only heathen Muslims, but never gay ones), called for the euthanization of grizzly bears, and advocated criminalization of homo sex with mandatory reparative therapy and if that fails, execution.

Way to hate the sin, love the sinner there Bry.

It’s not that it’s scary this ass cake says such loathsome and offensive things, it’s that many people actually side with the nut. It’s not that conservative politicians sometimes support him, but that their Prop. 8 marriages of convenience tie them to the crackpot thereby forcing independents and more liberal Republicans to either desert the party or go along for the sake of the party and enable a swing farther toward the lunatic fringe and away from common sense conservative ideals.

It’s tempting to say Christians who think he’s a crapweasel denounce him, just as Christians think Muslims should denounce their crackpots too.  Just writing off the addle-brained ninny is tempting too. After all, he calls enough attention to his bigotry without any help, regularly reminding the rest of the public just what a  jughead he is. But, it is tempting to hunt the bastard and his ilk down and give them a taste of their own savage medicine.

However, the rest of us are sentient beings who’d never dream of doing unto others what Fischer does to them.

Cross posted at The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!

A brief chronology:

An Objective Assessment on Public Safety Concerns

April 7, 2009: The Department of Homeland Security releases a nine-page assessment document entitled "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment" (in PDF).  Among the findings:

Threats from white supremacist and violent antigovernment groups during 2009 have been largely rhetorical and have not indicated plans to carry out violent acts. Nevertheless, the consequences of a prolonged economic downturn--including real estate foreclosures, unemployment, and an inability to obtain credit--could create a fertile recruiting environment for rightwing extremists and even result in confrontations between such groups and government authorities similar to those in the past.

The assessment also warned of "a heightened level of extremist paranoia" and "lone wolf extremists capable of carrying out violent attacks."

Right-wing Blowback and Politicization

April 14, 2009: Former Speaker Newt Gingrich:

The person who drafted the outrageous homeland security memo smearing veterans and conservatives should be fired

April 14, 2009: Conservative commentator Sean Hannity intentionally misrepresents the focus of the assessment as targetting "people who have pro-life bumper stickers."

April 14, 2009: Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin:

The "report" ... was one of the most embarrassingly shoddy pieces of propaganda I'd ever read out of DHS. I couldn't believe it was real. ...

By contrast, the piece of crap report issued on April 7 is a sweeping indictment of conservatives.

April 15, 2009: House Republican leader John Boehner demands an apology from the Department of Homeland Security for the report.

The Report's Tragic Accuracy

May 31, 2009: Dr. George Tiller, a frequent target of right-wing hate and violence for performing late-term abortions, was murdered.  The suspect apprehended is a right-wing extremist with a long history of violent rhetoric and criminal actions on behalf of the right-wing anti-choice movement.

June 10, 2009: A lone gunman opened fire at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, killing a security guard and injuring others.  The suspected shooter is a right-wing extremist with a long history of violent rhetoric and criminal actions on behalf of the right-wing white supremacist and Holocaust denier movements.

The Moral of This Brief Chronology:

Our public safety and national security should never be politicized, especially not by Republicans and right-wingers desperate for relevance in the media.  How many times do Republicans have to be wrong and divisively political - and have their "wrongness" be illustrated in tragic events - before they either change their tune or have the traditional media stop taking them seriously?

There's more...

Republican Party elected officials, former elected officials, and other leaders, from James Inhofe to Tom Tancredo to Newt Gingrich to Rush Limbaugh, have accused Judge Sonia Sotomayor, be it implicitly or quite explicitly, of being a "racist." When CNN's John King asked Senate Republican "Leader" Mitch McConnell, now the most powerful elected Republican in America, whether he thought aggressive rhetoric like Gingrich's and Limbaugh's went too far, he responded:

I've got better things to do than to be the speech police over people who are going to have their views about a very important appointment.

Speech police, huh?  Well, I'll come back to that in a moment.

In July 2008, a psychopath went on a shooting rampage at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.  Following the tragedy, the shooter wrote a four-page note explaining why, according to his demented thought process, he did what he did:

Know this if nothing else: This was a hate crime. I hate the damn left-wing liberals. There is a vast left-wing conspiracy in this country & these liberals are working together to attack every decent & honorable institution in the nation, trying to turn this country into a communist state. Shame on them....

This was a symbolic killing. Who I wanted to kill was every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book. I'd like to kill everyone in the mainstream media. But I know those people were inaccessible to me. I couldn't get to the generals & high ranking officers of the Marxist movement so I went after the foot soldiers, the chickenshit liberals that vote in these traitorous people. Someone had to get the ball rolling. I volunteered. I hope others do the same. It's the only way we can rid America of this cancerous pestilence.

Conservative blowhard Bernard Golberg's book, "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America," was part of this madman's perverted inspiration.  This person hated liberals and Democrats and "volunteered" to do what was necessary to "rid America of this cancerous pestilence," using Goldberg's book as a motivating force.

At rallies for the 2008 Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, supporters used increasingly violent rhetoric aimed at then-Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama.  McCain and Palin were criticized for not doing more to rebuke such troublingly violent language from their supporters.

Throughout 2009 so far, Fox News' Sean Hannity has used rhetoric which has included imagery of varying degrees of violence, from hangings to armed rebellion, to provoke response in his right-wing viewership.

By now, you most likely have already read about Dr. George Tiller's assassination yesterday.  Dr. Tiller was the subject of assassination attempts, violence, and, by definition, terrorism in the past.  Even in the wake of his assassination, some on the far right wing gleefully extolled the murder.  In the years leading up to Dr. Tiller's assassination, Bill O'Reilly's rhetoric likening Dr. Tiller to Adolf Hitler was not subtle.

Those on the far right wing fringe use dangerously violent rhetoric to get a point across - a point that sometimes tragically comes with violent action.  This fringe is a key element of the listenership, viewership and readership of right wing media personalities like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Bernard Goldberg.  To increase their ratings and their book sales, they look to provoke their followers in a variety of ways.  Occasionally and, again, tragically, this leads to violence, even to domestic terrorism.  Certainly, this rhetoric condones and even encourages utter hatred, something disturbingly and violently on display at those Fox News-hyped Tea Parties.

So, back to our nation's most powerful elected Republican, Mitch McConnell, and the "speech police" sentiment in response to increasingly aggressive rhetoric against Judge and Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the latest example of the far right rhetorically igniting a situation as far as it will go, good sense and intelligent discourse be damned.  Mitch, you don't need to wear a badge and call out every conservative who says something not nice about a liberal.  But we have seen a marked increase on the far right of hatefully aggressive and even violent rhetoric.  This very rhetoric is employed by leading right wing media personalities and Republican Party leaders.  And this very rhetoric has directly led to acts of violence and domestic terrorism.

So, Mitch, do you have anything better to do than to serve as a role model and a standard bearer for your Party, calling out the seeds of violence when you see and hear it in the rhetoric of your Party's most visible spokespeople, protecting America and preventing acts of terrorism?  No, Mitch, I would suggest that you most definitely do not have anything better to do than that.  I'd further suggest that the more aggressive and more violent the rhetoric of the far right wing becomes, the greater the responsibility of elected Republican leaders becomes to publicly and forcefully rebuke such language, rather than passively condone it.  Mitch, I think you can make the time.  And if you and your fellow elected Republicans don't make the time to rebuke such violent rhetoric, you will get lumped together with those espousing the rhetoric, and you will be voted out of office.

Update [2009-6-1 18:49:00 by Senate Guru]: Greg Sargent reminds us of how Republicans and right wingers kicked up controversy when a Department of Homeland Security report made reference to the potential threat of "right wing extremists." Too bad that Republicans tried to distract America with a bogus political argument instead of addressing the substance of the matter.

There's more...

Speeches and an award ceremony in Texas honoring Rev. Jeremiah Wright for his years of service to America, the church, and the Black community were cancelled due to threats of violence by virulent Hate-mongers. Wright was first scheduled to recieve the award from the acclaimed Brite Divinity School in Ft. Worth. While Brite issued a heroic staement standing by Wright and reiterating the reasons he deserved the award
http://www.brite.tcu.edu/wright_response .asp
they announced the meetings would be moved off campus because of security concerns. A huge Baptist church in Dallas was then scheduled to host the events. However, Wright himself decided to cancel his appearances after the threats kept coming in.

The people who's violent threats forced the cancelation of the events are nothing more than racist terrorists, using the threat of violence to squelch the voices of those who would help the African American Community. All Americans should stand up and speak out on this dark time in our political history.

And on the same day Wright was forced to cancel his talk, Hillary Clinton did weigh in. She chose that day to announce to the world that she would have never stayed in a church where Wright was preaching.

I loved Hillary Clinton. i stood by her, and contributed to her, when she was in swirls of controversy. i assumed i would be voting for her in this primary. but now, on the day that racist terrorists were essentially running Dr. Wright out of Texas under the threat of violemce, Hillary Clinton wieghed in, not to speak out on the violent threats, not to praise Black Liberation Theology as the hopeful and useful tool that it has always been in this country, but to blast Dr. Wright. she has taken the side of the hatemongers and racists in this argument. if she was a ReThug, her actions would be abissmal, but par for the course. but for a Democrat to attack Black Liberation Theology, and attack Dr. Wright while he was facing violent terrorist threats, is unforgivable.
and anyone supporting Clinton after this attack on top of her racist campaign is just as unforgivable. at some point, blind loyalty is a curse, not a blessing. that time is now. it is time to take the blinders off, and see that politicians like Clinton are exactly what the netroots were created to fight. please, join the fight to end racism and fearmongering from all politicians, not just ReThugs.

There's more...

HR 1955 passed with 404 votes in the House. Sponsored by Jane Harmon aand co sponsored by Chris Carney and a host of others the bill is entitled Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.

Here is a link to read the bill:  http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext .xpd?bill=h110-1955

I am most troubled by this section of the bill:
(3) The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.

Will this section endanger Net Neutrality

There's more...