CNN’s openly gay anchor Don Lemon implies that the Family Research Council is to blame for gang violence against gays. He shows a clip of black gang bangers beating the hell out of another black guy and screaming gay slurs at him. And since The Family Research Council speaks out against gay marriage and homosexuality they are at least partially to blame for this.

First of all, it’s a well known fact that homophobia is stronger in the black community than probably anywhere else. They don’t want to hear about gays, see gays, or hang out with gays. When they discover a gay he gets beat down as you see in the video. Secondly, I’m pretty sure that none of those gangsters and almost no one in the black community is a Conservative. And I further doubt that anyone in that community is a member of or even knows what The Family Research Council is or says.

But since gays don’t have the balls to angrily march for gay rights in the black community (since they know what would happen) they have to blame others and deflect attention away. What Don Lemon and other left wingers are really saying is that to be against gay marriage is to be for gay bashing.

Suffice it to say that’s an outrageous and disgusting accusation.

What I like about this is that Santorum didn’t worry about the political optics (offending non-Christians) and just went with it. I’m not a Santorum supporter but I do appreciate his authenticity. Santorum is a devout Catholic and doesn’t shy away from his faith.

But as Right Scoop points out, it’s curious that ABC ignored Santorum’s speech in front of these pastors but aired the prayer in full. I think it was the media’s way of showing how strange these “faith people” are. What they fail to realize is that this is only strange to people who live in Hollywood and Manhattan.

This article titled “Obama’s contraception rules under fire from Congress and religious groups” was written by Chris McGreal in Washington, for The Guardian on Thursday 9th February 2012 00.24 UTC

Barack Obama has come under a barrage of criticism from Congress and religious organisations over a new requirement that Catholic-run schools and hospitals provide free contraception to workers.

The issue has ballooned into a political confrontation that appears to mark out one of the battle lines for the presidential election campaign. The Republicans said the new regulation is further evidence that the president is “hostile to people of faith”. Democrats claimed that opposition to it is another front in the Republicans’ “war on women’s health”.

The newly announced regulation, which takes effect in 18 months, says that all health insurance plans provided by employers must offer birth control to women free of charge. It applies equally to Catholic-owned universities, medical establishments and charities.

As the Catholic church loudly denounced the rule, Republican opposition focused on whether a religious organisation opposed to contraception could be forced by the government to go against its principles.

Newt Gingrich, the Republican presidential candidate who is a convert to Catholicism, called the regulation an “attack on the Catholic church”. Two of the other candidates, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, were also strongly critical.

John Boehner, the Republican and Catholic speaker of the House of Representatives, called the White House move a breach of constitutional protections against government interference with religion.

“In recent days, Americans of every faith and political persuasion have mobilised in objection to a rule put forth by the Obama administration that constitutes an unambiguous attack on religious freedom in our country,” he said. “This attack by the federal government on religious freedom in our country cannot stand, and will not stand.”

Republican leaders said they would push legislation to block the requirement.

The Catholic archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, said that the government’s attempts to force the new regulation on his church had prompted outrage from people of all faiths.

“The more people learn what is at stake here, the more people are speaking up. It’s not just a Catholic issue. It’s an issue that touches all faith based communities, all religions, all organisations that draw their inspiration from their faith. I think what’s happening across the country is that the more people learn about this mandate, the more they’re saying this is wrong,” he said.

Obama also came under criticism from some Democrats, including the former Virginia governor, Timothy Kaine, who is running for the Senate and is a close ally of the president. He said that it was a political misstep.

“The White House made a good decision in including a mandate for contraception coverage in the Affordable Care Act insurance policy, but I think they made a bad decision in not allowing a broad enough religious employer exemption,” he said. “I have definitely expressed my grave concerns to the White House about that.”

The White House signalled on Wednesday that it may be prepared to reach a compromise, but there were also signs that the administration is not unhappy to fight a political battle in an election year over a social issue likely to see many independent voters, particularly women, side with the president.

Some critics said that Obama may have misstepped in alienating large numbers of Catholic voters who, while many do not follow their church’s teachings on contraception, object to the government forcing it to go against its beliefs. They also said that it would have a negative impact on voters from other religions and again fire up Christian evangelicals who are ambivalent about the prospect of Romney as the Republican presidential candidate.

Peggy Noonan, a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal earlier this week that Obama has committed an inept faux pas that showed how removed he is from the “essential realities of America”, and that it could cost him the presidential election.

But Obama also has an interest in keeping issues such as access to contraception on the political agenda, especially if he faces Romney as the Republican presidential candidate.

When Romney was governor of Massachusetts in 2005, a new state law required all hospitals, including Catholic-run ones, to provide morning after pills to rape victims, which the Catholic church regards as a form of abortion. Romney said he opposed the law but he was also quoted at the time as saying: “My personal view, in my heart of hearts, is that people who are subject to rape should have the option of having emergency contraception or emergency contraception information.”

The White House flagged up that the issue will be a political battleground when Obama’s spokesman, Jay Carney, said that it is “ironic that Mitt Romney is criticising the president” for a regulation that is similar to the one in Massachusetts.

“The former governor of Massachusetts is an odd messenger on this given that the services that would be provided to women under this rule are the same services that are provided in Massachusetts and were covered when he was governor,” he said.

The issue is also likely to play in to concerns about Republican attitudes toward women after the furore around the politically-driven attempt by the Susan G Komen for the Cure foundation to halt grants to Planned Parenthood because it provides abortions.

The controversy may not do the damage to Catholic support for Obama that the Republicans hope.

A poll released this week by the Public Religion Research Institute showed that more than half of Catholic voters agree that employers should be required to provide their workers with healthcare insurance that covers contraception. However, only 45% supported the requirement for religiously affiliated colleges and hospitals to do so while 52% oppose it.

Carney hinted that the White House may give ground, but not much.

“We want to work with all these organisations to implement this policy in a way that is as sensitive to their concerns as possible,” he said. “But let’s be clear: We are committed, the president is committed, to ensuring that women have access to contraception without paying any extra costs, no matter where they work.”

One compromise under discussion is permitting church employers to effectively subcontract the part of health insurance covering contraception to an alternative insurer.

The administration has previously rejected another proposal that would broaden the definition of a religious employer beyond the churches themselves to include schools and hospitals.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

Source: CBS
Congressional Republicans are vowing to fight a provision of President Obama’s health care law, which requires all employers who provide health insurance to cover basic birth control for women. Nancy Cordes reports.

I’ve criticized CNN’s ascot wearing fool, Roland Martin, many times. The guy is a left wing hack and racial demagogue of the highest order. But what CNN is doing to him is beyond outrageous. This is a cause not only for manufactured outrage but actual outrage. It’s disgusting how PC and ridiculous this country is becoming.

The backstory:

During the Super Bowl Roland Martin made a serious of off handed jokes on Twitter:

Those tweets caused an uproar from gay attack dogs GLAAD, left wing Pinko journalists, and other lefty hacks. If you can believe it, GLAAD says those tweets encouraged violence towards gay people and CNN should fire Roland Martin. So after several days of manufactured outrage CNN finally caved into the pressure and has suspended Roland Martin. Unbelievable. CNN has less backbone than the Komen Foundation.

(H/T Big Journalism via Conurls)

Source: CBS
A federal appeals court says California’s ban on same-sex marriage – known as Proposition 8 – violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Source: CBS

Michael Steele doesn’t care for the comparison between gay marriage and racial discrimination. I don’t either.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

From the Armed Forces Journal:

I spent last year in Afghanistan, visiting and talking with U.S. troops and their Afghan partners. My duties with the Army’s Rapid Equipping Force took me into every significant area where our soldiers engage the enemy. Over the course of 12 months, I covered more than 9,000 miles and talked, traveled and patrolled with troops in Kandahar, Kunar, Ghazni, Khost, Paktika, Kunduz, Balkh, Nangarhar and other provinces.

What I saw bore no resemblance to rosy official statements by U.S. military leaders about conditions on the ground.

Entering this deployment, I was sincerely hoping to learn that the claims were true: that conditions in Afghanistan were improving, that the local government and military were progressing toward self-sufficiency. I did not need to witness dramatic improvements to be reassured, but merely hoped to see evidence of positive trends, to see companies or battalions produce even minimal but sustainable progress.

Instead, I witnessed the absence of success on virtually every level.

That headline alone has gotta be worth something! The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson paid $2,500 at a charity auction for dinner with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dorn. He took Andrew Breitbart with him. A breathless Breitbart tells of the experience moments after leaving the dinner.