Utah announced yesterday that they are considering a new law that would criminalize an “intentional, knowing or reckless act” that led to an abortion without doctor supervision. The bill stems from the case of a woman who had her stomach beaten in order to abort a fetus. Utah wants to prosecute. The law is on its way to the Governor’s desk and the uproar, quite rightfully, around the country is growing.

Forget for a moment that this law applies to the entire duration of a pregnancy, meaning that a miscarriage at any moment opens up a woman for investigation and prosecution. Forget for a moment that “reckless” behavior can mean any behavior where a woman consciously disregards a substantial risk that the pregnancy would result in miscarriage because of her actions (that’s the penal code definition).  Even forget that this new law changes the target of the anti-abortion movement from the abortion providers to the women themselves – making women victims twice over.

What I want to know is, how can a state that can’t afford to keep twelfth grade afford to launch all these complicated criminal investigations into the pregnancy status and reckless actions of Utah’s women?

You might remember that, just last week, Utah’s State Senate was seriously considering a proposal to eliminate twelfth grade or make it optional in order to save the State as much as $102 million. They are cash strapped and desperate, so desperate that their children’s education is no longer a priority.

But if your friend gets pregnant, fails to put on her seatbelt, gets into a car accident that is not her fault and then loses the fetus. Well, she is most certainly going to be a spending priority for Utah.

They’ll have to investigate whether she knew about the pregnancy, whether she complied with the seatbelt law, and whether she knew of a substantial risk to the fetus. They’ll have to prosecute and pay for her public defender and then they will have to pay for her incarceration.

Think how many kids could have completed their high school education (an education that means Utah students won’t always be the dumb ones in the nation’s freshman university classes) with all that money spent on prosecuting your friend.

Utah has its priorities seriously turned around. It also is about to take a great step backwards in terms of women’s rights and privacy rights in this country. It may be up to the court’s to correct this travesty of law-making. I hope the Constitution is up for the challenge.

“An ad that uses sports to divide rather than to unite has no place in the biggest national sports event of the year – an event designed to bring Americans together,” said Jehmu Greene, president of the New York-based Women’s Media Center.

The center was coordinating the protest with backing from the National Organization for Women, the Feminist Majority and other groups.

CBS said it has approved the script for the 30-second ad and has given no indication that the protest would have an impact. A network spokesman, Dana McClintock, said CBS would ensure that any issue-oriented ad was “appropriate for air.”

The ad – paid for by the conservative Christian group Focus on the Family – is expected to recount the story of Pam Tebow’s pregnancy in 1987 with a theme of “Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.” After getting sick during a mission trip to the Philippines, she ignored a recommendation by doctors to abort her fifth child and gave birth to Tim, who went on to win the 2007 Heisman Trophy while helping his Florida team to two BCS championships.

The controversy over the ad was raised Sunday when Tebow met with reporters in Mobile, Ala., before beginning preparations for next weekend’s Senior Bowl.

“I know some people won’t agree with it, but I think they can at least respect that I stand up for what I believe,” Tebow said. “I’ve always been very convicted of it (his views on abortion) because that’s the reason I’m here, because my mom was a very courageous woman. So any way that I could help, I would do it.”

Thirty-second commercials during the Super Bowl are selling for $2.5 million to $2.8 million. Gary Schneeberger, a spokesman for Focus on the Family, said funds for the Tebow ad were donated by a few “very generous friends” and did not come from the group’s general fund.

Schneeberger said he and his colleagues “were a little surprised” at the furor over the ad.

“There’s nothing political and controversial about it,” he said. “When the day arrives, and you sit down to watch the game on TV, those who oppose it will be quite surprised at what the ad is all about.”

The protest letter from the Women’s Media Center suggested that CBS should have turned down the ad in part because it was conceived by Focus on the Family.

“By offering one of the most coveted advertising spots of the year to an anti-equality, anti-choice, homophobic organization, CBS is aligning itself with a political stance that will damage its reputation, alienate viewers, and discourage consumers from supporting its shows and advertisers,” the letter said.

However, Schneeberger said CBS officials carefully examined Focus on the Family’s track record and found no basis for rejecting the ad.

“We understand that some people don’t think very highly of what we do,” Schneeberger said. “We’re not trying to sell you a soft drink – we’re not selling anything. We’re trying to celebrate families.”

The idea for the ad came from an employee in Focus on the Family’s film department, Schneeberger said, and the Tebows “were thrilled” when it was proposed to them. The Tebows, including Tim, have been outspoken in discussing their Christian faith and their missionary work.

All the national networks, including CBS, have policies that rule out the broadcast of certain types of contentious advocacy ads. In 2004, CBS cited such a policy in rejecting an ad by the liberal-leaning United Church of Christ highlighting the UCC’s welcoming stance toward gays and others who might feel shunned by more conservative churches.

CBS was criticized for rejecting that ad – and perhaps might have worried about comparable criticism from conservatives if it had rejected an ad featuring such a charismatic and well-known figure as Tebow.

CBS noted that it had run some advocacy ads in recent months, including spots taking conflicting sides in the debate of a national health care overhaul.

Terry O’Neill, the president of the National Organization for Women, said she had respect for the private choices made by women such as Pam Tebow but condemned the planned ad as “extraordinarily offensive and demeaning.”

“That’s not being respectful of other people’s lives,” O’Neill said. “It is offensive to hold one way out as being a superior way over everybody else’s.”

A national columnist for CBSSports.com, Gregg Doyel, also objected to the CBS decision to show the ad, specifically because it would air on Super Sunday.

“If you’re a sports fan, and I am, that’s the holiest day of the year,” he wrote. “It’s not a day to discuss abortion. For it, against it, I don’t care what you are. On Super Sunday, I don’t care what I am. Feb. 7 is simply not the day to have that discussion.”

In addition, nearly 1,500 people have signed a change.org petition and contacted CBS about the decision to air the controversial 30-second commercial.

Part of the outcry stems from CBS’ decision in 2004 to reject an ad from The United Church of Christ that promoted the denomination’s anti-discrimination stance.

A CBS spokesman at the time told The Boston Globe, “We have a longstanding policy of not accepting advocacy advertising.”

But when questioned by The Advocate on Thursday, a CBS spokesman would not comment on past decisions.

“Our standards and practices process continues to adhere to a policy that ensures that all ads on all sides of an issue are appropriate for air,” the spokesman told The Advocate regarding the ad.

Focus on the Family’s upcoming ad features the Florida Gator’s football star Tebow and his mother, Pam, sharing their story of how she chose not to abort him despite warnings he might be stillborn. Tebow, a devout Christian, is notorious for wearing Bible verses inscribed in his game-day eye black.

A spokesman for Focus on the Family told The Denver Post that Tebow agreed to the ad because abortion is an issue he feels strongly about.

Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Focus on the Family is known for its anti-abortion stance and promotion of marriage solely for heterosexual couples.

The ad is set to air both before and during the Feb. 7 big game.

The 4,700-word document, called “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience,” sounds familiar themes from political and social debates over the health care overhaul and gay marriage battles.

While acknowledging that “Christians and our institutions have too often scandalously failed to uphold the institution of marriage,” the group rejects same-sex marriage. The declaration states that opening a legal door for gay marriage would do the same for “polyamorous partnerships, polygamous households, even adult brothers, sisters, or brothers and sisters living in incestuous relationships.”

President Barack Obama’s desire to reduce the need for abortion is “a commendable goal,” but his proposals are likely to increase the number of elective abortions, the document contends.

“The present administration is led and staffed by those who want to make abortions legal at any stage of fetal development, and who want to provide abortions at taxpayer expense,” it says.

Obama has said he wants to strike a balance on abortion coverage in the health care overhaul.

The declaration also cites threats to health care workers’ conscience clauses and anti-discrimination statutes it argues impinge on religious freedoms.

Signatories include 15 Roman Catholic bishops, including New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan and Washington Archbishop Donald Wuerl; Focus on the Family founder James Dobson; National Association of Evangelicals president Leith Anderson; seminary leaders, professors and pastors.

Their feud over a proposal expanding the nation’s health insurance system has escalated to the point where Tobin has publicly questioned Kennedy’s faith and membership in the church and said he should not receive communion, the central sacrament in Catholic worship.

It’s an uncomfortable tangle of faith and politics for a congressman whose uncle John F. Kennedy was elected the first Roman Catholic president in 1960 after declaring to wary Protestants that he did not speak for his church on public matters, and that the church did not speak for him.

“I don’t think there’s any winner here,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, a church observer and senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. “I think this is the kind of thing that would be better discussed between a member of Congress and his bishop behind closed doors.”

Patrick Kennedy is among several Catholic politicians to clash with their bishops over abortion, which the church considers a paramount moral evil not open for negotiation. Fewer than 20 of the roughly 200 bishops overseeing U.S. dioceses have threatened to deny communion to Catholic politicians who support abortion, Reese said.

“I don’t think you’ll find widespread support among Catholics for this,” he said.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., has said that U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, a Catholic Democrat who supports abortion rights, should stop taking communion until she changes her stance.

Former Archbishop Raymond Burke of St. Louis has said he would withhold communion from politicians who support abortion, such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican who also ran afoul of the church because he is divorced.

Kennedy stumbled into the conflict last month when in an interview with CNSNews.com he publicly criticized the nation’s Catholic bishops for threatening to oppose a reform of the health care system – a goal the church supports – unless it included tighter restrictions on publicly financed abortion.

It was a loaded statement by a congressman representing the most heavily Roman Catholic state. And it drew the attention of Tobin, who in his four years in Providence has criticized Gov. Don Carcieri for launching a crackdown on illegal immigrants, bashed the state’s attorney general for supporting gay marriage and excoriated Giuliani over his abortion stance.

An angry Tobin fired back, calling Kennedy ignorant of church policy. He asked for an apology and a meeting.

In a letter, Kennedy agreed to a sitdown and said his Catholic faith is founded on the principles of feeding the hungry, clothing the poor and caring for the less fortunate. Kennedy voted against an amendment tightening abortion restrictions in a Democratic health care plan, but he voted in favor of the overall proposal that included those restrictions.

“While I greatly respect the Catholic Church and its leaders, like many Rhode Islanders, the fact that I disagree with the hierarchy of the church on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic,” Kennedy wrote in a letter to Tobin, agreeing to a meeting Thursday. “I embrace my faith which acknowledges the existence of an imperfect humanity.”

Their planned meeting fell apart Monday. The bishop called it a mutual decision, but Kennedy accused Tobin of reneging on an agreement to stop discussing his faith publicly. Tobin responded to Kennedy’s letter with a scathing criticism.

“Sorry, you can’t chalk it up to an ‘imperfect humanity.’ Your position is unacceptable to the Church and scandalous to many of our members. It absolutely diminishes your communion with the Church,” Tobin said, who also appealed to the Kennedy family legacy.

“It’s not too late for you to repair your relationship with the Church, redeem your public image, and emerge as an authentic ‘profile in courage,’” Tobin said, referring to the title of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book written by John Kennedy.

Tobin says Kennedy, like other pro-choice politicians, should not receive communion. But he has stopped short of ordering Kennedy not to participate.

The Kennedys have a complicated relationship with the church. President Kennedy was never forced to confront the issues of abortion or gay marriage. He received mild criticism from church leaders for opposing diplomatic ties with the Vatican and public funding for Catholic schools.

Patrick Kennedy’s father, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, supported abortion rights but also championed other causes of the church, including expanding assistance for the poor and advocating for reforming the immigration system.

Suffering from terminal brain cancer, Sen. Kennedy wrote a letter to Pope Benedict XVI acknowledging he had been “an imperfect human being” but tried to right his path with the help of his faith. A priest attended to Kennedy on his deathbed, and Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, presided at his funeral Mass.

Rhode Island’s Catholics have mixed feelings about the clash.

Michael Bingham, 61, said Kennedy invited the criticism because he calls himself a Catholic.

“What the bishop is saying is ‘OK, you’re not really a Roman Catholic in good standing because you’re not defending innocent life, which the church teaches us we’re called to do,” Bingham said. “And he’s calling him to the plate on that.”

Ann Doherty, who attended a morning Mass in Providence, said she believed both men were speaking from their hearts. She opposes abortion but is uncomfortable imposing her choices on other people.

“We have a history in the church of people who have spoken out for the things they believed in. And some of them, we’ve made saints out of. And others, we haven’t.”

There are very few Americans who have never heard of Roe v. Wade: the landmark decision that legalized abortion for women in the United States. Since that moment in history, abortion has become a tenuous privilege, restricted greatly (in part by the various prohibitions against so-called “partial birth abortions”), but not impossible.

But, as many know, accessing health care is as much about dollars in the bank as it is about legalized health care services. It doesn’t matter so much if it’s legal if no one can afford to use the service.

Well, abortions are particularly difficult since they affect young, poor women in disproportionate numbers. For abortion, in particular, lack of insured access will effectively kill the flow of this medical service to the bulk of people who need it most.

All of this is common sense.

Yet 64 Democrats voted to include an effective ban on insured abortions in the health care bill passed through the House. They did this knowing that their amendment would end abortion access for many vulnerable women.

There is nothing to say about this except that it is yet another example of the Democrats erasing campaign promises – this time to protect a woman’s right to choose. As LGBT people we know how this feels. As members of a free society we should be outraged.

Thousands of gay civil rights supporters stood together at the bottom of the court’s entrance and systematically defied police orders to stay off the court’s open gathering plaza. In protest of the high court’s 1986 decision, Bowers v. Hardwick, upholding state laws prohibiting consenting same-sex sexual relations, hundreds of the demonstrators stepped onto the plaza, sat down, and were arrested.

 The 2009 March plans no such demonstration directed at the U.S. Supreme Court. In large part, that is because the high court has since reversed itself on Hardwick. It ruled, in 2003’s Lawrence v. Texas decision, that state “sodomy laws” were unconstitutional. It also ruled, in 1996’s Romer v. Evans, that state laws cannot be based on animus towards gay people.

But the Supreme Court has not become a reliably hospitable place for LGBT people. And while gay legal groups do not –so far– see any cases before the court that they intend to become involved in this session, there are scattered cases involving LGBT issues.

The Supreme Court refused during its official opening day orders Monday to hear the appeal of a Michigan school district which was seeking to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the parents of a student who was being repeatedly harassed as a “queer” and “faggot.” The 6th Circuit federal appeals court ruled in January that the case, Hudson Area Schools v. Patterson, should proceed to trial.

Court records indicate other students repeatedly harassed the Patterson student, calling “queer,” “gay,” and “faggot,” writing anti-gay slurs and drawings on his books and locker, and urinating on his clothes. Despite the Patterson student seeking help from school officials, the harassment escalated with a student sexually assaulting him in a locker room.

The assailant was eventually dismissed but the coach in charge of the locker room later commented to the Patterson son and others in the locker room that they should “not joke around with guys who can’t take a man joke.”

Because the Supreme Court refused to hear the school’s appeal, the parents’ lawsuit will now be heard in a federal district court in Detroit.

Religious crusades
 The Supreme Court also refused Monday to hear an appeal from an Episcopal Church in Los Angeles that sought to break away from the national denomination because the denomination allowed the consecration of a gay bishop, Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

The St. James parish in the diocese of Los Angeles broke away from the denomination in 2003 and tried to take the church property with them. But the denomination fought the parish’s efforts to take the property, and the California Supreme Court agreed.

By refusing to hear the St. James Parish appeal, the U.S. Supreme Court has left the ruling of the California court intact. But the California decision affects no other states, and, importantly, there are similar cases percolating in other states.

For instance, the entire Episcopal Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, has a lawsuit underway attempting to acquire church property with its separation. And, the Supreme Court’s refusal of St. James v. Episcopal Diocese does not preclude it from taking up a similar case from another state.

 There are several cases reaching the high court now that test the government’s power to regulate or support the behavior of people and entities who offer religious or other First Amendment justifications for their actions.

In Choose Life v. Illinois, an anti-abortion group petitioned the state for the right to have its motto “Choose Life” stamped onto a series of automobile license plates. By state law, the group needed two things to make that happen: several thousand signatures from residents willing to buy license plates with the specialized slogan, and approval from the general assembly.

Choose Life got 25,000 signatures –a number that “far exceeded” the minimum required, according to court documents. But the plan was shot down in a legislative subcommittee. The anti-abortion group filed a lawsuit, arguing that it violated their First Amendment right to freedom of expression.

The 7th Circuit federal court of appeals ruled that the state had a “reasonable rationale that messages on specialty license plates give the appearance of having the government’s endorsement, and Illinois does not wish to be perceived as endorsing any position on the subject of abortion.” The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear the group’s appeal of that decision.

The court also refused Monday to hear an appeal, Frazier v. Smith, from the parents of a Florida public high school student who refused to stand in class during the pledge of allegiance. The school policy said that was OK, but only if the student, Cameron Frazier, brought in a written request from his parents asking that he be excused from participating.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1940s that a state cannot force students to recite the Pledge. But Cameron refused to even stand and his parents sued, saying the requirement to stand also violated his First Amendment rights. The 11th Circuit split the baby: It said the school could not require students to stand during the pledge but that it could require parental permission for students who chose to exercise their right not to stand. 

 Cases involving the pledge are springing up all over the country, many testing whether the words “under God” violate the constitutional rights of students who don’t believe in god.

A federal judge in New Hampshire last month ruled that federal law does not require anyone to recite the pledge and that a state law requiring school children to recite it was “a civic patriotic affirmation, not a religious exercise, and inclusion of the words ‘under God’ constitutes, at most, a form of ceremonial or benign deism.”

2009 Keen News Service

The son of the country’s most famous Catholic family defied church teachings when he divorced his first wife, then was granted an annulment only after he admitted he wasn’t being honest when he promised her he’d be faithful. His most significant and public break with the church came with his support for abortion rights.

Yet Kennedy also advocated for signature Catholic causes, such as help for the poor, health care and immigration reform, and opposition to the Iraq war. His faith remained a regular part of his life until it ended this week with a priest at his bedside.

The apparently conflicting portrait of a man loyal to the church despite widening disagreement on key issues “almost perfectly represents” the views of most American Catholics, said Boston College professor Alan Wolfe.

“He’s an effect of a process that’s been going on for a very long time that started long before Teddy Kennedy was born and will continue long after Teddy Kennedy is dead,” Wolfe said.

Kennedy’s mother, Rose Kennedy, set the roots of his faith, emphasizing Christ’s teaching in the Gospels that “to whom much is given, much will be required.” When her kids were teens, she made sure they went to a weekend religious camp every year, even if they’d rather be sailing, said Adam Clymer, who worked with Kennedy on his biography. She took them to church during the week, so they knew church wasn’t just for Sundays.

In his eulogy during her 1995 funeral, Kennedy called his mother’s faith “the greatest gift she gave us.”

A commitment to Catholicism was not always evident in Kennedy’s personal life, which was marred by problems with alcohol and philandering. In 1983, he was forbidden from receiving communion after his divorce – which the church forbids – from his first wife, Joan.

The public learned more than a decade later that he’d been granted an annulment after he was seen accepting Communion at his mother’s funeral. Joan later said that Kennedy requested the annulment, which she did not oppose, on grounds that his marriage vow to be faithful had not been honestly made, Clymer said.

Kennedy never discussed his annulment and also rarely spoke publicly of his Catholicism.

“I think faith oftentimes is deeply felt in the marrow of your bones, it’s a matter of the heart,” said Kennedy’s friend, the Rev. Gerry Creedon, a Washington-area priest. “He had trouble articulating his inner feelings, his deepest conviction and matters of emotion, the heart.”

One of Kennedy’s longest discussions of his faith came in 1983 in an unlikely place – political foe Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University:

“I am an American and a Catholic; I love my country and treasure my faith,” Kennedy said. “But I do not assume that my conception of patriotism or policy is invariably correct, or that my convictions about religion should command any greater respect than any other faith in this pluralistic society. I believe there surely is such a thing as truth, but who among us can claim a monopoly on it?”

In the same speech, Kennedy referred to abortion, criticizing some religious people for wanting government to “tell citizens how to live uniquely personal parts of their lives.” His pro-abortion rights stance was a flip from early in his career and tough for many Catholics to accept, even those who admire his other work in other areas they consider “pro-life” – such as anti-war, anti-poverty and anti-death penalty causes.

“There’s this big, ‘What if?’” said Catholic author Michael Sean Winters. “If Ted Kennedy had stuck to his pro-life position, would both the (Democratic) party and the country have embraced the abortion on demand policies that we have now? And I don’t think so.”

Russell Shaw, former spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said when Kennedy defied the church on issues such as abortion and later, gay marriage, he reinforced a corrosive belief among Catholics that they can simply ignore teachings they don’t agree with.

Kennedy’s differences with the church never kept him from Mass. When he was in Washington, Kennedy would attend Blessed Sacrament Church in Chevy Chase, Md., and sometimes stop in at St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill, said Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the Washington Archdiocese. In his last days, Kennedy leaned hard on his faith. Creedon said he visited with Kennedy last Friday, offering him a blessing and praying the Lord’s Prayer with him.

“He just was a man of deep piety and devotion, as well as public commitments in the area of the Gospel,” Creedon said.

Kennedy’s relationship with the Catholic church was rocky, Shaw said, but there’s no doubt it was enduring. Judging the quality of Kennedy’s faith isn’t for him, he said.

“Now it’s up to God,” he said.

A lone gunman, who used the e-mail name “ServantofMessiah”, shot Tiller while he ushered at Reformation Lutheran Church, where he and his wife were active members. Prior to Tiller’s assassination, the “loving” faithful had put bullets in his arms and bombed his clinic. 

Unfortunately, with Tiller’s controversial clinic finally out of business, the lesson for the loony may be that lethal force is more effective than lobbying. In the Times article, Mark Geitzen, chairman of the Kansas Coalition for Life, expressed this sentiment when he said during a phone conversation, “God has his own way…but you can’t say our prayers weren’t answered.”

Tiller’s death vividly illustrates the danger posed by the violent language and imagery used by fanatics, who believe they are personally entrusted to enforce God’s will. What concerns me is that the aggressive tactics used against abortion providers are slowly seeping into the anti-gay movement.

As the wider culture becomes more accepting, homophobes are growing increasingly frustrated, which has led to bolder and more confrontational actions. Are anti-gay leaders egging on unstable followers to attack gay people or provoking gays to defend themselves so they can manufacture martyrdom and justify retaliation?

At the Dore Alley Fair in San Francisco last weekend, a number of muscular Christians wearing Jesus shirts reportedly tried to march through the event thumping Bibles and waving signs.
 
In Charlotte, Dr. Michael Brown, the founder of the Coalition of Conscience, organized several hundred followers in red shirts to descend like uninvited locusts on Charlotte Pride last week under the banner, “God Has a Better Way.” 

Aside from the pompous name of their demonstration, the protesters confronted gay people and browbeat them with cherry picked Bible verses. Brown’s ostensible reason for marshaling the troops was to introduce Pride attendees to his angry version of God.

But, of course, the notion that gay people in conservative North Carolina needed Brown to educate them about religious fundamentalism was farcical. Indeed, many of the people at Pride had only found personal acceptance after long journeys to reconcile their spirituality and sexuality.

No, Brown was really there to besiege Charlotte’s gay residents with his hostile hordes. His group’s in-your-face presence was designed to disrupt peaceful assembly and make Pride attendees feel guilty and uncomfortable so that they might skip future gay events.

Fortunately, the pious proselytizers were on their best behavior after the militant writings and actions of Brown came under intense scrutiny by local Q-Notes editor Matt Comer. In his research, Comer found that Brown started his FIRE School of Ministry to “raise up a holy army of uncompromising spirit-filled radicals who will shake an entire generation with the gospel of Jesus by life or death.”

In a vacuum, such religious language may be viewed as a relatively benign rhetorical flourish. However, when followers are portrayed as holy warriors in a life and death struggle against a minority group that is falsely accused of working to undermine freedom of religion, the seeds of potential disaster are intentionally being sown.  

In advertising his rally, Brown proclaimed that the “hour is urgent” and that Christians must “turn back the tide of homosexual activism.” In a written statement following his intolerance invasion of Pride, Brown wrote, “Enough is enough to the destructive goals of gay activism…we say it stops in Charlotte.”

Most alarming are these charlatans’ deliberate perpetuation of paranoia by trumpeting alleged religious persecution that exists only in their warped minds. For example, in his statement Brown accused gay people of “trying to put Christians in the closet.” And, he capped it off by saying that gay people are “tampering with the foundations of human society.”

Brown tries to cover his tracks by sprinkling his apocalyptic rhetoric with calls for non-violence. Good orators, however, understand the principle of “layering” messages. If in one sentence you speak of violence and in the next of non-violence, the listener will almost always embrace the words that support his or her belief system.

Dr. Brown isn’t naïve and surely understands that the GLBT masses will not retreat into the closet unless events conspire to make coming out a blood sport. Short of extreme bullying and brutality he’ll never accomplish his lost cause of “stopping” progress on gay rights in Charlotte.

Brown, of course, doesn’t actually have to make an overt pitch for mayhem. Simply by inciting his flock he is setting the stage for future tragedy. It is time for Brown and his comrades to abort their increasingly hostile and combative tactics before it leads to more wanton death in the name of abundant life.

She ran through a list of Roeder’s previous criminal acts, and then welcomed Dr. Warren Hern of the Boulder Abortion Clinic, who was a friend of Dr. Tiller.

Hern says that Tiller’s murder was a political assassination, and I think he’s right.

Hey, Congressional Democrats! Remember those talks we had about how YOU WON? How about strapping on some braces to prop up those jellyspines of yours and stepping up with some actual legislative leadership?

You too, Mr. President. Try showing us your pissed-off face for this one.

Red Alert
Just in case the last segment didn’t thoroughly unsettle you, Rachel moved on to the loathsome fact that Roeder is being lauded in certain circles.

And not just circles of Hell like you’d expect.

Vicki Saporta of the National Abortion Federation joined Rachel to talk about the network of extremists who celebrate the precious gift of life by endorsing murder.

When they lose politically, they resort to violence. I just realized that these are the same kids who pitch a fit and hurl the kickball into the sticker bushes, all grown up and much, much scarier. What kind of security do we need to bring into their lives to get them to handle ideological struggles like adults?

Ms. Information
In similar domestic terrorism news, Abdulhakim Bledsoe pled not guilty to charges of murder and engaging in a terrorist act after he opened fire at a military recruiting center, killing 24-year-old Private William Long and wounding 18-year-old Private Quinton Ezeagwula.

Bledsoe apparently had “political and religious motivations.”

I don’t know about you, but I am really beginning to appreciate the apolitical and unmotivated people in my life. I’m sorry that I was hard on them during election season.

And I don’t know why I’m apologizing to them here, because they can’t possibly be reading this. I’ll see if I can get one of the girls on Charm School to mention it.

As Rachel has previously noted, former Congressman Tom Tancredo (R – Colorado) has accused Judge Sonia Sotomayor of being a racist. And Tancredo should know a racist when he sees one; he hires them!

Marcus Epstein, the executive director of Tancredo’s PAC, is facing sentencing for walking up to an African-American woman, using a racial epithet, and then karate chopping her in the head.

Bay Buchanan’s response was, “Who cares? This is something that happened two years ago…” Wow. Republicans are really soft on past-tense crime. Bay, should we review our prisons? I’m pretty sure some of them might be holding people who committed their crimes in the past.

But the best response is from the University of Virginia, which released a statement that Epstein can stick his law school aspirations right up his tort. Wahoowah, you honorable Cavaliers. I’m proud of you.

Live from the Dark Side
Dick Cheney continues to claim that torture is really a form of “tough love” that inspires detainees to write voluminous color-tabbed dossiers filled with valuable information, beautifully composed in iambic pentameter.

Plus the continued use of enhanced interrogation techniques draws protective unicorns to our borders and may be the only thing keeping Tinkerbell alive.

There are simply scads of classified memos that would prove all of these things beyond a shadow of a doubt… If only we could see them.

The Snuffleupagus Memos, if you will.

Dan Rather of HDNet’s Dan Rather Reports joined Rachel for a segment on allegations of continued torture at Guantanamo that is, let’s face it, going to bum you out.

Pawlenty of Speculation
Frequent Maddow guest Governor Tim Pawlenty (R – Minnesota) is retiring… but juuust might possibly be coaxed into running for President if we ask him very nicely.

Chris Hayes of The Nation joined Rachel to point out that, as a hard-core Republican who can get through full sentences without using 17th-century racial slurs or getting the crazy eyes, he might have a shot.

Hayes and Rachel also talked about the fact that this essentially means that the Coleman-Franken Senate race will be decided when the Cockroach People dig up the ashes of our civilization and flip a coin.

Try to get yourself cryogenically frozen, Senator Franken! I’m sure the Cockroach People need you too.