Virginia GOPer Who Opposed Gay Judge: ‘Sodomy Is Not A Civil Right’ (VIDEO)

 

Eric LachMay 17, 2012, 10:41 AM

 

Virginia Delegate and Republican Senate candidate Bob Marshall, who led the battle against the judicial nomination of an openly gay Richmond prosecutor, appeared on CNN Thursday and defended his position, saying, among other arguments, that “sodomy is not a civil right” and that he was worried how a gay judge would rule in the case of a “bar room fight between a homosexual and heterosexual.”

Virginia’s House of Delegates defeated the nomination of Tracy Thorne-Begland earlier this week, after what The Richmond Times-Dispatch called a “late-hour lobbying offensive by social conservatives.” Thorne-Begland would have been the first openly gay judge elected in Virginia.
In his CNN appearance, Marshall criticized Thorne-Begland, a former Naval officer who came out as gay 20 years ago, for lying about his sexuality to the military.

“He displayed a pattern of behavior that was inconsistent with what we have come to expect in Virginia judges,” Marshall said. “We’ve never appointed an activist of any kind along these lines, much less somebody who has a long history of this.”

“Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks never took an oath of office they broke,” Marshall said, in response to a question from host Brooke Baldwin. “Sodomy is not a civil right, it’s not the same as the civil rights movement. You have to look at the past. In late 2011, he was critical of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ He criticized our attorney general simply for explaining what the law of Virginia is with respect to certain protected classes. So, he has gone beyond that. He can be a prosecutor, if he wants to. We don’t want advocates as judges.”

Baldwin then asked: “You bring up sodomy. Is the reason why you voted against him because he’s gay, pure and simple?”

“No. Sorry, you’re mischaracterizing that,” Marshall said. “I said sodomy is not a civil right and there’s an effort by homosexual lobbyists to equate the two. That’s wrong.”

No. Sorry, you’re mischaracterizing that,” Marshall said. “I said sodomy is not a civil right and there’s an effort by homosexual lobbyists to equate the two. That’s wrong.”
Watch:

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/bob_marshall_sodomy_is_not_a_civil_right.php

Legoland Booted a Mom and Her Son Over This Naked Tinker Bell Tattoo

I'm a proud liberal. I admit that.  But I am also a Mom and feel very protective of my kids.  I don't take my kids into situations where I feel I have to explain adult themes--for example, we vacation in Provincetown, MA every year, but I don't take my kids to the Dick Dock. (those that have been to P-town know what I mean)  So taking my kids to a kid park like Legoland should be a "kid enviornment".  But this women below had this tattoo over ALL her lower leg. Not like it's hidden under a shirt. 

That being said, I have seen many offensive tattoos on people.  I've seen many offensive shirts.  (many against women)  So I am conflicted as to how I feel about this. 

Article from the Dallas Observer under the picture....

A Royse City mother is claiming discrimination after being kicked out of the Grapevine Mills Mall Legoland for her body art, and she's using social media to win support from noted activists Travis Barker, Yelawolf and, of course, Busta Rhymes.
As Mr. Rhymes would say, here's the scenario: On Sunday, Lana Massey decided to surprise her 8-year-old son, a Lego fanatic, with a trip to Legoland. "He's overjoyed that such a place exists," Massey tells Unfair Park.

She paid $53 for access to Legoland Discover Center and the adjoining aquarium before proceeding to three separate playrooms. "The whole time we were in, we were followed" by a Legoland employee, the heavily tattooed Massey continues. "I was totally assuming that she was going to come up to me and ask me who my artist was."

Not quite.

The employee headed her off. "Ma'am, I need to give you your money back and ask you to leave," she said, according to Massey's account.

"Excuse me?"

"We've had some complaints about your tattoos. And this is a family-friendly environment."
Massey says she immediately felt discriminated against.

"So you're going to proceed with this unfair treatment against me because of the way I look?" she says she responded. "You're going to throw me out?"

According to Massey, that was that. The employee escorted her to the cashier's desk, gave her a refund, then escorted her out.

After hearing her story, we called Legoland, where officials say they didn't kick out Massey and her son because they didn't like her tattoos. They kicked her out because they didn't like one specific one.

"A guest at Legoland Discovery Center Dallas/Fort Worth was asked to leave due to customer complaints received about a visible offensive tattoo located on her lower leg," spokeswoman Kelle Jackson tells us by email. "As a family attraction geared to children three to 10 years old, our entrance policy guidelines allow our staff the absolute direction to refuse admission to guests wearing clothing or images on their person that are offensive in nature. The Duty Manager onsite acted in accordance to this policy, and offered the guest a refund or tickets to return another day with the graphic tattoo covered. Our offer to return to the attraction with complimentary tickets still stands with the understanding of our policy."

The tattoo in question, which is pictured above, is definitely attention-grabbing. But Massey says the ink is original artwork from the 1940s.

"No more offensive than zombie Jesus or guns promoting violence," she says. "Aside from any of that, there is nothing about tattoos in their policies, just inappropriate clothing. ... I could see if it was like a gaping vag or something like that, but I don't have anything like that." (Her friend does, apparently.)

Besides, the folks at Legoland never even mentioned her Tinker Bell tat. "That's not what they told me," Massey says. "She didn't specify any particular tattoo." She also claims that Legoland's employees never gave her the option of returning for free on a different day.

"The bottom line," she says, "is me and my son do thousands of things, and I've never been asked to leave."

PA Election Results from 4/24/2012 Primary

WHO are the jackasses that voted for Santorum when he wasn't even running?

<>President of the United States<><>
Republican Primary

Candidate	Votes	Percent
GINGRICH, NEWT (REP)	83,903	10.5%
ROMNEY, MITT (REP)	464,715	58.0%
PAUL, RON (REP)	105,511	13.2%
SANTORUM, RICK (REP)	147,096	18.4%

Democratic Primary

Candidate	Votes	Percent
OBAMA, BARACK (DEM)	609,619	100.0%

Pennsylvania set to elect first openly LGBT state representative

Holy crap! I can finally say something good about my state. (Pennsylvania)  I know, I know, we have given you Chris Matthews, Rick Santorum, Bob Casey, and other crazies but look, we are progressing. (I think)

The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote a few years ago: Pennsylvania is Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in-between.  It's very true unfortunately.  We have an electorate that cares about guns, religion, fracking, and Republicans.  But I believe times are changing.

From Raw Story today:

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/25/pennsylvania-set-to-elect-first-openly-lgbt-state-representative/

Pennsylvania set to elect first openly LGBT state representative

By David Ferguson
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 15:38 EDT

Topics: Brian Sims ♦ LGBT

The state of Pennsylvania is set to elect its first openly LGBT state representative this fall. According to a report at the blog Gay Politics.com, Brian Sims has won the Democratic primary for Philadelphia’s heavily Democratic District 182, and is not expected to face a Republican opponent in the fall.

Sims, a policy attorney, civil rights advocate, and former college football star is a Victory Fund candidate, a group dedicated to “increasing the number of openly LGBT officials at all levels of government.”

Raw Story spoke to Victory Fund’s Vice President Denis Dison, who said that the election of Sims is of critical importance to LGBT people in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, like most states that have not had openly LGBT representatives, has no statewide non-discrimination rights for LBGTs. Individual municipalities have passed ordinances prohibiting discrimination against LGBT people, but the state itself has taken no such action.

Dison said that Pennsylvania is one of the largest states to not have protections in place for LGBT citizens. “Brian’s voice will be important in the legislature because, not only will he be able to champion individual bills, but he’ll be able to talk face-to-face with his colleagues about why these measures are necessary.”

 

The Victory Fund has established that states with openly LGBT legislators all eventually pass measures to include LGBTs in their non-discrimination laws. Dison said that face-to-face interaction between LGBT lawmakers and their colleagues is invariably what triumphs over discrimination.
Pointing to recent gay rights victories in Maryland and Washington state, he said, “Pennsylvania is at the beginning of that journey. Brian is a part of that.”

Firefighter Who Refused Giffords Call Says He's 'Misunderstood'

So, I just need to understand this...we now have doctors that can opt of of treating a person based on religious beliefs, pharmacists that won't fill prescriptions because it goes against their beliefs, and now firefighters that determine who needs help by their political affiliation.  Will this madness never stop? 

Firefighter Who Refused Giffords Call Says He's 'Misunderstood'

"There are times in life when you make responsible decisions and you just kind of have to live with being misunderstood," said Mark Ekstrum, the Tuscon firefighter who achieved Internet infamy today after the Arizona Daily Star reported that Ekstrum refused to go to the scene of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords's shooting because of "political bantering" in the firehouse. Soon, of course, the story became about how a firefighter was a partisan monster who wouldn't help a Democrat. Headlines included "Fireman refused to attend Giffords shooting spree because of 'her political views'" and "Tucson firefighter went home rather than respond to shooting scene."

 

The original report in the Daily Star suggests a more nuanced, and confusing, tale. And so we called Ekstrum, who has since retired from the fire department, at his Tucson home for clarification. He wasn't much help. We asked Ekstrum to describe his political beliefs and he declined. "Every person that reads the internet, every citizen... they may misunderstand, they may feel strongly about it, may want to know more facts. There's nothing that I can do about all that," he said.

In a statement to the Arizona Star, he said he voted for Giffords and that when he met her, he considered her "a person that was willing to listen." Ekstrum hasn't donated to any national or state political campaigns, according to a search of campaign finance databases. He's currently registered to vote as an independent; in the 1980s and 1990s he was registered as a Democrat.

Ekstrum was a 28-year veteran of the fire department on the day of the shooting. When the call came in, according to a fire department memo that Daily Star obtained, there was "political bantering" and "he did not want to be a part of it." Ekstrum asked to go home "for the good of the crew," but his captain said he couldn't leave for that reason. According to the memo, Ekstrum "started to say something about how he had a much different political viewpoint than the rest of the crew and he was concerned," and that he would go home sick. Ekstrum's crew, specially trained for large medical emergencies, was only dispatched an hour and a half after the shooting. Still, the incident caused a delay.

When the crew came back from the call, Ekstrum was waiting, and apologized. Ekstrum sent a statement to the department saying he'd been "distracted to the point of not being able to perform my routine station duties to such an extent that I seriously doubted my ability to focus on an emergency call. ... [M]y communication centered more on how this event would affect the country and them and us, and, of course, led to their misunderstanding about my need to go home because I was at a point of distraction." The next day, according to the report, Ekstrum realized he made a mistake and retired.

Filtered through the political outrage machine, all sorts of conspiracy theories abound. One commenter at AOL News concluded, "Arizona has turned into a right-wing extremist state. Doing anything that could be seen as helping a Democrat, whether it's putting out a fire or giving medical assistance, could very easily get you in trouble if you have a government job."

Whatever happened, Ekstrum isn't encouraged to say more about what happened. He said he didn't expect "my measly little life would become national fodder," adding, "I'll have to shoulder that responsibility."