List of Companies Gay-Haters Have to Boycott Grows, Betty Crocker Latest

You own a company or are high up on the board of a public company. You see probably one of the fastest changes on a social issue amongst the American populace in many decades. You decide that it would probably be good public relations (PR) to be seen as supporting the side of that social movement that is very quickly winning.

You could remain neutral – true – but any sort of announcement of support is going to be spread among those who support it and are against it. It’s almost free publicity, and you’ll be seen in a positive light by >50% of the public.

It’s so logical that a Vulcan would probably approve.

Boycott Betty Crocker for Cooking for Gays

But not World Net Daily. The list of companies that their followers need to boycott continues to grow.

“Experienced writer” (it doesn’t say he’s a staff writer nor a syndicated columnist) Dave Tombers alerts WND readers that “Now Betty Crocker Gets on ‘Gay’-Marriage Train” with the obligatory putting-of-the-gay-in-quotes as yet another kick in the testicles of any homo stupid enough to read the article (slowly raises hand …).

GLAAD (Gays and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, though now they just made the acronym their name and it no longer “stands” for anything) has announced, “Betty Crocker is performing this donation as part of ‘The Families Project,'” where “this” refers to a few couples – once same-sex marriage starts in Minnesota on Thursday – will get a free wedding cake, compliments of Betty Crocker. Betty Crocker is owned by General Mills which, to quote WND, “hasn’t been shy about promoting homosexual marriage.” In fact:

“Families are changing a lot. But they’ve still got one thing in common – the love that makes a home,” says the General Mills website “The Family Project.”

“At Betty Crocker, we believe that a family is a family, no matter how it’s arranged,” it continues.

The WND article continues with some more background on the company before going to NOM (National Organization for [straight-only] Marriage) statements. The horror is palpable:

“I never thought that by eating Cheerios for breakfast I would be supporting gay marriage,” starts the organization’s sample petition signed by tens of thousands of people.

“Your decision to pander to same-sex marriage activists has forced me to choose between your food products and my conscience,” the petition says. “As long as food is produced by other companies my conscience is going to win out over the desire for another bowl of Lucky Charms.

“Until you stop supporting this radical social agenda I must, in good conscience, look for substitutes that I can purchase instead of the following brands.”

NOM goes on to list a few dozen companies that have not openly supported marriage equality as ones that are still “safe” for their followers to buy from.

Meanwhile, the Human Rights Campaign has their own guide about gay-friendly companies. They also have an app, and a PDF, and the PDF is 70 pages long. Kinda reminds me of the NCSE’s “Steve” list to counter the Discovery Institute’s “Dissent from Darwin” list.

While this hasn’t attracted the hundreds of comments I had expected from WND readers, it currently does have 22. Pretty much everyone is saying something along the lines of, “Well, I never liked Betty Crocker anyway, so THERE! I’ll just make darn sure that I’ll never buy anything from them because I only bought stuff from them before by accident!” Or some such whiney-ness.

Betty Crocker is Devil’s Food

Edited to Add (September 21, 2013): Right Wing Watch reports that Family Research Council loud-mouth Tony Perkins is calling for people to boycott Betty Crocker because of this. (I also added some Facebook meme pictures.)

Erotic Materials on Military Bases Mean You Should Be Able to Prosthelytize

In a post of a Military Times article, WND pronounces, “Playboy, Penthouse OK’d for Military Posts.” The jist of the article is that the military is going to allow these magazines (and some others) to be sold on military bases because they don’t meet the definition of “indecent material” under federal law. Okay, fine. So male soldiers are going to be able to get some “dirty magazines” so it doesn’t show up in their internet browser history. I really couldn’t care less.

But the WND commenters could. In fact, they care a great deal about this. Other than one person saying that this is part of the Communist Goals for taking over America (“Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting
pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV”), most are lamenting the moral decline and several are pointing out that it’s ridiculous to allow these but not let soldiers prosthelytize (a word I had to look up the spelling for).

For example, the second-highest rated comment now is from “Liber_sum” who states:

“Porn is not considered indecent, but a Christian soldier sharing their faith in Christ is? How long before a soldier faces a court martial for being a Christian? Liberals in the Pentagon are saying that soldiers who share their faith are enemies of the Constitution.”

No, that’s not considered indecent. What’s considered indecent is when a soldier makes others feel uncomfortable due to their trying to get others to follow their religion, or telling another soldier they’re going to hell for not believing their religion, or commanding officers making it mandatory to go to prayer groups. If someone were doing that with Playboy, holding it up and reading from it to all their fellow soldiers in the barracks, well, first off I doubt many would care, but second, that would be the same as prosthelytizing with religion. No one is forcing you to buy Playboy. Grow up.

Droning in on the Search for Bigfoot

Drew Zahn writes WND’s article from yesterday (I’ve been busy…) entitled, “Unmanned Aerial Drone to Search for Bigfoot.” Really?

Yea, apparently. Idaho State University Prof. Jeff Meldrum – well known in the bigfoot area – is behind this, fundraising for “The Falcon Project” to use a drone over the “Bigfoot territory” to search for the elusive (and >>99% chance imaginary) creatures. The rest of the article contains quotes from Meldrum and then anecdotes from some teenagers.

I didn’t think this would garner much attention from commenters, but it did. 21 hours after posting, the article has 136 comments. The one that was in the lead for a long time – and still has the most up-votes with 33 – is by “USA Retired” who writes: “The nation is coming apart all around us and these idiots want to waste money looking for a non existent mythical creature. A more worthwhile project would be to uncover O’Bozo’s real history, which would place him on trial, and subsequently in Federal Prison!”

So, saying this is stupid and then turning it to insult the President. “NoU4EN” responded, “Exactly. Another distraction from the real issues like Benghazi and IRS targeting.”

This is the general trend. I’ve mentioned it before but this one is a doozy: WND doesn’t care if you post stuff off-topic on their comments (I do), so long as you support their political, racial, and religious views. All the other top comments are insults to the First Family, including:

• “Bigfoot can be found in the White House. She wears ugly dresses and eats a lot.”
• I hope we find that manegie critter, cause if Obama can get elected then so can bigfoot. Especially since Obama always has his bigfoot in his mouth.
• If you want a picture of Bigfoot, just keep your camera ready and walk around in the White House with a big plate of lobster.

WND really has some despicable readers. And it’s unfortunate that they vote. But I have to keep reminding myself that I’m more exposed to them than most people because I read their stuff: They really are the minority, though a very vocal one.

Judge Not Unless Ye Be Straight … Not?

WND links to an NBC article that I’m sure is going to be spun and re-spun and re-re-spun over the next several days. The WND headline is, “Pope on Homosexuals: ‘Who Am I to Judge?‘”

To quote the first three paragraphs of the NBC article:

Pope Francis on Monday said “who am I to judge?” gay people as he discussed one of the most divisive issues affecting the Catholic Church.

“I have yet to find anyone who has a business card that says he is gay,” the pontiff said at a press conference in which he addressed the reports of a “gay lobby” within the Vatican.

“They say they exist. If someone is gay, who searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” he added. “The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalized because of this (orientation) but that they must be integrated into society.”

After this, the Pope reiterated that the Church claims homosexual acts are a sin. The NBC article goes into more depth with this, and it’s also being reported on numerous other sites.

Given what we know of WND readers, we can of course assume that they gave positive, reassuring, Christian Love®-laden responses and messages of support. Maybe a bit negative, like “love the sinner and hate the sin,” right? And with over 100 comments just 5 hours after it was posted, I’m sure the majority are positive, right?

The top-rated comment right based on Disqus’s weird rating system is by “debtom” with 7 up- and 0 down-votes: “You judge according to God’s word which clearly states homosexuality is an abomination to God. But then, I wouldn’t expect anything else from the Pope and the Catholic Church,”

The top-upped comment is from “Bossman22” with 14 up and 3 down who states: “It was homosexual pedophile priests who brought shame and disgrace to the Catholic church and you, the POPE, don’t feel qualified to judge homosexuality? Have you learned nothing? Do you read the Bible?”

“benthedog” with 6 up and 0 down states: “I’m not a Catholic, but I am extremely disappointed and disillusioned that a person with the power to control the Catholic church would whitewash the homosexual issue when infiltrated homosexuals have done so much damage.”

Numerous others are quoting Bible verses (which for some reason I keep wanting to write as “versus”).

At least some people seem to actually know the whole Bible and not just the anti-gay parts. “theoreosview” has a four-paragraph preamble but then simply ends with this: “Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone. I see, there are many rocks already in the air heading toward the Pope and the Church.” They have 5 up-votes and 3 down.

If I had to guess, the Pope’s comments will be re-interpreted to emphasize that he’s saying it’s up to God to judge, not people.

Rush Limbaugh Being Dumped Because of Obama

Non sequitur anyone?

WND executive news editor Joe Kovacs penned the article, “Broadcast Giant ‘Dropping Limbaugh, Hannity,’” yesterday based on a news article from Politico. Based on a Google News search, the rumors are solely based on the Politico story, and many other news outlets have picked it up.

For those who don’t know, Limbaugh is probably one of if not the biggest name in radio, and he’s definitely the king of right-wing talk radio anywhere. He’s also seen his advertisers flee (though they’ve come back from what I can tell) ever since he called a college woman, Sandy Fluke, a prostitute because she testified before Congress that heath insurance should cover birth control.

Sean Hannity is another conservative who hosts a nationally syndicated talk show and has a show on FOX.

The Politico story states:

In a major shakeup for the radio industry, Cumulus Media, the second-biggest broadcaster in the country, is planning to drop both Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity from its stations at the end of the year, an industry source told POLITICO on Sunday.

Cumulus has decided that it will not renew its contracts with either host, the source said, a move that would remove the two most highly rated conservative talk personalities from more than 40 Cumulus channels in major markets.

The reason Politico gives is over cost in distribution contracts between radio networks/companies. According to this, it has nothing to do with the personalities. And, that Rush has already stated that at the end of his 2013 contract, he may not renew with Cumulus.

To his credit, Joe Kovacs’ article on WND states just this, not embellishing, not adding commentary. But the headline is enough to set off, only 4 hours later (when I’m writing this), 360 comments. I’m guessing most just read the headline.

The top comment is by “afanaglenn” who states: “This has Obama stentch all over it as he continues to further gain control of all media. Radio has been the last area to control as he already controls the press, the printed press and television networks. WHILE AMERICANS SLEEP.” Again, I don’t think most people read past the headline.

The third-most up-voted comment is by “karolh” who adds: “This is another Obama scam, he hates Rush and Hannity. He tried every way he could to make Fox fire Hannity, but it did not work. I am so sure when Obama and Satan meet they will be a matched pair.” The highest-rated reply is by “Fran:” “You comment that when Obama and Satan meet…I already thought that they were One in the Same.”

That’s one class of responses. The second class is simply saying that these guys will go elsewhere, that their message will still be heard. That the liberals running these companies will not squash their message.

The third class of comments on the article are simply that the country is going down the drain.

Interestingly, “Jenny Murphy”‘s comment of, “You comment that when Obama and Satan meet…I already thought that they were One in the Same.” has 14 up-votes but 10 down-votes.

But, perhaps most telling is that “trafficcam”‘s comment gets only 4 up-votes and 7 down-votes. It epitomizes what WND readers hate: “Turn off the radio and think for yourself.”

Update later on July 29, 2013: The WND article now instantly redirects to “Limbaugh Responds to ‘Stations Dumping Him.'” It’s a response by Limbaugh basically saying what I did above: That even if this happens, listeners won’t notice any changes, some other distribution will happen. The comments must have carried over because there are now 791 and counting. The top one blaming Obama that I quoted before is still the top one.

I Feel Sorry for Her Children

Imagine, if you will, that you and your brother or sister go to a public high school. You get there in the morning, walk up the steps to school, go to your locker, hang out with your friends for a few minutes, and then go to your first class. It’s high school, so everything is about social standing, from your shoes to your diction to the company you keep.

Now imagine that your mother is outside on those steps to the school every morning, she “holds her hands out toward students entering the school building,” and she prays and reads from the Bible.

I feel sorry for her children. If that were my mother, I would disown her.

But, that’s the case of Lizarda Urena in Concord, NH, via an article in the New Hampshire Union Leader linked to by WND with the headline, “Mom Banned from Praying at School Steps Each Morning.”

The Freedom from Religion Foundation heard about it and asked the school to clarify if it had allowed her to do it. When they came back a few days later and said “no,” FFRF advised them that they should stop her, and the NH Civil Liberties Union “takes the position that in the conflict between freedom of speech and religious speech to students compelled to walk through the door to attend class,” the latter should win. Hence, the Superintendent told the mother that she needed to stop.

The School Board President supports the decision, stating: “To be fair to all the kids in the school, it is probably best for the principal to say that she shouldn’t be speaking out like this and proselytizing on school grounds. The best mode of action was to tell her to cool it.”

Won’t somebody PLEASE think of her children?

Obviously not WND’s commenters, with the top-rated one by “dude911” quoting the establishment clause and concluding, “Denying a person the right to pray for the safety of her children violates the US Constitution. The term “NO LAW” is pretty hard to misunderstand.”

Yes, exactly, “NO LAW” is usually hard to misunderstand, except when you don’t. Like in this case, this isn’t a law, this is the school could be misconstrued to support her speech by allowing her to be there in a VERY visible way and right at the door, AND she’s creating a nuisance of herself which gets into safety and right to free passage issues.

“Bryan Taylor” states: “Funny how liberals are afraid of words and prayers. They claim to be all for free speech [they would defend porn in the library at the same school], but when it comes down to hearing prayers….their double standards kick in.”

I’d like to see Bryan say the same thing if this were a Muslim parent reading from the Quran.

Same Sex Marriage Is the Gateway to Polygamy

To be perfectly honest, I don’t hugely disagree. Christians are very willing to take all their morality from the Bible until it conflicts with their modern morality. Solomon, the “smartest man in history,” had something like 700 wives. Many male figures in the Bible had numerous wives. There certainly is no prohibition in the Bible on multiple wives because that would mean the Bible contradicts itself instead of being infallible.

And yet, our modern society bases a ban on polygamy in a large part because of Christian so-called morals. Same as why they think that same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry.

Personally, I don’t care who you marry. So long as everyone is an adult, they are not doing it because of any undue influence, and they’re all willing participants, I think you should be able to do it. With the “where I stand” out of the way, on with the show.

Bob Unruh has written a, “Polygamy Foes Look to Amend Constitution” piece. The basic point of the article is really three-fold as far as I can tell:

1. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (Republican from Kansas) is urging support for a proposed Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as one man and one woman (nothing new here, they’ve been trying this for at least a decade).
2. American Family Associate President Tim Wildmon is upset that his marriage means oh-so-much less because the gayz can marry each other in some places.
3. A Boston College law professor, Kent Greenfield, recently wrote a commentary (in 2011) where he claimed that it’s a slippery slope between allowing same-sex marriages and allowing more than two persons to marry. (Also, nothing new here.)

Of course, this really is nothing new. It’s all been said before. But that doesn’t mean WND can’ remind its people that allowing the gayz and the polygamists to marry is just around the corner unless they support the ultra-right-wing candidates and pray … really really hard.

And the commenters oblige by quoting from the Bible, saying they need to throw out the liberals, and other things. “Warren Browning” has the top-rated comment right now at 28 up and 0 down votes: “The destruction of family core values is intentional to the long range goals of destroying our country from within by the Communist Party. This has been an on-going agenda for nearly 80 years which has almost reached full fruition.”

The people who pointed out things that I did and didn’t (i.e., polygamy is in the Bible, as is child sacrifice, stoning people, worshiping idols, and incest).

WND Promotes Debunked St. Malachy Prophecy

Sometimes, WND publishes articles that advertises stuff from its own publishing house – books or videos. This is a case with their article, “Uncanny! Popes’ Coats of Arms Back Up Prophecy.”

Basically, this “Prophecy” from over 900 years ago accurately “predicted” the Popes up to about 1590, after which it wasn’t that accurate. This also happened to coincide with when these “prophecies” were first published, by the monk Arnold Wion in 1595. Hmmmmmm… this is why most think that it’s fake. And even the Church has said that they’re fake.

That hasn’t stopped people from thinking that this Pope, Pope Francis, is the “prophesied” “Petrus Romanus,” the last Pope, the 112th, after which Jesus would return. Despite Francis having absolutely nothing to do with Rome (or Europe) or the name Peter, some have still shoehorned him in. This WND article does the same via the Coat of Arms. This of course is why you should by WND’s DVD, “The Last Pope?” for $25.95.

Comments-wise, the WND commentators aren’t buying it. Several are quoting Bible verses. Others are saying that the Bible clearly states that no one can know the time nor place of Jesus’ return. It seems like most commenters, however, are simply mocking them. Not bad for once.

Good Old-Fashioned Racism (2)

It appears as though I’m going to be using this title more than once. In this case, it’s to an article by former Congressman Tom Tancredo with the headline, “Dreams and Nightmares: Steve King Is Right Again.”

Immigration is obviously a big issue in the US right now. So is the latino vote, for latinos are rapidly outpacing African-Americans as the largest minority in the country. And, the Republicans have a “latino problem,” where something like only 27% voted for Mitt Romney in the last Presidential election (last year). Unsurprisingly, the Republican leaders are trying to keep racism in their party fairly quiet and try not to offend latino voters — statistically, Republicans are much more against any legal path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.

For those who didn’t hear, one of the most ardent advocates against any form of immigration reform is Congressman Steve King, a Republican from Iowa. Earlier this week, he stated:

“For everyone who’s a valedictorian, there’s another hundred out there who weigh a hundred and thirty pounds—and they’ve got calves the size of cantaloupes because they’re hauling seventy-five pounds of marijuana across the desert. Those people would be legalized with the same act.”

Yeah. Nice job courting that latino vote. Republican leadership was quick to condemn him. Didn’t matter to Steve King: He took to the House floor a few days later and defended his remarks. He didn’t even pull the typical non-apology apology of, “If I offended anyone, I’m sorry for offending you.”

That’s what the latest WND article by Tom Tancredo is about. He does admit, “the exact words Rep. King used to challenge that premise are easy to criticize.” But he says that King is right, and “[i]t is disgusting to see Republican leaders joining this lynch mob.”

He also makes the point that there are many more drug smugglers than valedictorians. Um, duh. That’s like saying there are more lawyers than valedictorians. There can only be one (okay, sometimes two) valedictorians from each high school graduating class. Based on the US Department of Education, there are about 26,500 public high schools (so 26,500 valedictorians) but from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are about 730,00 lawyers in the US. It’s a non sequitur — one has nothing to do with the other, and clearly in something that is forced to be limited, there will be fewer opportunities available. There are more white drug dealers than white valedictorians, too. Ever think of that, Tancredo?

On the other hand, it’s nice to see a politician actually say what he thinks. If nothing else, US politics would be much more interesting if politicians couldn’t spin anything or lie but always had to tell the truth and whole truth.

The Myth of the Christian Nation

Matt Barber is another syndicated columnist for WND. Anyone who follows Right Wing Watch is very familiar with him, as there’s a story about him almost weekly. For example, he’s claimed Obama is a dictator, the first pro-choice person was Satan, transgender rights would mean the abolition of civil rights, and so on. Fits right in with WND.

Barber’s latest syndicated column (and you can sign up to get his commentaries in your e-mail!) is, “‘Separation’ Nonsense from the Lying Secularists” and begins with this:

Anti-Christian extremist groups like the ACLU, the Freedom From Religion Foundation and People for the American Way hate God.

They also hate America.

True America.

These “progressive” outfits – along with like-minded politicos, judges, Hollywood elitists and left-wing media-types – hate that this great nation was expressly founded upon the bedrock precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

The claim that America is a Christian (or Judeo-Christian) nation is a farce that is often claimed by the religious right – or really even most politicians on the right side of the political spectrum. Indeed, I would hazard to guess that many independents and even liberals may think this is true. Let me be very clear: It’s not. I’ll just provide one link to RationalWiki and let the reader do more research if this is a new concept.

So, he starts off with a lie. He also starts off with the “No True Scotsman Fallacy” or “Toupee Fallacy” by starting out saying that it’s only “True America” that is Judeo-Christian … those who aren’t aren’t “True America[ns].”

He continues by basically cherry-picking from documents written by the Founding Fathers — it’s typical for anyone who’s seen this argument before.

What I find interesting is that the top-rated comment at the moment is AGAINST Barber’s argument. I’ve been following the page for about a day now and this started out as the lowest comment (1 down-vote) last night, rose to second this afternoon (5 up, 1 down), and it’s now the top (8 up, 1 down). “sblock5” writes:

Mr. Barber leaves a lot out in his commentary. What is most striking is that for all of those state constitution models that the Framers of the US Constitution could have used, they chose to write a completely God-free Constitution with no mention of God, or his blessings, etc. That was not by accident. They knew what they were leaving out. And later in the 1860s, when religious groups asked Congress to amend the constitution to add in that sort of omitted language, Congress refused. So, contrary to Mr. Barber’s argument. the United States government was intentionally founded as a secular government.

Furthermore, the ban against establishment of a particular sect of religion in the First Amendment is no longer limited only to Congress, even though Mr. Barber implies that states and municipalities are free from the restraint in the Establishment Clause. As he probably knows, the 14th Amendment extended the Bill of Rights to the individual States as well as the federal government as part of the “privileges and immunities” of American citizenship (the “incorporation doctrine”). Mr. Barber surely supports the application of the incorporation doctrine by the courts to require that the Illinois state government is subject to the Second Amendment even though the Second Amendment (like the others) originally applied only to the federal government. Rights such as the right against self-incrimination, and trial by jury, and due process and protection against confiscation of property all now apply to the states as well. And so does the ban on establishment of Christianity by state action. No matter how much some people would like to impose their particular religious views on the rest of the Country, that is not the American way, and the Framers of the Constitution made sure that it wouldn’t happen.

Unsurprisingly for WND, but surprisingly for the top-rated comment, there are those who argue the point. In particular, “Daug_em” has some issues. I’m only going to quote the end: “You spew such typical commie nonsense.” It has 5 up-votes and 2 down. To which “Avidan Geistrov” replies, “bah you say ‘commie’ like it’s a bad thing.” 1 up-vote, 2 down.

Infighting is fun!