Bob Ellis returns to writing about real South Dakota politics... but alas! He does so only to peddle hate, deception, and his persecution complex. Ellis crows about the pink flyer being circulated by his fellow fundagelicals to damage Ritchie Nordstrom's campaign for a seat on the city commission in Rapid City.
The flyer, as you can see here, is pink, because pink is a faggy color, and you sure as heck don't want any fagginess in your city government. It shows two men smiling and holding hands. You should be afraid of those faggy radicals, because they'll take over your city government and make you smile and hold hands right along with them. They'll probably give you AIDS, too, what with their shaved heads and skinny bodies.
That's what the words radical homosexual agenda really mean. That's what Bob Ellis and the Family Matters PAC want you to think when you see the pink flyer.
Never mind that Nordstrom himself says his agenda is no more radical than supporting equal rights for all and no special rights for anyone. Never mind that on the city commission, Nordstrom would be too busy paving roads, hiring cops, and balancing the budget to advance any radical agenda even if he decided to dream one up.
Just be afraid. Be hateful.
Bob Ellis at least owns his homophobia. One of Nordstrom's opponents, Steve Laurenti, sent out a mailing from the same right-wing firm that sent out the pink flyer. In his flyer, Laurenti makes vague accusations that Nordstrom is hiding an agenda against "family values." Laurenti declines to discuss homosexuality when questioned about this flyer (wait, so who's hiding what, here?); in cowardly fashion, he trades on homophobia without admitting it explicitly himself.
Ellis explodes his pink propaganda into an indictment of all liberals and the media. He groans that the press go ape exposing immoral behavior like that of Mark Foley and Larry Craig but don't go after politicians for the behavior Ellis considers immoral. Translation: supporting equal rights (which is all Nordstrom has done) is morally equivalent to sexually propositioning your subordinates or cheating on your wife in an airport bathroom.
I'll only feed Ellis's "me against the world!" complex by pointing this out, but Constant Conservative points out that 56% of Americans consider gay and lesbian relations morally acceptable. 91% consider cheating on one's spouse morally unacceptable. To equate Ritchie Nordstrom's support for equal rights in the workplace with Larry Craig's getting jiggy in the john defies the public moral sense, if not sense, period.
Alas, as Kevin Woster notes, these fag-fear flyers are "a predictable part of campaigns in the Black Hills." Fake family values PACs are willing turn up that kind of hateful heat here in East River, too.
Such campaign tactics do not seek to promote reasoned discourse about practical policy or public morality. Their aim is to get as many voters as possible to go, "Pink! Fags! Fear! NOOOO!" That stoking of hate is much more harmful to civil society than two men holding hands and smiling.
I never departed from "real" South Dakota politics; you just fail to keep up. Perhaps if you read my material more often and gave it more thought, it might help you realize the error of your ways.
Unfortunately, there are efforts not only at the national level but state and local efforts to mislead people into accepting a dangerous and immoral sexual behavior as some are doing in Rapid City.
Incidentally, pink is a color many homosexuals have adopted for themselves, just as many have adopted the title "queer," so you'd have to ask them whether they consider it "faggy" or not.
It is clear from Ritchie Nordstrom's emails that he does indeed support the homosexual agenda, which is indeed radical (key facts that somehow "escaped" the article of "journalist" Kevin Woster). Sad for Nordstrom, however, that he lacks the courage to actually come out in the open with what he supports. He would rather cloak his support for special rights and protections for homosexual activists in fallacious and misleading language about "equal rights" which homosexuals already have. He understands that, despite what push polls purport to show, most people still understand that homosexual behavior is harmful and immoral, and that the homosexual agenda is about forcing society to accept that destructive behavior as legitimate.
I should also point out that poll numbers and popular opinions do not change the morality of a behavior one iota. Opinion only measures how many people are right and how man are wrong, and in the case you mentioned, this only reveals that in that particular poll (which most likely was a push poll) 56% of Americans are wrong about homosexual behavior. I'm sure in your infantile mind, if 56% of the population thought it was a good idea to jump over a cliff, you'd go running for the edge at full speed, eh?
"Journalist" Woster is right about one thing: informing the voters to the hidden agendas of liberal politicians is indeed a predictable part of campaigns in the Black Hills. You see, many people have had it with candidates who pretend to uphold traditional values during their campaigns, only to get into office and promote the corrosive liberal agenda. They are no longer willing to allow politicians to lie to them and others with impunity, and will continue to make sure that the voters have the facts available to make an informed decision on Election Day.
Why don't you do your eternal soul and the society around you a favor and stop embracing and condoning evil? Why don't you stop promoting and legitimizing a sexual behavior that the doctrine of every major religion teaches is an immoral perversion of God's design for human sexuality, and instead promote what is right? Why don't you stop trying to mislead people into thinking that this dangerous sexual practice (which knockes an average of 20 years off the average lifespan, which is associated with 72% of new male AIDS cases according to the CDC, and which is responsible for vastly elevated rates of HPV, gonorrhea, syphilis, depression, suicide, substance abuse, anal cancer and more) is legitimate and healthy? Why not stop leading your fellow human beings into danger and destruction?
Does your conscience bother you? If it doesn't, you should REALLY be concerned, because it could be so seared from embracing evil as to make it very difficult for you to ever get right.
Please, think seriously about ending your campaign to promote evil and destruction on the lives and families of your fellow Americans, and think about using your time and efforts to help people live better lives.
Do you support the obesity rights agenda, Bob? Just pass a kidney stone through the eye of a needle.
Joseph Budd is a good example of a Rapid Citian with anti-civil rights leaning yet has a BMI somewhere in the o-zone: http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/news/article_80f64e26-287e-11df-8565-001cc4c03286.html
Your BMI is off the charts, Bob. Why doesn't god hate you?
Obesity is South Dakota's biggest killer that enriches the Sanford and RCRH medical industry while AG Jackley sues the feds. Ellis is covered under TriCare. Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates wondered to NPR why TriCare isn't available to all americans.
Hey Bob, Every straight dude that 'protest to much' turns out to be a fag themselves. Did your boyfriend break up with you? You'll find a new top soon enough...
We can not control very much outside of our own actions. As life has taught me, God has given me exclusive control over my own attitude and actions. God has not given me the authority to control the attitudes and actions of other people. What others do with their lives is between God and them.
This Ellis and his ilk constantly flummox me. They prattle on with their neo-nazi interpretations of scripture, but somehow miss the straightforward and absolutely clear admonitions against doing harm to others--such as injuring and killing them, stealing from them, and in the case at hand bearing false witness. The gravest offense is to appropriate the Christian religion as a vehicle for their theology of hate.
Ritchie Nordstrom is devoted to the rights of people to live in a state of freedom, equality, and equal justice. To portray him as a agenat for a particular set of sexual practices is simply the most vile and decadent kind of lie. The real agents of evil are those who promulgate and repeat such lies. It is a mistake to dismiss the pink flyers as mere cheap shots.
They are a very serious case of false witness.
I think it is time to give the perpetrators of such blatant forms of falsehood their due, and promote the boycott of any business or other agency which supports the spread of the malignancy they aspire to infect the world with. It is time to shake the dust of their malice from our feet and move on to places inhabited by the better angels of our nature. Ritchie Nordstrom and no one else deserves to be spattered with such decadent false witness for the purpose of inciting the hatred of the malignant brigade.
Here is a photo of Steve Laurenti. This guy is a BMI disaster area.
David,
I honestly believe this latest flyer from the Family Matters PAC is going to backfire on them in a huge way. South Dakotans have a history in other elections of turning on those who bear false witness and spew hatred like this. Prime example: Pressler v. Johnson (1996) and the whole "quacks like a Liberal" smear of Tim. Larry found out the hard way how that kind of campaigning boomeranged back and hit him square in the head. Watch out Ellis, that "backlash boomerang" really hurts you politically and bearing false witness will tarnish your credibility for life.
People that were raised to hate homosexuals will always hate homosexuals. It's just what was drilled in while their minds were still forming. Very few people are able to change such things later in life.
Luckily, the vast majority of people my age or younger completely tolerate homosexuality. It's really a non-issue for us. The label doesn't have a negative connotation for us. It's only a matter of time until the bigots die off.
Most people that I know would vote for Ritchie if they saw this flier just to spite the intolerant douche bags that made them.
The homophobia issue interests me because, when I lived in South Beach Miami (1991-1997), I was targeted by homophobes a couple of times, one of them violent. Their utter irrationality fascinated me, especially in light of the fact that I'm as straight as an East River highway.
I guess the fact that I am a swimmer, 5 ft 6 in tall and 125 pounds, had something to do with it.
How many times, then, do you suppose I was the target of an unwanted advance by a real gay man (and South Beach is known for an abundance of them)? How many times in five and a half years was I harassed by gays despite my apparently "gay appearance" (whatever that is)?
Zero.
Plenty of the gay men in South Beach had AIDS. I had no fear of them whatsoever, even though I watched several of them shrivel up and die. When I got pneumonia and the doctor wanted to test me for HIV, I said, "Sure. If I have AIDS, it would be the devil's answer to the virgin birth." Of course I came out negative.
What I'm trying to get at is this: I don't give a nanohoot (that's a thousand-millionth of a hoot) whether a politician is gay or not. I give a gigahoot (a thousand-million hoots) whether she or he can do the job at hand, or not.
Stan, I hear you and I certainly do not understand the irrationality of these homophobic people. I'm at a point in my life where I do not get irate over this any more and just let them vent their crazy hatred. I have seen people like this screw themselves over when others have had enough of their hate filled diatribes. Some are so paranoid that they question everything they see on a daily basis of whether it is "gay or not." So, these days I just let these people choke on their own hatred and paranoia. What more can I say: some are completely certifiably crazy. They are so miserable inside that I sometimes feel sorry for their pathetic existence.
In the above post, one correction: *I do NOT understand their irrationality* What I do understand of these homophobic types is that many of them are truly crazy people.
[CAH: Edit made! Thanks, Guy!]