Mike Tidmus

Bad news for the anti-gays at the Pacific Justice Institute. On Monday, the Christian legal goons attempted to sue the Governor and Attorney General of California, and, thereby, force them to defend California’s heinous 2008 ballot initiative, Proposition 8. The Associated Press’ Lisa Leff has that story.

Fast forward to today, and, without explanation, the move has been throttled. Consequently, the institute has announced that it intends to take the matter to the California Supreme Court. The state has until 11 September to challenge Judge Vaughn Walker’s ruling in Perry v Schwarzenegger.

Courts Won’t Force Prop. 8 Appeal
The Advocate
A Calif. court on Thursday denied a curious attempt by a conservative legal group to force Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to appeal the federal Proposition 8 case.
Without explanation, the Calif. Third District Court of Appeal denied a petition filed on Monday by Pacific Justice Institute on behalf of Joshua Beckley, a senior pastor at Ecclesia Christian Fellowship in San Bernardino.
Pacific Justice had asked in its petition that Schwarzenegger and attorney general Jerry Brown, the original named defendents in the Prop. 8 suit, formally file an appeal notice of Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision before a September 11 deadline.

The 3rd District Court of Appeals in Sacramento will hear oral arguments in December.

Keith Olbermann mops the floor with former President George W Bush
(video: Countdown with Keith Olbermann)

A picture is worth a thousand words. So are these two words:

George W Bush’s Mission Accomplished speech was delivered on 1 May 2003
(photo: AP via Wikipedia)

(tip: Digby, Hullabaloo)

I’m not really sure who comes across as the more desperate character: former congressman Newt Gingrich or his personal Igor, Pastor Jim Garlow, who is currently running Newt’s Renewing American Leadership.

Gingrich Wants Ground Zero Declared a National Battlefiled Memorial to Stop Park 51
Right Wing Watch
Gingrich came on to discuss his recent column opposing the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” and did so did so with typical Gingrichian belligerence, but eventually the topic turned toward how to actually prevent it from being built and Gingrich’s preferred solution is for Congress to declare Ground Zero to be a national battlefield memorial
Well, there are a lot of places. I think the Congress has the ability to declare the area a national battlefield memorial because I think we should think of the World Trade Center as a battlefield site; this is a war.

Pardon my naiveté, but doesn’t the term “battlefield” normally imply the participation of at least two contentious parties?

Toward the end, Gingrich more than amply demonstrates that he’s really got a pair when this champion of traditional marriage trots out his Frequent Marriage Miles™ with a self-serving reference to his … what are we up to now? … third traditional wife when asked if he’s running for president.

This ought to put an appreciable twist in the theists’ knickers.

Stephen Hawking: God did not create Universe
BBC News
There is no place for God in theories on the creation of the Universe, Professor Stephen Hawking has said.
He had previously argued belief in a creator was not incompatible with science but in a new book, he concludes the Big Bang was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics. The Grand Design, part serialised in the Times, says there is no need to invoke God to set the Universe going.

Hwking’s new book, co-written by US physicist Leonard Mlodinow, will hit the shelves on 9 September 2010. An extract can be read online at The Times for a subscription fee.

Glee’s Kurt Hummel (Chris Colfer) from Rolling Stone’s series on TV’s Best Characters and Most Memorable Scene-Stealers (photo: Rolling Stone)

Published two days ago, this article confirms something I’ve suspected for quite some time. The article comes via ACT UP Philadelphia and John S James. James is a revered AIDS writer who has been publishing AIDS Treatment News since the early, early days of the epidemic.

Many HIV-positive gay men have post-traumatic stress disorder ~ AIDS Map
A third of HIV-positive gay men have post-traumatic stress disorder, UK investigators report in AIDS Patient Care and STDs. Events including starting treatment, HIV-related illness, and witnessing an HIV-related death were all linked to the development of symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional responses to such events – rather than actual physical threat – were associated with the development of symptoms of posttraumatic stress.
Investigators wished to see if a broad-range of HIV-related events were associated with the development of post-traumatic stress disorder. They hypothesised that experiencing one or more events would be linked with symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and that perceived threat and emotional distress would be associated with such symptoms. They also wished to see if shame-related emotions were associated with post-traumatic stress symptoms.

Just your typical day in the life of your basic “chronic, manageable illness” — you know, like asthma or diabetes if you buy the pharmaceutical industry’s propaganda.

(tip: John S James, AIDS Treatment News and ACT UP Philadelphia)

“A handful of pencil-necked, metrosexual socialists in Washington can’t possibly defeat a nation of red-blooded, God-fearing patriots. … The spirit of Thomas Jefferson is alive and well in Honduras — especially in Honduras, where their Marxist just tried to tamper with their constitution, and guess what happened? The Honduran military took that socialist dictator wannabe to the border and said, “Hasta la vista, baby. Better luck in Costa Rica.” Sounds nice, doesn’t it? Sounds nice to me. Time will tell.”

— Jason ‘Molotov’ Mitchell, Christian supremacist
and seditionist, from Meet Molotov Mitchell

(tip: Wayne Besen, Truth Wins Out ~ video at the link)

“Let me be clear: I don’t want the GOP to pick up gay votes and I have no intention of voting Republican myself. Ever, ever, ever. But if Dems are worried about gay and lesbian progressives sitting out this election and the GOP managing to pick up the votes gay conservatives idiots, well, here’s how you stop that from happening: MAKE GOOD ON SOME OF THE PROMISES YOU MADE TO GAY AND LESBIAN VOTERS. That refrain again: ENDA, DADT, DOMA. Don’t throw us a fucking cocktail party. Throw us a fucking bone.”

— Dan Savage, activist, writer/editor and commentator,
from Here’s How The GOP Picks Up Gay Voters

(emphasis: from the original)

Christian pastor’s Ground Zero stunt garners negative attention
(video: Countdown with Keith Olbermann)

An infinitesimally small amount of negative media coverage of his attempt at garnering headlines, sent Pastor Bill Keller into make believe, full metal Poor Oppressed Christian™ mode:

Press Supports Mosque but Condemns 9-11 Christian Center ~ Christian Newswire
ST PETERSBURG, Fla., Sept. 2 /Christian Newswire/ — Bill Keller, leader of the world’s largest interactive Christian website for 11 years, Liveprayer.com, has harshly criticized the mainstream press endorsement of the “ground zero victory mosque,” while condemning the opening of his new 9-11 Christian at Ground Zero. Keller states, “The mainstream press has been supportive of the memorial being built by Muslims to their greatest military victory in the 1400 years of Islam, 9/11/2001, yet they are condemning our new 9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero.”
Keller goes on, “When talking about the mosque, the press labeled anyone who thinks it is not in good taste as ‘Islamaphobic,’ and ‘haters,’ yet are now calling me every derogatory name you can think of for opening a Christian Center by ground zero to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” Keller’s “9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero” has not only been featured on MSNBC, but far left media sites like Salon.com, The Huffington Post, and the Daily Kos to name a few.

Keller also tosses in a side of sour grapes about losing his TV show because CBS wouldn’t let him be a hateful bigot on the air:

Keller is no stranger to conflict with Islam. In 2007, under pressure from the extremist Muslim group CAIR, Keller’s highly rated nightly TV program that ran for 4 1/2 years on a CBS owned station in Tampa, Florida, was cancelled by CBS because he refused to stop telling his viewers that “according to the Bible Islam is a 1400-year-old lie from hell, and that history clearly shows Mohammed was a murdering pedophile who propagated his false religion through hatred, violence, and death.”

Here’s a taste of Justin Elliot‘s Salon.com piece:

Gingrich doesn’t object to bigot’s ground zero church ~ Salon.com, War Room
Mosque critics including Gingrich and the ADL continue their silence over a bigot pastor’s anti-Muslim 9/11 church
Yesterday we told you about the launch this Sunday of the $8 million “9-11 Christian Center at Ground Zero,” created by a pastor who assails Muslims as pedophiles and gay people as perverts and who has a history of trying to profit from political controversies. The pastor, internet evangelist Bill Keller, is starting services this Sunday at a site just two blocks away from the former World Trade Center site.
So we reached out to several critics of the Park51 Muslim community center, many of whom have made the putative sanctity of the neighborhood around ground zero central to their argument against the mosque. Why should this anti-Muslim, anti-gay, and anti-Mormon pastor be allowed to deliver bigoted sermons — and potentially profit off of the memory of Sept. 11 — so close to the site?

Excellent question.

Poor oppressed Bill Keller is so tickled by the attention his attention-grab is garnering that he embedded the Countdown with Keith Olbermann video squarely on the front page of his Ground Zero Christian center’s hastily-cobbled together homepage. Look at me. I’m shameless famous.

They seek him here, they see him there, the fundies see him everywhere …
(video: Countdown with Keith Olbermann)

Gasp. I have absolutely nothing to add.