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Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) on Sunday turned the subject to abortion and "unborn children" after being asked about "racist comments" that hurt the Republican Party brand.

During a panel segment on NBC's Meet the Press, host David Gregory asked DeMint to respond to former Secretary of State Colin Powell's charge that there was a "dark vein of intolerance" in the Republican Party because people like former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had accused President Barack Obama of "shucking and jiving."

"Spending more than we're bringing in and this debt is a moral argument that we need to connect with the American people," the incoming Heritage Foundation president explained. "The reason that I left Congress is because I don't believe the politicians are going to solve our problems unless the American people force them to. They're going to keep spending and borrowing in Washington, they're going to keep implementing policies... that hurt minorities. They're worse off."

"And we can go to Detroit and Philadelphia and Chicago where these liberal progressive policies have been in place for decades, and you see Latinos and African-Americans in failing schools, with high unemployment," he continued. "What we're going to do and I know Gov. [Bobby] Jindal is going to do along with a lot of other governors is show the success stories where the right ideas are implemented, and we're going to show the failures in Detroit and Philadelphia and L.A."

NAACP president Ben Jealous, however, argued that Republicans would be better off "if they're willing to give up on the gasoline that's been the old Dixiecrat rhetoric they've indulged in for the last 40 years."

"They need to stop," Jealous explained. "They need to say, 'We have an old brand as the Grand Old Party, the party of Lincoln, the party of Kemp, the party of people who united this country again and again. Let's be that and let's stop trying to be these Dixiecrats because it just doesn't work for anybody anymore.'"

Pressing DeMint, Gregory asked if he regretted "some of the comments about abortion in this last cycle, about rape, about, again, what Colin Powell thought were veiled racist comments from the party?"

The former South Carolina senator ignored the reference to "racist comments," instead responding with a rant about fetal personhood.

"The fact that we are losing over 3,000 unborn children a day is an important issue," DeMint opined. "But Republicans or conservatives should not engage in a wish list about exceptions for abortion when the other side will not even agree that we have real people, real human beings. And we need to fight the battle where it should be fought. Life is important. We know from all the new technology and improved sonograms that we do have a baby."

"Instead of just offering my opinion on some hypothetical debate about exceptions for abortions, we need to move it back and particularly work with the states that are fighting just for the personhood of the child. And if we can start there, I think America will move with us."

"Little different than the question about rhetoric and how it reaches voters," Gregory noted as he moved on to the next topic.

NAACP President and CEO Ben Jealous on Monday became emotional as he spoke to reporters about his organization's decision to support marriage rights for LGBT couples.

"Our calling as an organization is to defend the U.S. Constitution," Jealous told reporters during a press conference at the NAACP headquarters on Monday. "We are here to speak to matters of civil law and matters of civil rights."

The NAACP president added that he wasn't worried about a backlash from religious members of NAACP over support for marriage equality.

"I've spoken to many clergy who feel differently, different sides, different theologies, different doctrines. All are very clear that if this is a difference, it is a difference, not a division. If this is a contrast, it is a contrast, not a conflict."

"To a one, they understand that they are a well...," he said, pausing as he choked up.

"You have to excuse me," Jealous explained, his voice trembling. "I'm a bit moved. My parents own marriage was against the law at the time and they had to return here to Baltimore after getting married in Washington, D.C. And the procession back was mistaken for a funeral procession because it was so quixotic to people to see all these cars with these headlights on, having to go from one city all the way to the next just so they could have a party after they got married in their own home. This is an important day."

The NAACP announced on Saturday that it had passed a resolution affirming support for same sex marriage rights.

"At a meeting of the 103-year old civil rights group’s board of directors, the organization voted to support marriage equality as a continuation of its historic commitment to equal protection under the law," a statement said.

The U.S. Supreme Court declared anti-miscegenation laws unconstitutional in its 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision. By 2005, Stanford University sociologist Michael Rosenfeld determined that 7 percent of all marriages in the U.S. were interracial.

Watch Jealous' emotional response to a reporter's question starting at about 6:00 in the following video from CNN above.

From Democracy Now -- Over 500,000 Sign Petition to Stop Georgia Execution of Troy Davis:

Thousands of people who believe the state of Georgia is about to execute an innocent man are rallying behind the high-profile death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. Davis was convicted of the 1989 killing of an off-duty Savannah police officer, Mark MacPhail, but has always maintained his innocence. His case has become a focal point for anti-death penalty activists in the United States and abroad, attracting supporters such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. The Georgia Superior Court has scheduled Davis’s execution for next Wednesday, Sept. 21. Seven of the nine non-police witnesses who implicated Davis have recanted their testimony, and there is no physical evidence that ties him to the crime scene. With his legal appeals exhausted, the fate of Troy Davis rests largely in the hands of Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Parole, which could commute his death sentence and spare his life. Yesterday, supporters delivered a petition containing more than half a million signatures to a state parole board in support of clemency for Davis. We speak with Benjamin Jealous, president and CEO of NAACP, a leading organization in the campaign to stop Davis’s execution. "It’s been activism that has kept Troy alive to this point," Jealous says.

Full transcript at the link above.

You can sign the petition to save Troy Davis at NAACP.org.

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Ed Schultz and the NAACP's Ben Jealous took Glenn Beck to task for his revisionist history, dismissing the fact that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. died while fighting for the rights of public sector union members. As they rightfully pointed out, if he were alive today, he'd be out there with these protesters marching against these Republican governors who are doing their best to destroy what's left of collective bargaining rights for unions in America.

Media Matters has more on Beck's nonsense and you can read the full report here -- Beck Dismisses The Fact That MLK Died While Fighting For Labor Rights.

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The president of the NAACP condemned the New Black Panther Party Sunday but said there was really no comparison with the Tea Party.

On Tuesday, the NAACP voted to approve a resolution calling for the Tea Party to repudiate racist elements within their movement.

Since then, the nations's oldest civil rights group has been criticized for ignoring the racism exhibited by a small group called the New Black Panther Party. Conservative outlets like Fox News have pointed to a video where a member of the New Black Panther Party called for African-Americans to "kill cracker babies."

David Webb, co-founder of Tea Party 365, confronted NAACP president Ben Jealous about the New Black Panther Party Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation.

"I have a serious objection with is his selective condemnation of racism when he will not condemn the New Black Panther Party for saying that they want to kill crackers and kill cracker babies, whereas he would condemn the KKK or any element that shows up in and claims that they are a part of the Tea Party," said Webb.

"The reality here is that the New Black Panther Party is like 12 people, 13 people," responded Jealous. "They don't say these things at the NAACP. If they did, we would take them on."

"I said three times on a show with you last week so hear me this time. You know, bigots come in all colors. We absolutely denounce the New Black Panther Party. But they aren't in our group. These folks are in your groups," said Jealous.