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On this Sunday's Meet the Press, RNC Chair Reince Priebus was asked about Sen. Rand Paul's remarks over the weekend where he said that he "didn't think Obama's views on marriage could get any gayer," which naturally he tried to distance himself from and at least had the decency to admit that's not the way the party should be talking about the issue. The same could not be said for his defense of their presumptive presidential nominee Mitt Romney and his doubling down on the Republicans' stance against gay marriage.

Priebus told host David Gregory that a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is part of their party's platform and that he did not agree that it is a civil rights issue. Apparently the standard to meet for being a civil rights issue includes people being murdered according to the RNC Chair.

I guess Priebus doesn't think anyone has ever been killed because they're gay or for standing up for the LGBT community. There are also more that have been murdered in efforts to unionize in America than I can possibly try to count, but I'm sure the Republicans would never think that qualifies as a civil right either. We all know how much they hate unions that they'd never apply that same standard to that movement. And I've never heard anyone make the same arguments when it comes to women's rights and the lack of a sufficient number of murders disqualifying that movement as one that would be considered a civil rights movement as well.

If this is the hard stance the party wants to take on gay marriage, I'm hoping they find themselves in the dust bin of history with the same people who opposed equal rights for blacks and for women for their bigotry sooner and not later. There's nothing "gracious and caring" about treating any of our fellow Americans as second class citizens when it comes to their right to have the same protections as straight married couples do in regard to their relationships with those they love and their families.

Transcript below the fold.

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Ever since Rep. Darrell Issa decided to exclude Sandra Fluke from being allowed to appear before his committee to testify about the new insurance regulations which would mandate contraceptive coverage, the right wing has been attacking this woman at every opportunity.

Whether it's Rush Limbaugh calling her a slut and a prostitute, or attacking her for her support of keeping the interest rates down on student loans, or Bill O'Reilly going after her for dressing well and taking birth control, or Megyn Kelly parroting O'Reilly's attacks on Fluke being "entitled" to contraceptive coverage, they just can't stop themselves.

The latest was Monica Crowley who took to Twitter to insult Fluke over her recent engagement -- Fox's Monica Crowley Reacts To Fluke's Reported Engagement: "To A Man?":

Fox News political and foreign affairs analyst Monica Crowley reacted to a report that Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke got engaged to her boyfriend by tweeting: "To a man?"

Following criticism of her on Twitter, Crowley wrote: "I love exposing the Left's total lack of a sense of humor."

As Media Matters has documented, Fluke has come under vicious attack by conservatives following her testimony before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. Most infamously, Rush Limbaugh called Fluke a "slut" and a "prostitute."

UPDATE: Despite suggesting that her Fluke tweet was a joke, Crowley subsequently wrote that she was asking a "Straightforward question" about Fluke.

Fluke appeared on Ed Schultz's show to respond to the latest insults. When asked what she thought of Crowley's homophobic "joke" Fluke replied “Well, you know, where I’m from, when someone tells you they’ve become engaged, you say congratulations rather than engaging in hate speech. And it’s certainly not the way I wanted my engagement to be greeted, but that said, I'm not going to let this kind of thing get to me personally. What really bothers me about it is exactly what you said, the blatant homophobia in the comment and the idea that’s an acceptable thing to say publicly.”

Schultz asked Fluke if she wanted an apology to which she replied that she did not, but Crowley might owe an apology to the LGBTQ community instead. Par for the course, Fluke again manged to stay well above the fray of those who've been attacking her.

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As David informed us earlier this week, CPAC is losing significant chunks of the gay-bashing right over their invitation for GOProud to attend their convention this year. Cenk Uygur attempted to get their chairman, Christopher Barron to explain why he's a Republican in the first place given the way the party benefits from attacking the LGBT community.

UYGUR: All right. President Obama has said many times if you want to go forward, you put it in "D." If you want to go backwards, you put it in "R." Get it?

All right. Now, the president and the Democrats made history last week. They repealed "Don`t Ask, Don`t Tell," and that is a huge step forward for gay rights.

But, as always, the "Grand Old Party" is stuck in the stone age. Two major conservative groups, Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council, are boycotting the conservative political action conference this year. They`re out -- they`re sitting it out because GOProud, a national organization of gay conservatives, was invited to the event.

For more on this, let`s turn to the chairman of the board of GOProud, Christopher Barron.

All right, Chris. First, let me get it out of the way. Why on God`s green earth are you even a Republican?

CHRISTOPHER BARRON, CHAIRMAN, GOPROUD: Why am I a Republican? Well, first off, I`m not just a Republican, I`m a conservative Republican.

And I`m a conservative because while I was born gay, I wasn`t born to believe that government has all of the answers. In fact, I`ve seen throughout my life that, in fact, government is often the problem, because I believe in free markets, because I believe in a strong military defense, because I believe in the power of the individual. That`s why I`m a conservative Republican.

UYGUR: Right. I understand that. And are gay people -- do they have opinions that range from liberal to conservative on economic matters and other matters? Of course.

BARRON: Absolutely.

UYGUR: Right. I get that.

But what I don`t get is how you can, with a good conscience, vote for a party that does not like you? They don`t like who you are. They don`t like your identity.

BARRON: First off, I completely and totally reject that. We`re, for the second year in a row, participating in CPAC, the largest --

UYGUR: Congratulations. Two years in a row. How about all the other years?

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Anderson Cooper is really terrible when it comes to covering politics a lot of the time, but when it comes to issues like this and standing up for the rights of the LGBT community, I've got to give the man a lot of credit. It is completely unacceptable for a member of a school board anywhere to be acting this way and I'm glad Cooper decided to give it some national attention on CNN.

Here's more from Think Progress -- Arkansas School Board Member Wants ‘Fags’ To ‘Commit Suicide’ And To ‘Give Each Other AIDS And Die’ :

Last week, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) asked people to “Go Purple” to call attention to the suicides of six teenagers who were victims of homophobic bullying. In response, a myriad of high-profile figures “jumped at the opportunity” to voice their support as part of YouTube’s “It Gets Better” campaign, including 40 Broadway actors, Google, Inc., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and President Barack Obama. Yesterday, Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan sent new official guidelines on school-bullying to 15,000 school districts and 5,000 colleges and universities as a message that “bullying is not acceptable” and could violate federal civil rights laws.

Despite a chorus of support, GLAAD’s anti-bullying message is falling on deaf ears in Arkansas. Specifically, the ears of Arkansas District School board member Clint McCance. In response to GLAAD’s appeal to wear purple, McCance, an elected member of the Midland school board, unleashed a tirade of anti-gay bigotry on his facebook page. In a series of posts, McCance actually encourages “fags” and “queers” to kill themselves and says that, if his kids were gay, he’d “run them off“.

Cooper did a great job of pointing out that there are real faces and real children who have committed suicide because of this type of attitude and bullying. It's completely unacceptable that this man is still allowed to keep his job in the Arkansas school system after these revelations. This sort of hatred and bigotry should not be condoned and has real life and death consequences for children who are struggling with their own identities as Cooper pointed out.

Transcript from CNN below the fold.

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