It seems this wingnut from Tennessee isn't done embarrassing his state yet: ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Sponsor Compares Homosexuality To Injecting Heroin:

Tennessee state Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) is making the press rounds to stump for the new and worsened version of his odious “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits teachers in grades K-8 from acknowledging the existence of homosexuality and also requires school officials to out gay students to their families. He has already made it clear he believes homosexuality itself is dangerous, and in an interview with TMZ, he doubled down on that absurd belief. After explaining the AIDS epidemic in Africa by claiming that sodomy was more common there among heterosexuals, Campfield went on to compare being gay to using heroin:

TMZ: If they’re going to engage in homosexual acts anyway, why not teach them how to protect themselves from [HIV]?

CAMPFIELD: You know, you could say the same thing about kids who are shooting heroin. We need to show them the best ways to shoot up. No, we don’t. Why do we have to hypersexualize little children? Why can’t we just let little kids be little kids for a while? Why do we have to have little kids be…?

TMZ: Do you believe in sex education period?

CAMPFIELD: …If you can show me where it works, great.

[...] Sex education actually works when a comprehensive safe sex curriculum is taught, and fails in states that only teach abstinence. Southern states like Mississippi, which has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the country, are starting to realize this. It’s doubtful, however, that Campfield would be interested in such facts. Read on...

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Here we go again with Pastor Rick Warren making idiotic remarks about gay people. Rick Warren: Same sex marriage like punching a guy in the nose:

Megachurch pastor Rick Warren on Tuesday night said that same sex relationships would still be sinful even if they were natural.

“It wouldn’t bother me if there was a ‘gay gene’ found,” he told CNN host Piers Morgan.

“Here’s what we know about life,” Warren continued. “I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and feel like punching a guy in the nose. That doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women who are not my wife. I don’t act on it. Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right. Not everything natural is good for me. Arsenic is natural.”

Here's more from Think Progress:

On CBS This Morning this week, Warren similarly defended his anti-gay positions by claiming that he can be “tolerant” and “accepting” without being “approving.” Though he may not act on his attractions to women who are not his wife, he seems to gloss over the fact that he did have the opportunity to act on his attractions to her by marrying her. By advocating against same-sex marriage, he works to prevent gays and lesbians from having the same security of a lasting partnership.

Warren has a long history of opposing marriage equality. Four years ago, he defended his support of California’s Proposition 8 by claiming that same-sex marriage is “equivalent” to incest, pedophilia, and polygamy. He also claimed that gays are “evil” and have “Christ-o-phobia.” Warren tries to offset his anti-gay beliefs by boasting his anti-AIDS work in Africa, but he has ties to conservative anti-gay leaders in Uganda who oppose using condoms to prevent transmission of HIV. The results of his particular efforts are unclear, but studies have shown that abstinence-only efforts have failed to lower HIV rates in Africa, and anti-gay stigma also contributes to the epidemic.

Full transcript below the fold.

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It seems Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade's producers at Fox are about as clueless as the two of them are: Fox News introduces Romney sons with gay anthem ‘It’s Raining Men’:

The conservative morning show Fox & Friends on Monday used one of the world’s most popular gay anthems as they introduced all of GOP hopeful Mitt Romney’s five sons.

Fox News co-host Brian Kilmeade teased an upcoming segment with the Republican presidential candidate’s offspring as the music began to play and the camera panned over to the guests: “For the first time in history / It’s gonna start raining men!”

“It’s Raining Men! Hallelujah! – It’s Raining Men! Amen! / I’m gonna go out to run and let myself get / Absolutely soaking wet!”

The song “It’s Raining Men” was written in 1979 by David Letterman sidekick Paul Schaffer and gay songwriter Paul Jabara, who died of complications from AIDS in 1992. After being turned down by Donna Summer, Grace Jones and Diana Ross, the song was eventually recorded by one-hit-wonder The Weather Girls. The LGBT community adopted the song as a gay anthem, catapulting it to the number one song in 1982 and then again in 2001, when it was covered by British pop singer-songwriter Geri Halliwell. Read on...

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Someone's got to stand up for the bigots and leave it to Caribou Barbie to use this as an excuse to get herself back in the spotlight again. I hate to break it to her, but those who want to boycott Chick-fil-A are exercising those freedoms she claims she's so concerned about as well.

Here she is on Greta Van Susteren's show Tuesday evening:

VAN SUSTEREN: But first, the sizzling political controversy over a fast food chain. Chick-Fil-A is at the center of a political storm. Why? Well, the company's president openly opposes gay marriage, Dan Cathy saying gay marriage invites God's judgment on our nation.

And then came the responses, mayors of several cities recently banning Chick-Fil-A. There's also an on-line petition to boycott the chain. But now the counter-protest begins, some conservative political leaders urging people to support the restaurant chain, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin even tweeting photos of herself and her husband, Todd, at a Texas Chick- Fil-A. [...]

Let me start with this Chick-Fil-A and the picture of you and Todd. I'm curious, are you jumping into this because of the cause or because of the response by some, and most notably some mayors calling for a boycott?

PALIN: Well, that calling for the boycott is a real -- has a chilling effect on our 1st Amendment rights. And the owner of the Chick-Fil-A business had merely voiced his personal opinion about supporting traditional definition of marriage, one boy, one girl, falling in love, getting married. And having voiced support for kind of that cornerstone of all civilization and all religions since the beginning of time, he then basically getting crucified.

I'm speaking up for him and his 1st Amendment rights and anybody else who would wish to express their not anti-gay people sentiment, but their support of traditional marriage, which President Obama and Joe Biden, they both supported the exact same thing until just a few months ago, when Obama had to flip-flop to shore up the homosexual voter base.

VAN SUSTEREN: Well, there's nothing like a controversy to draw sort of unusual allegiances. Whoopi Goldberg, for instance, agrees with you on -- not on the gay marriage issue, but on the 1st Amendment issue, and she objects to calling for people to boycott it. So it's always interesting how controversy draws interesting people together.

PALIN: Well, anybody who is a protection -- somebody who wants to protect our Constitution, all of our constitutional rights, including that freedom of speech, should speak out on behalf of this individual, whose business is being harmed by those who are intolerant and are bigoted and are hypocritical because they don't agree with this man's personal opinion and the sentiment that he shared and they want to see him shut down and shut out of some communities.

That is the most narrow-minded and intolerant view that they can take, very hypocritical. So those who protect the Constitution, all of our rights, I would think, would stand up and be proud Americans and say, Thank God we have our 1st Amendment rights.

Of course, we've known for a long time that Palin is deeply confused about what the hell the First Amendment actually says. But then, what can you expect from a self-proclaimed "constitutionalist"?

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From this Friday's Charlie Rose Show on PBS, Rep. Barney Frank didn't hold back with his thoughts on two of our current crop of GOP Republican primary candidates, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney. Frank had plenty to say about Santorum's attitude toward the gay community and women's reproductive rights and Mitt Romney's naked ambition where he, as Frank put it is "a man totally unburdened by any conviction except that we would all be better off if he was running things."

And once again, as we saw when Newt Gingrich actually dared to call Mitt Romney a liar out loud, we get feigned shock from Rose when Frank simply tells the truth about how callous Rick Santorum is towards the gay community.

ROSE: You obviously served on Congress with Rick Santorum.

FRANK: Yes I did.

ROSE: What do you know about him?

FRANK: That he's one of the meanest people in terms of public policy I've ever encountered.

ROSE: Do you really mean that?

FRANK: Well, what would you characterize in response?

ROSE: I'll give a better question, which is why do you think that?

FRANK: Because when the Supreme Court of Massachusetts said that two men who were in love could marry each other, he compared that to human beings having sex with dogs. He said, “What's next, man on dog?” That is a degree of vitriol and bigotry that I find outside of anything I would accept as reasonable.

I think there is an, as I said a general kind of meanness in his response to gay and lesbian people that is simply, as I said, terribly mean.

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I'd say this is one for the Foo Fighters, zippo for the Westboro Baptist Church hate mongers who decided they weren't too happy with the recent video from the Foo Fighters to promote their fall concert tour.

From Balloon Juice -- Foo Fighters Counter-Protest Westboro Baptist Church at Westboro Baptist Church’s Protest of Foo Fighters Concert:

If you haven’t heard, the Foo Fighters created a video called Hot Buns to promote their fall tour:

The Hot Buns video begins innocently enough. Four hillbilly-attired Foo Fighters are chowing down at a truck stop.

Then they head to the showers, soap up, shake their naked backsides and spoof a gay porn film to the strains of Queen’s Body Language.

The viral sensation, created to promote the rock band’s fall tour, drew immediate and widespread reaction from fans. And one response from an open foe. The anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church, notorious for picketing at military funerals, plans to descend upon the Foos’ second tour stop Friday night in Kansas City, Mo.

“I can’t wait,” says Dave Grohl, who hatched the idea for the video after a bus break years ago at a truck stop where drivers lined up for a turn at hot showers. “You know you’ve arrived when they start picketing your shows.”

[...]

Anyway, Fred Phelps and his merry band of a**holes made good on their promise to protest the Foo Fighters show in Kansas City, but the Foo Fighters were ready for them:

As expected, the WBC showed up to protest the show yesterday (Sept. 16) afternoon. What they didn’t expect, however, was a truck-pulled float carrying all five members of Foo Fighters dressed in trucker outfits and wigs identical to those they donned in their recent ‘Hot Buns’ video. The band played the country parody song ‘Keep It Clean,’ heard in the video, skewering the protesters as they looked on with their picket signs in hand.

Safe for work video of the Foo Fighters counter-protest above. Not safe for work video that got the "God hates fags" group at Westboro so worked up to begin with below the fold.

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From Democracy Now: Pioneering Comedian Roseanne Barr on Her Life on Screen as a “Working-Class Domestic Goddess”:

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Emmy Award-winning actress Roseanne Barr starred in the popular and groundbreaking show on television titled simply "Roseanne," the first TV series to openly advocate for gay rights. "Roseanne" featured one of the first lesbian kisses on TV, in an episode when Roseanne kisses Mariel Hemingway. "Roseanne" was also the first sitcom to ever feature a gay marriage. The series tackled other controversial topics, as well: poverty, class, abortion and feminism. From her open support of unions in earlier shows to her tribute to Native Americans toward the end of the series, Roseanne never shied away from contentious issues. The writer Barbara Ehrenreich once praised Roseanne Barr for representing "the hopeless underclass of the female sex: polyester-clad, overweight occupants of the slow track; fast-food waitresses, factory workers, housewives, members of the invisible pink-collar army; the despised, the jilted, the underpaid." We play excerpts from the groundbreaking sitcom and speak with Barr about her childhood in Utah, where she was raised half-Jewish and half-Mormon, and talk about how she "made it OK for women to talk about their actual lives on television." [includes rush transcript]

It doesn't get much better than this. Stephen Colbert with his contribution to the It Gets Better Project with a message for LGBT youth.

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Keith Olbermann and Janeane Garofalo weighed in on Michele Bachmann's husband, Marcus Bachmann and the fact that most people who are as vehemently anti-gay as he is, usually turn out to be someone who is gay themselves and has some real issues with their own sexuality.

I was glad to see someone finally addressing the issue of just how damaging the type of "therapy" Bachmann and his clinic are using is to anyone who is unfortunate enough to find themselves subjected to it.

Janeane also thankfully called the "tea party" exactly what it is -- an astroturf Republican re-branding effort that is not grass roots but sponsored by a whole lot of big money. And as they noted, their efforts are apparently fizzling if this is any indication. We can only hope.

From the Minnesota Independent -- Tea party convention featuring Bachmann, Bradlee Dean cancelled:

Organizers for the Freedom Jamboree, billed as the national tea party straw poll convention, announced on Wednesday that the event has been canceled due to low attendance. The conference had pulled in two of Minnesota most controversial figures, presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and rightwing preacher Bradlee Dean. It was also being organized by Iowa’s Bob Vander Plaats, whose organization, The Family Leader, sparked an uproar in the state after it released a presidential pledge on marriage.

“Everything was set up,” said William Temple, one of the organizers, told the Kansas City Star. “It was just the tea parties themselves weren’t prepared to spend the money to travel and bring their families.”

Roll Call notes that the organizers also had subpar fundraising in addition to low attendance, and it’s the second tea party convention in two years to be canceled because of low attendance.

After hearing about Michele Bachmann's husband Marcus and his "pray away the gay" "therapy" and having his gaydar go off the charts, Jon Stewart has Jerry Seinfeld join him on the set to help him "repress" his urge to make gay jokes about Marcus Bachmann.