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Mitt Romney decided to double down on his opposition to gay marriage during his commencement address at Liberty University this Saturday. After having the unfortunate circumstance of watching the entire twenty minute speech which aired on C-SPAN, if you thought some of his speeches on the campaign trail were bad, this one was worse. The response from the crowd for the better part of the speech was tepid at best except for the portion where he spoke out against gay marriage, which did get him a healthy round of applause.

Romney's presence at the University was not welcomed by all. After the announcement that Romney would be giving the commencement address, students were protesting the school's decision to have him there: Liberty's choice of Romney leads to angry student response.

And this Saturday, there was this: Gay Republicans Slam Romney For Speaking At Liberty:

The gay consevative group GOProud is not happy Mitt Romney chose to speak at Liberty University Saturday.

A statement from GOProud co-founder Jimmy LaSalvia was sent to reporters as Romney delivered his address:

Today, Governor Mitt Romney spoke at Liberty University. Liberty was founded by the late Jerry Falwell, who in 2007 said, “AIDS is the wrath of a just God against homosexuals. To oppose it would be like an Israelite jumping in the Red Sea to save one of Pharaoh’s charioteers … AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.”

The speech at Liberty comes just days after top Romney adviser Ed Gillespie said that Governor Romney would campaign on the issue of marriage. In response, JimmyLaSalvia, Executive Director and Co-Founder of GOProud – a national organization of gay and straight Americans seeking to promote freedom by supporting free markets, limited government, and a respect for individual rights, issued the following statement:

“The father of the modern conservative movement, former US Senator Barry Goldwater, once said of Jerry Falwell that he needed a kick in the ass. With his speech at Falwell’s Liberty University, it is clear that Governor Romney’s message to Goldwater conservatives is: drop dead.

You can read the rest of their response in the post at TPM. He was also met with this from MoveOn today: Romney’s Liberty University Speech Protested From The Air:

The student loan debate was (literally) in the air as Mitt Romney prepared to make his commencement address at Liberty University here. As the graduation ceremony at this evangelical Christian university began, a single-engined plane flew circles around the commencement towing a banner reading “GOP = HIGHER SCHOOL DEBT.”

The fight to extend the interest rate on Stafford loans is one of the few where President Obama and Romney are on the same page. Both favor extending low interest rates on Stafford student loans. The extension is currently tied up in Congress, where Republicans and Democrats are split on how to pay for the rate extension.

Transcript of Romney's remarks in the clip above below the fold via:

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A Texas pastor who has repeatedly called Mitt Romney's religion a cult is now endorsing the former Massachusetts governor because President Barack Obama "opposes Biblical principles."

Dallas pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress first said in 2007 that Romney was not qualified to be president because “Mormonism is a cult.”

"Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise," Jeffress told his congregation. "Even though he talks about Jesus as his Lord and savior, he is not a Christian. Mormonism is not Christianity. Mormonism is a cult."

"It's a little hypocritical for the last eight years to be talking about how important it is for us to elect a Christian president and then turn around and endorse a non-Christian," he added. "Christian conservatives are going to have to decide whether having a Christian president is really important or not."

But in an interview with Fox News on Sunday, the pastor reversed course after Romney became the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

"I haven't changed my tune," Jeffress insisted. "In fact, I never said Christians should not vote for Mitt Romney. When I talked about his theology, I was answering a question about theology. And I still maintain there are vast differences in theology between Mormons and Christians, but we do share many of the same values, like the sanctity of life and religious freedom."

Fox News host Clayton Morris noted that Jeffress was quoted in October as saying, "Evangelical Christians should not vote for Mitt Romney because he’s a Mormon, therefore not a real Christian."

"Critics would argue that President Obama is a real Christian," Morris continued. "By that metric then, why wouldn't you support Barack Obama?"

"Well, again, I never said that quote that you attributed to me," Jeffress argued. "There was a spurious article in one magazine that just completely fabricated that quote. I've never said don't vote for Mitt Romney because he's not a Christian. But in my book that you were so kind to reference, I said, given the choice between a Christian like Barack Obama who embraces non-Biblical principles like abortion and a Mormon like Mitt Romney who embraces Bible principles, there's every reason to support Mitt Romney in this election. I've been consistent in that."

Jeffress added that he expected evangelicals across the nation to put Romney in the White House because Obama "opposes Biblical principles."

"When we have seen what the president has done especially in the last six months in launching this war against religious liberty -- I'm not just talking about the [Health and Human Services contraception coverage mandate], but I'm also talking about last October when he tried to rescind the church exemption in hiring practices -- I think as more evangelicals are aware of what this president is doing, I think they will turn out and vote," he said.

"Not for partisan reasons, but because he opposes Biblical principles."

(h/t: Media Matters, Mediaite)

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Evangelical Saddleback Church founder Rick Warren says that Christians have a disagreement with Mormonism because it "denies" certain fundamental Christian beliefs.

In an Easter Sunday interview on ABC, Jake Tapper noted that Mitt Romney, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was almost certain to be the Republican presidential nominee.

"Are Mormons Christians?" Tapper asked Warren.

"Well, the key sticking point for evangelicals and actually for many is the issue of the Trinity," the evangelical pastor explained. "Orthodox Christians, Catholic Christians, Protestant Christians, evangelical Christians and Pentecostal Christians all believe in the Trinity; that’s the historic doctrine of the church, that God is three-in-one. Not three gods; one God in Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

"Mormonism denies that. That’s a sticking point for a lot of Catholic Christians, evangelical Christians, Pentecostal Christians, because they don’t — they don’t believe that."

"Now they’ll use the same terminology, but they don’t believe in the historic doctrine of the Trinity," Warren added. "And people have tried to make it other issues. But that’s really one of the fundamental differences."

Throughout the primary season, Romney has had a problem getting support from evangelicals. He lost the evangelical vote by double digits in Tennessee, Michigan, Iowa, Ohio, Georgia and South Carolina.

Celtic Diva at Blue Oasis has this interesting bit of speculation on how Miss Palin has been getting around:

Sarah Palin arrived in North Carolina Sunday by way of Asheville. She was slated to have a much-touted dinner with Franklin Graham and his father Billy. While this is a video made by a fan (so pardon the drippiness) it does provide a good view of the plane she arrived on...and the call number. You may also see some "interesting" dynamics at play:

"Linda, Thought I would let you know. The plane Sarah flew in to Asheville had the N number 262SP. The SP does not stand for Sarah Palin but the plane is owned by Samaritans Purse. I checked it out at the FAA registry. Wonder if that plane is being used at Rochester and other book signing destinations? Samaritan donations being put to good use to haul Palin's carcass around."

As if that was not interesting enough, he wrote back later:

Tried to check the flight activity for this airplane (N262SP) at Flightwise.com. The flight activity for this plane is blocked by the owner. Guess he doesn't want anyone to know where he is flying. This is a good site to track an airplane's activity. Might come in handy for checking the use of AK state airplanes.

Yup, especially those Alaska planes now leased by Samaritan's Purse up here.

It seems that one must apply to have their plane's schedule made "private" and in doing so, a reason must be provided. I'd love to see the reason Franklin Graham gave for blocking access.

This might be a one-off thing, or it might be something else. However, as with the attempted book-signing event at Fort Bragg it's clear that Palin will use any means necessary to further her own ends.

Screengrab from the video below of the N262SP.

UPDATE: Palingates has details of a much more luxurious plane, the Gulfstream Jet, also being used by Sarah Palin for her "bus" tour.

Thanks to our reader "snowbilly", we have identified Sarah Palin's private plane which she used for her "bus tour" - so far we can reconstruct all the flight movements back to November 21, 2009.

Sarah Palin is touring around in a Gulfstream II (twin-jet). The flight details of this particular plane can be found HERE.

An extended flight log can be found HERE.

Therefore, it is proven that her big "bus roadshow" is just a fake. Sarah Palin is in fact being carried around with her family on a luxury plane. Sarah, why are we not surprised?

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Star Parker who decided that wingnut welfare paid a lot better than actual welfare was one of the speakers at the Values Voters Summit 2009 this year, so C-SPAN decided to grace us with her presence on Washington Journal.

Here's Brad at Sadly, No!'s description of a wingnut welfare queen which I could not have described any better.

Basically, I define wingnut welfare queens as people who:

a.) Have very little talent.

b.) Work in the right-wing media machine, think-tank circles, or the Republican Party.

c.) Are employed solely on their willingness to act as shills for the GOP or wingnuttery in general.

When a Democratic caller noted the racism coming from the likes of Glenn Beck and many of those at the Tea Bag protests and said there is racism on all sides of the aisle, and asked Ms. Parker why evangelicals don't get upset about the death penalty or about the number of Iraqi babies killed in "this useless war we had", here's how she responds.

Parker: He's also not the first President that has gotten opposition from day one. We saw it under Bush and even before Sept. 11th. This is what we do as Americans. This is our society.

Now getting to the question of racism, you're absolutely right. I am sure that there are racists in this society on both sides. There are white racists, there are black racists, there are Korean racists, there are Japanese racists, there are... race is an issue regardless.

But now what we have to say are... is that everybody in the Republican Party racist. See this is what liberals have tried to convince society of. All of the racists are in the Republican Party.

Well I think it's just as racist for ah... for somebody to say that black children cannot learn in a private environment, so we're going to force them to a government school. I think it's just as racist to say that black people will never be able to learn how to save and invest their money, so we're going to force them into a Social Security that we know that they're going to die before they recover all of the money that they put into it.

I think it's just as racist to say that when we're having health care discussions we have to start at the premise that people can't fend for themselves--that they will not be able to look at private insurance options and choose one.

So, you know we can keep throwing that term on the table and acting like either everybody has to be all pure or everybody is not, but we can say let's move beyond the name calling and talk about the issues of the day. And on this issue of the day with health care and with this expansion of government, from the stimulus, to the auto industry, to the banking industry, you're absolutely right.

There is tremendous push back from the right against Barack Obama's policies and it's because we disagree with him.

Wow. I'm white, but I have quite a few very good black friends and I cannot imagine any one of them being able to listen to this tripe without being completely insulted. I don't think I've ever heard anyone denigrate their own race this badly before with the exception of possibly Michelle Malkin.

So apparently in Star Parker's world, if you're not for funneling tax dollars to private religious schools, you think black children can't learn in that environment. Social Security is somehow keeping black people from understanding how to invest their money if they’re lucky enough to have any to invest in the first place. And last but not least saying that anyone that thinks everyone should have affordable health insurance coverage which is possibly provided by the government thinks that black people are too stupid to pick from the non-existent choices they have now.

These wingnuts sure know how to pick 'em for their choice of speakers at these conferences, don't they?

Maybe Star Parker could just get all of the black people in America jobs shilling at right wing think tanks and Fox News for the Republican Party like she did and all of their problems would be solved.