Frothy Rick Santorum opened wide and embraced Mike Huckabee’s “National Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day” claiming that for the left:

There can be no dissent from what their position is.

Kinda like conservative Christians’ position on marriage equality and ENDA. And LGBTQ overall, because the conservative Christians feel there can be no dissent from (their interpretation of) God’s word. Think Progress sums it up:

The rise of the Christian Right is due for a 40th anniversary to mark the appropriation of Christianity by conservatives like Pat Robertson, Phyllis Schlafly, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, and Ralph Reed. This coalition of mostly evangelical Christians, Catholics, and Mormons has largely succeeded in reducing the cultural definition of being Christian to those who share their beliefs. The present-day ravings of faux-historian David Barton seek to push even farther and erase the religious diversity at the heart of American patriotism. The “culture war” over LGBT equality presents one of the clearest dividing lines, with anti-gay talking heads like Tony Perkins over-dominating the media on behalf of “Christianity” while LGBT-affirming Christians are severely under-represented. [emphasis mine]

Santorum, who spoke Thursday on CNBC, further confused the issue of the interpretation of religious texts by saying

“This is why the Huguenots came to America,” Santorum said, adding the Dutch Reform Church and Catholics to that list.

“They didn’t want the government telling them what to believe and that they couldn’t say things in public, that they had to keep it to themselves,” he said, or be “barred from doing business.”

America was founded by dissenters, that’s true. Some were Catholics, some were Jews who played vital roles in the Revolution,  some were from various Protestant sects.  Let’s not forget the Freemasons! Various interpretations of  God’s word/s, as evidenced by the differences between the Torah, the Catholic Bible, Masonic texts, the various Protestant translations and heck, even the Book of Mormon indicate that there’s a lot of room between the letters. And at one point or another the foundational Christian groups, the Catholics and Protestants, imprisoned, tortured and killed dissenters, including other Christians along with Jews, which is why they all bailed to America and other places. And Mormons were massacred by people calling themselves Christians.

America also has a free market, and if people don’t like how business donates profits,  they don’t have to spend their money there.  Chick-fil-A corporate donates to WinShape, the Chick-fil-A family charitable foundation, which in turn funds anti-LGBT organizations. Some of these organizations have themselves called for boycotts of businesses who beliefs run contrary to what is claimed by specific groups of  Christians to be traditional Christian/Biblical values.

Focus on the Family, which received funding from WinShape, has urged boycotts on businesses and groups which support LGBT rights, including the Disney companies (since lifted), Kraft, United Way Charities and Big Brother/Big Sister, Proctor & Gamble, and most recently, the 2010 Super Bowl. What LGBTQ and their allies are doing by urging a boycott of Chick-fil-hAte is the exact same thing that Family Research Council, which received funding from WinShape, did this year when they promoted boycotting Girl Scout Cookies.

Goose/gander.

LGBTQ and allies are not calling for a boycott because Dan Cathy is a Christian. Or even a mean jerk.  The boycott is because corporate funds from Chick-fil-A are being funneled to his foundation. A percentage of these tax-free funds goes to support organizations which promote anti-equality measures and also call for boycotts of other groups with whom they disagree. If Cathy wants to fund these groups, he should use his own salary, not money that comes from his corporation which is sheltered in a tax-free foundation. We all spend our earned money how we choose; we choose to whom we donate, where we spend our paychecks.

In other words: This is not about “free speech” or “freedom of religion.” Or about how Dan Cathy chooses to spend his corporate salary. It’s about a corporation funding a tax-free organization that in turn donates to groups that support hostility and oppression.

Oh, and if Richard Nixon had to confront LGBTQ issues, he’d repeal DOMA and EDNA–remember, he’s the guy who passed the EPA, OSHA and affirmative action.  So take that! you GOP-presidential wanna-bees Huckabee, Santorum, and Ms. Palin.

As of Monday, 141 advertisers had evacuated the Rush Limbaugh show. The latest to withdraw:

The Wrap reports that Limbaugh’s syndicator, Premier Network, owned by Clear Channel,

withdrew its national advertising spots from his and other talk shows for two weeks on Monday, the same day that Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem called for the Federal Communications Commission to yank the right-wing radio host’s license.

Additionally, Think Progress reported that advertisers have asked that their ads no longer run on Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck or Michael Savage, as advertisers have deemed those shows

offensive.

[H/T: Think Progress and The Wrap]

Teeth gnashing, hostile conservative, homophobic h8ters One Million Moms have dropped their mean-spirited call for retailer JC Penney to fire spokeswomen Ellen DeGeneres because the beloved talk show host is openly gay. One Million Mom spokesperson Monica Cole told One News Now:

Everyone works hard for their money, and they want to spend their money with companies that have the same values as them. And JC Penney stated that Ellen DeGeneres shares the same values that they do. So obviously, it’s not the same as Christians or conservatives, which is unfortunate [because] JC Penney was founded by a Christian man.

One Million Moms were excoriated by none other than bloviating Fox News pundit Bill O’Reilly who called the groups action

Un-American…wrong…a witch hunt

Cole explains that One Million Moms, a subsidiary of the rabid LGBT-loathing American Family Association, now has other fish to fry: They’ve rallied members to call for sponsors to drop their adds on ABC’s new comedy series GCB, and they’ve got their sandy panties in a tightly wadded bunch over this commercial:

The Clorox Company introduces the Liquid-Plumr Double Impact Snake and Gel System in this ad which is full of sexual innuendos as well. They are attempting to use sex to sell a product to unclog drains…The commercial starts off with a woman in a supermarket daydreaming about what this new Liquid-Plumr product has to offer. She says, “Double impact,” twice as she reads the bottle. In her dream she is at home and answers the door to find a sexy plumber… She says come on in and he walks upstairs. The doorbell rings again and it is a second sexy plumber…

Then she wakes up to reality to find the two men in the supermarket. She flirts by giving sexy eyes to the one man in the deli slicing meat and the other in produce holding two melons. These two men are the same as in her dream. It may be coincidence, but the man in produce is standing beside cucumbers with a price sign behind him reading 69 cents.

One wonders what they would have thought about  the Ty-D-Bol ads which featured a woman in her bathroom talking to the little man in the boat.

JC Penney named Ellen DeGeneres as spokesperson. And naturally conservative crackpots One Million Moms (have you ever met anyone who is one of these mythical million moms?), , have launched a whine-athon against the department store chain, urging that people call their local JCP branch and complain.

In what many might seem as one of the signs of the End Times, Bill O’Reilly jumped into the fray and supported JC Penney’s right to choose whomever as a spokesperson, saying that calling for Ellen’s firing is un-American and

wrong…a witchhunt.

Meanwhile Ellen had this to say:

Me, I’ll be calling my local JC Penney’s manager and thanking them for having Ellen as a spokesperson. And maybe I’ll venture inside their doors for the first time since I was like 16, buy some things, and tell the salespeople and cashiers why I chose to spend my dollars there.

On February 18, the informational website Reddit will blackout to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act.  There are calls for Google and Facebook to do the same.

Here’s what you can do to protest SOPA:

Don’t use the Internet on February 18.

If that proves too painful, use it for email only (and maybe 4Chan) Stay off Facebook. Avoid Google searches, online shopping, porn, etc.

Still too hard? How about posting the image above as both your profile photo on Facebook, and as a photo album, along with other anti censorship jpgs?

The Facebook idea is the brainchild of Peter Tassi, a contributor to Forbes.

As they say on teh internets, I find Tassi’s views intriguing and would like to subscribe to his newsletter.

NBC has cancelled The Playboy Club, the sexy melodrama–set in the mid-1960s Chicago and centering around the flagship key club–which was one of the most subversive series on network television. TalkAboutEquality explained why:

The two characters who they try to make us believe are a young attractive married couple happen to be gay. And not only that – they are running a meeting of the Chicago chapter of the Mattachine Society! …

The characters in the Playboy Club (a lesbian Playboy Bunny and a gay man) are in what was referred to as a “lavender marriage.” This was a common occurrence and still exists today when someone feels the need to hide their sexuality by marrying someone of the opposite gender.

Plus, openly gay Sean Maher plays the male half of the lavender marriage, while Amber Heard, who stars as the blond Bunny-in-training with a deadly secret, has been dating a woman for three years:

To say I came out implies that I was once in. Let me be straight about that—no pun intended—I never came out from anywhere. I’ve always lived my life the way I’ve wanted and have been honest with myself and everyone around me. It didn’t really affect anything in my career. I don’t think the producers and directors I’ve worked with care one way or another … I don’t want to be labeled as one thing or another. In the past I’ve had successful relationships with men, and now I’m in this successful relationship with a woman. When it comes to love I am totally open. And I don’t want to be put into a category, as in ‘I’m this’ or ‘I’m that.’ … [Gay marriage] is an important issue, and I’m fighting for the right to get married. For other people.

The Parents’ Television Council targeted advertisers, upset over what they perceived as a mainstreaming of pornography and the objectification of women; and Gloria Steinem, herself once a Playboy Bunny, both called for a boycott.

I watched the show and thought it was a fun morality play, complete with politics, America on the brink of change, murder, secrets, love, intrigue, and great costumes. Plus it showed the strides being made in civil rights for African Americans.

Regarding the Parents Television Council calling the whaambulance: seriously, it was on after 9pm, and as parents, it’s your responsibility to monitor what your kids watch. And you don’t like it, don’t watch it!

Governor Rick Perry’s presidential campaign office did not respond to repeated requests regarding his ownership of stock in Movie Gallery, a video rental company that was boycotted by American Family Association for the pornographic and violent films it sold and rented. Some of the titles included Teens with Tits Vol. 1, Teen Power Vol. 4, Teens Never Say No, Big Tit Brotha Lovers 6, Bisexual Barebacking Vol. 1 which from its title and cover appears to advocate gay and straight naked fornication and sodomy. Big Tit Brotha Lovers 6 offers:

How liberal of Rick Perry to support these things!

American Family Association, Perry’s partner in the recent Jesuspalooza fundamentalist rally in Houston, The Response, crusaded for years against Movie Gallery, urging boycotts beginning in 2000 and rejoicing in the chain’s closure.

When questioned on August 17, 2011 about AFA’s awareness of (family values campaigner, the heterosexual) Rick Perry’s stock in Movie Gallery, on Cindy Roberts in the AFA press office gasped,

Why, I had no idea!

Randy Sharp, AFA’s point person for the Movie Gallery boycott did not return our call by press time.

Rick Perry’s financial records–before he put all his publicly traded stock in a blind trust (established in 1996), making them unavailable to public scrutiny–show he invested between $5,000 to $10,000 in Movie Gallery, according to a 2006 article on Texas blog Burnt Orange, which cites Perry’s personal financial statement for 1995, the last year available.

And in June 2003 Perry signed tort reform law which Burnt Orange says benefited Movie Gallery.

Perry said the bill would “remov[e] the incentive for trial lawyers to file frivolous lawsuits.” Continuing Perry said, “we will save thousands of jobs, generate millions in new revenue to the state”

Until it went out of business in 2010, Movie Gallery , the nation’s second largest video chain, was the largest distributor of pornography in America and the only major retail chain to sell pornography in its flagship stores. The margin of profit on porn allowed the chain to undercut rental prices on mainstream videos, forcing mom-and-pops out of business. In 2003, Movie Gallery faced a $75 million federal lawsuit from an employee claiming racial discrimination. The suit also claimed Movie Gallery illegally distributed pornography across state lines. Additionally two suits

were filed on behalf of smaller competing video stores, which allege that Movie Gallery’s profits from the illegal distribution of porn across state lines allow it to lowball the prices of nonporn movies. One of the other lawsuits is a harassment action filed by former employees who say the porn created a hostile working environment.

Thomas Johnson Jr., a Movie Gallery senior vice president, said the suits were

frivolous

Sound familiar?

Elvis Costello has canceled his two concert dates in Israel June 30 and July 1 to protest the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. On his website, Costello wrote: