At First, I Thought This Was Satire...

Rosa pushed through the fly door, placed her hat on the rocking chair. She unfurled long, grey stockings and threw them to the laundry.

'You done a lot of good stuff,' said Mr Parks.

Rosa reclined in her rocker. 'Y'know,' she said, 'Marvin, it's time I got on with the rest of my life now that racialism is a figment of history.'

'Okay honey,' said Marvin Parks. He stared through the shuttered window, a pensive expression on his face. 'Just, just I don't love you baby, I love Joshua. I want to marry Joshua.'

'Have you gone out of your frigging mind,' said Rosa. 'You are my man, and don't you forget it. Now, say that again.'

'No Rosa, you are right. The path of married love is long and rocky. I'm going out... to see the chaplain.'

 

not sure about 'unfurled,' or 'Marvin' for that matter. I suppose you unfurl them once you take them off. I should know, really.

 

Definitely not satire. And I don't think we should be surprised.

I don't understand the discomfort people have because other people are discussing something controversial (mods excepted since they have to be involved) any more than I understand why someone else getting married should bother an unrelated party.

That video is easy to understand, however, it's a political ad paid for by an apparently well funded front group.

So let's delve into that.
Their webpage includes a blog of similar right wing single-issue voter meat. This trend began in the Reagan years with a group of The Young Republicans who, led by Karl Rove, went on to make an industry of it. And with the unlimited fund raising ability of issue advocacy PACs, political front groups have exploded along with all the 'advocacy' policy advice institutes with names intended to hide their partisan or ideological roots.

Sourcewatch is the go to place to find the real group behind the front group, but these groups are popping up too fast for SW to keep up.

I found it interesting that on the CatholicVote.org website the following was not only in fine print, it's light grey on a dark grey background. I had to cut and paste it to a text file to read it.

Looking at Sourcewatch you have to do a little detective work to find out who the PAC is really run by. Catholic Citizenship is the same organization, they have the same address, a PO box in Chicago.

That group is backed by the Institute for Liberty.

It's all part of one big Web of far-right wing ideologues:

In my opinion this is clearly a disguised political ad trying to gin up the emotion that somehow letting gays marry is an assault on religious freedom. I have no doubt people who are influenced by this emotional campaign believe it, that someone else's civil rights denies theirs. No doubt it was the same with forced integration.

 

Sometimes I mock the position, but usually just that of people who say snakes are going to rain from the skies if gays marry -- I know no one says that, but you get the point. I like the @GingerCoffee post because it sticks to the bullshit of it all, without alienating individuals, of which there are many. My own opinion is that this is far more effective than the mocking, if it's persuasion that you seek. Just my two cents.

 

All this is basically desperate attempts to, I don't even know, clear their own conscience so they can say, "Hey, see, I wasn't complicit in their sin! I didn't support it!"

What I dislike, most of all, is Christians who assume the world support marriage equality because they're sinful and the only reason must be because they are unwilling to follow God's ways, and Christians assume other Christians supportive of marriage equality as unfaithful followers who are willfully misreading the Bible and are supportive simply to gain the world's approval. The fact that perhaps we support marriage equality because that's genuinely what we believe to be loving and/or what the Bible says is simply... not possible. The fact that perhaps LGBT folks honestly just want equality, something quite good and legitimate, is, well... not possible.

But hey it's possible to say they think gay sex is a sin and still be loving. Because it's only those who think it's a sin who are really genuine...

 

When I see a Catholic labeled ad decrying the priests offered sanctuary by the Catholic church in the Solomon Islands to avoid prosecution for molesting my class mates at school, that's when I'll start to give a shit about what they say.

 

Meh, it's like any other large group of people, there are goods guys and bad guys among them. Take Pope Ratzy, he was a bad guy, in my opinion. But they brought in Pope Francis and other than he's tiptoeing around the birth control issue when the last thing we need on the planet is population growth, he's turned out to be a pretty good guy. When the right wingers are calling the Pope a communist, it's worth a closer look.

 

Seems like a silly thing for these people to be worried about. Maybe some people will think they are terrible people. Reasonable people won't, and those are the only ones I'm really concerned with. You can't define the entirety of a person by a stance on this issue. I support marriage equality. I know religious people who believe it should be between a man and a woman. I don't think they're horrible people; they don't think I'm a horrible person. Really, who acts like that? Not rational human beings.

 

Paid actors or recruits from the Young Republican ranks.

Right wing organization fans the flames of single issue voters. It's a simple formula.

 

Left wingers do the same. I get communications from them all the time. Part of the reason I can't stand the party-first crowd is they tend to he the sort who come up with this crap.

 

Yes but you are stating a false equivalency. The difference is in disguised funding sources and the extent to which front groups are used.

If you are Bernie Sanders, you don't need a front group. If you are the Koch brothers, you do.

 

Left and right each have their own funding sources, of course. Are you suggesting there are no front groups on the left?

 

I am not suggesting I am stating outright, the right wing front groups and hidden money sources by far outnumber in volume and extent, those on the left. To claim 'they both do it' without noting the imbalance is a false equivalency.

 

No, it isn't, and I don't find your statement to the contrary persuasive.

 

It's not my assertion you should be persuaded by, it's the evidence. But it's hard to sift though given one of the right wing tactics is to counter anything thrown at them with the same accusation regardless of the evidence. Thus Fox News tries to portray Media Matters as being as fake as Fox is.

It's rather simple actually, follow the money. If your politics favors the 99% do you need a front group? If it favors the 1% do you?

It does get a bit complicated because Clinton likely doesn't want all her funding sources public. But she doesn't need a fake front group for that. Take the thread topic, the majority of voters are in favor of gay rights. But if you want to gin up outrage because that gets single issue voters out to the polls, you want it to look like spontaneous religious freedom sentiment is brewing.

If it really was brewing as opposed to being fomented, why is some right wing group using the fake CatholicVote front group?

I pointed out and cited evidence this ad was put out by a fake Catholic front group. Feel free to point out some left wing faux outrage fomenting front groups. I'll look at them.

 

It might be best to start a thread of its own about political fundings and fake ads. This wasn't supposed to become a debate in any case.

In any case, we've laughed at this enough. Thread closed.