"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Sunday, March 25, 2018

Today in Disgusting People

None other than the perennial winner of the Tony Perkins Award for serial lying, Tony Perkins himself:

President Trump is keeping his pledge to end the Obama era of social experimentation in our nation’s military. In the fall of 2016, I co-moderated a veterans townhall meeting where candidate Donald Trump was asked how he would handle social engineering and political correctness being forced on the military.

He responded saying, ‘We are going to get away from political correctness.’ The revised personnel policy announced today does exactly that – it moves the military away from political correctness and puts the focus on the military’s mission: preparing to fight and win wars.

President Trump is moving the military away from the crippling policies of the Obama era that left our nation’s defenses at its lowest levels of readiness since before WWII. He recognizes that the last thing we should be doing is diverting tax payer dollars from mission-critical training to funding for controversial gender reassignment surgeries and transgender sensitivity training for service members. The president is keeping his promises and advancing policies essential to keeping our military strong and our country safe.

Let's parse this a little bit:

"Social experimentation": In Perkins' view, treating everyone equally is "social experimentation." I'm sure he really, really, really hates the 14th Amendment.

"Political correctness": In "Christian"-speak, "politically correct" is code for "socially acceptable," which somehow is a bad thing.

"Left our nation's defenses at its [sic] lowest levels. . . ": Bullshit.

"Diverting taxpayer dollars": The cost of the few surgeries and other medical treatments that will be required by trans servicemembers is miniscule. Perhaps rather than pouring money into the pockets of arms manufacturers and Betsy DeVos' brother, Erik Prince (who I understand wants to privatize the Secret Service), we could start by paying our soldiers and sailors a living wage. And provide adequate service to veterans. But I'm sure this kind of chest-pounding makes Perkins feel real butch.

"Our country safe": Who's going to keep our country safe from the NRA, or anti-Americans like as Tony Perkins? (And if you think I'm off-base here, think about it: he and his organization are strongly against everything this country believes in, starting with equal treatment under the law.)

Someone in the comments to this thread raised the likelihood that evangelicals didn't vote for Trump, but for Pence, under the assumption that Trump wouldn't last a full term. He could be right, except that evangelicals are really all about money and power to begin with, and Trump is a willing tool.


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