Series: Daily Douche-Bag

I was thinking about starting this new series, as yesterday seemed to bubble to the surface a rash of people and organizations deserving of the “douche” designation. So the morning started with me thinking about who to feature first, and then a few items down in my Facebook stream, what do I find but an article about Malcom “Mac” Butner the appointed chairman of the Rowan County Housing Authority, and Republican extraordinaire. It seems Mac has been busy on his Facebook wall lately. I’d say it makes him Republican Presidential material.

For the life of me, I can’t understand this complete aversion to science that is so de rigueur with Republicans, but they sure are riding it for all it’s worth. Most recently we have Kentucky State Senator Brandon Smith denying global warming by claiming that the Earth and Mars have the same temperature. It will come as no surprise when you learn that the good Senator owns a coal company.

Well, you had to know it wouldn’t take long for Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas, naturally) to earn our Daily Douche award. (I can imagine Louie becoming the reigning champion.) So Louie, ever obsessed with illegal aliens, now has a solution for the child refugees fleeing the drug wars in their Central American home countries. Louie thinks we should invade Mexico just like John Pershing did in pursuing Pancho Villa (so successfully).

Perhaps nothing is more troubling to me at this time in my life than the insertion of religion into politics. Mega-Church pastors become political pundits, and it never comes to a good end. Thomas Jefferson himself wrote in 1813, “History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.” Robert Jeffres suddenly decides he’s a border security expert, and that whole thing about “suffer the children to come unto me,” well, that’s just for white protestant children. So, meet Robert Jeffress, foul Pharisee and our Douche of the Day.

As we all know, there is a refugee problem on our southern border as nearly 50,000 children (many unaccompanied) are making the dangerous trek to try to escape grinding poverty and violence in their home countries for a better life. But the country which gave our ancestors their chance at a better life for us, who took in the tired and the poor of the world, is no longer open for business. The white “Christians” have theirs now, so the doors are closed, and that’s why the anti-children Christians get today’s Douche Award.

Well, Tony Perkins of the SPLC designated hate group, Family Research Council, just can’t seem to say three words without two of them being lies. And naturally, with all the news lately about marriage equality, he’s been saying lots of words. As usual, anyone business owner who wants to discriminate against LGBT people in violation of local non-discrimination laws is a hero to Tony, but he knows that being honest about it wouldn’t get him anywhere, so he lies.

We’re going to give Tony Perkins our Daily Douche award two days in a row. On Sunday, he appeared on the usually friendly Faux News Sunday to discuss the evils of marriage equality. Unfortunately, Ms. Perkins brought her pen knife intellect to a gun fight with a constitutional law heavy weight Ted Olson, a Republican lawyer and gay marriage advocate,, and hilarity ensues.

Conservative Professor Warren Throckmorton tips us to a back-end method to get dominionist views into the schools. David Whitney, receiving today’s Daily Douche award, is head of the “Institute On The Constitution (IOTC),” and is working to form, in schools across the country, deceptively named “American Clubs.” You should know that Whitney teaches that only born again Christians should be citizens, and that civil government should worship God according to their dominionist ideas.

We LGBT people have lots of power. Have you all noticed that? We can bring about fires, floods, hurricanes, and even, according to Jerry Falwell, the 9/11 terrorist attacks. We, LGBT people, have managed to turn Uhmerika into a dictatorship ruled by a bunch of people in black robes. Well, not it turns out, we are now able to bring about Ebola. At least that’s what Ron Baity of the Berean Baptist Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Recently, a small church in Michigan, Cassopolis United Methodist, had their church Pastor, Rev. Benjamin Hutchison, taken away from them. Was it because of poor attendance, hardly, he had quadrupled the membership since being appointed. He saved the church from dying according to many members. His crime, he was in a long-term committed relationship with another man. Just after that, nearly 30 United Methodist pastors joined in a celebrating a wedding ceremony for Rev. Hutchison and his husband, and now, to further hammer home her distaste for love, Bishop Deborah Lieder Kiesey has picked out nine of them for prosecution under church law. Here’s my letter to Bishop Kiesey:

Donald Trump has basically been caught in a lie about his personal convictions. We start with him making a big thing in an interview about how religious he is, about how much he loves the Bible, about how he really likes both Testaments equally, and how he reads it all the time. I’d say, then the wheels come off, but they were never even actually on.