Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) used a House floor speech to offer a particularly disturbing reaction to yesterday’s ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. In it, he suggested that marriage is about “the idea of an egg and a sperm coming together” and called the judges “not smart enough to figure out actual plumbing”:

GOHMERT: Nature seemed to like the idea of an egg and a sperm coming together because of pro-creation. Apparently [the judges] thought the sperm had far better use some other way biologically, combining it with something else. But the voters of Iowa came back and said you know what, if you’re not smart enough to figure out actual plumbing…then perhaps we need new judges, and that’s what they did.

Watch a clip:

What the judges actually found was that Proposition 8 had nothing to do with procreation, because it didn’t impact whether same-sex couples in California could raise children.

Salon’s Mark Oppenheimer has published an in-depth profile of marriage equality opponent Maggie Gallagher, co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage who now blogs for the Culture War Victory Fund. The entire profile is worth a read, even if it does downplay how anti-gay her views are, because it paints a picture of a complex woman who does not fit the gay rights opponent mold.

Largely, it seems her efforts against marriage equality have been motivated by having a child out of wedlock in her early 20s, and it is hard not to read the profile without feeling that when she says, “Every child deserves a mother and a father,” what she really means is “My child deserved a father.” This experience fostered her conviction that sex and procreation cannot be separated — as waves of feminism have taught — and led her to fight for her social conservative values. The lives of same-sex couples challenge this core tenet, but the profile reveals that no amount of evidence could ever really shake her of it:

Same-sex marriage advocates offend her hard-won wisdom in two ways. First, they imply that sex and love can in fact be separate from procreation, and no less valid for it. Second, and perhaps more troubling for Gallagher, the increasingly visible column of attentive, loving gay parents — gay male parents in particular — mocks her own romantic choices. It mocks her own son’s good-for-nothing father. There must be something wrong with these gay dads, something contrary to the natural order, such that even when they appear to be splendid dads themselves, their agenda is the cause of poor parenting in others. [...]

There is an obvious problem with this sort of argumentation: it is not really susceptible to evidence. Gallagher is unwilling to make any predictions of what doom will befall families after the legalization of same-sex marriage. She just has faith that marriage, the central institution of good child-rearing, will be weakened if same-sex couples are allowed its prestige and protections. [...]

And even if somehow the evidence showed, conclusively, that same-sex marriage were good for children? Gallagher would still be dissatisfied: “Nothing could make me call a same-sex couple a marriage, because that’s not what I believe a marriage is.”

Obviously, Gallagher’s Catholic faith also informs her views on homosexuality. As Jeremy Hooper points out, she has called homosexuality a sin, an “unfortunate thing,” and a “sexual dysfunction,” in addition to advocating for ex-gay therapy. Given how loving same-sex families so starkly contradict her perception of sexuality, she struggles to even empathize with their experiences:

At one point, breaking from my script of questions, I interrupted her to ask if, despite all of her fears about same-sex marriage, she didn’t find it heartwarming to see those pictures of joyous gay couples in Massachusetts or Iowa or California, crying and hugging as they celebrated their marriages. Before answering, she takes a long pause, the only long pause of our conversation. “Am I happy for them?” she finally says. “That’s a tough question. I like to see people happy. It’s better than seeing people sad. So yes, I am happy for them. But I am sad. But I am not sad because they are happy.”

During a town hall in McKinney, Texas on Wednesday afternoon, Rick Santorum lashed out at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals for striking down Proposition 8, arguing that the judges displaced “intolerance” towards conservatives and labeled proponents of “traditional” marriage as “bigots” when they found the measure unconstitutional. Yesterday’s decision affirmed a lower court ruling and concluded that “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples.”

But Santorum, who did not raise the issue until the very end of the event, argued that the judges had offended religious people. “Where is the tolerance of someone having a belief structure that is based in nature, that is based in reason, that is based in faith,” Santorum asked. “The intolerance of the left, the intolerance of the secular ideology, it is a religion on to itself, it is just not a biblical based religion. And it is the most intolerant — just like we say from the days of the atheists in the Soviet Union.” Watch it:

Ellen DeGeneres confronted the ‘One Million Moms’ boycott of her partnership with J.C. Penney on her daytime talk show yesterday with trademark humor quipping, “normally I don’t like to pay attention to my haters, but this time I’d like to talk about it because my haters are my motivators.” The anti-gay group, part of the American Family Association, is claiming that the store is undermining “traditional families” by selecting DeGeneres as its spokesperson.

On the show, DeGeneres read some of the supportive comments her fans left on the the group’s Facebook page and then explained her values:

I usually don’t talk about stuff like this on my show. But I really want to thank everyone who is supporting me. And if you don’t know me very well, if you’re just watching maybe for the the first time or you’re just getting to know me I want to be clear. And here are the values that I stand for. I stand for honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. To me those are traditional values, that’s what I stand for.

Watch it:

St. Petersburg, Russia’s controversial anti-gay propaganda law passed the second of three readings today in a vote of 31 to 6, as activists protested the measure in front of the parliament and were later detained for seven hours.

During the debate, United Russia deputy Vitaly Milonov accused the “liberal opposition” of seeking to destroy the country and disregarding the well-being of children. He claimed that liberalism has increased the city’s “tolerance for drug use, and, in his opinion, the same can not be allowed in respect of sexual perversion.” The measure would fine groups or individuals who promote homosexuality, pedophilia, or transgenderism to minors. The version approved today includes fines that are 10 times higher than when the bill was first brought before the city’s legislature in November. The text:

“Under the public actions aimed at promoting sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality, transgender minors, in this article should be understood as a purposeful activity, and uncontrolled dissemination of public information, manner, able to harm the health, moral and spiritual development minors, including the form they have misconceptions about the social equivalence of traditional and nontraditional marriage. ” Under the promotion of pedophilia, the bill requires to understand “purposeful activity and uncontrolled dissemination of public information, manner, carried out in order to create a society of distorted notions of conformity to social norms of intimate relationships between adults and minors. “

The anti-gay legislation has been condemned by the international community and is in violation of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention for Human Rights, the Council of Europe Recommendations and other decrees. Lawmakers in Moscow are said to be considering similar bans.