Tea Party Nation President Judson Phillips has come to Mitt Romney’s defense in his refusal to release his tax returns. In an email to members of the Tennessee-based corporation on Thursday night, Phillips wrote, “There are a lot of records that Americans should want to see from Barack Obama.”

Phillips demanded that Obama release his Occidental College records to make sure the president was not on a foreign scholarship, as well as his medical records, which Phillips suspects contain proof that Obama has smoked crack cocaine and had anal sex in the 90s.

The latter accusation stems from an entirely discredited tale by con-man Larry Sinclair, who wrote a book alleging that he and Obama had sex and smoked crack cocaine together in 1999. Sinclair failed a polygraph test and has been arrested on forgery and theft charges.

Phillips also criticized other Republicans for pressing Romney to release his tax returns:

Is Obama an addict?  Was he an addict in the past? These are all legitimate questions to ask about a man who has his hands on the nuclear trigger. Why is Obama hiding these records and why isn’t the drive by media asking these questions. Why aren’t Republicans demanding the answers to these questions, instead of telling Mitt Romney he needs to play into Obama’s hands by releasing more tax returns?

Phillips has previously called on members to “stand with” Marcus Bachmann’s ex-gay clinics and proudly stated that it would be a “wise idea” to restrict voting rights to property owners.

When Exodus International’s Alan Chambers started telling media outlets that there’s “no cure” for homosexuality, the media in turn described a “rift” in the ex-gay movement. In reality, all the ex-gay groups are still shunning homosexuality — just to different degrees. Still, the infighting has provoked candor from those involved, such as NARTH’s founder Joseph Nicolosi describing the non-pornographic images his clients use to imagine (his word) being attracted to them.

Now the “rift” has led to an unusual development: Charisma magazine published — then unpublished — an essay by Chambers that was actually written in 2004, but that was updated to adjust for anachronisms, such as the number of states that have passed marriage equality. According to Box Turtle Bulletin, Charisma is “looking into it,” but Chambers has now stated (from the beach, literally) that he had nothing to do with the republishing of “an 8-year-old article that I am embarrassed that I ever wrote.” Still, it is worth revisiting the rhetoric Chambers was using just eight years ago to describe homosexuality, with thanks to Right Wing Watch for preserving the post before Charisma pulled it:

Have you noticed that America is becoming a gay nation? The land of the free and the home of the brave is morphing into a homosexual haven… How did this happen? We have been naive targets of the most successful marketing campaign in history. [...]

After much counseling, prayer, obedience, tears, deliverance and daily submission to God’s will, I am free from the seemingly unbreakable bondage of homosexuality. I am living testimony that gays can change. [...]

Because my parents knew homosexuality was anti-creation and anti-God, they instilled in me some of those “old-fashioned” values that are greatly lacking in so many homes today. I’m thankful they did. [...]

Pro-homosexual leaders realized the same truth employed by Hitler and Marx: To advance their agenda they must radically influence the hearts and minds of young people. [...]

If you ask the average kid, even the average Christian kid, how they feel about homosexuality, nine out of 10 will tell you they believe it is genetic, normal and just like heterosexuality. We have allowed an entire generation of young people to be brainwashed with an alternate morality. [...]

Now, perhaps too late, we are waking up from a three-decade sleep to realize that the gay lobby has taken America hostage. I hope we are not so naive that we think their agenda stops with legalizing same-sex marriages. [...]

The moral crisis we face today is the result not of sinners running loose but rather of Christians remaining passive and prayerless. Only if we repent, recommit and remobilize do we have hope for reformation.

Chambers’ rhetoric has no doubt improved, but this essay is an important reminder of what has motivated him to champion harmful and ineffective ex-gay therapy for a living. If he is truly embarrassed that he ever wrote this, perhaps after his vacation he should write a new essay disavowing the claims he made. Exodus’ new approach of only suppressing sexuality instead of changing it is a distinction without a difference. So long as Chambers still sees his own homosexuality as something to “struggle” with, he will unnecessarily encourage others to do the same.

This week, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Center for Transgender Equality, and National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance released a new report analyzing the experience of people who are both transgender and have an Asian/Pacific Islander (API) ethnicity. Using data from the Injustice At Every Turn study of transgender Americans, the study examined the compounding inequities specifically for Asian Americans and uncovers some disconcerting results:

• Of all trans people, the API faces the highest rates of extreme poverty (18 percent), which is six times the general API population (3 percent) and over four time the general U.S. population rate (4 percent).
• HIV devastates this community, with nearly 5 percent reporting they are HIV-positive (compared to 2.64 percent of trans people, .01 percent of API people, and .6 percent of the U.S. population) and an additional 10. 48 percent report not knowing their status.
• Among API trans people, 56 percent have attempted suicide in response to the discrimination they’ve experienced.
• Though individuals with accepting families faced lower rates of discrimination, only 44 percent reported experiencing significant acceptance.

The impact of family acceptance on transgender Asian Americans.

The report also provides data about discrimination in housing and homelessness, the workplace, and healthcare. It can be read in numerous languages. Previous analyses have been released looking at the experiences of black and Latino transgender Americans.

As the only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) says he values religious and personal liberty. So, through that lens, it’s no surprise that he’d call on his fellow Republicans to be more open-minded and accepting of the LGBT community, and of religious minorities, particularly Jews and Muslims.

But Cantor also happens to have a long, anti-gay record. And through that lens, his newly-announced support for broadening the Republican party to be more religiously and LGBT inclusive is surprising, and not quite believable.

Despite the fact that Cantor wrote a book saying the “bigoted and intolerant” Republican Party was a “myth,” in a recent interview with BuzzFeed, Cantor said that he thinks Republicans, as the party of freedom, need to have more “acceptance of diversity”:

“I think an even bigger issue than that, from a cultural standpoint, is the acceptance of diversity. And the acceptance of diversity of opinion,” Cantor said, explaining that while he may have is own personal opinions on morality or religion, “at some point we’re all here as Americans and we all have to be appreciative of other people’s views.”

“And it’s that tolerance, I think that that tolerance is something that enables people to be passionate about their positions. And if you’re for gay marriage, this country allows you to express your views. Some states support it and allow it, and others don’t. But its ok to have that difference of opinion in that,” he said.

When asked if the Republican Party specifically needs to do a better job of accepting opinions on gay marriage and other cultural issues that do not align with party orthodoxy, Cantor said “absolutely.”

Cantor’s support for a more inclusive Republican party is heartening, if it’s real. But so far, the Representative has no record to back that up.

He has not supported any major legislation that would have made the lives of gay people in any way less challenging: He voted against the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, he voted not to protect LGBT employees from discrimination in the office, and he voted against extending hate crimes protections to include LGBT victims.

Two pieces of legislation Cantor did support: Defunding needle exchange programs that reduce the spread of HIV and adding an amendment to the constitution banning same-sex marriage.

Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA)

Congressman Joe Pitts (R-PA) doesn’t believe there is anything wrong with the anti-gay comments made by Chick-fil-A president and COO Dan Cathy, but judging from his screed defending the fast food chain, he hasn’t even read them. Writing at The Cloakroom, the blog run by the the Family Research Council, Pitts argues that there’s nothing discriminatory about Chick-fil-A, but he cited Cathy’s wrong remarks:

So what were these inflammatory comments?

“We are very much supportive of the family—the biblical definition of the family unit,” shared Mr. Cathy from his personal beliefs on marriage. “We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that.”

Does that sound discriminatory to you? [...]

I know that Chick-fil-A is from the south, so maybe the liberal activists couldn’t parse the accent, but that does not sound like a discriminating or hateful organization to me.

What was actually telling about the Baptist Press interview Pitts cites was Cathy’s admission that the company was “guilty as charged” for opposing same-sex marriage. But it was Cathy’s other recent interview that truly sparked this week’s backlash. That was the radio interview in which Cathy said that he “prays God’s mercy” on the “prideful, arrogant” marriage equality advocates who have the “audacity” to “invite God’s judgment on our nation” by shaking their fists at him. Yes, that does sound discriminatory. (Pitts did manage to see Chick-fil-A’s contradictory backtracking comments yesterday, which he made sure to give unflinching credit for.)

Both Pitts and FRC’s Tony Perkins also neglected to mention the millions of dollars the company gives to anti-gay groups every year (like FRC), with Perkins suggesting that the only anti-gay giving Chick-fil-A has ever done was when it “donated lunches to a healthy marriage seminar last year.”

Pitts’ solidarity with Chick-fil-A would likely be unfazed by Cathy’s other comments. He was a close runner-up for ThinkProgress’ list of the most anti-gay members of Congress for the multiple anti-gay bills he has sponsored, including a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and a bill to prevent same-sex marriages on military bases. He called progress activists “cruel” for “deliberately misleading others” into boycotting Chick-fil-A, but there’s nothing crueler than the misleading lawmaker who openly cheers for discrimination.