During an appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press Sunday morning, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) admitted that a Republican presidential candidate who supports marriage equality is “inevitable” and that such a candidate would receive widespread support from across the political spectrum.

While Flake’s statement is reflective of rapidly shifting U.S. attitudes towards support for LGBT Americans — and come at the end of watershed week when the Supreme Court took up cases regarding the constitutionality of anti-gay laws Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act — it appears that cultural tide hasn’t quite swept up Flake with it yet, as the senator stood by his narrow interpretation of “traditional marriage” between one man and one woman:

CHUCK TODD (HOST): Let me ask you on gay marriage. Could you support a Republican presidential candidate some day who supported same-sex marriage?

FLAKE: Oh, I think that’s inevitable. There will be one and he will receive bipartisan support — or she will. So I think that yes, the answer is yes.

TODD: And where are you on this issue, you say it’s inevitable. Are you — Lisa Murkowski, a Republican colleague of yours called it evolving on the issue. Are you evolving to use her words on this issue?

FLAKE: I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman I still hold to the traditional definition of marriage.

TODD: Is there something that you — are you thinking about it? Can you imagine changing your position before you left the U.S. Senate?

FLAKE: I can’t. I tell you, in the past I’ve supported repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I’ve supported the [The Employment] Nondiscrimination Act as well, but I hold to the traditional definition of marriage.

Flake and other politicians opposing marriage equality find themselves on the wrong side of history and, increasingly, the opinion of the American public. Support for marriage equality has skyrocketed in recent years, and the latest election cycle saw the election of the first openly-gay U.S. senator, as well as the first openly bisexual U.S. congresswoman.

Still, a Republican nominee who supports marriage equality would face significant hurdles from members of their own party, as social conservatives have threatened to revolt if the GOP abandons its hardline views on LGBT rights and marriage equality. In fact, during a separate appearance on Fox News Sunday, former RNC chair Ed Gillespie hinted that the growing support for marriage equality could force Republicans to drop their call for a federal amendment against marriage equality from their platform.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan told ABC’s This Week on Sunday that gay people are entitled to “friendship” but not a long-last romantic relationship in the eyes of the Catholic Church.

Appearing on the program following oral arguments at the Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of two laws targeting gay and lesbian couples, Dolan said that the Church should treat same-sex couples with love, while reminding them that “sexual love…is intended only for a man and a woman”:

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS (HOST): And you know, especially this week – because it’s been at the top of the news – for many gay and lesbian Americans –– gay and lesbian Catholics, they feel unwelcome –– in the Church. And what do you say as a minister, as a pastor – to a gay couple that comes to you and say, “We love God. We love the Church. But we also love each other, and we –– want to raise a family in faith. What do you say to them?

DOLAN: Well, the first thing I’d say to them is, “I love you, too. And God loves you. And you are made in God’s image and likeness. And – and we – we want your happiness. But – and you’re entitled to friendship.” But we also know that God has told us that the way to happiness, that – especially when it comes to sexual love – that is intended only for a man and woman in marriage, where children can come about naturally. We gotta be – we gotta do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people. And I admit, we haven’t been too good at that.

Dolan has been vocal in his opposition to marriage equality, repeatedly condemning the rights of same-sex couples under the guise of love and support for the gay community.

After lobbying against New York’s marriage equality law, Dolan prohibited by decree any Church personnel or property from being utilized for same-sex marriage ceremonies under penalty of “canonical sanctions,” calling the state’s law “irreconcilable with the nature and the definition of marriage as established by Divine law.” He has also compared the “threat” posed to marriage by gays and lesbians to that of polygamy, adultery, forced marriage, communist dictatorships, and incest.

Despite his rhetoric, a majority of New York Catholics supported the marriage equality bill months before it came to a vote and still do.

Iowa’s Christian conservative group The FAMiLY Leader is once again objecting to the Governor’s Conference on LGBTQ Youth, a yearly opportunity for students, teachers, and families across the state of Iowa to learn how to better protect LGBT young people from bullying. In the past, the group’s head Bob Vander Plaats has accused the conference of discriminating against straight students, even though allies are welcome.

At a press conference Thursday, The FAMiLY Leader and representatives from other groups (including hate group Concerned Women for America) objected to the conference for compromising the Bible’s teaching on homosexuality and using taxpayer funding in the process. Here’s FL’s Chuck Hurley admonishing LGBT advocates:

HURLEY: This Papa Bear is here to say, regarding the Governor’s Conference, stop coming after my kids and other people’s kids with evil propaganda. Stop twisting the Bible and stop using our tax dollars to do it. [...]

We’re here today to warn parents and to warn lawmakers and other who are responsible for protecting those children, and to urge them to protect appropriate action to protect those children, such as not letting them go to this conference next week, such as considering home and private education if their schools are teaching the things this conference is advocating — that Iowa school districts teach — and above all, teaching our children the truth about the Bible, sexuality, and bullying.

Watch the full press conference (Part 2 here):

This year, the group is specifically targeting Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC) for hosting the conference. A conservative student group, Young Americans for Freedom, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to confirm that the university was spending money to help fund the conference. Student Jake Dagel explained, “Diversity is not when you use my tuition money or our tax dollars to fund a conference that bullies people for their Christian or conservative beliefs.”

Sixteen lawmakers have threatened to cut DMACC’s funding for promoting groups “who pervert the Bible, teach our youth to engage in dangerous behavior, and target individuals like Jan Mickelson for hatred and bullying.” Mickelson is a conservative radio host in Iowa that regularly attacks LGBT equality on his show.

Unsurprisingly, none of the conservative religious leaders expressed any concern for the severe consequences LGBT youth experience when they are bullied or shamed by their community, including attempting suicide, homelessness, academic performance, and school truancy.

Dr. Ben Carson, the Republican Party’s favorite brain surgeon-turned-conservative flamethrower, appeared on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports on Friday to do damage control after his hate-filled rhetoric equating same-sex marriage to pedophilia and bestiality swept across the internet earlier this week.

He fell short of issuing an apology for his remarks, which were made on Tuesday during an interview on Fox News. “I think in terms of what was said on Sean Hannity’s show, that was taken completely out of context and completely misunderstood in terms of what I was trying to say,” he explained.

But Carson’s attempt to clarify his remarks did nothing to untangle his own convoluted logic. Quite the opposite, in fact:

CARSON: As a Christian, I have a duty to love all people — and that includes people who have other sexual orientations — and I certainly do, and never had any intention of offending anyone. What I was basically saying — and if anyone was offended I apologize to you — but what I was basically saying is there is no group…I wasn’t equating those things, I don’t think they are equal. If you asked me for an apple and I gave you an orange, you would say ‘well that’s not an orange.’ And then I’d say well there’s a banana…’that’s not an apple either.’ And there’s a peach…’that’s not an apple either.’ But it doesn’t mean that I’m equating the banana and the orange and the peach. In the same way, I’m not equating those things.

Watch it:

It’s unclear if Carson’s fruit analogy will do anything to beat back the growing criticism he is facing from his colleagues at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Medicine. A group of medical students from the graduating class of 2013 began circulating a petition urging the university to withdraw its invitation from Carson, who is scheduled to deliver the keynote address during the ceremony this spring. Mitchell addressed the petition during her interview, asking Carson if he was prepared to step down from the honorary role. “Absolutely,” he said. I would say that this is their day, and the last thing I would want to do is rain on their parade.”

Faculty members have voiced displeasure, disappointment and disgust at their colleague during interviews with Media Matters yesterday:

“I don’t think most people at Hopkins think what he says on this subject matter,” Professor Todd Shepard, co-director of the university’s Program for the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, said in a statement to Media Matters. “They make him look nasty, petty, and ill-informed. It doesn’t tell us anything about his amazing abilities as a surgeon. It does remind us, however, that those abilities do not mean we should listen to what he says in any other domain.”

Leaders from the school’s Gertrude Stein Society — a coalition of students, faculty, staff and alumni who advance LGBT issues within the medical schools of JHU — also took an opportunity to forcefully denounce Carson’s rhetoric as “hurtful” and “extremely discouraging.”

Marriage is somehow keeping this man committed to his fun-loving wife so he doesn't get some young girl pregnant.

During Tuesday’s oral arguments about Proposition 8, Justice Elena Kagan challenged attorney Charles Cooper about his claims that procreation is the purpose of marriage. She inquired whether a couple over the age of 55 should be allowed to marry since they could no longer produce a child. Cooper attempted to counter with the absurd argument from his reply brief that men are still fertile and that prevents them from cheating with younger women. Since he didn’t get to fully articulate his point, the Family Research Council’s Peter Sprigg is happy to help him out:

Perhaps Cooper was wary of appearing sexist to Justice Kagan if he stated the truth more bluntly—55-year-old women are virtually always infertile, but 55-year-old men are not. As frustrating as it may be to some feminists, there are some sex differences which cannot be overcome. (Justice Antonin Scalia tried to save Cooper with a joke about Strom Thurmond, the late U.S. Senator who continued to father children well into his 70’s, but it seemed to go over the audience’s heads.)

Society’s interest in promoting “responsible procreation”—the term most commonly used in defending marriage as the union of a man and a woman—involves not just promoting procreation itself, and promoting it in a responsible context (i.e., where the mother and father who make a child are both committed to the child and to each other through marriage). “Responsible procreation” also implies an effort to discourage irresponsible procreation—a quite plausible example of which might be a 55-year-old man going around impregnating fertile women (presumably younger than himself) who are not his wife.

Sprigg does not share Cooper’s concern about appearing sexist. Apparently, the fertility of the marriage is only defined by whether the man can still produce sperm. It also doesn’t seem to matter if women cheat or if men cheat with older women, because cheating only seems to be a problem if it results in “irresponsible procreation.” It’s unclear what the stakes are if the man is sterile, and presumably a vasectomy would immediately nullify a marriage license.

Obviously this is all nonsense, but this is the corner conservatives have painted themselves into in an attempt to avoid sounding like they’re anti-gay. By turning against heterosexuals instead, they prove that these arguments have nothing to do with same-sex marriage. Whether marriage is about children, monogamy, or simply reinforcing sexist gender norms, none of these points explains why same-sex couples shouldn’t have equal access to it.

Anti-gay Rep. Steve King (R-IA) published a new op-ed in the National Review thursday trying to explain that “marriage is illegal without a license” and that restrictions against same-sex couples simply reflect the “government’s interest in marriage.” Here is how King tried to make his case against marriage equality, even though same-sex couples are free to get marriage licenses in his home state of Iowa:

Marriage is the stable platform from which families are launched. Government surely has a compelling interest in ensuring the stability of that platform, and even subsidizing the practice with tax incentives. Moreover, society has an interest in promoting procreation amongst married adults. Same-sex marriage does not present the possibility of natural procreation nor has same-sex parenting endured and thrived for millennia of human experience.

In our legal system, qualifications for licenses have long-standing foundation, and those qualifications are not considered discriminatory. They are considered to be necessary to pursue the interest of the public. In the case of marriage, those interests are all about children.

You do not need a license to begin a new friendship, start shopping at a new grocery store or pharmacy, or even begin a new dating relationship. Likewise, one does not need a court order to terminate any of those relationships. This fact indicates that there is something unique about marriage that necessitates government involvement. Insisting upon heterosexual marriage is therefore not discriminatory, nor does it constitute the government telling anyone whom to love. The argument for upholding the Defense of Marriage Act is rooted in the way marriage is historically treated by state laws. To understand why government is involved in marriage in the first place is to understand why government cannot validate same-sex marriage.

King seems to have little understanding of what it means to be gay or why the LGBT community is fighting for equality under the law. Despite the fact there might not have been same-sex parenting for “millenia of human experience,” there most certainly is same-sex parenting now, including about 19 percent of same-sex couples in Iowa.

If anything, by spelling out the simple factors that explain why the government has an interest in recognizing marriage, King undercuts his own argument. If marriage is about children and same-sex couples are raising children, then it’s blatantly discriminatory to not allow them to receive marriage licenses. Perhaps if King is so interested in “the way marriage is historically treated by state laws,” he should pay attention to how his own state has treated marriage for the past four years.

On Thursday night’s The Daily Show, Jon Stewart took the Supreme Court to task for the Justices’ ambivalence about the discriminatory intent behind the passage of the Defense of Marriage Act, highlighting anti-gay testimony from the House floor in 1996. He also called out Justice Scalia’s claim that there is “considerable disagreement among sociologists,” pointing out that there is actually consensus among medical professionals, “whereas on the opposing side, there’s some fucking guy who put out a thoroughly discredited study, or as that’s known on the right, ‘conclusive proof.’”

Stewart had little patience for Justice Alito’s caution that same-sex marriage is “newer than cell phones or the Internet”:

STEWART: We want you to step in and render a decision based on whether it’s right, and fair, and just under the Constitution — having nothing to do with its “newness” and what you think might happen, which, by the way, what do you think might happen? That they’ll discover that letting two ladies get married is going to rip open a hole in the ozone layer? I got news for you, gay marriage will definitely cause less national harm than cell phones or the Internet.

Here’s one thing I’m pretty sure you don’t have to do: you don’t have to beta-test rights. “Black people have only been here 50 years, I mean, let’s see how the Netherlands does with them before we lift the barriers.”

Watch it:

Dave Agema and his wife, Barb

Dave Agema is a member of the Republican National Committee, but 21 Michigan Republicans are calling on him to step down after he posted some virulently anti-gay remarks on Facebook. His original post Wednesday was an excerpt from an anti-gay screed by Frank Joseph, M.D. that claims students are being “indoctrinated that homosexuality is just another normal alternative lifestyle.” After being called out, Agema stood firm, defending his posting of Joseph’s remarks in an email:

His findings and others confirm its an unhealthy lifestyle. The gay activists portray themselves as innocent victims ; however, we who believe in traditional, time tested values are being bullied. Because I disagree with their views, I have had threats to me and my family- thats hate! This is not about hate but a lifestyle that is against 230 years of American history and filled with medical, psychological, legal and costs reasons to oppose it. If you truly loved someone, you would want them to know their lifestyle usually leads to early death. It’s about common sense. It’s about maintaining the family and its importance to the well being of the children and this nation.

Agema added that, though he has deleted the original post, he has no intention of stepping down or backing down:

I will not back down. I will dig in and fight even harder to defend our conservative values from these attacks by liberals in the media, and even in our own party.

In 2011, Agema sponsored a bill to prohibit public employers from providing domestic partner benefits to the same-sex partners of employees. Faculty at the University of Michigan threatened to take their expertise to another state if it passed, but when Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed it into law, he promised that it would not impact higher education institutions.

Many of the Republicans who have rebuked Agema have maintained that the party opposes same-sex marriage, but they oppose his brand of condemnation of gay people. This is particularly ill-timed as the GOP is attempting to sugarcoat the public’s perception of its opposition to LGBT equality.

Dr. Ben Carson, the latest apple of the Tea Party’s eye, made yet another appearance on the friendly airwaves of Fox News on Tuesday to gripe about the Obama administration, denounce the liberal media, and equate gay couples with pedophiles and proponents of bestiality.

Carson, who stumbled onto the national stage and into the Republican Party’s heart almost two months ago after he gave a speech in front of President Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast in which he called for a regressive tax system that punishes the poorest Americans, was a guest on Sean Hannity’s show yesterday, and ended the interview on the most hateful of notes:

CARSON: My thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman, it’s a well-established uh, fundamental pillar of society. No group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA [the North American Man/Boy Love Association], be they people who believe in beastiality, it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition. So it’s not something that’s against gays, it’s against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of pillars of society. It has signifcant ramifications.

The segment ended shorty afterward, leaving Hannity with no time to clarify whether Carson, himself a black man, would have also been opposed to the 1967 Supreme Court ruling in Loving v. Virginia, a decision that redefined the same “fundamental pillar of society” as something that could not be inhibited by race.

Carson’s comments also puts him at odds with every major medical association in the country. Both the American Medical Association’s code of conduct and the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic Statistical Manual contain strong and unambiguous language on homosexuality as neither a medical nor psychological condition but rather a perfectly healthy and biologically-rooted lifestyle, and remain critical of anyone who suggests otherwise.

He is also far from the first Republican to equate homosexuality to things like pedophilia. Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, state lawmakers and conservatives everywhere have all sought to paint the LGBT community and pedophiles with the same brush, even as their own party is pulled in the direction of equality.

Conservatives have long claimed that they’re somehow the victim of persecution when they’re called bigots for opposing same-sex marriage, like when Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) said at CPAC, “Just because I believe states should have the right to define marriage in a traditional way does not make me a bigot.” But conservatives are adding a novel layer to this trite argument, claiming they actually very much support gay people.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who recently said that gay couples can never achieve the same intimacy as straight couples, opened Tuesday’s anti-gay Marriage March rally on the National Mall with the following plea:

CORDILEONE:  I want to begin with a word to those who disagree with us on this issue and may be watching us right now: we love you, we are your neighbors, and we want to be your friends, and we want you to be happy.

Please understand that we don’t hate you, and that we are not motivated by animus or bigotry; it is not our intention to offend anyone, and if we have, I apologize; please try to listen to us fairly, and calmly, and try to understand us and our position, as we will try to do the same for you.

The conservative Media Research Center tried to make the same case with this video from the National Organization for Marriage’s rally, full of anti-equality conservatives proclaiming their love for gay people:

Similarly, inside the Supreme Court, those defending Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) tried to downplay the notion that either measure targeted gays and lesbians. These post-hoc arguments didn’t seem to persuade Justice Elena Kagan, who highlighted a 1996 House report showing Congress passed DOMA to express “moral disapproval of homosexuality.”

Indeed, as the expression goes, “you can’t polish a turd,” and despite the Republican Party’s best intentions to downplay or sugarcoat how offensive its positions against LGBT equality are, that doesn’t actually change that they’re still offensive. Unpacking conservatives’ latest talking points quickly reveals the judgment — and thus prejudice — underlying their claims.

Read more

The coalition that advocated last year for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in Minnesota has continued to fight as legislators now consider a marriage equality bill. The so-called “Minnesota for Marriage” coalition is urging pastors to use their sermon on April 7 to take a stand against same-sex marriage, and the provided materials — a “Sermon starter,” accompanying PowerPoint presentation, and bulletin insert — are gratuitously anti-gay. Notably, one passage not only condemns gay people as having a chosen behavior, but then compares the LGBT movement to Nazis for peddling untruths:

Third, there is a definitive problem. Homosexuals claim: “We were born this way; it is in our genes; God made us gay.” They cite old “gay gene” studies predominantly conducted by researchers who are homosexuals; studies that have been repudiated by credible research. Yet these same biased and discredited studies have been widely publicized by the liberal media as true and factual. They essentially practice Joseph Goebel’s Nazi philosophy of propaganda, which is basically this: Tell a lie long enough and loud enough and eventually most mindless Americans will believe it.

Hear this: God did not make anyone homosexual. The Bible declares that the definitive problem is ours: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way…” (Isaiah 53:6). Every one of us has a sin nature that twists and perverts God-given desires not only toward homosexuality, but toward all sorts of sin, including sexual sins such as promiscuity, adultery, pedophilia, etc. Our sinful nature is the root of all manner of evil, but with God’s help, we can choose not to give into those evil desires.

Dr. James Dobson says: “I am certain that homosexuality does not result from irresistible genetic influences, as some would have us believe.” Scientifically speaking, there is no gay gene. Listen, I do not believe that God would not place in your genetic code something that would damn your immortal soul. Again, it is our sin nature and its perverted and twisted desires that people give into, just as the Bible says in Rom. 1:24-27. That’s the definitive problem.

To sum up: LGBT activists use Nazi propaganda techniques, homosexuality is comparable to promiscuity, adultery, and pedophilia, and gays are sinners who have “perverted and twisted desires.”

The books this sermon claims have been “repudiated” were published in the early 1990s, and generally aren’t cited anywhere by anybody. The American Psychological Association explains that sexual orientation does have a biological component, and the latest research suggests that sexual orientation is determined by epigenetics — this means the “environmental factors” impacting gene presentation take place in the womb and have little to do with upbringing.

The clear takeaway is that Minnesota for Marriage has little interest in preserving “tradition” or “responsible procreation”; theirs is a mission of hateful condemnation.

The Daily Show and The Colbert Report returned from hiatus this week, and both Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have noted that many significant voices are speaking out for same-sex marriage.

On Wednesday night, Stewart highlighted the many Democratic Senators who have come out for same-sex marriage over the past week, calling it “a historic shift in public opinion and the most boring gay pride parade float ever.” Stewart then juxtaposed this with Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) comments that he’s not a bigot:

STEWART: Believing that the definition of marriage should be left to the states doesn’t make you a bigot, but believing that those states should define that to be “traditional marriage”… that does actually make you a bigot.

Watch it:

Meanwhile, Colbert was “shaken to the core” by Bill O’Reilly’s admission that he supports same-sex marriage. He highlighted Papa Bear O’Reilly’s past statements comparing same-sex to “plural marriage,” and marriage to turtles, ducks, and goats, demonstrating how a more enlightened understanding of marriage equality erases such silly fears.

Watch it:

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK)

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) said this week that her views on same-sex marriage are “evolving”:

MURKOWSKI: The term ‘evolving view’ has been perhaps overused, but I think it is an appropriate term for me to use… I think you are seeing a change in attitude, change in tolerance, I guess, and an acceptance that what marriage should truly be about is a lasting, loving, committed relationship with respect to the individual… It may be that Alaska will come to revisit its position on gay marriage, and as a policy maker I am certainly reviewing that very closely.

Listen to it (via Alaska Public Radio):

Indeed, the term “evolving” has been used by the likes of President Obama and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), both of whom eventually came out for full marriage equality. Similarly, Alaska’s other Senator, Mark Begich (D), endorsed same-sex marriage earlier this week.

Murkowski has a mixed voting record on LGBT issues. In 2004, she voted in support of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would have added a ban on same-sex marriage to the U.S. Constitution, but in 2010, she voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the ban on gay, lesbian, and bisexual military servicemembers.