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.

Social conservative heavyweight James Dobson dedicated his radio show this morning to discussing Friday’s shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, and like Mike Huckabee and Bryan Fischer, concluded the shooting was caused by Americans “turning our back on God.” Specifically, he believes there are consequences to women getting abortions and marriage equality:

DOBSON: Our country really does seem in complete disarray. I’m not talking politically, I’m not talking about the result of the November sixth election;  I am saying that something has gone wrong in America and that we have turned our back on God.

I mean millions of people have decided that God doesn’t exist, or he’s irrelevant to me and we have killed fifty-four million babies and the institution of marriage is right on the verge of a complete redefinition.  Believe me, that is going to have consequences too.

And a lot of these things are happening around us, and somebody is going to get mad at me for saying what I am about to say right now, but I am going to give you my honest opinion: I think we have turned our back on the Scripture and on God Almighty and I think he has allowed judgment to fall upon us.  I think that’s what’s going on.

Listen to it, via RightWingWatch:

It’s not surprising that these conservatives are championing their own self-fulfilling prophesies. They are clinging to values that are becoming increasingly obsolete, so in order to convince themselves that those points of view still have relevance, they attach meaning to every disaster that occurs, be it a shooting or a hurricane. As Hemant Mehta has pointed out, religious venues are no safer from such tragedies, so the exception Huckabee, Fischer, Dobson, and others anoint for themselves is a mere fabrication of superiority.

The National Organization for Marriage has launched a last-minute barrage of robocalls to Maine, Maryland, and Washington State (which will vote Tuesday on whether to enact marraige equality) and presidential swing-states Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The calls, in both English and Spanish, feature noted anti-equality activists Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and Fox News Channel host and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR).

More ironic is the participation of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who in his RNC convention speech suggested that this be an election in which we choose “more freedom instead of more government.” Rubio has previously boasted the endorsement of anti-gay hate groups like the Family Research Council. NOM said, with partner groups, it will spend $500,000 on the calls, aimed at encouraging voters to oppose pro-equality candidates and ballot initiatives.

Pastor Leonard Cohen protesting in Boston, March 11, 2004.

President Obama’s endorsement of marriage equality this week is a significant milestone in the inevitable arc toward its universality. Though conservatives have expressed outrage, their comments also reflect how much public opinion has shifted in even the last decade.

Consider the four comparisons below. In the left column is how various social conservative spokespeople responded in November, 2003 when the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage. In the right-hand column, see how they (or their successors) responded this week to Obama’s announcement:

The players may not have changed much, but the rules have. There are certainly some conservatives whose anti-gay screeds continue to be explosive, but in general, it seems that changing public opinion has forced them to tame their rhetoric. Less than a decade ago, marriage equality threatened the survival of society, but now it’s just “disappointing” and “a mistake.” It won’t be long before even these timid responses alienate voters who understand that marriage equality is good for communities, good for families, and good for everybody everywhere.

ThinkProgress filed this report from the Western Conservative Summit in Denver, CO.

For weeks, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and her husband Marcus have been dogged by accusations that their Minnesota clinics, Bachmann & Associates, engage in ex-gay therapy to “convert” homosexuals into heterosexuals. This revelation comes on the heels of audio that emerged where Marcus Bachmann is caught explaining that gays are “barbarians” who need to be “educated” and “disciplined.”

Two weeks ago, gay activists used the controversy to stage a humorous protest where a dozen people dressed up as barbarians and walked into Bachmann & Associates, asking for Marcus to come “discipline” them. Watch the video here:

One man did not see the humor in the matter: Focus on the Family founder James Dobson.

ThinkProgress spoke with Dobson this weekend at the Western Conservative Summit in Denver and tried to get his reaction to the controversy, but Dobson interjected. Instead, he instructed that what we ought to be asking about is the “attack on Dr. Bachmann by gay activists.” Dobson went on to say that the “thirty homosexual activists” actually “harassed” Marcus and “scared his patients to death”:

KEYES: Obviously we saw in the news in the last week or two, Michele Bachmann and her husband’s clinic, they’re business that they run, is being accused of practicing homosexual reparative therapy. They obviously were afraid to really answer that.

DOBSON: Your question really should deal with the attack on Dr. Bachmann by gay activists. Thirty homosexual activists put on the garb of cavemen and came into his clinic with cameras and scared his patients to death and have harassed that man, who has a right to do what he is doing because that’s what he believes. I think it’s unconscionable that people like you guys don’t report it.

Contrary to Dobson’s assertion that Bachmann’s patients were “scared to death,” the waiting room where the activists congregated was, as the video shows, empty. Bachmann was also not even present at the clinic at the time, despite Dobson’s claim of an “attack” on him.

Though it is unsurprising that Dobson has little sympathy for gays and lesbians, the extent to which he was willing to distort the truth in order to defend Marcus Bachmann shows that ex-gay therapy is a practice still very-much accepted among social conservatives. Indeed, Focus on the Family sponsored its own ex-gay therapy program — “Love Won Out” — until 2009. Michele Bachmann spoke before the group during its 2004 convention in Minnesota, claiming that it will “present the truth about homosexuality.”