Think Progress

Conservatives Rally Behind Bachmann’s Call For Anti-Health Care Reform Protest In DC

On Saturday, ThinkProgress reported that Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was calling on conservatives to take time off from their jobs this week and to gather on the National Mall this Thursday for “a big party” in opposition to health care reform. In an interview with the Washington News Observer, Bachmann said that her protests would be inspired by hate radio host Mark Levin, who recently wrote a book called Liberty and Tyranny.

Now, it turns out that Levin will be at Bachmann’s rally. Promoting the right-wing gathering on WorldNetDaily’s radio show today, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) announced that Levin, along with conservative stars like Jon Voight and Betsy McCaughey, would be speaking at the event:

KING: On that day, we will have with us Jon Voight, the actor is coming in. And he’s more than an actor if you’ve seen him in the media. Mark Levin will also be here, Dr. Betsy McCaughey who has written much about this national health care in the Wall Street Journal. Tony Perkins, there will be others, but those I can announce will be here. Michele Bachmann will be here, I will be here, Tom Price, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee will be here, and we’re calling upon the American people, come defend you’re freedom. Do so politely, within the law, respectfully. But do it as emphatically as you can within those limits. That’s the only thing that is going to turn this thing around.

Listen here:

The conservative infrastructure has been rallying around Bachmann’s idea. Last Friday, Bachmann promoted her rally on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. Glenn Beck hosted her on his radio show today and endorsed her efforts. The offices of both House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA) also issued their support.

For those who are unwilling to take time off from work to travel to DC, Bachmann and King are both recommending that they visit the website of the corporate front group Americans for Prosperity to find info on congressional district offices.

Rep. Steve King: Matthew Shepard’s Sexual Orientation Had Nothing To Do With His Murder

Yesterday, the House voted “to expand the definition of violent federal hate crimes to those committed because of a victim’s sexual orientation” by passing the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

The right put its homophobia on full display in an attempt to kill the legislation, with Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) saying that it would lead to Nazism, and the legalization of necrophilia, pedophilia, and bestiality.

Today in an interview with Radio America/WorldNetDaily, Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
– who has said that hate crimes legislation creates “sacred cows” and puts the “victimizer’s focus on someone else” — tried to argue that such a bill is unnecessary. His argument? Matthew Shepard himself wasn’t actually murdered because he was gay:

KING: I didn’t make the point, but others did, that James Byrd was sentenced to death in Texas, and I don’t know if that sentence has been carried out yet. But he received highest penalty available under the law for the dragging death of James Byrd. And the Matthew Shepard case, there’s been a fair amount of information that came out that that really wasn’t the motivation of the people who killed him, but they did receive the maximum penalty under the law.

Listen here:

Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) made this same claim in April: “We know that that young man was killed in the commitment of a robbery. It wasn’t because he was gay.” Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solomnese wrote the congresswoman a letter calling on her to make a full apology. Foxx eventually said that she was “sorry” if Shepard’s “grieving family was offended by my statement,” but she stood by her comments that his murder may not have been motivated by hate.

Both Foxx and King are completely out of line. As Salon reported in November 1999:

Speculation has persisted for the past year that Matthew Shepard, rather than being the victim of gay-bashing, might really have been nothing more than a hapless robbery victim who was exploited by gay activists to reap unwarranted sympathy and advance their own agenda to enact hate-crimes legislation. Statements made by one of the convicted killers, which were revealed for the first time Thursday, reveal these accounts to be false. [...]

According to detectives who interviewed both of the convicted murderers, there is no evidence that Shepard made any sexual advances to the pair — and the detectives dismissed the idea that the murder was the mere result of a robbery gone bad. “Far from that!” scoffed Sgt. Rob DeBree, the chief investigator in the case. “They knew damn well he was gay. … It started out as a robbery and burglary, and I sincerely believe the other activity was because he was gay.”

Will King now follow Foxx and apologize to the Shepard family for making these comments?

(HT: Michael O’Brien)

King: Same-Sex Marriage Is ‘A Purely Socialist Concept’ »

In April, when the Iowa Supreme Court unanimously struck down a state law defining marriage as solely between a man and a woman, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) called it an “unconstitutional” decision and predicted that it could lead to Iowa becoming “the gay marriage Mecca.” On WorldNetDaily’s radio show today, King was asked what the “impact” of the decision has been on Iowa. He replied by saying that his prediction is becoming true:

KING: Well, we’ve had a significant percentage of people that have come to Iowa as same-sex couples to get married. And that, that percentage is up there some place over a fourth, if I remember correctly on the data that I have seen, and I don’t know that anything is complete at this point. I said that if this is allowed to stand, Iowa will become the Mecca for same-sex marriage and that is becoming the case. I know that there have been buses that have been, have gone to Iowa with loads of people in them in order to get married under the judge-made law.

Earlier this week, the Des Moines Register released a poll showing that “Iowans are almost evenly divided about whether they would vote for or against a constitutional amendment to end marriage for same-sex couples.” It also found that “the overwhelming majority of Iowans – 92 percent – say gay marriage has brought no real change to their lives.” Asked about the poll, King complained that many Iowans do not have “a very good understanding of what same-sex marriage does to the overall institution of marriage.” After claiming that “Rick Santorum was right” when he said that expanding gay rights would lead to a “right to incest,” King asserted that same-sex marriage is “a purely socialist concept”:

KING: But if, there also would be no rational argument against group marriage. And I just take this along the rationale even further and would say if relationships between individuals cannot be prohibited by the state legislature then there is no ban that can actually be constitutional that would ban group marriage. And it wouldn’t have to be for reasons of, let me say, love or lust. It could be reasons of profitability or avoiding taxes or accessing benefits.

So in the end this is something that has to come with a, if there’s a push for a socialist society, a society where the foundations of individual rights and liberties are undermined and everybody is thrown together, living collectively off of one pot of resources earned by everyone. That is, this is one of the goals they have to go to is same-sex marriage because it has to plow through marriage in order to get to their goal. They want public affirmation. They want access to public funds and resources. Eventually all those resources will be pooled because that’s the direction we’re going. And not only is it a radical social idea, it is a purely socialist concept in the final analysis.

Listen here:

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