McDonnell (who I've known since 1994) has been trying strenuously to make himself look like a moderate and trying to change the public conversation away from the extremism and neanderthal mindset of the Virginia GOP of which McDonnell is the ostensible leader. The events in the wee hours of this past Tuesday did nothing to help McDonnell's effort to win the GOP veepstakes.

McDonnell's dancing around the issue of Thorne-Begland's sexual orientation has also happily revived interest in McDonnell's own involvement in a similar crucifixion of former Newport News Circuit Court Judge Verbena Askew in 2003. That debacle first earned McDonnell the nickname "Taliban Bob." And then there's the issue of the McDonnell administration's unholy ties to The Family Foundation, a coven of theocracy loving Christianists. TFF President, Victoria Cobb's, husband is a member of McDonnell's cabinet.

Life's a bitch of late for Taliban Bob.

Time and time again, both in North Carolina before Tuesday's horrific vote and now in the wake of Barack Obama's embrace of marriage equality yesterday, they spout the myth that "God created marriage as one man and one woman." It's a complete lie, of course, but then again, these people think the commandment against lying and bearing false witness doesn't apply to them. So much for actually honoring the Bible and the Ten Commandments.

Several pieces I came across today, not to mention two old newspaper clips that my LGBT blogger compatriot Jeremy Hooper posted at Good As You underscore the grossness of lies being disseminated by the Christianists and their pandering prostitutes in the GOP. The first newspaper clip is to the right. The date of the article is July 29, 1937 - and note the emphasis on marriage being a civil law institution first and foremost.

Even more damning is a piece in the New York Book Review Blog that traces the history of marriage in the first 1200 years of the Christian church. The truth is that through the end of the Roman Empire, Roman civil law controlled marriage. Even after the empire fell, it was nearly 750 years before the Church adopted a uniform marriage policy. That's right, for the majority of Christianity's history marriage was not a church sacrament.

Excerpts and more after the break.

Truth be told, however, McDonnell and his agenda had never really changed even though this truth did not become fully clear until this year when the Virginia GOP gained control of the Virginia General Assembly. Without the restraining hand of the formerly Democrat controlled Virginia Senate, McDonnell and the religious extremists who dominate the Virginia GOP were finally free to push forward their Christianist agenda.

Taliban Bob happily went right along with this far right batshitery and bigotry until something happened: constant national coverage and ridicule that threw much more than cold water on McDonnell's national ambitions. People came to see that Taliban Bob has not converted from his views of years ago in the halls of Pat Robertson's Christianist madrassa.

Hence the rise of Christianist funded "ex-gay" ministries that prey upon tortured LGBT individuals and their families. They create a mechanism that endeavors to convince ill-informed politicians and others that LGBT citizens deserve no legal protections because they could be heterosexual (i.e, translate to mean "normal") but for their own refusal to change.

None of the legitimate medical and mental health associations agree with Christianist "ex-gay" ministries and their cheerleaders. Increasingly even former proponents of the "change" myth such as Warren Throckmorton are conceding that true "change," if it happens at all, is a rarity. Yet, the Christianist funded "ex-gay" organizations continue to peddle something worse than snake oil.

The dissemination of lies about gays being able to "change" and the effectiveness of reparative therapy is bad enough, but some of the "ex-gay" cheerleaders go even further; they attack and defame those who merely work to expose their dishonesty.

The president of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays, Greg Quinlan, in a television broadcast accused Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out, of seeking to have him killed. Quinlan subsequently escalated the outrage by claiming that Besen had been fired by the Human Rights Campaign for misconduct.

Both claims are untrue and HRC has confirmed the falsity of the statement that Besen was fired in writing. Because PFOX has refused to withdraw the statements and expanded on its untrue statements, Wayne Besen has filed a defamation law suit against PFOX and Quinlan.

The rub for McDonnell is the extreme legislation being rammed through the Virginia General Assembly - especially the so-called "personhood" bill and a bill aimed at forcing all women who seek abortions to undergo an invasive vaginal ultrasound.

If McDonnell vetoes the bills, he will have to face the vengeance of the Christianists at The Family Foundation (an affiliate of Focus on the Family and Family Research Council) and their network of cooperating far right fundamentalist churches across Virginia. However, if he signs the bills, his chances of pretending to be even remotely a moderate are dead on arrival (see the image at the link below - which I'm sorry is rather graphic - to fully understand this point).

Boesch apparently behaved himself until asked if he keeps in touch with any members from Survivor cast; Boesch's response was that "I don't talk to queers -- and when I say queer, I mean homosexuals." Not only was the comment uncalled for and inappropriate, placing those in active military status in an awkward position, it's not true.

First, I have known several gay SEAL team members, so it's all too likely Boesch has in fact spoken to gays in the military. He's simply too ignorant to know it. Moreover, years ago when we lived in the same neighborhood, Boesch spoke with me more than once. I was precinct captain for a political party and every time Boesch went to vote, he spoke to yours truly. Boesch typifies the ignorance of those who think they don't know and interact with gays on a regular basis.

The new study, done by researcher Gordon Hodson, a psychologist at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, finds that those with low intelligence gravitate towards conservatism and are prone to embrace prejudice of things they don't understand or that are different. I can already hear Tony Perkins, Fox News talking heads and the anti-gay professional Christian set howling and bellowing that Hodson's work is biased or slanted.

When you think of about, however, the correlation tracks with a great deal of everyday experience in dealing with people. If you can't think for yourself, you're an easy target for demagogues who like to blame problems and failings on "the other."

I've asked the question before: why does anyone listen to these foul, morally bankrupt clerical bureaucrats? The question takes on new importance now that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the criminal case now pending in that city against Catholic priests.

CBS News looks at the development with these highlights:

Yes, back then, the Christianists had begun to slowly infiltrate the party, yet they were still viewed as delusional by the majority and moderates held sway and religion had not been fully conflated into the party platform. Back then, facts, figures and rational analysis were actually respected and I was known for always backing up my opinions and positions with hard facts and objective data.

Indeed, I was awarded honors by both the local city committee by even received a plaque from then-Governor Jim Gilmore shortly before I resigned from the GOP. Admittedly, I wasn't out of the closet back in those days, but homophobia had not become one of the most important planks in the party platform either.

That's all changed nowadays and yet some gays - in what I can only view as a form of masochism and internalized self-loathing - continue to cling to saying they are Republicans. To me it's akin to someone of Jewish descent belonging to a neo-Nazi organization. I do not understand the mindset.

Interestingly enough, two different columns at Religion Dispatches look at the issue. One is in the form of an interview with retired Episcopal Bishop and author, John Shelby Spong, and the other is a column that looks at Rick Santorum's religiously twisted psyche and why he cannot accept that LGBT individuals are entitled to full equality under the nations (and states') civil laws.

I believe that these issues and criticisms of the Christianist mindset need to be pounded home over and over to undecided members of the public so that they will realize that it is the so-called "family values" crowd, not LGBT Americans, who are a threat to the principles of religious freedom upon which this nation was founded.

Mrs. Cantor's comments came during a 60 Minutes segment on her husband - who continues to defend DOMA and otherwise carry water for Christianists in the Republican Party who not only hate gays, but also Jews like Cantor. HAPBlog described the interview as follows:

60 Minutes sat down with Majority Leader Cantor tonight to mostly grill him for being an obstructionist to president Obama. But during the interview, Leslie Stahl meets the family at the congressman's home, they talk to his wife who is a political polar opposite to Eric Cantor. Pro choice and pro gay marriage. They also interview Cantor's son Michael who says dad likes to listen to Jay-Z and Lil' Wayne, no kidding.

Video and more after the break.

Having checked out some of the online shops, they are too funny - especially the way in which sex toys are renamed and/or given new descriptions. Sample sites are "Covenant Spice" which describes itself as "Christ honoring sex and romance site for couples," and "Intimacy of Eden" which promises to ignite passion and romance for a healthy, heavenly marriage."

Apparently, the theory behind the products is that good sex will strengthen the marriages of the self-congratulatory pious set. After all, these "godly Christians" have been raised to view all things sexual as nasty and dirty. Even as they lust for it probably all the more in a perverse sort of the forbidden fruit is always more alluring phenomenon.

McDonnell is busy touting himself as a job creator, but many of the jobs are low end of the sort Rick Perry bragged about in the false "Texas miracle." Yes, the economy sucks, and yes there is stiff competition with other states, but nowhere in McDonnell's snake oil sales pitch does he admit that Virginia's reactionary image which has been worsened by both his own and the actions of Ken "Kookinelli" Cuccinelli and Virginia's Republican lunatics like Delegate Bob Marshall (who has introduced a "personhood bill") knocks Virginia off the list of potential relocation/expansion sites for many businesses.

Most job growth in Virginia has been concentrated in Northern Virginia close to the far more liberal District of Columbia with liberal jurisdictions like Fairfax County and the cities of Arlington and Alexandria. Among the areas of Virginia seeing the least job growth is Hampton Roads which continues to experience the flight of young college educated individuals who seek jobs in more liberal and progressive states and cities.

It quickly becomes apparent that what the bishops are really outraged about is the erosion of the special rights too long granted to Catholic organizations to line up like fat sows at the trough of government money - to the tune of $2.9 billion in 2010 - and then have an unfettered hand to freely discriminate against some of the very citizens whose taxes have been given by the government to the very same bigoted Catholic institutions.

Let's be clear, requiring institutions that receive taxpayer derived government funds to abide by non-discrimination laws in no manner restricts the religious freedom of the recipients. No one is forcing them to accept government funds and every institution has the option to say no to the funds and enjoy unrestricted exercise of their religious-based bigotry.

Moore grew up in Virginia Beach and, as I noted at the time, reading the Virginian Pilot coverage, one would never know that Moore was gay much less that he had a life partner. Not without irony given this region's continued prevailing homophobic atmosphere, Moore had once noted as follows about growing up in Hampton Roads:

"I thought I'd have to kill myself," he said. "Because I grew up going to church in the south and the pervasive message was that I had this terrible secret that I liked men and consequently I would go to hell for it and ruin my family's life."

For those not living in regressive states like Virginia, it cannot be emphasized how important it is to provide positive messages to LGBT youth. Now, Hunter Hill, Perry Moore's partner of seventeen years, and family and friends are in the process of establishing four scholarship funds that will benefit young writers and local Hampton Roads students.