Wise spiritual counselor to presidents in both parties:
One of the odder phenomena surrounding the passage of Amendment One in North Carolina was the last-minute emergence of the Rev. Billy Graham, the retired, chronically-ill 93-year-old evangelist, as a supporter of the amendment. Graham’s family-run organization took out full-page ads in 14 NC newspapers last weekend endorsing the Amendment as a simple matter of following the scriptural definition of marriage.
Fuck you, you bigoted homophobe.
fasteddie9318
What is it Lewis Black says? “The good die young, but pricks live forever.”
jl
Did amendment one have a clause regulating relations with concubines, servant girls, and house slaves?
Who wudda thunk?
ericblair
The scriptural definition of marriage: you mean a man and more than one woman, who may be an immediate blood relative. That definition?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
When was the last time anybody saw the old man in public? Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Frankie and his sister just slapped the old man’s name on this. Not that I’m defending Billy Graham. David Broder with a bible.
Betsy
His son is worse.
On the biblical definition of marriage, it seems an awful lot like it’s basically ‘one man and however many women he can afford/control’.
Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. David had multiples , etc.
Personally, i can’t wait to see Amendment Two: No fabric containing both linen and wool shall be worn in the state, and Amendments Three and Four (no shellfish or pork products; adultery punishable by stoning)
BGinCHI
Dear God:
More smiting, plz.
Don’t make me pull this cosmos over.
BG
gaz
Stay classy billy. Don’t give up that moral high ground!
/snark
Bostondreams
So my brother in law just declared that I was an example of what is wrong with schools and the nation today, after I argued against Amendment One and using the Bible as a model for government.
As a teacher, you see, I have erred in teaching equality and tolerance and our history as a decidedly less than Christian nation. As such, I am banned from having any contact with my teenage nephews. I could pervert them, I guess.
Sigh.
jibeaux
@Bostondreams: Ah, chances are they’ll pervert themselves. Take heart, he sounds like a total dick.
Betsy
You have to think that the morning after, the illiterate, theocratic pigfuckers responsible for this must feel that their victory is somewhat hollow.
After all, what they did is to have stopped all the responsible, committed gay couples from formalizing permanent loving relationships, while no-strings-attached opportunistic sodomy continues unabated and perfectly legal in isolated state park trails, airport restrooms, and parish halls across the state.
RyanayR
Moore Award! Moore Award!
r€nato
@Betsy:
and sometimes it isn’t just married, family-values Republican politicians and operatives engaging in these activities!
/rim shot
ET
Guess I am not surprised. I always felt that his “non partisan” was a loose around the edges and sheer anyway. More a matter of maintaining his top of the heap position as the go-to Christian statesman.
I have been thinking about this law and I have to wonder if there were other intentions. A lot of people are saying the law was written badly and that all of these other relationships weren’t the target but I am not so sure.
Gay marriage hasn’t been legal in that state for a number of years so why another law? Sure this law was pushed by its proponents as a “stop teh gays” measure and it definitely was speaking to that, but what if they really did want to invalidate protections for those couples that aren’t married and this piece of dreck, that they knew would have a better chance of passage, was the cover? I mean if you were wanting to punish all those “living in sin” but couldn’t come out and say it, a bill that they could craft that would target “teh gays” would be a good cover.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I can’t wait for the women who vote for these things to find out what the next phase of “the biblical definition of marriage” brings.
bemused
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
That’s the question I had. It would be pretty low and as unchristian as it gets if they did this without his approval or coerced a sick man into it.
NancyDarling
Graham (both Billy and his spawn), Osteen, the Crouches, Benedict, etal are why Christians like Reverend Barber who walk the walk can’t have nice things.
fasteddie9318
If there’s a distinction between the hellspawn of this decrepit fossilized turd slapping his name on an ad campaign he would have supported anyway, and the turd in question just doing it himself, it is a distinction without difference.
bemused
@Bostondreams:
Wow. I pity your nephews growing up with that parental influence.
Cassidy
At least it wasn’t the Catholics this time. They must’ve taken a breather.
SenyorDave
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I think they already accept those aspects. They probably are submissive to their husband. Wonder how they’ll feel about sharing their husband like Sarah shared Abraham wit hagar. These women are so brainwashed they’d probably accept that too.
Brachiator
How is this odd? The invocation of the Bible to rationalize anti gay bigotry is a feature, not a bug of Christian evangelicals.
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
How about women voting to deny themselves the right to vote? It would be fine with this religious nutbag.
Villago Delenda Est
Basically, what DougJ said.
That is all.
Mouse Tolliver
@Betsy:
Or how about a law that prevents banks from collecting interest on a loan? The Bible says it’s a sin for a lender to take more than what he loaned from a borrower. Even calls usury an abomination.
Billy Graham has been a liar and a bigot his whole life, so this shouldn’t surprise anybody. HR Haldenman wrote about hearing Graham make anti-Semitic comments to Richard Nixon in his memoirs. When they were published in the mid-1990s, Graham denied it. A few years later the Nixon tapes were unclassified and they proved that Billy Graham was liar and a Jew-hater. He’s heard agreeing with Nixon’s anti-Semitic remarks, and then he goes off on a Jew-bashing rant of his own, complaining about the Jewish stranglehold on the media and how it was ruining the country. He even admitted that he didn’t tell his Jewish friends how he really felt about them.
Franklin Graham is a horrible human being because he’s just following in dad’s footsteps.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Me either. This kind of stunt really isn’t the old man’s style.
Clime Acts
So, what are the chances of the Democratic party moving its convention this summer out of North Carolina in response to this hateful law?
I signed an online petition to that effect yesterday.
Villago Delenda Est
@NancyDarling:
Well, for one thing, the aforementioned etal folks are Ferengi slime who grab all the fucking latinum, and as a result the guys who actually walk the walk of Jesus, not John Calvin AKA the Prophet of the Sacred Exchequer, don’t have the means to have the nice things. Like 10,000 square foot parsonages, Gulfstreams, and his and hers Bentleys.
Bostondreams
@bemused:
Well, my seventeen year old nephew has declared that he is an athiest and religion is crap, and told his father he is an idiot. The dad blames me, I think. One more year, and Dave is out. Not sure he will make it.
Roger Moore
@Bostondreams:
Hey, if Jesus had wanted to make gay people equal to the rest of us, he would have mentioned it in the Bill of Rights.
wenchacha
I do believe Franklin is worse than his dad, but they have both supported bigotry in their careers.
For as much as Franklin condemns Islam, he has so much in common with radical Islamic mullahs. I’m sure the irony is not lost on the Universe.
Mickey
Since they always roll out that excuse I always roll out the FACT the old testament says it’s ok to beat your wife and sell your daughter into slavery.
So maybe NC should find someone to take out full page ads and put in an amendment that allows that.
victory
OT, but, just when you think you’ve seen it all, thanks to Joe Biden, conservatives everywhere are running to the defense of the UN!
Google Search Results for “Biden no pressure on Iran”
Ben Cisco
@Brachiator:
Fixed. And fuck him too.
beltane
I must be losing my mind because I honestly thought Billy Graham died last year. Who was the fundie bigot who died last year?
Ben Cisco
@Betsy: President Bartlet’s queries of the Talivangelical would not end well.
the fugitive uterus
i wonder how many people realize this is going to affect common-law marriages between heterosexual couples – that’s a lotta white rednecks right there, my friends.
NancyDarling
Billy was hospitalized last year but god healed him.
jibeaux
@Clime Acts: Yeah, not a great idea. This vote was shamefully not too close, but the polling for the general still looks very 50-50 and turnout should be better. Gratuitously spiting a newly minted swing state that went your way in ’08, just because they voted the same way on this that thirty other states did, isn’t a strategic winner. But I do think the Dems should be prepared at the convention to come out unequivocally for at a minimum civil unions and preferably full marriage equality.
LanceThruster
My glob, what a maroon!
geg6
If there actually was a god, that old bigoted fuck would be in for a hell of a surprise when he finally (and, hopefully, painfully) kicks the bucket.
I hate assholes who wield their stupid religion like a fucking weapon. I wish them nothing but sorrow and pain in life.
NancyDarling
@the fugitive uterus: I also wonder how many of the pro-voters are in marriage number two or three and how many of them spent election eve in a bed not belonging to their spouse.
geg6
@Bostondreams:
The good thing about people like your BIL is that their kids usually end up doing everything they ever hated. And end up hating them, too.
Svensker
Since when are American laws supposed to follow scripture?
God forbid we call them the American Taliban. That would be rude.
Rev. Dada Grind
That kind of “Christian” would stone the Good Samaritan.
beltane
@NancyDarling: That must be why I remember all the Billy Graham hagiographies in the media. It will be a million times worse when he departs this vale of tears for a better place.
the fugitive uterus
@Mickey: not to mention offering up your daughters to be gang-raped and god knows what else by a mob and then, later committing incest, while plastered on wine, and impregnating same said daughters.
geg6
@Betsy:
Not to mention, they’ve now made their state less attractive to companies that aren’t bigoted assholes. And the Research Triangle will have a harder time attracting top academics, scientists, and IT people.
Talk about cutting off the nose to spite the face.
lacp
@Clime Acts: How about zero?
jl
@Rev. Dada Grind:
“That kind of “Christian” would stone the Good Samaritan.”
That is one of the ‘hard’ parables of Jesus, where the good Samaritan gets stoned until he is dead, because he is a ‘bad guy’, even though he tried to help the injured traveler. You can look it up.
Jesus, our Lord, summed it up by saying, ‘So what if this Samaritan guy tried to help a certain traveler going from Jerusalem down to Jericho, This Samaritan did not believe a bunch of stuff made up by a bunch self righteous goof balls during the two thousand years after I died, and he going to hell to burn gurn burn!’
That version is in the book of Erasmus, which is sadly neglected these days.
Yutsano
@geg6: I’ll laugh my ass off if Bank of America moves back to LA after this vote.
(as in Los Angeles, not Piyushville.)
El Cid
Billy Graham also announced to Franklin that he was against all the loud music the young people listen to and how all the words on signs these days are fuzzy and the letters are too small and he’s completely opposed to letting city people vote.
Ed Drone
@Rev. Dada Grind:
Remember, the Samaritans were the ni99ers of the day. Or maybe the Jews’ jews, if you know what I mean.
(Cue Tom Lehrer’s “National Brotherhood Week”:
Oh, the Catholics hate the Protestants,
And the Protestants hate the Catholics,
The Hindus hate the Moslems,
And everybody hates the Jews.”)
So, yes, Christians would stone the Samaritans.
Ed
bemused
@Bostondreams:
I’m not surprised…I’ve seen it happen more often than not. Oppressive living conditions make people just want to escape.
Funny how it’s always someone else’s fault, BIL possibly blaming you or decadent schools, society, isn’t it?
gaz
Billy Graham looks like Robert the Bruce’s leper father in braveheart, sans bandages. It’s sort of creepy.
JD Rhoades
When was the last time anybody saw the old man in public? Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if Frankie and his sister just slapped the old man’s name on this.
This was my second thought upon hearing about this. My first was “wait, he’s still alive”?
beltane
Now I’m getting a creepy ad for Billy Graham’s ministry where it’s “always good news”. The ad also says “to proclaim your faith, click here”. I almost feel like clicking and telling them that Jesus says they should go f*ck themselves.
JD Rhoades
Talk about cutting off the nose to spite the face.
They never liked the nose anyway.
Bruce S
Not to defend Billy Graham, but my guess is this was a deal where his punk son just used the old man’s name, because it’s worth more than his. Billy Graham is a fossil, but he wasn’t nearly as toxic in his time as his creepy progeny.
Tokyokie
@Bostondreams: People who believe that everything in the universe that’s Right and True and Just by happy coincidence enhances their personal political, social and/or economic well being, believe in nothing at all. But your brother-in-law, convinced as he is of his inerrant righteousness, has to blame somebody for his own shortcomings, as the fault couldn’t possibly be his. I’m sorry that someone is you and that your nephews have to suffer the consequences.
As for Billy Graham, well, nobody’s ever become a multimillionaire preacher by following the teachings of Christ.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Yutsano: I’ll laugh my ass off if Bank of America moves back to LA after this vote.
I kept hearing during the run-up that some companies were talking about leaving the state if it passed, but never could find any details. I badly wanted to use that on the people who were impervious to the unintended consequences argument.
ornery_curmudgeon
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” – Matthew 23:15
Hi Franklin!
NancyDarling
@beltane: I’m getting ads for seminaries and xtian universities. Google algorithm (I think that’s the term) fail.
Linda Featheringill
@Bostondreams:
Keep preaching, brother. The said teenagers will find out, one way or another, what you are saying and they will listen. What they do with it is another question.
gaz
OT: but will brighten your day.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/anchorman-pelted-with-yogurt-and-eggs-on-air-105/2012/04/09/gIQAnVvW6S_video.html?tid=taboola
ETA: This is how it’s done, folks.
the fugitive uterus
well, he IS 93 y.o. – i’m not incredibly shocked – “chronically ill” – Franklin may well have written the whole thing and shoved it under daddy’s nose to sign – just saying. then again, don’t know how sharp his mental faculties are these days.
beltane
@gaz: The Greeks are mad as hell and they’re not taking it any more. Added bonus, the anchor getting pelted bears more than a passing resemblance to Paul Ryan.
fasteddie9318
OT
You. Cannot. Make. This. Shit. Up.
Shorter Mark Krikorian:
the fugitive uterus
@Bruce S: sorry, i see you beat me to it! but yeh, i think this is primarily Franklin’s “doings”
Bruce S
Wow – that ad is mostly a huge picture of Graham. Weird. Has a “Chairman Mao” flavor. Makes me suspect even more that this is Franklin using his dad.
Redshift
@fasteddie9318: Yeah, supposedly she did it because some of her kids want to be able to have dual citizenship, and can only do it if she does first. I may be reading too much into it, but I can’t help thinking that even her kids are looking for a backup plan if people like Bachmann get control of this country again.
Heliopause
Probably a waste of time my pointing this out, but the scriptural definition of marriage includes marrying women as war spoils, marrying virgins you’ve seduced, death penalty for adultery, etc.
jl
@fasteddie9318:
The Bachmann’s have their work cut out for them in Switzerland. The Swiss are more degenerate than we are along that line. Not full equality, but looks like more equality than in most of US.
LGBT rights in Switzerland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Switzerland
I have always told myself that the Swiss German lisp was of a ‘manly’ sort, but looks like I had misinformed myself.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Yutsano: I don’t think BofA was ever HQ’ed here in LALA Land. It is much worse than that, for fundies, Sodom by the bay.
Mark S.
@fasteddie9318:
Wow, he really does blame it on liberalism.
I didn’t realize dual citizenship was such a threat to our nation. Does NR ever get pissed off at American Jews who have dual citizenship with Israel?
Keith G
It’s an unfortunate (and a shame) that my people do not have someone to serve as a point man/person on this. People like being led and they like to be given permission to let go of old biases.
Change requires leadership and here leadership is missing.
SteveM
Billy Graham talks about his porno experience, in Time magazine, July 11, 1969:
I’m sorry the whole article isn’t online. This was one of the magazines that was in our basement for years when I was a kid, and even as a goody-goody not-yet-lapsed Catholic, I knew he was full of shit. (Did I mention that the article title was “The Sickness of Sodom”?)
Patricia Kayden
How do we know that it wasn’t his extremely conservative son who wrote and ran the ad? I can’t see why Billy Graham would become political at 93 years of age. And just for this one issue.
the fugitive uterus
my dad used to make us watch Billy Graham on the teevee as a child and i always wondered what he was so pissed about all the time cuz he was always yelling and we just went to your typical milquetoast Methodist church so i didn’t get the whole hellfire bidness.
pseudonymous in nc
@Patricia Kayden:
I think we can assume that Franklin’s hand was thrust very hard up Billy’s rear on this one, just as Franklin shipped off Ruth Graham’s body to the Animatronic Cow theme park in Charlotte. The only thing Billy expresses an opinion on these days is his choice of breakfast cereal.
bemused
@fasteddie9318:
Hilarious. If a rightwinger slipped on a banana peel and got a concussion, he’d/she’d look around to which liberal tripped him/her.
So predictable.
Villago Delenda Est
@SteveM:
So, Billy Graham is as smart about what the the sin of Sodom was as just about every other fundie git.
Somehow, porn has something to do with being inhospitable to strangers?
Narcissus
I clicked on that Krikorian link and got a close-up pop-up of the doughy pantload.
I almost stroked out
Ruckus
@Bruce S:
Billy Graham is a fossil, but he wasn’t nearly as toxic in his time as his creepy progeny.
Yes. Yes he was. You just didn’t recognize it for what it was. The building blocks for the house of evangelicalism. He mainstreamed it, made it palatable for many. He walked relatively quietly among the powerful so that you would think he and his ideas were OK. Worked too.
Nellcote
I’d like to see the msm pile on Rmoney on ANYTHING he’s said the way their piling on Prez Obama this week about ssm. When did they decide that was THE issue of concern to all america? They piled on Bush less regarding going to fucking war! I guess Prez Obama was doing too well in the polls and ssm is always good for a circular firing squad. I hate the way PLs got suckered by the msm.
the fugitive uterus
how in the name of all that is sacred are you supposed to write g–g r-p-d without getting stuck in moderation? this one probably will too
but then you can now get away with writing “socialist” a gabillion times though
NancyDarling
@SteveM: Billy needs to read “Intimate Matters: A Sexual History of the United States.” Legal age of consent was as low as 10 in some states. And we all know what went on in those NC slave cabins. Lots of bouncing babies born to even the Puritans 4 or 5 months after the marriage date. Sheesh!
NancyDarling
@Ruckus: This!
Brachiator
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah, kinda like how Onan got connected to masturbation.
JPL
Teaser from ABC news..they are going to have a special report at 3 o’clock…
I think it’s about the president coming out for gay marriage.
What does everyone else think?
Another Halocene Human
Well, well, well: the chickens come home to roost: A Colorado woman claims she was unfairly fired from her job at a private, Christian liberal arts university after administrators asked if she was “living in sin” with her boyfriend.
Paul in KY
@jibeaux: Most 15 year old boys are perverting like monkeys!
NancyDarling
@Brachiator: Right! The reason God smote Onan was not masturbation. It was for pulling out when he was, according to religious law, supposed to be impregnating his brother’s widow. He didn’t want any more heirs to share in his inheritance.
Twas greed that killed Onan of the hairless palms.
Another Halocene Human
I’m kinda pissed now (in a get off my lawn kind of way), since she and her lawyer think she has a right to privacy–what about my right to privacy? Oh, that’s right, gay people don’t have any because we might be compromised by the Russians and give away state secrets.
Watch Christian conservatives spin this as “they’re trampling our religious freedumbs!!!!” even though it’s explained in the article that she’s an administrative worker.
A lot of people at this point (thanks RCC) are confused about the ministerial exemption and think it should apply to all church/religious college employees.
As a labor activist this scares the shit out of me.
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
That would be quite a feat, since its headquarters were never in Los Angeles. Until it was acquired by NCNB, BofA was based in San Francisco. And that BofA no longer exists. The culture is all NCNB. “BofA” is every bit as Charlotte as Billy Graham and bad basketball.
Comrade Mary
Meanwhile: Obama says that same-sex marriage should be legal.
Comrade Mary
Details.
JPL
ABC special report..
President Obama said that he’s comfortable with gay marriage..
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
fuck rev graham
JPL
@Comrade Mary: wow..do you have a special feed.. My antenna must be slow..
Brachiator
@JPL:
I think you nailed it.
Banner headline about it on the ABC News site.
So, this will make people happy and possibly open up some campaign contribution wallets and purses. Not sure that it will bring more votes.
I would like to see various activist organizations ask, “If you are a woman or gay, why are you a Republican? Why would you even work for them?”
Comrade Mary
@JPL: Hee! I saw the dripping of clues at TPM earlier today. I actually have no cable and just Canadian channels via antenna.
rlrr
@Comrade Mary:
Because Muslims are all about gay rights…
SatanicPanic
@Brachiator: Yup, he just declared his support for gay marriage. Awesome!
JPL
So does this mean he lost Billy Graham’s vote?
rlrr
@JPL:
He lost all the votes of people who were never going to vote for him…
Nemesis
Yes Pres Obama just came out in support of same gender relationships. The media will gush their approval. For about 12 hours, then shit hits the fan.
Brachiator
@NancyDarling:
No, it is about selfishness and the weirdness of ancient tribal practices, which placed the tribe higher than the individual.
We don’t know whether Onan has any other kids. We only know that he doesn’t sleep with Tamar because any child born would not be his.
And strangely, Judah can sleep with a temple prostitute, but Tamar is at first condemned to death because it is believed that she is a prostitute (presumably, a prostitute could not be married or a widow).
And yet, Tamar is seen as most righteous and most unselfish because she sleeps with her father-in-law, gets pregnant by him, and keeps the tribal line going.
And then the Church fathers come along and say, “See. Marriage is good and masturbation is bad. It’s in the Scriptures.”
Amir Khalid
A few days ago, when Joe Biden came out for gay marriage in a TV interview, the pundits were talking about a “rift” in the Obama administration over the issue. Now we know what that was really about: a heads-up for this statement from the President.
I’ve never taken seriously the scuttlebutt about Biden being gaffe-prone.
Mind you, there’s just no pleasing some Republicans…
Another Halocene Human
@Nemesis: That’s okay. The unconscious bias effect hits three months later. That would be in August, which is a primary for some races but has nothing to do with Obama, pretty much. He’s effectively made it a non-issue for the election. The people with conscious bias weren’t going to vote for him anyway.
Another Halocene Human
@Brachiator: The story of Tamar is absolutely fascinating. What is even more fascinating are all the fundies naming their daughters that. Tamar is considered righteous at the end of the story. Gotta say, sounds like a lot of crazy cousin-loving family drama, that story. Anyway, the attempts to apply those sorts of mores to modern life never fail to hilariate.
JPL
For those who are able to link to the NYTimes, they have a site updating the reaction to the Presidents remarkably courageous statement. link
the fugitive uterus
i had a very good point about the OT that has been stuck in moderation, altered, stuck again in moderation so i guess you all will just have to live without my nuggets of wisdom, sorry. i guess the most telling thing about the OT is that the word i used is what is causing me to be stuck in moderation purgatory.
oh well, guess you’ll never know. (regards nails)
the fugitive uterus
@Nemesis: oh the wailing, the gnashing of teeth, the rending of garments
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Amir Khalid: Me either. The man has been a note-perfect vice president who has not made a single mistake that I can think of for his entire term.
Jay in Oregon
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Fred Clark over at Slacktivist wonders something similar:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2012/05/07/is-billy-graham-being-exploited-for-political-gain/
geg6
@Bruce S:
Oh, yes he was and still is. You should listen to the Nixon tapes. You’ll see what piece of shit he truly is.
geg6
@Patricia Kayden:
You need to read up on Billy Graham, apparently. He’s been “political” his whole career. As I mentioned to Bruce S., listen to or read the transcripts of the Nixon tapes. Bill Graham is just as big a wingnut piece of shit as his son.
Brachiator
@Another Halocene Human:
Wingnuts are going to pee their pants when it sinks in that the new president of France is not married to his partner, Valerie Trierweiler. He previously had a 30 year relationship with Segolene Royal, the 2007 Sozcialist presidential candidate (keep forgetting whether the S word is now OK). Again, no marriage.
Mnemosyne
@Keith G:
Obama says he supports same-sex marriage
Sorry, you were saying?
Chris
So, I’m just going to take this opportunity to agree with everyone here that Billy Graham was kind of a turd. Not as bad as his son, but given how much the country’s shifted to the right these days, maybe they’re both just products of their time.
@Mouse Tolliver:
Quoted for truth.
According to wikipedia, he also hopped back and forth from one side of the fence to the other on segregation, hemming and hawing and deferring the issue in the early 1950s until the movement got enough traction and he got on board. But, as you mentioned with the Nixon tapes, that didn’t necessarily make him less racist on the inside.
Fundamentally, Billy Graham seems to’ve been a grifter, hopping onboard safe and popular bandwagons and tailoring his values to whatever public opinion seemed to be saying at the moment. In other words, your basic televangelistic phony. Harry Truman agrees with me:
“But now we’ve got just this one evangelist, this Billy Graham, and he’s gone off the beam. He’s…well, I hadn’t ought to say this, but he’s one of those counterfeits I was telling you about. He claims he’s a friend of all the Presidents, but he was never a friend of mine when I was President. I just don’t go for people like that. All he’s interested in is getting his name in the paper.”
4tehlulz
And Mitt sticks a gun in his mouth:
OSHKOSH_SCRANTON CORRIDOR VICTORY!!!!!11000101010
Chris
@4tehlulz:
Shorter Mitt Romney: I need to placate the bigot brigade, and therefore it’s important that we give gay people something, anything less than full equality with straight ones.
I can just see him juggling the slavery issue the same way: “What’s that, you’re tired of being counted as three fifths of a vote? All right, all right, all right, I’ll bump it up to four fifths – no, let me be generous, I’ll bump it up to nine tenths of a white person’s vote. What’s that? I offer you to have your vote counted as nine tenths of a white person’s and still you say that’s not enough? My God! What do you people want from me?“
Bruce S
@geg6:
I know about the Nixon tapes – the difference is that his son says stuff like that in public! Franklin is much worse – which might seem like a low bar, but it’s a fact. I’m guessing Graham Sr. isn’t competent to carry on any crusades about much of anything now, but he’s still being used as a poster boy by his wannabe son.
Bruce S
@Ruckus:
Uh, no. Never said his ideas were “okay.” Said his son is a caricature of is father at best and more overtly toxic.
Bruce S
@pseudonymous in nc:
And that’s likely limited to which flavor of instant oatmeal.
Louise
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Forum Transmitted Disease: This is what I was thinking. Graham Senior may feel this way, but this kind of politicking seems much more Franklin than Billy. I often didn’t agree with BG, but he seemed consistent about straight evangelism than cynical politics (despite his association with Presidents). I know there’s evidence to the contrary, but I never felt my flesh crawl when listening to him like I did with Falwell, Dobson, and the rest.
Franklin, on the other hand, is a boil on the butt of humanity. I’ve often expressed Doug J’s sentiment at Franklin, but I just don’t have it in me to say it to Billy.
Person of Choler
I’m glad to see that President Obama’s views on gay marriage have evolved to those of Dick Cheney.
Took him a while, though.
Ruckus
@Bruce S:
Didn’t mean to imply that you agreed with either ideals only that dad was/is no better. Son is not more toxic as neither can get more toxic. Dad has just spewed his crap for decades and has always been toxic. His gig was to roam the halls of the powerful and he presented himself better. Better spoken if you will. His ideals have always been 100% toxic to this country.
Mike G
No-one mentioned the Frank Zappa reference…
Franklin, on the other hand, is a boil on the butt of humanity.
It’s a pretty well established trend now that the nepotism-riding sons of powerful Repukes are both arrogant and stupid.
Keith G
@Mnemosyne:
About fucking time….I am glad Joe lit the fire.