A couple of professional bigots, Peter LaBarbera and Scott Lively, have made a holy commitment to bind one to the other in pursuit of a shared goal. Here’s a taste from Lively:
“[We] want to praise the Russian Federation for providing much-needed leadership in restoring family values in public policy, and to encourage the governments of the world to follow the excellent example that the Russian government has set…
“By taking these steps in the face of intense criticism and hostility by some Western governments and NGOs, the Russians have demonstrated the high value that they place on their children and the ‘natural family’ model of society. We believe that God will bless the Russian people for their faith and courage.”
To see why Lively and LaBarbera will make a happy couple, here’s LaBarbera:
“The United States of America, especially under President Barack Obama has nothing to teach Russia and the world when it comes to homosexuality-based so-called rights and sexual morality,” he said. “Russia has enough problems of its own to be worrying about U.S. liberals who are obsessed with promoting the normalization of homosexuality and gender confusion, even to children.”
Their new group is called the Coalition for Family Values. What God has joined together let no man put asunder.
gf120581
Well, I guess Russia is no longer the Godless communist haven it once was. Even though they have an ex-KGB goon in charge over there.
Aimai
You’d think it would be obvious that merely being anti gay is not enough to bring gods favor on the Russian people. Just look at the place? Its always been a terrible place–when it was priest ridden, when it was communist, and now. God clearly has other priorities.
Tokyokie
Glad to see these God-fearing righteous souls are backing the guy who’s encouraging Yanukovych to hang on to power in Ukraine and possibly provoke a civil war there.
WereBear
They are really taking this “enemy of my enemy is my friend” thing way too far.
dmsilev
Meanwhile, here in Cook County IL, there was a lawsuit aimed at forcing the County Clerk to start issuing same-sex marriage licenses immediately instead of 1 June as the law specifies. The lawsuit came about when the Clerk said, more or less, “I’d like to start early, but need legal authority. Why doesn’t someone sue me and I won’t put up any defense”. Long story short, as of yesterday, same-sex marriage licenses are being issued in Cook County.
Botsplainer
LaBarbera is president of Concerned Women for America. IIRC, he also writes pretty much all of their releases, and is the public face of that organization for all purposes.
Geeno
LaBarbera is a concerned woman?
Amir Khalid
@Botsplainer:
Fair enough, Mr LaBarbera is
infor America. But how exactly is he a Concerned Woman?WereBear
Now that’s an oxymoron!
Tokyokie
@Geeno: With a name like “La Barbera” he’d pretty much have to be. Besides, “La Streisand” was already taken.
c u n d gulag
Pooty-poot, that shirtless wonder, is the manly-man of our Conservative manly-men’s dreams.
Not GAY dreams, mind you!!!
gelfling545
Totally OT but I’m hoping that the great minds here can offer some advice in how to protest this situation beyond yelling at the insurance customer service lady which is pointless though tempting.
I got this from my daughter this am re her mil who had spinal surgery.
(
OzarkHillbilly
I await the day when they move to the free market family values paradise that is Russia.
Baud
America: Love it or leave it.
Botsplainer
Looks like LaBarbera has rotated out. Tim LaHaye is now the director of CWA.
PurpleGirl
Wasn’t LaBarbera one of the idiots Pam Spaulding delighted in mocking at Pam’s House Blend?
OzarkHillbilly
@gelfling545: I suggest asking Richard Mayhew, but to start by appealing thru whatever process they have. Beyond that my only advice involves 24 oz framing hammers and kneecaps but that probably won’t help the situation much.
PurpleGirl
@gelfling545: What state do they live in? They could send a detailed letter of complaint to the Insurance Commissioner of the state and/or the Attorney General’s office. The insurance company’s CEO should be cc: on the letter to the state officials.
ETA: OzarkHillbilly’s suggestion is good, too. See what the company’s process is, but also contact the state officials. (Will work better if they live in a blue state.)
WereBear
@gelfling545: I would seriously considering suing RIGHT NOW. How can she possibly recover under these circumstances?
gene108
@gelfling545:
Home PT seems to be the industry standard these days, rather than letting people have a couple of weeks in-facility care.
I have an uncle, who could use in-facility PT, but Medicare only covers home visits.
From what I understand it has become harder for doctors to override Medicare’s default setting of home PT, compared to a few years ago.
Private insurance maybe copying Medicare.
Gravenstone
@Geeno: LaBarbera is concerned that women might think and act for themselves. Can’t be having that.
WereBear
@gene108: Well, that blows my suing theory… I’m just boggled.
OzarkHillbilly
@gelfling545: Many years ago my son almost lost his leg to a MRSA. Upon his release from the hospital (St Louis Children’s) my insurance company decided that he didn’t need a nurse to come out to his rural Missouri house twice a week because his mother could take him to the hospital for the necessary blood work to monitor his meds. The doctors went to bat for us and argued the case and the insurance company changed it’s mind.
Did the docs do so in your case?
ruemara
@gene108: immediately after surgery? I don’t think so. They do it because people co-operate with them. Do not co-operate. Protest and get your mil the care she needs. Fuck those guys.
gene108
@Gravenstone:
For conservatives this is a valid point of view.
If only men voted, for example, we’d have a much more conservative agenda. If only white men could vote, we’d have an even more conservative agenda.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2009/09/30/62209/derbyshire-female-suffrage/#
SiubhanDuinne
@Botsplainer:
@Botsplainer:
I think you may be conflating LaBarbera and LaHaye.
Also, CWA chair is Beverly LaHaye, not her husband Tim. (Although, of course, we all know that men are the real heads of household, and that wives must be submissive to their husbands in all things, so you may actually be right.)
Liberty60
If history is any guide to future results, in a decade or so I expect to see articles in the Weekly Standard from Newt Gingrich as to how gays are the real homophobes, and how the Republican party staunchly supported gay rights against the Democrat plantation mentality.
Therefore laws that allow businesses to fire gay employees are the liberating and empowering for gay people because [argle bargle] FREEDOM.
Botsplainer
@SiubhanDuinne:
My recollection is that I thought it weird that a guy was their voice. I’m guessing that the current composition came about fairly recently as a whitewash.
Botsplainer
My memory isn’t as swiss cheesed as I feared. Americans United did a piece that has a little age that reflects male dominated leadership there at CWA.
https://www.au.org/resources/religious-right/concerned-women-for-america
Linda Featheringill
@Aimai:
Russia has always been a godforsaken place. And the more you study Russian history, the worse it looks.
Maybe Russia really is Hell. If you aren’t good during this life, you’ll be reincarnated as a Russian peasant or even poorer. Oy.
ETA:
The land, of course, is basically quite lovely.
PurpleGirl
I like Addams Family values better than CWA and Russian values.
D58826
No wonder the Onion is shutting down. In their wildest dreams they could not top these idiots
Baud
OT: Ukraine’s parliament unanimously voted to remove their president.
This will make our wingnuts jealous.
SiubhanDuinne
@Botsplainer:
I stand corrected, thanks.
[Funny, Wikipedia has never steered me wrong before.]
Botsplainer
@SiubhanDuinne:
Part of the problem is that Wikipedia isn’t updated as often as these grifters rotate for new, grandiose titles.
aimai
@gelfling545: Holy shit. My great aunt just had spinal surgery–at 91–because the doctors couldn’t think of anything else to do and I’m pretty fucking sure the insurance company is expected to cover rehab. The point of the surgery was that she couldn’t function at home. I can’t believe the hospital allowed this to happen..oh, who am I kidding?
SiubhanDuinne
@Botsplainer:
Rotating Grifters = miraculous renewable energy source!
Avery Greynold
Opposition to equal rights is on its way to the 27 percent of dead enders. If a couple of them want to further debase the conservative buzzwords of “family values”, welcome to it.
WereBear
I could make a case for taking the vote away from white guys; they have caused a lot of trouble!
Citizen_X
Maybe we could see a movement among wingnuts to emigrate to Russia? Which might suck for Russians, but the inevitable instant that someone decides to scream, “ARGLE BARGLE FREE MARKET!” about one of Putin’s crony-capitalist deals, they’ll be crushed like a bug. And they’ll like it.
At least some of them will always side with Strongman Vladimir. I pick Rush. He’ll make a good chief of propaganda.
Slugger
One of the many mysteries about Russia has always been its backward nature and slowness to develop. Russia has a huge landmass full of fertile lands and mineral wealth. It is peopled with artists, writers, technicians, and scientists of the absolutely highest ranks of genius of humanity. Yet, since the eighteenth century westerners have marveled that it has not taken off. During the last 110 years, it suffered defeat in the Russo-Japanese war, WW I, and the Cold War. I’ll comment on WW II later. However, it has been governed by hard-nosed tough guys who did not compromise since the time of Ivan the Terrible. In WW II their Ivan was opposed by another Ivan leading to a disaster for the Germans.
Is it possible that moderate, temperate, yes liberal governance actually works better? Russia is full of patriots and heroes; what other nation could have produced the defenders of Leningrad or the fighters of Stalingrad? They deserve better than this current incarnation of Ivan/Stalin.
Botsplainer
@SiubhanDuinne:
One favorite of mine was Col. Ron Ray, USMC (Ret.). He ran a few dramatically titled family values organizations out of a PO box in a village about three miles from my home, usually featuring the blatherings of another wingnut by the name of Judith Reisman. Back when I was running in wingnut circles over 10 years ago (I was an economic wingnut, absolutely despised the family values candy asses), I was assured many times by erstwhile social conservatives that these were prestigious institutions. I pointed out repeatedly that I drove through that village daily for years and never had seen the first sign indicating the location of those august institutions. Later, I went to a campaign event for the chinless wonder Geoff Davis, and a prominent speaker featured was Ron Ray. He was there with the wife he wooed and seduced while she was married to another wingnut, Alan Sears, and in between acts, those two were reading marked up bibles.
I gathered up my family and left during Ray’s nutty speech (people noticed), and that ended my involvement in GOP politics. I made my final trip left after the double whammy of Schiavo and Katrina.
revrick
*Sigh* I’ve got news for these guys. There’s no such thing as a “natural” family value or a “Biblical” family value. There are, however, family structures that have evolved over time.
Oh well, frozen minds and frozen hearts explains a lot.
greennotGreen
@Citizen_X: Actually, I’m not sure even conservatives would like to live in the world their policies would create which would be a lot like present day Russia. They want to live in an imaginary world of the past that actually only existed on TV, specifically Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, and The Donna Reed Show.
Roger Moore
@gelfling545:
I would be tempted to get a good attorney to look at the situation.
WereBear
Yes.
Don’t forget that Russia did not leave the feudal period until 1918. And it’s still a rocky climb, because while they modernized the national pursuits, they simply replaced one ruling class with another; this dilutes the pool of talent and encourages corruption.
The strength of liberal governance is that rules like skin color and genitalia and who’s-your-daddy? have a chance of not overwhelming talent and ability.
The country, every country, is full of people who would like rules to make sense, support the economy, and help people lead happier lives.
It’s just that no one gets their ass kissed that way.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Avery Greynold:
Yes, praising Russia, home of the mail order drunken slut, grifter oligarchy and dictator with a taste for poisoning his enemies, as a pargon of virtue really begs the mind no matter how you look at it.
Comrade Dread
If we’re going to go by the Mosaic Covenant as the basis for God’s blessing, it’ll take more than simply throwing gays in jail. You’ve got to convert to Judaism and keep the whole thing, no pork, animal sacrifice (good luck finding some Levites to be priests), circumcision, forgiving all debts after seven years, letting your farmland and orchards rest one year out of seven, keeping the Passover feast.
And if you’re going by the New Testament, I look forward to seeing adulters and premarital sexual partners also being ostracized, beaten, and thrown in prison. (Not that the NT actually calls for that, but St. Paul equated adultery, homosexuality, and fornication as all being damnable sins, so there shouldn’t be a disparity in how they’re treated if you are determined to use the government to enforce morality.)
I’m sure that will happen any day now.
gbear
Lively is only talking publicly about Russia because he’s afraid that if started talking about Uganda’s ‘kill the gays’ laws that he helped promote, people would realize what he’s more into extermination of gays rather than saving the family. He’s a fucking piece of work.
PurpleGirl
@Slugger: In the book Nicholas and Alexandra, Massey makes a comment that Nicholas would have been the perfect English constitutional monarch but he was wrong for Russia. Massey said the Russians seemed to like strong, authoritarian leaders the best.
maya
Dear Mr. La Barbera,
I understand you are the perfect and concerned person to give the definitive answer to this family value question. Is a wife supposed to walk 3 paces behind her husband and to the right, or, 5 paces behind and to the left? I have a $10,000 wager that it’s the first arrangement.
I’ll take my answer on line.
Thanking you a few paces in advance,
(W)MR
Fred
@Liberty60: Well it’s true there is nothing more liberating than being fired from a job. You get to set your own schedule, go any where you like, sleep under any bridge you choose. That’s real freedom.
Botsplainer
@PurpleGirl:
Massey was wrong. Nicholas was clueless in general, and ascended to the throne too young – he was both untrained as to the self-discipline required in autocratic rule (insofar as knowing when to bend) and knowing how to maneuver court politics. He treated his duties as yet another “have to”, and somewhat like a game. Combine that with the fact that all of Victoria’s grandchildren through the European royal houses were self-absorbed, entitled jackasses with zero empathetic feelings toward the masses, and you’ve got a recipe for a war which blew through the combined gains of 400 years of colonial economic extraction for European powers, killed 10s of millions, and completely altered the political globe for the next century.
D58826
@revrick: I think Solomon’s ‘natural family’, with it’s 500+ wives and concubines, has potential
nellcote
“Yet even in the face of this historically disproportionate aggression, countries around the world have offered support and asylum. These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless. By refusing to compromise their principles in the face of intimidation, they have earned the respect of the world.”
Comrade Dread
@D58826: It’s much better than Lot’s family, but still sounds like a giant headache.
Roger Moore
@Comrade Dread:
Judah’s family should stand as a great example of Biblical family values, also, too.
Tommy
@OzarkHillbilly: Who are these folks? I am a straight guy, but somebody that isn’t affect by their sexuality. If a person whats to marry a fellow women or a man, again doesn’t affect my preference for women. To each their own.
Tommy
@Roger Moore: I am no expert on the Bible. But I was talking to a family member the other day and they were down on Muslims. I was like have you read the Qur’an? The Bible?
You know there is some overlap in those books.
russell
They got the “Russia has enough problems of its own” part right.
Fabulous that the new conservative heart-throb is the president and former prime minister of a failed kleptocratic former communist state, and former officer in the secret police back in the communist days.
So much for liberty above all.
russell
And if we’re talking biblical family values, don’t forget Abraham pimping his wife Sarah to Pharoah.
Folks who spout the bible should actually read it now and then.
gelfling545
@OzarkHillbilly: Part of the problem is that they did this all after hours on a Friday.
Chris
This explains why my fundie relative was posting “why everyone gotta hate Russia? People are such bigots” the other day.
PurpleGirl
@Botsplainer: Be that as it may (and I don’t mean that you’re wrong), the broader point was that the Russian people like strong, authoritarian leaders — more Stalin and Putin than otherwise.
gelfling545
Thanks to all for suggestions. We will follow up on all, including the hammers. I told her to contact the hospital social worker & find out why no assessment was done when this came through (the poor woman lives alone in a second floor flat & my daughter & SIL live more than an hour’s drive away & have 2 young children & also live in a second floor flat with killer stairs.) There is no one there to care for her or with any idea how to care for her and getting anybody qualified in to help on a Sat. is just not happening. Oh and her son, my SIL who is supposed to get her into her apartment is disabled – right foot tends to break where it is pinned if he puts too much weight on it. This is just a disaster. I don’t know how she could even endure the car ride. Thanks again & sorry for ranting.
Ripley
@gelfling545: In addition to all the good suggestions so far, determine a means by which you could publicize this (local newspapers are often eager for this kind of dirt), make contact there – a phone call of email to a section editor, for instance – and then contact the hospital administration with the info that you can and will go public if this isn’t resolved. I’ve seen hospital admin act on this kind of threat when all the formal procedural avenues proved to be dead ends. Healthcare (ha) administrators are panicky pant-shitters deep down, and bad press is like a laxative.
RaflW
Someone frontpaged an article here the other day that said that Putin is scoring below the 27% US crazification factor, so I welcome any attempts to link the US religious right to Putin.
Fantastic optics, guys! (And it is, invariably, mostly guys).
cckids
@gelfling545: I am very late here, but I’ve had sad experience with this sh*t, both with my son & my dad. Sadly, but realistically, they probably are on their own until Monday. Though if they can get through to the MIL’s doctor, that might be their best resource right away, if he/she is willing to go to bat for them.
On Monday, they need to call the State Insurance Commissioner & report their insurance co, stat. Then call the insurance company & tell them that you’ve started a case there. Depending on the state & how that office is run, this will go farther than the threat of lawyers & lawsuits, which I’m sure they hear daily.
Also, the hospital’s social worker, as someone else noted, should be called TODAY & the problems detailed, exaggerated even. There is a definite expectation today that people’s families will drop everything & do fairly detailed nursing care & it is scary as hell. Also dangerous.
As a last resort, she can “fall” and need 911 to be called & taken back to the hospital. This depends entirely on the insurance, copays, etc, but is worth thinking about.
I read that sentence & weep for the state of medical care in our country.
Edit to add: I read Ripley’s suggestion about publicity; good idea, but call whichever of the local TV news has a “muckraking” squad; they are MUCH more willing to throw dirt & innuendos, they are louder & get more eyeballs & thus attention from the hospital.
Persia
@cckids: IIRC hospitals are increasingly responsible for the costs of readmission. Might be a good time to remind those institutions of that little problem.
Interrobang
@Comrade Dread: There are Levites all over the place, and kohainim too (ISTR at least one getting called up the last time I was in a synagogue, and the observant community here is tiny). Not every Jew is a Yisroel. The issue is mostly that there’s no Temple anymore, as there happens to be a mosque on it.
(IANAJ; it’s complicated.)
These freaks put a bit too much weight on one obscure verse of indeterminate meaning (there’s some debate over whether it means what we’d call homosexuality now or the Hellenic pederasty), and a little too little on the rest, arguably the important bits.
At least one lesbian writer I know of refers to Peter LaBarbera as “Porno Pete” because of his extensive collection of gay leather porn, which he collects ostensibly for “research purposes.” If your gaydar didn’t just howl, begin to smoke, and then either melt into slag or explode, well done on tuning it down that far.
cckids
@Persia: True, its part of the ACA. However, hospitals are still dancing to the tune of the insurance companies over patient care. Hopefully, that will start to change.
Comrade Dread
@Interrobang: Really? I had no idea that after all this time that folks could still trace their ancestry back to one of the original tribes. That’s kind of cool.
satby
@dmsilev: not only issued, but Orr (the county clerk) performed the first marriage for the plaintiffs in the suit.
slippytoad
It’s astonishing how weak a value freedom of thought and liberty are, next to the “value” of sexual orientation and the right to enforce it. I guess it’s just another TEXTBOOK example of how Conservatives don’t actually share ANY relevant values of America, and seem to find the whole social progress and the liberty of the individual to be a terrifying prospect.
TheMightyTrowel
@Interrobang: he’s called porno Pete pretty widely in the lgbt community actually. We remember these hypocrisies.
The Other Chuck
@D58826: Roy Zimmerman has a great tune about that. <– clickie