Things got ugly this week, when Fox News anchor Shep Smith told the truth about Kentucky county clerk, and anti-gay theocrat, Kim Davis. The truth hurts, and wingnuts didn’t like it one bit.
Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, was released after being jailed for contempt, for refusing to follow a federal court order requiring her to issue the marriage licenses, or at least let her deputies do so. Former Arkansas governor and GOP presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was on hand to welcome Davis, with a rally fit for a pro-wrestler.
It was all too much for Fox News anchor Shep Smith, however. Apparently unable to contain himself, Smith let fly with a critical takedown of Davis as an opportunist and hypocrite. “Haters are gonna hate,” Smith said over the live broadcast of the rally. Smith slammed Davis for rejecting a compromise that would allow her deputies to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, just to keep the story in the media. (Smith may be more right than he knows. Unreasonable demands from Davis and her lawyer could drag the saga out until January — possibly longer.)
Smith even pointed out the hypocrisy of religious right-wingers who fear monger about Sharia law, and then support theocracy when it suits them. Yes, he took it there.
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Needless to say, wingnuts didn’t like it.
The Right Scoop dubbed Smith a “puke” and an “idiot” for pointing out their hypocrisy, and argued for Christian theocracy: “And then he calls us hypocrites for not wanting Muslim theocracy in our country, suggesting we want to push our Christian values on the government? Does he know anything about how this country was founded? Has he ever read the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence?”
Cliff Kincaid at GOP USA moaned that Smith’s screed was evidence of “anti-Christian bias that has been rearing its ugly head” on Fox News, and was pained to see Fox “break its promise to air ‘fair and balanced’ coverage of the issue by permitting Smith to take such a crude stand against Davis.” Kincaid went on to claim that Smith’s outburst was further proof that Fox News has become “pro-homosexual” and called upon Smith to “come out of the closet”:
“With his reckless comments, Smith, regularly featured by Out magazine as a powerful homosexual media personality, has embarrassed his channel and turned himself into a liability with the channel’s conservative viewers. He has completely dropped any pretense of objectivity on his show, by apparently taking it personally that many people find the gay lifestyle to be morally repugnant.”
It’s a good thing they didn’t hear about the rest.
- The panel of legal experts on Fox’s “Happening Now” slam Davis’ lawyer as “ridiculously stupid.” (Actually, during an interview on his show with The Family Leader’s Bob Vander Plaats, radio host Steve Deace said he wanted to “throat punch” the Fox’s legal panel for criticizing Davis. Deace and Vander Plaats agreed that the panel “deserved to be hung.” )
- Fox News host Andrea Tantaros said that Davis “sets a dangerous precedent” by seeking to impose her religious beliefs on everyone who sets foot in her office. (To prove her point, Tantaros nearly suggested a scenario in which someone might use a religious objection to justify refusing to issue gun licenses, but Bill O’Reilly cut her off.)
- Another Fox News panel fell apart when Catholic League founder Bill Donohue suggested to African-American defense attorney Eric Guster that Kim Davis was a new Martin Luther King.
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Davis even got flack from Survivor for using the band’s hit “Eye of the Tiger” at her release rally. co-songwriter Frankie Sullivan posted on Facebook, “I would not grant her the rights to use Charmin!” Co-founder and songwriter Jim Peterik had some words of his own:
“I was very surprised and dismayed at the misuse of the song I co-wrote with Frankie Sullivan for ‘Rocky lll,’” he told Billboard. “The song has motivated thousands through the years to reach beyond their limits. Its use for the release of Kim Davis does not support my views or my politics. I have contacted my publishers to make sure this usage is stopped immediately.”
Sounds like Davis will have more legal trouble on her hands.
Not to worry, though. Davis still has supporters out there in wingnuttia.
- The anti-government group, the Oath Keepers have threatened to step in to keep Davis out of jail, should she decide to again defy the federal court order, and are reported to have already established a presence in Rowan County.
- Mike Huckabee proved that he knows as much about the Constitution as Davis “ludicrously obtuse” lawyer Matt Staver. Huckabee told an incredulous radio host Michael Medved, “the Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land which says that black people aren’t fully human.” Mika Brzezinski destroyed Huckabee when he tried that argument on “Morning Joe,” and he still hasn’t learned.
- Fox News host Todd Starnes said that Judge David Bunning should have replaced the law with his Catholic faith, rather than jailing Davis for contempt.
- Eagle Forum president Phyllis Schlafly wrote in her WorldNet daily column that Davis should create a “sanctuary county” free of same-sex marriage.
- GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson told Fox News host Megyn Kelly that Christians (but not Muslims) should have the right to cite their beliefs to refuse to do their jobs, because “this is a Judeo-Christian nation.”
- Pat Robertson warned his viewers, “You go to jail if you believe in God and stand fast for your beliefs against the onslaught of secular humanism and the flood that comes about with it.”
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Here’s the rest of the best of the worst in wingnuttery this week:
- Rep. Louie Gohmert (R, Texas) vows to resign if the nuclear deal with Iran passes. (Who knows? That just might secure its passage.)
- Televangelist John Hagee warned that the Iran deal puts America in “direct line of fire to receive the judgment of God.”
- During an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” failed Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin said she wants immigrants to “speak American.” Palin told Jake Tapper, “We can send a message and say, ‘You want to be in America, A, you’d better be here legally or you’re out of here. B, when you’re here, let’s speak American.”
- Palin also claimed that glaciers are growing, which means humans didn’t cause climate change.
- During a “special update” with Rick Joyner, the Family Research Council’s Jerry Boykin said that the Constitution came right from the Bible, and that our government was created to be run by Christians.
- Speaking at a rally against the nuclear deal with Iran, Palin referred to Black Lives Matter as “dogs,” demanding that the president “call off the dogs.”
- Fox News host Juan Williams accused Black Lives Matter of “inciting violence against cops.”
- The slandering of Planned Parenthood culminated in a congressional hearing on Planned Parenthood, to which Planned Parenthood was not invited!
- At the hearing, Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R, Wisconsin) demanded that the one pro-choice witness at the hearing choose between funding Planned Parenthood and “feeding starving children.” Never mind that Planned Parenthood consumes just .00015 percent of the federal budget.
- Rep. Sensenbrenner had his mind blown at the hearing, when a witness told him that some of the women who use Planned Parenthood services are mothers.
- Meanwhile, after a summer of heated rhetoric aimed at Planned Parenthood, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Washington state was the target of a terrorist arson attack."
- Voters in Fayetteville, Arkansas voted to pass a fully inclusive nondiscrimination ordinance, with civil rights protections for LGBT people. The vote came one year after the city voted to repeal a similar ordinance, following a deceptive campaign supported by former reality television stars Michelle and Joshua Duggar.
- Oregon judge Vance Day, of the Marion County Circuit Court, is facing an ethics review for refusing to perform same-sex weddings. Day also faced complaints that he put up a picture of Adolf Hitler in the Marion County Courthouse, and allowing a veteran with a felony conviction to handle a firearm.
- Pat Fagan, the director of the Family Research Council’s Marriage and Religious Research Institute suggested that marriage equality advocates start calling gay men’s marriages “garriages,” and lesbian marriages “larriages.” With a straight face.
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