Ted Cruz is not, by any means, a friend of the gay community, but when he got wind of Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” law, he called it “horrific,” meaning that for once, he was on the correct side of history. It’s pretty safe to say that if he thinks it’s “horrific” then yes, it’s horrific. It’s kind of a shock that the anti-immigrant, Cuban-American, Canada-born Texas GOP Senator, considering all of the above, would even call this out. But call it out, he did.
“This uganda law is horrific & wrong.
Any law criminalizing homosexuality or imposing the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” is grotesque & an abomination.
All Civilized nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse.”
This Uganda law is horrific & wrong.
Any law criminalizing homosexuality or imposing the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality” is grotesque & an abomination.
ALL civilized nations should join together in condemning this human rights abuse.#LGBTQ https://t.co/tTIMR8VtqW
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) May 29, 2023
But Rep. Tim Walberg (R-Mich.) lauded Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023, otherwise known as the “Kill the Gays” law. He even traveled to Uganda in October to support Museveni and attend a national prayer breakfast that was organized by the Fellowship Foundation, also called The Family (which somehow sounds like some variation of the Mafia). Perhaps you could call them the religious Mafia, I don’t know.
Anyway, The Family covered the cost of Walberg’s trip, according to TYT. In his speech, transcribed by the blog Take Care Tim, he told his audience to “stand firm” in the face of criticism, according to The New Civil Rights Movement.
What a creep.
He thinks it’s fine to advocate for the killing of innocent people, and if someone as putrid as (Cancun) Ted Cruz understands this then he deserves an atom’s worth of thanks for not being disgusting for a change. Because Walberg, especially in his speech below, almost makes Cruz seem decent. Almost.
“Whose side do we want to be on? god’s side. not the world bank, not the united states of american necessarily, not the un. god’s side,” Walberg told attendees. “i think as we go on here, it says, ‘so i will deliver you from the hand of the wicked. and i will redeem you from the grasp of the violent.’ who’s gonna do that? god is gonna do that. your esteemed president, his excellency, president museveni needs a nation that stands with him and says, though the rest of the world is pushing back on you, though there are other major countries that are trying to get into you and ultimately change you, stand firm. stand firm.”
I find it odd that people like Walberg are always telling us what “God” is going to do and rarely is it ever anything kind. We still don’t even know if there is a God, but according to folks who parrot these lines, He’s always smiting, causing floods, earthquakes, COVID, and Donald Trump.
Does this “God” never tire of being hateful?
But Walberg almost certainly knew when he was speaking in front of that audience in October that his speech wouldn’t go over in several parts of the U.S., except maybe Florida and Georgia and other deeply red states still back in the Dark Ages.
“Now, this will probably get back to the national media in the united states, and i expect some pushback, but i’m not gonna give in to them. … i know that your president is a warrior. i like that about him. we’re in a battle, folks. we are in a battle,” he said.
What battle? Is he worried that gay men are going to co-opt all the pink eye shadow? He’s not talking about the real battles — Gaza, Ukraine, or any of the other places in the world where innocent people are being killed by the thousands daily.
And Uganda has been pressing this homophobic envelope since it was a British protectorate and the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023, which passed in May, is really a major abomination. This law diverts from earlier versions, which held that homosexuality was punishable by life in prison, The Advocate reports. But now, this new law allows the death penalty for anyone convicted of “aggravated homosexuality.” And, in lockstep with Russia, which prohibits queer “propaganda,” the law bans the “promotion of homosexuality.”
The homophobic measure also caught the attention of the Biden administration, which threatened to cut nearly $1 billion in annual aid to Uganda if the law passed. Earlier this month, the Biden White House announced exactly what it is planning to do.
I should be used to this kind of cruelty by now but I still get gobsmacked by it. We have a planet where human and non-human animals are being destroyed by climate change and terrifying wars where some won’t make it through the night and religious right-wing Republicans are obsessed with where and with whom people share their sex parts and also nitpick people who use differing gender identities.
And to think that for once I would agree with Ted Cruz. Pigs really are flying.
Cruz doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the brown children at the border…how many die, are ripped from their families or cut to pieces by razor wire. Even a blind pig finds an acorn occasionally. So when a fascist pig plays politics by PRETENDING he’s a moral human…fool me once…watch him support the nazi here on out home soil.
He’s a gold-plaited t*rd and he’ll fall over for the tangerine nightmare but it’s why I said he deserves an atom’s worth of thanks but anyone who can fly to Cancun while his constituents freeze to death is worse than any pig could ever be. They are sentient after all. Not so sure about him.
I like to ask assholes like this to cite the bible passage(s) where Jesus spoke out against homosexuality. Same with the rest of the New Testament. You know, the part of the bible CHRISTIANITY (as in Jesus CHRIST) was based on. I enjoy the hell out of watching the sputter, and squirm. All they can come up with are one or two short passages from the Old Testament (the one Jesus didn’t exactly say to ignore, but taught wasn’t the way to heaven but rather what HE was on earth to teach) like the one from Leviticus. Even the part about Sodom and Gomorrah seems not to be what asshats like this believe and preach. Perhaps Mr. Jackson will weigh in on that as he knows this stuff way better than I ever did. The point is that when you go through some of the crazy shit in the early chapters of the Old Testament, some of the rules which if broken brought harsh punishments and even death sometimes and marvel. It makes me thing of an episode of West Wing where the President freaks out during a midterm because one of these freaks he’d beaten for Congress many years before was running for school counsel back in NH where his kids had gone to school. His communications director Toby at one point asks “how did you beat him?” and Bartlett says he just can’t remember. Then, near the episode on election night he does a drop in on a WH gathering of talk radio hosts and there’s the following exchange between the President and a RWNJ “Christian” radio host:
Yup, and these religiots (as I like to call them) are always telling us what God “wants.” No one even knows if there is a God, and in their warped little minds, whatever God wants is always cruel. It would be nice if they’d worry about the things that actually matter. I went to a Seventh-Day Adventist school for several years and heard plenty of nonsense about the “rapture.” Rarely did I ever hear anything about the current state of the world. Our principal would lecture us every Friday about how the world would be ending at a set date in 30 years, which has, of course, long since passed. It reminds of a friend I had who suffered from schizophrenia, and she told me “Megan, the voices are cruel.” And Walberg and his ilk almost seem like they’re schizophrenic. Their God is never kind. Tired of their b.s.
Denis you have it covered pretty well. Hypocrisy, especially by the wealthy religious leaders was his main target. Easy to rail on something taking place on another continent while supporting killing children in your backyard. Jesus wouldn’t last five goddamn minutes in America as it operates today. IMO.
We’re the same age. Remember a quirky TV show from the 1990s called Pickett Fences? I enjoyed it. For those who don’t know it was set in a small town in the upper midwest and was as I said quirky, zany and yet also serious. One episode delved into a dispute that was “family values” and religious beliefs based and the issue of what the bible and Jesus taught vs. what was being practiced had boiled over into open, ugly conflict. At the end, post chaos a guy quietly recounted the mess and how the figure that was the basis for Christianity would figure into what had happened.
It was then I first heard the line “If Jesus were to come back today he wouldn’t be treated any better than he was the first time around.” I’ve thought of that often since and more so it seems every year. My sister who unlike me is pretty conservative (not RWNJ but quite conservative) and I find that something we can agree on. She likes to say it’s a lot harder to practice what Jesus taught than to talk about being Christian and that not enough people are willing to try, or try nearly as hard as they should if they want to claim to be Christians.
And as we see there are those who completely ignore the teachings of their “Savior” and talk & act in ways that would horrify him.
Despite our differences one reason my sister and I manage to get along (same with a handful of others I’ve known all or much of my life who are conservative and even open Trump lovers) is that while it pains them I’m agnostic, they know I make an effort to do things Jesus taught, to try and not only recognize those who are in need but try and help when & where I can. Since they do the same (outside of politics) we have at least that much in common and manage a level of tolerance for each other’s political views and what government can/should do (or not) to help out.
Then that makes you a disciple, agnostic or not. :>)
The Religious Reich’s interpretation of bit. about Sodom was corrected within the OT itself where it is made clear that refusal.of hospitality to travelers and lack of generosity to the poor were the sins for which Sodom.and Gomorrah were condemned.
The verse in Leviticus is about sex with temple priests and thus condemns worship of a different god/dess ,not homosexuality. In pagan terms that sex,was ritual worship of a deity other than YHWH, so a violation of the first commandment.
Sadly these preachers,are as ignorant as their congregations. I had a minor in theology and was taught by world class scholars. These idiot preachers couldn’t tell you the difference between Aramaic,Join known Gredk, and Latin ( fyi, the modern pronunciation of Latin is,quite different from the original; 3 years of Latin in high school.and a semester on the epic translating the Aeneid– taught me that ).
love that clip! interesting coincidence involving Martin Sheen. I met him at the Hyannis armory where he played John Kennedy for a made for tv movie. In real life it was where Kennedy accepted the nomination. I was an extra in the crowd and got to shake his hand several times saying “congratulations Mr. president!”. I appeared in the Hyannis paper. It was the early 80s. I never watched West Wing, but he was very nice to all of us little people, gracious, kind, and didn’t act like a star.
loved that scene! I never missed a show when it was on the air.
He’s saying this because he’s up for re-election in ’24.
Cruz? Why would re-election factor into his condemnation? He’s NOT going to get the support of LGBTQ+ voters (they already know how horrible he is, as a person and an elected official) and he risks pissing off the MAGAts and Evangelicals he needs to get elected in the first place by showing concern for “the queers.”
And I will guarantee you that Walberg would be the first to “defend” gays in an effort to attack Muslim countries with harsh anti-gay laws (I base that on the fact that the same right-wingers who’ve been trying their damnedest to control women’s freedoms–including bodily autonomy and choice of clothing–in this country are usually the first to demand that the US do something to “protect” women’s rights in Muslim countries).
It’s kind of like with the Israel/Palestine issue. Right-wingers will ask the LGBTQ+ community why they’ll support Palestine (which, admittedly, is less than tolerant of the community) when Israel is so much better on LGBTQ+ rights yet those same right-wingers will deliberately overlook the fact that Israel’s far-right, including its many Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox communities, is virulently anti-LGBTQ and have targeted Pride event attendees and have thrown up all sorts of roadblocks for same-sex marriage and adoption and surrogate birth issues when same-sex couples are involved. And that Tel Aviv teen club that catered to LGBTQ+ youth that was attacked years ago, well the perpetrators have never been identified, largely because the community believes the far-right religious groups were behind it with military help (and possibly the approval of government officials–especially after the initial reports tried to link the attack on Palestinian terrorists or Islamist terrorists even though no such groups even hinted at responsibility).
True.