Kyle Mantyla's blog

To say that Bryan Fischer was outraged over evangelical pastor Louie Giglio's withdrawal from participation in President Obama’s inauguration over an anti-gay sermon he delivered would be a massive understatement, as Fischer has been venting his fury all day on Twitter and then let loose on his radio program, finally declaring that anti-gay Christians are "now the new Rosa Parks" and the victims of modern-day Jim Crow laws:

When Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News, Ben Shapiro, shows up on Glenn Beck's radio program to promote his new book, "Bullies: How the Left's Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans," what do you think they talk about?

Why, the need for "civility" of course!

Shapiro claimed that groups like Media Matters colluded with the White House in weekly meetings where they plotted strategy on how to destroy Beck by monitoring his program in order to find clips they could take out of context and then use to target his advertisers and ultimately drive him off the air.

"These are not pro-First Amendment people," said Shapiro. "These are not pro-free speech people. These are not pro-civility people. They're not civil and we have to stop treating them as though civility is going to win the day ... The moral high ground doesn't do us a lot of good when we're fighting people who are absolute thugs."

Shapiro justified his call to stop being civil with liberals on the grounds that there is some of a "Geneva Convention with regard to civility" whereby only those who abide by the convention deserve its protections. And since liberals basically operate like terrorists, they are not entitled to the convention's guarantees of civility; an idea that Beck thought was absolutely "profound":

Again, this was Glenn Beck and the Editor-At-Large of Breitbart News claiming that other people are uncivil and therefore undeserving of being treated with civility.

• Jeremy Hooper @ NOM Exposed: Key NOM employee: Lesbians who buy sperm ‘should be in jail’; child becomes ‘chattel.’
• McKay Coppins @ BuzzFeed: Glenn Beck Relaunching The Blaze As Global Libertarian News Network.
• Alex Seitz-Wald @ Salon:  Meet the Sandy Hook truthers.
• Hemant Mehta @ The Friendly Atheist: Lying Reverend Gets Fired from the Christian Post.
• Josh Israel @ Think Progress: Inaugural Benediction To Be Delivered By Pastor Who Gave Vehemently Anti-Gay Sermon.
• Carlos Maza @ Equality Matters: Will Tony Perkins’ New Radio Show Cement His Media Influence?
• Warren Throckmorton: David Barton Uses Jefferson Quote He Says is Unconfirmed.

• I guess we can now look forward to the Religious Right freaking out over the news that the Washington National Cathedral will begin performing same-sex marriages.
• A federal judge has ruled that a Texas school district can expel a students for refusing to wear an identity card containing an RFID chip on the grounds that it was a "mark of the beast."
• Dick Armey claims he mistakenly granted an interview to Media Matters regarding the debacle at FreedomWorks because his thought he was talking to the conservative Media Research Center.
• Apparently releasing the names of priests who molested children will turn into a "witch hunt [that] would negatively impact the church as a whole."
• Finally, in March, Tim Tebow will speak at Liberty University's Convocation.

As is his custom, Bryan Fischer began today's radio program with a reading and discussion from the Bible, in this case a passage from the book of Joel which Fischer said revealed that all natural disasters were sent by God in order to correct humanity just as parents have to spank disobedient children in order to teach them a lesson:

On the most recent episode of "God Knows," Cindy Jacobs warned that the world was heading into a "season of shaking" and so people ought to start making preparations and stockpiling some provisions.  But Christians will not have much to worry about because God will provide for them supernaturally, just like how he has miraculously multiplied the dinners she has cooked and the oil she has used and also made a set of tires on her car and a pair shoes she owned last for years and years:

On yesterday's weekly installment of "The Hagee Hotline," John Hagee responded to question from a viewer wondering if those who are not in God's favor are prevented from finding a husband or wife by saying the idea was nonsense because people are getting married all the time. 

But that doesn't mean that people are meeting the Bible's requirements for getting married, one of which is that the person they marry must be of the opposite sex because "anything else is two disturbed people playing house":

• Carlos Maza @ Equality Matters: Fox Nation, Rush Limbaugh Peddle Gay Marriage-Pedophilia Link.
• Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Crapo poised for promotion after DUI.
• Noah Rothman @ Mediaite: The Piers Morgan Interview Was Nothing: Watch Alex Jones’ Nine Nuttiest Moments.
• Rebecca Leber @ Think Progress: Gabby Giffords Launches Gun Safety Group, Calls For ‘Responsible Changes In Our Laws.’
• Alvin McEwen: How They See Us: Unmasking The Religious Right War on Gay America.

• Without irony, Glenn Beck and crew attack Alex Jones as a lunatic fascist conspiracy theorist ... while claiming that his appearance on CNN was part of a conspiracy to make gun defenders look crazy.
• Randy Thomasson says "Adolf Hitler and his henchmen would be proud" of California.
• Peter LaBarbera has twenty resolutions for anti-gay activists in 2013.
• Tim Wildmon is "not so sure that President Obama is not intentionally trying to bankrupt the United States of America."
• Finally, Bryan Fischer bravely engages in a hypothetical conversation with a straw man:

At this point, we don't really expect much from Bryan Fischer ... but still, some basic honesty would be nice.

On his radio program today, Fischer was discussing remarks Sen. Harry Reid delivered on the Senate floor last week blasting the failure by Congress, thanks to House Republicans, to pass a relief package for those impacted by Hurricane Sandy.  In his remarks, Reid noted that Congress passed legislation aiding victims of Hurricane Katrina within ten days back in 2005, while victims of Sandy have had to wait over two months for assistance.

But in Fischer's deluded world, Reid's remarks were "a damning indictment of [President] Obama's FEMA."

Fischer was fully aware that Reid was criticizing Congress for failing to appropriate the money that FEMA needs to carry out relief work but flagrantly misrepresented his statement to claim that Reid was admitting that when President Bush was in charge, Katrina victims received assistance within days, while Sandy victims under Obama have been forced to wait months:

The next time any Religious Right activist wants to complain that we "misrepresent" their views or take their statements "out of context," we'll just point them to this Fischer clip as an example of what real, actual intentional misrepresentation looks like.