Put Michele Bachmann's face on a stick,
and have fun making up stuff.
You can't get goofier than she is.
Via City Pages:
Michele Bachmann argues anti-gay bill is actually about tolerance
During an appearance on Wolf Blitzer's CNN show yesterday, Michele Bachmann used her unique brand of logic to argue on behalf of an Arizona bill that would've allowed businesses to deny service to gay and lesbian customers."We need to respect both opinions," Bachmann said. "Just like we need to observe tolerance for the gay and lesbian community, we need to have tolerance for the community of people who hold sincerely held religious beliefs."
"This isn't one side or another," Bachmann continued. "What we're talking is tolerance on both sides and it is not tolerant to force people to violate their religious beliefs."
But the lame-duck congresswoman's opinion wasn't shared by Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who vetoed the controversial Republican-pushed bill shortly after Bachmann's CNN appearance.
"To the supporters of the legislation, I want you to know that I understand that long-held norms about marriage and family are being challenged as never before. Our society is undergoing many dramatic changes," Brewer said in a statement. "However, I sincerely believe that Senate Bill 1062 has the potential to create more problems than it purports to solve. It could divide Arizona in ways we cannot even imagine and no one would ever want."
"Religious liberty is a core American and Arizona value. So is non-discrimination," Brewer continued.
In fact, even the usually unopinionated Blitzer made clear he disagreed with Bachmann's stance.
"Americans are very tolerant people, and there is religious freedom in our country," he said, telling Bachmann that, "On this one, I disagree."
Using Michele Bachmann's logic, we should have just tolerated slavery, because hey - the advocates for slavery held deep and SINCERE religious beliefs, based on the Bible as THEIR justification for slavery. And Jim Crow laws too, because criticizing bigots makes them feel bad, and opposing oppression, and real harm to people is not tolerant of the people who are doing the harming.
Yah think?
Here is a hint, Michele, criticizing and ridiculing bigots is SUPPOSED to make them feel bad. The intention is to make bigots stop being so bad by ..........wait for it..........making them feel bad for doing so, including shaming them.
Bachmann is once again trying to claim a false equivalency. Being a SINCERE bigot, or invoking a religious justification for bigotry, doesn't give bigotry and intolerance an equal status, legitimacy or validation.
Because treating people badly, because you believe things that are bad AND NOT TRUE about them, is wrong. Like claiming that gay people are pedophiles, for example, or that they aren't equally good parents as heterosexual people, in spite of all the factual research that shows that is not true. Denying people housing, employment, or other services because of a hateful prejudice is another example, as is denying people dignity and civil rights.
In Michele's sad, silly little world, there is no climate change consensus, there is no scientific consensus on Evolution either, and if she wants to believe the Sun orbits the Earth, or something equally silly, then she thinks THAT should be given the same respect as a more legitimate and fact-based point of view.
It should not.
Another City Pages story a few weeks ago pointed out that Michele Bachmann did not actually say or write "If English was good enough for Jesus when he wrote the Bible, it should be good enough for Coke." accompanied by this image but failed to note that Christians for Michele Bachmann is itself a satire and parody face book page. I came across other satire from that site, being shared by people who thought that it was totally obvious that this image below and others similarly satiric were OBVIOUS. They were a little surprised, and amused to find out that it was taken more seriously than they ever anticipated, especially in her home state, when I shared with them the city pages article. The satirists had a hard time wrapping their head around just how much crazy stuff Bachmann says here in MN. The logo in the lower right hand corner clearly identifies the REAL source; for once it is NOT actually Faux News.
The City Pages correctly trace the original quote, which did not reference the Coke add that featured young bi-lingual American women singing in other languages than English. To be fair, back in 2011, Bachmann DID call for English to be the one and only official language of the United States back in 2011, so the original quote, and the pattern of egregious hijacking of religion to justify her positions is spot on. And it is a more than justified satire, given the twitter-sphere and other social media explosions of intolerance from conservatives in response to the Coke Superbowl 'America the Beautiful' ad.
The real question here should not be how could anyone mistakenly believe the satire by Christians for Michele Bachmann, but how the heck could anyone put Michele Bachmann on any program claiming to be news, as even remotely valid, and then treat her comments and opinions as if they were rational, sane or even remotely reasonable. They lack any legitimacy whatsoever, and are on the far right wingnuttery edge of the totally crazy. Shame on you Wolf Blitzer; YOU and CNN are part of the problem! Stop giving her attention and ersatz legitimacy - or those like her! Her retiring does not make her a lame duck; the woman is a dumb CLUCK.
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