Rick Perry bashes gays

Governor Rick Perry released a campaign commercial that many people quickly reviled. Here's the text of the ad and the response:

Rick Perry Bashes Gays To Save Christmas; Says He’s Totally Unashamed Of His Personal Relationship With 33-Year-Old Jewish Male From Nazareth*
RICK PERRY: I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian, but you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school. As President, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion. And I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage. Faith made America strong. It can make her strong again. I’m Rick Perry and I approve this message.

RELATED: It was clearly intended to elicit a strong reaction, and don’t think that that jaw-dropping comparison went unnoticed. In just a few days, the video garnered scores of negative reactions on YouTube and, at the time of writing, 399,152 dislikes. Just to put that into perspective, that’s more dislikes than viral star Rebecca Black’s video for “Friday” has received, and that song was the butt of endless jokes for months on end. Her official video is currently at 255,704 dislikes. She’s practically adored compared to Perry.Normally, this wouldn't be relevant to Newspaper Rock. But the following cartoon puts it into context nicely:



Bingo! This version of Rick Perry has just explained the reactionary right-wing movement of the last couple of decades. It's all about establishing the supremacy of white conservative Christians.

Another cartoon makes a similar point:



These points apply to Indians and their practice of traditional religion, of course. Indeed, Rick Perry's line about minorities existing in the open without being ashamed applies directly to blacks, Latinos, Indians, and other minorities.

That's what the conservative movement is all about: demonizing minorities as criminals, welfare recipients, and good-for-nothing bums. In conservatives' minds, anyone who's poor, sick, or disadvantaged is trying to cheat and steal from white people who have "earned" their wealth.

Hillary Clinton's take

Finally, we have this semi-response from Hillary Clinton:

Rick Perry bashes gays but Hillary Clinton defends their rights
Kudos to Secretary of State Clinton for her declaration in support of gay rights throughout the world. Of course, the Christian rightwing is mad. They think there is a fundamental religious right to oppress gay men and women. Such as in Uganda where the Christian rightwing there want to execute gay men for consensual sex. Clinton states that the arguments against gay rights are similar to earlier arguments against civil rights:

“This is not unlike the justification offered for violent practices towards women like honor killings, widow burning, or female genital mutilation,” observed Clinton. Some people still defend those practices as part of a cultural tradition. But violence toward women isn’t cultural; it’s criminal. Likewise with slavery, what was once justified as sanctioned by God is now properly reviled as an unconscionable violation of human rights. In each of these cases, we came to learn that no practice or tradition trumps the human rights that belong to all of us.”Comment:  If it isn't clear, Clinton's comments would apply to the Aztec practice of human sacrifice too.  There are few if any exceptions to the position of putting human rights first.

For more on Indians as welfare recipients, see Attawapiskat Triggers "Welfare" Stereotypes and Candidate:  Indians Spend "Handouts" on Drugs.