ISBL Asshat of the Week:Phil Gingrey

Boy, it’s hard out there for a millionaire Republican Congressman, no?

It must be a chore, struggling to make ends meet for Phil Gingrey — that millionaire Republican Congressman … from Georgia — because he’s complaining about it.

During a meeting with fellow Republicans, like Weeper of the House  John Boehner, to discuss finding a way to exempt members of Congress and their staffs from having to enroll in Obamacare, Gingrey whined about his salary, saying, that while lobbyists can “make 500,000 a year … I’m stuck here making $172,000 a year.”

Gingrey works just 126 days — or about four months a year — to make that $172,000; that’s roughly $1365.00 a day, or $170.00 per hour for an eight-hour day. Like I said, it’s hard out there for a —

What? Gingrey has other income in addition to his job that pays him nearly two-hundred bucks an hour? What’s that? Phil Gingrey is a millionaire, whose net worth is listed between $3 million and $7.6 million?

See, therein lies the problem with the GOP, that Out Of Touchiness thing they have going on, because members of the Grand Out-of-Touch Party think that $170.00 an hour isn’t enough money to earn while representing their constituents who make far, far less than that.

I wonder how Gingrey would feel if he had to work a real eight hour day and take home less than a thousand dollars? We’ll never know because that’ll never happen. But it won’t stop him from complaining about it.

And, as a note to Phil Gingrey: if it isn’t enough money for you — and let’s remember that as a member of Congress Gingrey voted to give himself, and his ilk, some 239 days off a year — then maybe you should resign. Let someone have the job who actually needs the money, won’t complain about the money and might, just might, give the people of Georgia their money’s worth. 

Ass.Hat.

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I Didn't Say It ...

Joe Biden, praising the Supreme Court's ruling on DOMA:

"I think we're on the verge of seeing America move even further. I think we'll see the day when it is no longer a debate about whether or not same-sex couples can be married and whether or not they deserve every single civil right every other married couple deserves. This is a great day...for every gay and lesbian couple and it should be a great day for every straight couple in America. Now we can look each other in the eye and say: We're on the road to absolute fairness and equity."

I like that Biden says this is a great day for all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation.

As Dr. Martin Luther King said, ‘No one is free until we are all free.’

And we are on the march.

Andrew Sullivan, on the Catholic fear of The Gays and same-sex marriage:

“Jesus himself only said one thing about marriage, which was that you can’t divorce. And we live in a country where countless people are divorced, and that doesn’t seem to threaten the religious liberty of Catholics, and it’s as fundamental an issue. So if Catholics can live with religious liberty with divorced people, they should be perfectly able to live with gay people, as married–as a civil marriage.”

Where are all those Holy Rollers on the divorce issue? They seem to think Jesus spoke against The Gays when he didn’t but his words on divorce fall on deaf ears.

Phil Gingrey, Republican Congressman from Georgia, wants gender stereotypes to be taught in schools because it will stop the push for same-sex marriage: 

"You know, maybe part of the problem is we need to go back into the schools at a very early age, maybe at the grade school level, and have a class for the young girls and have a class for the young boys and say, you know, this is what's important. This is what a father does that is maybe a little different, maybe a little bit better than the talents that a mom has in a certain area. And the same thing for the young girls, that, you know, this is what a mom does, and this is what is important from the standpoint of that union which we call a marriage."

See, in every family around the world, Daddies are the same. They do the same things in the marriage and the Mommies do the same thing in the marriage, so kids need to know this so they will push for Mommy/Daddy marriages.

In short, Phil Gingrey is a tool.

Brian Sims, Pennsylvania congressman, and hottie, introducing a marriage equality bill in the statehouse:

“About two hours ago, I shopped around a co-sponsorship memo for a marriage bill, and I’m going to introduce an LGBT marriage equality bill helped light the fire under my colleagues to do it now. The co-sponsorship memo, which is sent out to House members for additional support, notes it “would re-define the definition of marriage as a civil contract between two people who enter into matrimony, and eliminate the current prohibition against same-sex marriage in our Commonwealth. It is important to note that this bill provides protections for religious organizations and entities that do not wish to sanction, perform, or in any way recognize such marriages.”

Hot. Smart. Compassionate. Gay.

And in politics.

We need more like him.

James Haskell, British rugby star, on being Attitude magazine's coverboy: 

“I’ve got a big gay following on Twitter so it’s an honour for me to be in Attitude. I’m surprised that across all sports more people haven’t come out because going by sheer statistics there have to be lots of gay sportsmen, right? I hate the idea of people feeling they can’t just be themselves and personally I wouldn’t give a s**t if any of my team-mates were gay."

Another one who is hot and smart and compassionate and an LGBT ally.

And, yeah, hot.

Eric Holder, Attorney General, on the Supreme Court’s ruling that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional: 

“The Department of Justice will continue to carefully monitor jurisdictions around the country for voting changes that may hamper voting rights. Let me be very clear: we will not hesitate to take swift enforcement action — using every legal tool that remains available to us — against any jurisdiction that seeks to take advantage of the Supreme Court’s ruling by hindering eligible citizens’ full and free exercise of the franchise. Like many others across the country, I am deeply disappointed with the Court’s decision in this matter. This decision represents a serious setback for voting rights - and has the potential to negatively affect millions of Americans across the country.”

SCOTUS did some great things last week, and they also did this.

If the GOP starts using this as a means to steal elections, then we’ve all lost.

Sean Patrick Maloney, out gay Congressman from New York, on last week's DOMA and Prop H8 rulings:

“I called my partner, Randy, of 21 years to tell him about the decision and to congratulate him and I really couldn’t get the words out. And I realized in that moment that it was the first time in 21 years, 20 of those years spent raising our 3 amazing children, that I wasn’t talking to him as someone who was seen as less than in the eyes of my own country’s laws.”

I understand that many straight people don’t understand this, but when you’ve lived many years in a loving and committed same-sex relationship, and then you hear your president say you deserve equality, and then the Supreme Court says you deserve equality, it’s a really big deal.

Rachel Maddow, calling on the GOP to prove it isn't racist and save the Voting Rights Act:

“So which is it now, Republican party? Are you Paul Broun, stuttering and apologizing and saying you never meant any offense? Taking it back? Or are you Paul Broun introducing a stealth amendment in the middle of the night trying to kill the Voting Rights Act? Are you every single Republican in the United States Senate voting to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act, standing proudly by with your Republican president, as he signs it? Or are you the 33 House Republicans who that same year voted no, voted to kill the Voting Rights Act?”

I’m betting they’re just going to shrug on this and say, ‘Well, the Supreme’s ruled so ….’

Trouble is, they won’t have that same response about SCOTUS kicking DOMA and Prop H8 to the curb.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican Representative from Florida, on turning the tide in the Sunshine State toward marriage quality:

"In light of the court’s rulings in support of civil marriage for same-sex couples, Florida should begin to evaluate the decision that was made five years ago. The path to removing our state’s ban on the freedom to marry will be very challenging, and will take time to do so thoughtfully and with respect for everyone’s beliefs and opinions. It is wrong to deny LGBT Floridians the basic rights enjoyed by so many other Americans. We must actively, and authentically, engage our fellow citizens to ensure that the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution are extended to all Floridians."

Y’all know I do my share of Republican loathing on this here bloggy thingy, but every so often we get a Republican like Ros-Lehtinen, who reminds me that not all members of the GOP are cut from the same cloth.

She’s a keeper.

Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education, in the U.S. Department of Education's It Gets Better video:

"I really believe we can't just say 'It gets better.' All of us have to work right now to make things better today, not tomorrow. If you're a 14-year-old or a 15-year-old, asking you to wait four or five years for things to get better, that can seem like an eternity, like a lifetime. And so you shouldn't have to wait that long. So I wanna be very clear. All of us have the power now to make things better today, not tomorrow."

And, in my mind, that means coming out. If more LGBT Americans came out, these young kids would have someone to look up to, to admire, to make them feel less different, less ‘less than.’

Their march toward self-acceptance would be better, and easier, because they see someone who lit the way.

Kevin Swanson, “pastor’, on God setting Colorado on fire because of The Gays and metrosexuals:

"When you have a state where the House leadership is performing a homosexual act on the front page of the Denver Post two months ago? Does God read the Denver Post? Do you think He picks up a copy of the Denver Post? He gets it. God gets the Denver Post. How are we going to repent of the sexual sin that is paraded in front of us in the wider culture? Why do we have to submit to theses sexual sins again and again? How many young boys are running out and doing the metrosexual thing with the skinny pants and the little fairy shoes? They’re working on the gender blender for themselves and they don’t want to look like a man and God is just so upset, He hates it when men are not manly in their approach."

The picture he’s referring to, and it’s probably the same picture he keeps under his mattress at night, to view in one hand while the other wanders beneath the sheets, is one of House Speaker Mark Ferrandino kissing his partner Greg Wertsch goodbye after the passage civil unions in the state.

That said. God reads the Denver Post?
Last I checked she was not finished with Fifty Shades of Grey.

The 7 Most Anti-Gay Representatives, And .... Big Surprise .... They're All Republican

Remember when the GOP stormed Congress during the last election on the rallying cry that Obama had done nothing to fix the economy so they would step in and make everything right for America?

Yeah. Didn’t happen. But what did happen was that a group of anti-LGBT Republicans introduced ten major anti-gay bills, resolutions, and amendments in the U.S. House of Representatives. While 144 Members of Congress have sponsored or co-sponsored at least one of these anti-LGBT proposals, seven members of Congress signed on to five or more of the pro-discrimination measures.

So, who are these homophobic--all Republican, all the time--Representatives?

• Rep. Tim Huelskamp, a Republican from Kansas authored his state’s constitutional amendment that banned both same-sex marriage and civil unions; he authored an amendment to ban a directive that would allow not force military chaplains to voluntarily solemnize same-sex union; he authored an amendment to “prohibit the use of funds to be used in contravention of the Defense of Marriage Act,” and authored a bill to ban the use of military facilities for any same-sex unions. And he didn't stop there, because, you know, he was all done fixing the economy and stuff; he also co-sponsored three measures just to criticize the Obama administration for not defending the Defense of Marriage Act, to direct the Speaker of the House to defend the law instead, and to delay implementation of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal.
• Rep. W. Todd Akin, a sixth-term Republican Congressman from Missouri, warned us all in 2006 that “anybody who knows something about the history of the human race knows that there is no civilization which has condoned homosexual marriage widely and openly that has long survived.”
• Rep. Dan Burton, a fifteenth-term GOP Congressman from Indiana, who is thankfully retiring at the end of 2012, loves to say that “Marriage between a man and a woman has been the foundation of human civilization for thousands of years all around the world.”
• Rep. Phil Gingrey, a fifth-term Georgia GOP  Congressman, often cites God a s his reasons for supporting an anti-gay constitutional amendment--he's never heard of Separation of Church and State--and has said, "I don't like the secularism that’s occurring in this country one bit and I think it is incumbent upon those of us [that] stand strong, to stand very strong, in regard to that and say ‘look, [my wife] and I believe that marriage is a sacrament.’”
• Rep. Vicky Hartzler, a first-term GOP Congresswoman from Missouri, was spokes-bigot for that anti-gay constitutional amendment effort in Missouri and has compared same-sex marriage to pedophilia and letting three-year-olds drive cars.
• Rep. Doug Lamborn, a third-term Republican from Colorado, came under fire for racially insensitive comments that associating with President Obama was like “touching a tar-baby.”
• Rep. Donald A. Manzullo, a tenth-term GOP Congressman from Illinois, recently lost re-nomination after reportedly telling House Republican Leader Eric Cantor--another anti-LGBT GOP goose-stepping fool--that the devout Jew was not “saved.”

And there are fourteen more House Republicans who either sponsored or co-sponsored at least four of these anti-LGBT proposals, and just one Democrat; and he is Mike McIntyre from, big surprise, North Carolina, who co-sponsored a proposed constitutional amendment to anti-gay marriage. 

All of the other 143 anti-gay activists were Republicans who have also committed $1.5 million in taxpayer funds to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court. 

This is all funny, sick, sad and twisted, when you hear crybaby GOP goose-stepper-in-chief, and Speaker of the House, John Boehner, downplay the Republican focus on social issues and say he'd rather talk about jobs.

Yeah, I'd rather the GOP talk about jobs, but they aren't. They're too busy being homophobes and bigots and haters; they continue to be a Do-Nothing Congress.

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