It’s April Fools Day.  I toyed with the idea of spending the first part of the show spouting right wing talking points, but I realized a few things:

  • There was nothing remotely funny about any of the stories I could have chosen from
  • I realized that no one would believe me and it would be a huge waste of time
  • The things we were going to discuss were more ridiculous than anything I could have conceived of myself…

So, here we are.

The biggest fool of them all has to be the new poster boy for the Republican Party, Dr. Ben Carson.  Carson – a noted pediatric neurosurgeon who eschews science so much that he reportedly believes the world is just 6000 years old(!).  Last week, Carson went on Hannity’s TV show and decided to equate gays with members of NAMBLA and people who believe in bestiality.

I told you I couldn’t make this shit up! Anyway, it’s hard to misconstrue what he said there, but on Friday, he went on Andrea Mitchell’s MSNBC show to tell us we took him out of context….

Fool is correct.

Another Fool we talked about this morning is Florida governor Rick Scott, who’s attempting to change the state’s auto insurance laws away from a No-Fault (PIP) system.  The losers here would be victims of auto accidents who would no longer be entitled to the $10,000 in medical care – including massage and acupuncture treatment – and those practitioners who would no longer be allowed reimbursement.

A hearing is underway this morning on the issue in Tallahassee.  Stand by…

Also in the “fool” category, apparently, are some of the leaders of the much-heralded Human Rights Coalition.  We on the outside of the LGBT community have been sporting their beautiful “Equality” logo while there is a huge divide between the HRC and the transgender  community.

Over the weekend, I heard from a few people that outside the Supreme Court last week during the DOMA hearings, HRC asked transgender representatives to take down their flag.

foxski:

One of my friends was outside the Supreme Court yesterday protesting for GetEqual. She post this on Facebook today.

“The Human Rights Campaign asked us to take down our trans* flag because ‘marriage equality is not a transgender issue.’

They said this to one of our activists as well as a transgender person who held the flag. We stood our ground, and flew our flag proudly.

That flag flew behind the podium ALL day today, keep an eye for it on the news.”

This apparently happened twice. Well done, HRC. Well done. But I’m not allowed to be critical of your campaign. Get the fuck out of here.

This morning, I spoke with Monica Roberts, who has been writing about the discord between the HRC and the trans community for years.

Just when you think things are getting better…

Monday mornings bring us “Fools on the Hill” – our weekly get together with Crooks & Liars‘ Nicole Belle, who recaps the foolishness of the Sunday shows.  Today, it was a discussion of the religious hypocrisy we talked about last week too….

Seeing as this Sunday fell on Easter, the role of religion in our lives and in our government was going to loom large on all the shows.  Add to that a new pope who has shown himself to be trying to live Jesus’ words of being compassionate to those less fortunate, the Supreme Court hearing two cases addressing marriage equality for gays and you have a perfect storm of forgetting that we have a separation between Church and State in this country.

Therefore, it’s clear that, as Peggy Noonan told guest host Chuck Todd, we’ll have to pry the Republicans’ wedge issues from their cold dead hands.

Speaking of that, former RNC president Ed Gillespie assured Chris Wallace that despite the negative light LGBT equality gets in the GOP platform, the focus should be on how compassionate they are for allowing LGBT people hospital visitation rights.

And Cardinal Dolan, fresh from Rome, told George Stephanopoulos that while the new pope is impetus to reconnect Catholics with their church, those gays shouldn’t think about marriage, but content themselves with friendship.

And Cardinal Wuerl feels that gays ought to make room for the people who discriminate against them.  Why should they shun the church that opposes them?

In a multi-faith panel on This Week, a Pentecostal bishop told the rabbi and the imam that while the US is a Christian nation, we ‘let’ other faiths worship and ‘we’re not going to persecute you’  How big of him.

But to prove that it is not religion that is preaching hate and bigotry against others, but how some will use religion to do so, a Baptist minister told that same panel that same sex marriage was part of ‘the freedom God has given you.’

And because it’s so appropriate for today, enjoy World Party’s “Ship of Fools”