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Apparently this fellow named Larry Temple thinks that some regular ol’ workaday dad from the suburbs, who plays catch with his kids and grows veggies in his backyard, is “radical”.
Or maybe he thinks that whole “all men created equal” stuff that our country is founded on is “radical”….
Or maybe he’s just confused. And unsure. And insecure. 
What is clear, however, is that Larry hasn’t figured out that fighting for fairness and standing up for justice, equality and honest-to-goodness, pure-as-sunshine love is actually the right thing to do — hardly “radical.”
That said, I wonder if Larry goes to gay bars with Petey LaBarbera and Dave Smith to help with “research”.
Perhaps Larry would give folks the honor of explaining why guys such as himself so loathe people that are in love with each other that they’re willing to denounce and discriminate against them — and hypocritically call their anti-family stance “family values”.
Regardless, thanks for the compliment and the link, Larry.
In the latest installment of right-wing prurience and porno pimping, we find gay researcher Petey LaBarbera doing what he does best — watching gay men be, well, gay.
Most folks who’ve followed Illinois politics for long enough know that Petey LaBarbera loves to follow gay men around to watch what they do for his “research”. He also enjoys reading through gay magazines and the like, in theory so you and I don’t have to (why anyone who isn’t gay would even care what’s in a gay magazine is unclear).
So it comes as little surprise that gay researcher Petey LaBarbera was a guest on the Republican news channel’s Hannity and Colmes show.
Curiously, conserv-o-partisan Fran Eaton promoted the appearance by proclaiming that the “ick factor” of Petey’s photos “is off the charts” in her post called “Sex in the City Streets”. Why was the dude even taking pictures of other gay people? What does he do with those gay pictures when he’s not posting them on the World Wide Web for everyone else?
Seems to me that it’s more like the gay-curious conservative partisans are off the charts… or is it off the hook … maybe just off their rocker.
Why these folks need to keep everyone one else with their gay hate in some bizarre fetish for masking over their own proclivities is unclear. Using gay bashing to gin up support for a political party is beyond bonkers.
Those Americans who are gay don’t appreciate these people’s gay curious yet acidly spiteful malarkey and those of us who aren’t gay find it highly annoying and pointless. We have troops dying in Iraq and a president who is (again!) ignoring intelligence in order to cherrypick his way through his final year. But two men kissing in public is more important?! Bull puckey.
Unless he wants to run off and find a wide-stance stallmate of his own, Petey ought to just live and let live and find something better to do with his time. Then again, how will he earn a living if not off his deep well of dark hate and gay curious research dissemination.
Sidenote: Go figure. Petey’s gay research and gay photography in a West Coast city gets more attention at Illinois Review than Tier 1 GOP prez candidate Rudy Giuliani’s illicit affair and simultaneous raking of taxpayers. NYC media are calling that affair “Sex on the City” since denizens of the Big Apple paid for Rudy’s afternoon delight… Maybe having adulterous affairs and charging taxpayers for the associated bills are ok if you’re heterosexual, but heaven forfend the gays do something “icky”.
The strangely anti-family and arch-conservative Illinois “Family” Institute tells us that ‘homosexual monitor’ Petey LaBarbera is in dire need of some help to continue pursuing his constant supervision of homosexual activity:
Please support Peter and Americans For Truth — the only national group focusing solely on educating and alerting America to the real threat to freedom and children posed by the homosexual/bisexual/transgender movement. (emphasis added)
So, being gay is a threat to freedom but somehow the fact that conservatives are working their tushies off to deny gay Americans equal rights and protections under the law is not? What is wrong these extremists who insist on bringing their nanny-state attitudes into everyone’s bedrooms?
In an even more bizarre twist, that IFI alert was sent out in response to a Holiday Inn conference center which decided to cancel a gay-bashing event set up to raise funds for Petey’s Americans for Truthiness money machine. Of course, it was conservatives at Concerned Women for America of Illinois and Missouri who started the whole “don’t let Americans use hotels if you disagree with their bedroom practices” jig in the first place (Missouri’s CWA branch being, curiously enough, led by a man; and the very manly Petey himself was also a senior “analyst” for CWA). Apparently these cons have never heard of karma. (What was it that IFI said about a threat to freedom?)
Several folks have noticed that often the people who most rail against a given sexual proclivity — like Sen. Larry Craig and his long history of ardent gay-bashing and Rep. Mark Foley with his record of child “protection” work — seemingly do so because they are trying to force others to protect themselves from what they consider their own prurient interests. (What was it that IFI said about a threat to freedom?)
Of course, debate by kilobyte is one thing. Anti-gay conservative extremists in other states are going several steps further, and it’s only a matter of time before Petey’s allies cross the line (indeed, some already have). In Ohio, “concerned” nanny-state extremists have taken to invading Christian churches that believe God’s love is for all people, whether gay or straight. Those loving churches have graciously welcomed such belligerent protesters (who apparently forgot God’s command to love thy neighbor as thyself). I think it unlikely that such mean-spirited “their way or the highway” congregants would return that favor. (What was it that IFI said about a threat to freedom?)
In addition, Petey’s comrades from Kansas, the ultra-conservative Westboro Baptist Church followers, have taken to protesting at military funerals across the country, claiming our brave soldiers deserved to die because America has gay people living in our country. (What was it that IFI said about a threat to freedom?)
Why Petey wants to review gay porn, gay parades, and gay pageants as well as frequent gay bars, men’s bath houses and homosexual “adult” stores is between him and the friends he makes while he’s “researching” gay folks. I could care less. Petey is his own person, responsible for how he excercises his own liberty. But, why he doesn’t bother to “research” heterosexual proclivities, including those among his fellow fundamentalists, is curious (h/t Lloydletta).
In fact, the virulently anti-American Petey and his conservative friends obsession with other men (gay or not) is really quite strange overall… We’re all Americans, why can’t these people accept that?
(Why “anti-American”? They ardently oppose Americans who just happen to be gay. They are free to do so, just as we patriots are free to acknowledge their anti-American and anti-liberty stands. Call a spade a spade.)
Petey LaBarbera has recently taken to calling gay Americans “Brown Shirts” — a unfortunate and obvious Nazi reference.
Now, Petey’s odd mix of hatred and fetishism for gay folks is well-documented but this allusion is particularly despicable since, as ArchPundit explains, the Nazis murdered gay people in addition to Jews, gypsies, and others and the gay Americans to whom Petey is referring were simply criticizing the vituperative claims made by someone who routinely criticizes demonizes them.
Maybe in Petey’s world defending yourself means you’re a Nazi … but not out here in the real world. Of course, Petey and others who hate gay people do often sound quite defensive themselves (when they’re not being offensive) so I wonder if, ironically, Petey also considers himself to be a Brown Shirt.
(Say, where are all those conservative partisans who complain ad nauseum about Nazi references when you need them? Wait. I know. It must be ok when conservatives call people Nazis but when anyone else even uses the word.)
This sort of incoherent, obnoxious, and ultimately unintentionally inept invective is clearly part of a trend as other conservatives have taken to antagonizing one group while ironically criticizing other demographics without realizing it.
Indeed, Anne Leary (Backyard Cons.) in recent weeks copied and pasted yet another passage from some right-wing commentary in which Muslim burqas were critiqued because conservatives think they may lead to Vitamin D deficiency of all things (Vitamin D being produced in part thanks to skin exposure to UV light).
Unbeknownst to Ms. Leary, Catholic nuns are also usually covered almost completely head to toe. Why isn’t Ms. Leary concerned about their Vitamin D.
Of course, Ms. Leary ignorantly began her rant about women’s clothing customs by wondering if feminists would ever be interested in the plight of Muslim women. They of course, have been for years (but don’t tell Ms. Leary, she might wake up from her bizarro dreamworld).
We get letters… One recent email to the blog* noted the use of the word “jerk” in this post in which I describe one such person fitting the bill.
Jerk = Slang. a contemptibly naive, fatuous, foolish, or inconsequential person.
Thanks for emailing, Mr. McJerky, ye Hater of New Mommies (others will have to read that earlier post to get the reference). 
Be sure to keep us posted on your latest prurient activities in Boystown and elsewhere.
* Fair warning, I updated the “About” page to reflect that future emails may be reprinted here on the blog and elsewhere. I’ll spare you the embarrassment this time.
Now back to your regular scheduled websurfing.
Petey Labarbera apparently hates babies of gay couples:
There should be no touch of sadness when a healthy baby boy is born into a home with two parents, but in this case, we’re afraid, there is.
Mr. Labarbera writes a disgusting polemic littered with fallacies about conception (yes, gay people can bear children Mr. Labarbera), parenting (there are millions of children in this nation being raised by their mothers and doing just fine, Mr. Labarbera), and even common sense itself (common sense would say that Samuel David Cheney will actually do very well in life, given his lineage).
All Mr. Larbarbera really proves is that he can be a jerk who can’t simply be happy at the birth of beautiful, bouncing baby boy. Oh, and that he is a blasphemous jerk seeing as how he pretends to know what God’s plan is for others.
Perhaps the real story here is Mr. Larbarera is actually afraid that little Samuel will turn out perfectly ok, probably even be heterosexual, despite the chicken little warnings from those who hate gay folks — and he feels he must hide his fear under a veneer of tough-guy jerkiness.
Champaign conservative John Bambanek has a little post up at Illinois Review about the recent kerfuffle in Crystal Lake over two girls who were handing out fliers that denigrated their classmates at their school. Petey Labarbera (the one who keeps his kid home from school on days he dislikes the weather, or something) also wrote some drivel on this matter.
Mr. Bambanek gives us the dish:
Two girls were arrested in McHenry County, Illinois last week for distributing flyers at their school that depicted a male classmate kissing another classmate and had the words “God Hates Fags” on the flyers …
Sounds familiar…
Know who else promotes the blasphemous idea that “God Hates Fags”? The same people who protested outside Rev. Jerry Falwell’s funeral and who made one Falwell follower so upset he allegedly put together some homemade bombs as a ‘gift’ for them. The same people who protest outside military funerals and spurred Americans of all stripes into forming the Patriot Guard to protect military families from their bile. The same people most partisan conservatives denounce as “venomous” when it suits their purposes to distance themselves from naturally kindred spirits (even if those kindred spirits go even further beyond the pale).
The same people who are the conservative activists known as Westboro Baptist Church.
Seems a bit hypocritical that Illinois’ partisan conservatives would criticize Westboro Baptist Church but jump to excuse-making for the McHenry County Two and start blogging about “trying to find out more about this case” (as Mr. Labarbera would like to do) and questioning the legitimacy of the arrest (as Mr. Bambanek comes close to doing)…
For the record, any mere mortal who thinks they know what God thinks is a blasphemer — including those who think they know that God “hates” anyone. (These people have obviously never read John 13:34.)
Conservatives are up in arms that a class of Chicago 8th graders were shown the movie “Brokeback Mountain.” Among others, both the Petey LaBarbera (the guy who spies on gay folks) at the oddly named Americans for “Truth” and, of course, our good buddy Johnny Ruskin of Illinois Review have written on the matter to exfoliate all that rage and horror at the evil homo-educratic agenda from their pretty little selves.
But what they seem to be most pleased about is that one of those 8th graders is now suing the Chicago Public Schools for half a million dollars … for psychological distress. I guess she (or her grandparents) think seeing cowboys kiss has now scarred her for life and perhaps even given her a lifelong disgust for people who play cowboys for the screen, such as Presidents Reagan and Bush 43. We’ll have to wait to see what their rationale is when they go to court to waste the judge’s time… What’s that? “Waste the judge’s time…” Where have we heard this before?
Strangely enough, folks who support “tort reform” with exclamations of “End frivolous lawsuits!” have yet to weigh in on this matter of great, national importance. I wonder what Petey and Johnny’s conservative allies Ed Murnane, Curt Mercadente and the rest of the superheros at the Illinois Civil Justice League have to say about this frivolous lawsuit. (Then again, maybe it comes down to everybody hating lawyers til a kid sees a movie they don’t like.)
The Other Anonymous, over at Capitol Fax blog, says:
Unfortunately, too many do believe in the prejudicial stereotypes that IFI sells.
TOA writes this in response to Rich Miller’s question on whether or not folks buy into the over-the-top rhetoric that groups like Illinois Family Institute promulgate. The original post is in regards to IFI’s bizarre diarrhea of the mouth over a proposed state bill which offer same-sex benefits to certain school employees. Oh dear, we can’t have “the gays” treated just like … just like … like every other American?!! Preposterous!
Yet lo and behold, we see a plethora of other gay-hatin’ going on this very same day from among the Midwest conservatives’ ranks:
- Illinois Review all but announces its “watch list” of gay folks supporting Sen. Obama. (Who cares which gay people support Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain for that matter?)
- The despicable cult leader Rev. Phelps is headed to Indiana today to spout hatred during another military funeral. (Thank God for the Patriotic Guard riders. I encourage all Illinois Reason readers to join PGR and attend as often as you’re able.)
- “Culture” Campaign’s first link on their homepage is still a discussion of why folks like Petey LaBarbera ought to keep their kids tucked away at home lest they get any ideas about “the gays”. Maybe they’ll update that after reading about IFI’s strange interpretation of this proposal since anything related to sex and schools seems to immediately pop up on Sandy Rios’ radar.
When conservatives finally get over their hatred of gay Americans it will be a good day in this country. I’m not holding my breath.
UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: Illinois Review copied its list of Sen. Obama’s gay supporters from Rod 2.0 blog wherein blogger Rod discusses the political ramifications of not only Sen. Obama’s gay and lesbian supporters but also those of Sens. Clinton and Edwards (Rod found the list via the campaign). Illinois Review chose to remove that discussion in favor of repeating only the list, changing the emphasis entirely.
Nes Headline: More un-Christian Behavior from Conservatives Who Hate Gay People
Family Taxpayers Network Headline: LaBarbera: “Day of Silence is Educational Malpractice“
Heterosexually, FTN’s Political Radar notes their belief that:
Like it or not, how a person responds to inner impulses and how they choose to behave is and always will be an appropriate subject for moral judgment.
Nes finds it bittersweet that he passes FTN’s immoral social test. Nes is sad to see FTN has such a discriminatory, hate-filled test in the first place — let alone such a bigoted social test coming from a group professing a higher moral ground. Nes remembers reading in history books of social and civic tests and other discrimination against citizens of color during an earlier point in our nation’s history.
Nes points out that FTN and gay-bar “investigator” Petey LaBarbera choose to be hate-filled heterosexuals.
Outrageously, FTN calls on state legislators to do something to end the “Day of Silence” but with the other side of their mouth FTN claims it should not be a matter of public policy:
How a person prefers to have sex is their problem — not a matter for public policy and certainly not an appropriate subject for propaganda purposes in taxpayer funded classrooms.
Your Illinois Reason blogger fails to see the “Day of Silence” as propaganda. Your Illinois Reason blogger explains that it is actually a day to remember those who have been discriminated against by hate-filled anti-gay radicals; some of whom have even killed gay folks simply because they hated them so much. Sadly, FTN and Petey LaBarbera encourage such acts against gay people with their vitriolic rhetoric.
Your Illinois Reason blogger points out that most of the public policy in this country and the various states discriminates against gay people (at least in terms of those laws which the Supreme Court has not struck down).
Sadly, FTN and gay-bar “investigator” Petey LaBarbera are unlikely to realize mainstream Americans see their hate-filled rantings for the venom it is.
Petey LaBarbera is really going beyond parody
