The Other Haitian Disaster: A Volcano of Hate Erupts, Killing Two Men While Sparing Thousands Of The Self-Righteous

"Gay people will curse our country and we already have curses."

I hate to say it, but Pat Robertson may have been right: Haiti is an island that is cursed. Cursed with hate. Good old fashioned Christian Right hate, but hate nonetheless.

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Two men, assumed to be gay, were beaten and killed on Friday during an anti-gay protest in Haiti led by religious organizations.
According to one Haitian newspaper, some protestors, who shouted anti-gay marriage slogans and homophobic slurs, were also armed with knives, sticks, blocks and other objects, and attacked several people they accused of being gay.

And it took 3 hours for the police to respond to the situation.

Back in January of 2010, Pat Robertson said that Haiti suffered "terrible things" (and a devastating earthquake) because its leaders had signed a pact with the devil back in the 18th century. What Pat meant by "terrible things" was meshed in his addled reasoning, but people took the phrase as "cursed".


Maybe it is: cursed with ignorance, self-righteousness ... and hate. The below video is in Haitian-French, but the distorted faces and anger need no translation. Some of them were reported to shout "We'll kill them. Destroy them. We don't need that in this country."

The rally was a response to a proposal by a gay rights group to Parliament to legalize same-sex marriage. It was brought together by Protestant and Muslim faith-based groups, threatening to burn down parliament if the measure was considered.

Like Jamaica, Haiti is virulently anti-gay and many people fear for their lives and cannot report hate crimes for fear of reprisal by their own government.

Enter Francis?

The fact that the one thousand protesters were Protestant (amid some Muslims) is indicative of American Christian Right influence in Haiti since most Haitians are Catholic, so whether or not pope Francis I will respond to the violence may well be moot. Should his ecumenism dictate a response? Probably, but Francis has yet to reach out to the American Christian Right community (Evangelicals, Southern Baptists, etc) and he may well think it wise not to cast aspersions on anyone yet.

The World Mourned But God's Ambulance Chasers Rejoiced

During the chaotic and pestilential aftermath of the earthquake, it was noted that religious groups attempted to come into the country with more than food and medical supplies. One group tried to set up automated "talking bibles" ($100,000) broadcasting the word of God among the starving and medically unkempt. Some of them adamantly stayed on, rejoicing that they had an audience - however captive it night seem. Despite the obvious criticism, they made inroads in some areas of the country and, much like Scott Lively (Uganda's "Kill the gays" bill instigator), they began to sow the seeds of hostility.

Huffington Post's Paul Raushenbush:

It started at the Haiti earthquake. Robertson's explanation was that God sent this earthquake because of a "pact with the devil" the Haitians had made to throw off the oppression of the French. Robertson reminded us that our patience with religious leaders who talk such nonsense has run out.

Unfortunately, some in Haiti have been more patient than the rest of the western hemisphere: they've accepted the Christian Right's focus on hatred and superstition, self-righteousness and bigotry. How long this will last in the impoverished country, few have any idea: look at Uganda, Rwanda, Nigeria, Moldava, and Russia.

Love has a long, long way to go in these countries.

The Week Certifiably Batsh*t Crazy Conservatives Came Out To Play

There is crazy, and then there is batshit crazy.* America is full of batshit crazy people, but social conservatives seem to have cornered the market. Maybe it's heady, vainglorious sense of righteousness, or maybe it's just the steady, hypnotic beat of the bible thumpers, but social conservatives (actually the Christian Right as it likes to be known - a crazy, almost oxymoronic concept in itself) seem to have more than their share of the ridiculous and unreasoning. 

Yes, they are entertaining in their quest for an audience (which is why most people quote them), but their wild fantasies, dire proclamations, bizarre reasoning and horrendous use of metaphors are oddly disturbing: do they live on another planet? Do they pay attention at all to what people are saying about them? Do they care what people are thinking about them? Maybe it is their profound sense of displacement that entertains people. Who knows?

'Prophet' Cindy Jacobs Binds Demons On Airplane Passengers

Yes, Cindy Jacobs helps rid fellow airplane passengers while they are sleeping by "binding" together demons and literally casting them out into the abyss - or down to Orlando, FL (the place that missed Pat Robertson's meteor).

Muslims To Remotely Change All Of Your Car Radio Presets To ShariaRock Top 40 Stations. Then Kill You.

"Cyber terrorism expert" Morgan Wright explained to Jenna Lee of FOX News that some day, all the little computers installed in your car may be hacked by Al Queda and send you careening into a Taco Bell. The Firedog Lake take on the interview is indeed outrageous, but not as outrageous as the actual clip (see below) nor as unbelievable as Jenna Lee's sincerity.

Bachmann Puts Black Leather On, Talks About 'Spanking' Obama

Spanking POTUS is not mentioned in James Dobson's pseudo-seminal work on child-rearing, Dare To Discpiline, but since Bachmann says that Obama has a "magic wand" when it comes to getting what he wants (out of what?), we can see where here fantasies lie.

Pat Robertson: Zimmerman Was Right To Follow Trayvon Martin Because ‘Criminals Wear These Hoods’

Straight from Planet Vomit, Pat Robertson once again shows just how little he knows about racial profiling - or about America's taste in apparel.

Bryan Fischer, Anti-Gay Spokesperson: Claims Army Overrun By 'Hypermasculine Homosexuals'

The leader of all things bigoted, Bryan Fischer has switched from portraying gays as effete, effeminate (but highly effective) lobbyists, to Teutonic Rambos on steriods bent on destroying the U.S. military. That's what Hitler did, didn't he?

Rick Wiles: 'Raw Satanic Sewage Coming Up Out Of Hell' Ran Through The Streets Of Austin During Abortion Legislation Protests 

Rick Wiles went over-the-top in describing protests to the draconian anti-abortion legislation then heating up in the Texas legislature.

"These demons weren't hiding behind bushes, they were out in the street; they were in the streets possessing the people who were demanding the right to murder babies...The sewer pipes of Hell have broken open and this is raw hate against Jesus Christ, against God, against the Bible, against righteous men and women, against life, against anything that is good and decent."

Scatological references from a man of God! What is this world turning into? Batshit maybe?

DL Foster: Pro-Gay Christians 'Just Like Slave Owners' and 'Jim Crow Racists' 

"Ex-homosexual Abolitionist" Foster has also had the temerity (or stupidity) to depict himself over a Harriet Tubman "wanted poster." Foster's stance as an "ex-gay" has (unfortunately) always been in question since it has been posited that he was never gay in the first place. His righteous indignation towards gays is anything but compassionate.

The batshit crazies seemed to be out in full force last week, but hold on - they may continue:

Cindy Jacobs: God Told Me He's Going To Punish America For Gay Marriage

The Lord spoke to Cindy Jacobs and told her that there was "goin' to be a whole lotta shakin' goin' on": in response to "criticism" for Jacobs' "doom and gloom" prophecies, Jacobs stated yesterday that as a prophet, she must tell people what she sees and what the lord has told her. She did not say that the "criticism" was actually a summons to the Batshit Crazy Hall of Fame.

*Urban Dictionary:
A person who is batshit crazy is certifiably nuts. The phrase has origins in the old fashioned term "bats in the belfry." Old churches had a structure at the top called a belfry, which housed the bells. Bats are extremely sensitive to sound and would never inhabit a belfry of an active church where the bell was rung frequently. Occasionally, when a church was abandoned and many years passed without the bell being rung, bats would eventually come and inhabit the belfry. So, when somebody said that an individual had "bats in the belfry" it meant that there was "nothing going on upstairs" (as in that person's brain). To be BATSHIT CRAZY is to take this even a step further. A person who is batshit crazy is so nuts that not only is their belfry full of bats, but so many bats have been there for so long that the belfry is coated in batshit. Hence, the craziest of crazy people are BATSHIT CRAZY.