Monthly Archives: July 2012

Two recusals too few

James Rohrbaugh recused himself from discussing Loudoun government finance functions at the July 19, 2012 Reform Commission subcommittee meeting because his spouse works for the county. That’s a fair recusal. Rohrbaugh may not want to see his spouse’s position privatized. John Whitbeck, chair of the the Republican 10th Congressional District is responsible for the RC’s privatization report and has demonstrated that privatization is a matter of personal opinion, his. I’ll have more in a subsequent post. On Thursday, July 26, the Reform Commission will investigate the County finance function and Whitbeck will have the chance to question Bob Wertz, the Commissioner of the Revenue who happens to be Whitbeck’s 10th CD finance chair. Whitbeck should recuse himself from the meeting and Wertz should have refused the 10th CD position in the first place. That’s two recusals too few.

(Updated 2012-07-28: corrected the spelling of Rohrbaugh)

Let Tom talk

Tom Seeman and "S." Mann at the Feb 2011 "LEC" protest. Note: This image has been altered to obscure the back of "S." Mann's head at the request of "S." Mann." She has also requested that we only refer to her as "S." Mann, which we confess to finding hilarious.

I don’t know both sides of the story. I read a letter from LCRC activist Tom Seeman. He attended the July 12 LCDC meeting and reported that Evan MacBeth, chairman of the LCDC asked him to lead the “Pledge of Allegiance” and then booted him out of the meeting. Supposedly, MacBeth called an “executive session” and asked all “non-LCDC and non-Democrats” to leave. Tom was the only person to oblige.

Excuse me, but what’s a “non-Democrat?” Is there a genetic test, ideological test or litmus test? Is Tony Hall, the Democrat who co-authored an anti-gay call for “Christian” insurrection against teh ghay a Democrat? Is there a Democratic equivalent of a Rhino? If Evan did what Seeman says, I’d bet you a dollar that quite a few LCDC members did not approve of the action. Democrats have little political power against the all Republican BoS. Their most potent tool is exposure, and that requires transparency. If the Democrats are going to demand transparency, they’d better practice it, right?

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I can’t quite figure out why this seems so familiar…can you help?

In the thread below, A.E. Gnat shared a link to a recent “Public Advocate” video for our amusement. Yawn.

Wait. Wait. They have bags over their heads. Hmmm. What other groups demonstrate in public with bags over their heads because the viewpoint they are expressing is so odious, so execrable and shameful, that they wish to conceal their identities? Let me see… LOLOL. Thanks, A.E.

Hate group "Public Advocate" led in song by Loudoun supervisor Eugene Delgaudio. I wonder if the hood idea is copyrighted?

Nervous Nellie

Eugene Delgaudio, B.J. Bluth, ?? and Rose Ellen Ray campaigning for pollution in 2011

That’s how Eugene Delgaudio sounded in a July 12 WJLA interview. Reporter Ben Eisler asked how Delgaudio’s “group” got its hands on a New Jersey engagement photo that he used in an anti-gay Colorado campaign mailer:

Delgaudio: “Other people take copies of our photographs since we’re non-profit and they do share them around and that’s how things get around.”

Eisler: “Does it concern you at all?”

Delgaudio: “The fact that I have to look into it is not a problem.”

Eisler: “Does it concern you at all that this was found in your literature?”

Delgaudio: I’M LOOKING INTO IT!”

Delgaudio was literally yelling at Ben. He was very perturbed. Usually he reserves the ALL CAPS for his anti-gay rants, and rarely talks about himself except as a phony victim of a phony “attack” by some “other.”

He’s seemed nervous for a while now. At the May public hearing, Lydia from the NoVA Atheists confronted him about the recent SPLC designation of his “Public Advocate” as a hate group. He squirmed and inappropriately mouthed responses. His behavior was out of sorts, unlike his usual confident disdain. After the hearing, I asked if everything was okay with him, and he responded “life is good.” The nervous Nellie then nervously dismissed me. He was really nervous.

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Frank Wolf blows the anti-gay dog whistle

Frank Wolf is stirring up the anti-gay base. On June 5, he and Democrat Tony Hall co-authored a letter to pastors that appeared on the Manhattan Declaration blog. The letter is a response to the President’s announcement that after listening to his children and consulting the Bible, he now supports marriage for all people. Wolf and Hall asked some pastors to construct a cultural anti-marriage narrative and to agitate their congregations to “act”. I’ve quoted portions of the letter, and added emphasis.

Talking heads and strategists in Washington are busy analyzing what constituencies have been mobilized, energized, secured or alienated by the timing of the president’s announcement.  But the implications of this shift are more far-reaching than November’s electoral outcome.   We believe that the president’s position, which he sought to justify by citing Scripture, necessitates a response.  Not only a political response – but a reasoned, winsome, faithful interpretation of what Scripture actually has to say about God’s intent for the sacred institution of marriage.  As is befitting those who identify themselves as followers of Jesus, this apologetic for marriage must be seasoned with grace, kindness and love while also being grounded in truth.

where are the Christian apologists who will sound the clarion call for Biblical orthodoxy on the institution of marriage?  Where are the William Wilberforce’s and the Mother Theresa’s and the C. S. Lewis’ for our day?  Who will stand in the gap?

The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, “Again, if the trumpet does not sound a clear call. who will get ready for battle?”  We fear that the trumpet’s call is muffled – that there is uncertainty and confusion among people of faith in part because many of our religious leaders have not yet stepped into the void.

We write to you not as a Republican and a Democrat, which we are, but as men of faith who take seriously the teaching of Scripture – as do you.  German Lutheran pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, “Not to speak is to speak.  Not to act is to act.” In that spirit, we implore you, with an urgency that the situation demands, to boldly lend your voice to the public square on this defining issue – for such a time as this.

The underlying message to the pastors is “train the dog to bite when the master says ‘stay!’.” “Clarion call,” “stand in the gap,” “get ready for battle,” “Dietrich Bonhoeffer,” seriously, does Congressman Wolf not know Godwin’s law? Do historians need to remind him that Nazi Germany was a “Christian Nation”; 65% protestant, 30% Catholic, and that Pope Benedict was a member of the Hitler youth? Hitler quoted Martin Luther’s most anti-Semitic writings and he attended his Catholic church throughout the war. Hitler was a master propagandist who constructed a new racist Jew-hating narrative, but that narrative wouldn’t have taken root if it weren’t for Europe’s fertile soil of cultural, Christian, anti-semitism.

How can Wolf call for “grace, kindness and love” and then invoke Bonhoeffer to “stand in the gap” against “this defining issue – for such a time as this?” What time is it, a time when same-sex couples are living their marriages openly, and people honoring them in spite of 29 state constitutional amendments? That *is* what time it is, and our congressman, who supposedly represents all of us, equally, is comparing our marriages to cold, calculated mass-murder. Marriage and mass-murder, they are sooo-much-the-same-thing.

The letter is “monstrous“, and Frank Wolf is unhinged, and dangerous.