Here are some of the week’s most notable quotes culled from news reports from across Texas, and beyond.
Gov. Rick Perry, after comparing gay people to alcoholics.
I got asked about an issue, and instead of saying, ‘You know what, we need to be a really respectful and tolerant country, and get back to talking about, whether you’re gay or straight you need to be having a job, and those are the focuses I want to be involved with,’ instead of getting — which I did, I readily admit, I stepped right in it.
————————————–
Mississippi Tea Party candidate for Senate, Chris McDaniel, on what he perceives to be a changing shift in the United States.
There are millions of us who feel like strangers in this land, an older America passing away, a new America rising to take its place. We recoil from that culture. It’s foreign to us. It’s alien to us. … It’s time to stand and fight. It’s time to defend our way of life again.
————————————–
Anderson Cooper to Texas state Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola.
The fact that you view being gay — or you characterize it — as a ‘mistake,’ or something that should be changed really kind of maybe says more about your position than what your words actually say.
————————————–
Jessica González-Rojas, executive director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health, in response to Florida Gov. Rick Scott signing a new law that places additional restrictions on abortions in the state.
Sadly, this is really about advancing an agenda of political interference with women’s decision-making. Despite continued attempts to legislate women’s health, this is not what we want. Personal medical decisions, like the decision to end a pregnancy, should be kept between a woman and her doctor.
————————————–
Pat Robertson, in response to the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear an appeals case wherein a school district was found in violation of the First Amendment for holding a graduation ceremony at an evangelical church.
The American people wouldn’t have voted in homosexuality, but the courts did; the American people wouldn’t have voted in same-sex marriage, but the courts did; the American people wouldn’t have given up on the Ten Commandments and prayer in schools, but the courts insisted on it. A few unelected judges, just a few, have distorted the history of our nation to give us something that we never intended to have, and something has got to be done about it.
————————————–
North Dakota representative Kevin Cramer claiming that President Obama’s plans for an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating against LGBT employees is simply a political move.
I’m not even sure that this is a problem. I have to be honest, I don’t get many, if any. I don’t know that I’ve ever received a phone call in my office from somebody that says they’ve been discriminated against based on their sexual orientation.
————————————–
Katie Landry, a former Bob Jones University student, recounting the ‘counseling’ she received from the university’s dean of students after reporting a rape. Landry is one of five former students who recently spoke out on their treatment at BJU.
He goes, ‘Well, there’s always a sin under other sin. There’s a root sin.’ And he said, ‘We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.’ And I just ran.
————————————–
Texas Republican Party chairman Steve Munisteri, rejecting the claims of some in his party about “reparative therapy.”
I just make the point for anybody that thinks that may be the possibility: Do they think they can take a straight person to a psychiatrist and turn them gay?
“There are millions of us who feel like strangers in this land, an older America passing away, a new America rising to take its place. We recoil from that culture. It’s foreign to us. It’s alien to us. … It’s time to stand and fight. It’s time to defend our way of life again.”
This is what I have been trying to say as the anthropologist here. The generation right before mine is around 80 years old now. We are seeing the very last of the “we know the right thing to do about them damned chiggers” generation roll into their coffins. This resistance to change occurs when every generation dies. The generation after that—mine—will be gone in another 20 years, and all of my cohorts but me will resist the change in culture that attends it. We cannot expect every generation to think that “Stairway to Heaven” was the best song ever written. It’s just a fact. Cultures change. They always have, and they always will on this Earth—probably even if Jesus comes.
Some idiot in the background just yelled out:
“Naw!!! Hit will not. The Bible says that Jesus, “Changes not.”
Wrong!!! God can and does change his mind. It is even recorded so in the Bible. God likes to create new things. Anytime you can change your mind, and you have a spur to create, the culture is going to change—be it a heavenly culture or an earthy culture. The whole known universe is about change.
YOU CANNOT STOP IT. WHAT WILL BE WILL BE!!!