The denial continues.

Bizarre.

This whole "Christianist" thing is kind of silly... At best, it's a vapid book-marketing term, but it seems more like a variety of bigotry on its own account, and a pretty empty variety of bigotry at that.

We've noted this before, but Putz's weirdly defensive denial that there's any far-right religious influence at all on the GOP agenda is getting more and more difficult to comprehend. As a "libertarian" he should be wary of such influences, which are, by definition, decidedly un-libertarian. Most real libertarians are not only for legalizing gay marriage or civil unions, but drugs, prostitution and euthanasia as well.

Needless to say, it would be impossible for a Republican almost anywhere in the country to run libertarian on any of these issues.

There are no national Democrats that advocate the teaching of intelligent design in public schools as both President Bush and John McCain have. As far as I know, all of the school boards which have attempted to insert intelligent design into public schools in recent years have been controlled by Republicans, Republicans who've been subsequently voted out of office for doing so.

Democrats overwhelmingly favor stem cell research and might've won control of the Senate by winning Missouri with that issue front and center. President Bush used the first veto of his presidency on a stem cell bill. Democrats blocked the constitutional amendment to define marriage that President Bush advocated and that Frist launched, a move that the constructionist libertarian and supposedly pro-gay marriage Putz should've applauded.

Bush left his vacation early and flew through the night to dramatically sign the GOP's Terri Schiavo bill, one of the most spectacularly un-libertarian pieces of legislation one can imagine.

And it's not "bigotry" to be deeply disturbed by the Texas Republican Party's platform, which in 2004 contained this:

We pledge to exert our influence toward a return to the original intent of the First Amendment and dispel the myth of the separation of church and state.

And in 2006 contains this:

"We believe that the practice of sodomy tears at the fabric of society, contributes to the breakdown of the family unit, and leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases. Homosexual behavior is contrary to the fundamental, unchanging truths that have been ordained by God, recognized by our country’s founders, and shared by the majority of Texans. Homosexuality must not be presented as an acceptable “alternative” lifestyle in our public education and policy, nor should “family” be redefined to include homosexual “couples.”

This language isn't from some small county in Wyoming. This is the Texas GOP, one of the biggest players in Republican politics, the party that produced the current President. Sure sounds like bigotry to me. And it requires a fairly healthy amount of dishonesty, cynicism and just sheer denial to turn the tables around, and call those who question such stances bigots themselves.

A propagandist, faced with all of these facts, would shrug them all off as the necessary political bowing to party activists. But it takes a special kind of delusion to just pretend they're not there at all.

Keep it up, Putz.