Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
Bryan Fischer spins a lie no one will back him up on.
An incident took place over a number of days involving me, arch-homophobe Bryan Fischer and conservative rag One News Now. In the great scheme of things, particularly what's going on now, it's probably highly irrelevant. Still, it's a nice victory that I want to brag about.
First of all, a little background for those who aren't aware about Bryan Fischer - he is an extremely homophobic person who has written and said some of the most vulgar things about the LGBTQ community such as:
we began the Nazi party in Germany, our children ought to be taken away from us via kidnapping, and we should be criminalized and treated like drug addicts.
His rhetoric is so ugly that the American Family Association (itself a vile anti-LGBTQ hate group) made a huge show out of dismissing him as a spokesperson in 2015. However, he still retains use of the group's name and its resources to pump out his bigotry. One News Now (affiliated with AFA) generally posts his pieces
In his latest piece, Eye-opening rape report exposes stomach-twisting stats, Fischer attempts to make the case that allowing gays to openly serve in the military has increased the rate of male-on-male rapes in the Armed Forces. Part of it reads as follows:
Homosexuals have been allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military since the disastrously misguided repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in late 2010. President Obama was able to ram the repeal through just under the wire because the Democrats temporarily held both houses of Congress, a situation that would change with the election in the fall of 2010. Elections have consequences, and open homosexuality in the military was one of the unfortunate consequences of naïve voters placing regressives in office.
Since conservative (and anti-LGBTQ) evangelicals have decided to embrace Donald Trump as their "Lord and Savior," what could be a better way of showcasing their "new direction" other than this video by the Lincoln Project.
The video is brutal in how it highlights the schism conservative evangelicals have created in the American body of faith with their power-hungry support of Trump; a schism that the LGBTQ community would be clueless to not draw attention to and help along its way
A gay Trump supporter claims that Trump is working for supposed 'true equality.'
I've already had one negative run-in with gay conservative writer Chad Felix Greene after he falsely labeled my blog as "anti-Christian" and I am simply itching for another opportunity.
Lo and behold, the opportunity comes knocking after an inane piece he recently posted in the right-wing propaganda sheet The Federalist. Greene's piece, No, White House Website Updates Don’t Mean Trump Is Trying To ‘Erase’ LGBT People, is a full-throttled defense of Trump's record when it comes to the LGBTQ community. It's not what he says that's the issue. It's what he omits. Here are some snippets:
Unfortunately, LGBT advocacy seems fixated on public validation over quiet integration and insists on a segregated platform in which to display leftist social and legal achievements. President Trump failing to openly acknowledge LGBT politics supposedly signaled the beginning of hostility now that he was in power, despite no evidence to support such an assertion.
Trump has appointed five openly LGBT ambassadors and U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patrick Bumatay. Vice President Mike Pence met with the openly gay Irish prime minister and his partner and publicly praised openly gay Olympic athletes amid controversy over his perceived anti-LGBT views. Trump honored hero police officer and openly gay Crystal Griner with the Medal of Honor after her bravery in saving Rep. Steve Scalise and other Republican members of Congress during an attempted assassination.
. . .If Trump were truly struggling to contain his hatred for gay and trans people, you could imagine he would have acted out in actual hostility toward them by now. LGBT media and advocacy certainly have given him plenty of reason to do so.
One major distinction between President Barack Obama and Trump is that the latter does not seem to need the highly segmented approval of hundreds of grievance groups in order to feel he is doing a good job. For the right, this represents a more equal-opportunity leader who focuses on issues and not virtue signaling. For the left, it seems to indicate deep and intentional disregard for the well-being of groups they believe deserve special acknowledgement.
As a gay person, I prefer the right’s view on this. If what Trump’s administration is doing is “erasing” LGBT people, then being erased must be the same thing as equality and assimilation — and that looks like progress to me.
Greene is extremely clueless and the only thing holding this piece together is how he dresses up his obliviousness as intelligence. He implies that Trump is doing more than "virtue signaling" to the LGBTQ community, but then provides examples which add up to nothing but tokenism.
Gary Bauer, who allegedly undermine the fight against AIDS during the 80s, is just one of many conservative evangelical leaders eager for the power Trump gives them.
Unlike the rest of American society, I refuse to catch the vapors while watching right-wing evangelical leaders debase their "integrity" in support of Donald Trump. To me, they were always hypocritical bloodsucking bullies who saw Jesus as a commodity in their quest for political power to shape America into their definition of a bastardized version of "The Promised Land."
And I say this as an LGBTQ, a member of the community they spent years stigmatizing as the "dreaded other" before Trump opened the door of the Oval Office to their clutching claws.
Look at some the cast of characters in this group:
Gary Bauer who, when he worked in the Reagan Administration, deliberately kept Surgeon General C. Everett Koop from meeting with the president about the AIDS crisis because he felt it was "God's punishment."
James Dobson, who once claimed that gays have thousands of partners
Franklin Graham, who once praised Vladimir Putin for persecuting the Russian LGBTQ community.
During a recent edition of MSNBC Live with Kendis Gibson, a good friend of mine and a wonderful transgender activist Monica Roberts, who runs the GLAAD Media Award-winning blog Transgriot, was interviewed about how transphobic rhetoric leads to violence against community.
It goes without saying that she did a wonderful job. And it was definitely a refreshing thing to see a transgender American invited on a news program. Particularly in light of how the Fox News network and the rest of the right-wing media will practically bend over backwards to exclude the trans community in debates, while giving transphobic people and groups a wide berth to spew their lies.
Though some folks have criticized me for it, I like going through past written words and videos of groups who oppose LGBTQ equality. I do it for three reasons - 1. to educate myself on their arguments because they generally get recycled and repackaged 2. keep myself from becoming slack in refuting them. 3. marvel at how simplistically idiotic they are.
And the above video by the group TFP Student Action is a doozy. TFP Student Action is an offshoot of the American Society for the Defense Tradition, Family, and Property - a far-right Catholic group . Naturally, this means that another activity of the group is pushing the lie that the LGBTQ community is unhealthy to society. It was small, but very vocal, part of the conservative right's ultimately unsuccessful fight against marriage equality. And with arguments made in the video above, it's no wonder they lost.
All it contains is a hashtag of bad talking points backed by wishful thinking, religious entitlement, and deceptions (i.e. using President Obama talking about single parents to denigrate same-sex households and spinning the lie about the Massachusetts father who was jailed for allegedly trying to keep his son from being "exposed" to homosexuality in his school.)
Yet, this video contained the general arguments of those opposing our right to marry. And what the opposition ended up arguing in the courts. A special highlight comes at 4:28 when the only black guy in the video is some random person they filmed on the street going on about "Adam and Steve" as he and his facial piercings draw so close to the camera that you think he's going to lick it.
But I shouldn't be too harsh. What points the video loses on facts and logic, the participants make up for it by being vigorous. Extremely vigorous.
The most enjoyable thing about watching this video is knowing that a few short months after it was made, the Supreme Court legalized marriage equality, thereby telling TFP - and other religious right and conservative groups - to go play with themselves. And after watching this video, can anyone really blame SCOTUS?
No matter what they say, conservative white evangelicals prefer the guy on the left more than the guy on the right.
I read this last week and found it so on point that I decided to post it at a later date. Then I lost it. But lo and behold, it popped right back up again when I was considering what post I would publish today.
Much has been said and will be said about conservative white evangelicals shamelessly embracing of a Trump presidency in spite of the fact that they are supposed to stand against every quality he has brought into the White House - lying, hypocrisy, adultery, corruption. etc. To me, it all about power. As long as he freely gives them access and the power to influence public policy, conservative white evangelicals will contort themselves to justify or ignore all of his vile qualities.
How they contort hasn't been spotlighted as much as it should, except by theologian, speaker, and author Benjamin L. Corey. In an absolutely wonderful piece,10 Signs You’re Actually Following TRUMPianity Instead of CHRISTianity, he breaks down the 10 ways conservative white evangelicals have twisted themselves up in knots to justify their support of Trump and in essence, replaced Christianity for 'Trumpianity.'
The entire piece deserves your attention, but I am to going list Corey's 10 points. For more details on each, read how Corey broke them down:
10. You spent 8 years criticizing every move of Obama, but the minute Trump was sworn in you started telling everyone that “Christians should respect the president” and that being “divisive” is a sin.
9. You think, “but we’re a nation of laws” somehow trumps biblical teachings on how immigrants are to be treated.
8. Your church is planning a “patriotic worship service” for the 4th of July.
7. You instinctively applaud when Trump threatens to “bomb the shit” out of people, but quickly push back if someone quotes what Jesus taught about violence and enemy love.
6. You think that having a filthy mouth and boasting about sexual immorality is a sign of being unsaved, but when it comes to Trump you all of a sudden have a “Who am I to judge?” attitude.
5. You think it’s God-honoring to refuse to bow to a national statue, but that you should be fired from your job, kicked out of the country, or even charged with treason for refusing to stand for the flag.
4. You want the nation to return to “biblical values”… except for all those socialist sounding biblical things like caring for the poor, welcoming the stranger, giving food to the hungry, etc.
3. Your church spends one month a year celebrating the story of refugee family who fled their violent homeland and secretly crossed the border to safety, only to return home years later where their son became another unarmed person of color killed by the state’s violent security forces because they “felt threatened”…
2. You claimed Barack Obama’s election was the result of evil forces, but the minute Trump was sworn into office you started quoting verses about how “God picks a nation’s kings and queens.”
1. You spent the 90’s saying “character counts” but now say, “We don’t vote for a national pastor.”
TERFs are so desperate for attention that some engage in stupidly counteractive stunts, such as kissing up to the right-wing media.
TERFs claimed they were being censored, but they found a safe space in right-wing media in 2019 - Any of my lesbian sisters who was involved in this madness, you need to wise up. Don't think for an instant that your "new allies" aren't going to plot to put your rights and safety into a grave next to the one you are helping them dig for our trans brothers and sisters. Knowing them, they are probably making measurements even now as they smile in your faces and direct your hands to jab the knives into the backs of your own people.
Here Are 20 LGBTQ Celebrity Coming-Out Stories That Moved Us In 2019 - Celebrity or not, people coming out is a good thing. And it will always matter. Particularly with our LGBTQ children. There is nothing wrong with someone publicly showing them to not be afraid to live their lives honestly.
Whether or not Trump is re-elected in 2020, the one thing the LGBTQ community simply has to do is demand more attention to how his Administration is undermining our equality and safety. Remember this 2016 tweet of his when he was running for president:
We now see that the above tweet is one of his biggest lies. Since taking office, his administration has been systematically eliminating any mention of our community from executive guidelines on discrimination
With just over a year left in President Donald Trump's first term, another late-breaking news item barely made waves: The Interior Department — which manages the majority of the federal government's public lands — deleted "sexual orientation" from its anti-discrimination guidelines, as HuffPost first reported last week. The removal was just the latest in a nearly three-year-long effort to strip mention of LGBTQ people from the executive branch bureaucracy.
Reports of such changes began the day Trump assumed office, when LGBTQ content was deleted from the White House, State Department and Labor Department websites within "minutes" of his having been sworn into office, according to GLAAD, a national LGBTQ advocacy group.
Since then, drip by drip, other parts of the federal government have had their online content trimmed to omit mention of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people.
. . . Indeed, the government's own civil rights watchdog group, the Commission on Civil Rights, in November found a systematic approach to dismantling LGBTQ rights protections. Karen Narasaki, a member of the commission's board, called it "truly unprecedented."
While the removal of these guidelines has been given less attention than they should have been, they underscore a reality too bothersome to ignore. This isn't simply a matter of Trump making a promise and then not taking any action. It's a matter of him taking the opposite action of the promise he made.
The group GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) has pointed to 133 negative activities committed against the LGBTQ community by the Trump Administration.
From banning transgender men and women from serving in the military to appointing anti-LGBTQ leaders (some who have falsely linked gay men to pedophilia) to supporting anti-LGBTQ discrimination by religious entities while giving them access to gay tax dollars, Trump has freely run roughshod without the media even asking once about what he's doing.
What Trump has been doing to the LGBTQ community is the equivalent of promising someone that you will help him cross the street but then push him in the middle of busy rush hour traffic. His attacks on the LGBTQ community may not be as high-profile or obviously prejudiced as his attacks on immigrants and undocumented people, but they are equally egregious.
NC pastor Patrick Wooden (second photo), who once falsely claimed that gay men have to wear diapers and stick cellphones up their rectums, is angry that openly gay presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (first photo) was hosted by another church in early December.
I was too busy celebrating the holidays so I missed a very interesting item which took place last week. Apparently openly gay presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is bringing all of the homophobes out to condemn him. First Franklin Graham, then Don Boys.
Outspoken North Carolina Bishop Patrick Wooden Sr., founder of the conservative Upper Room Church of God in Christ in Raleigh, slammed William J. Barber II, pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church, for hosting gay Democratic presidential candidate, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and for arguing that Jesus didn’t speak out against homosexuality.
“I’m a registered non-affiliate, so I don’t want you to think I’m in any party. I’m for the Lord and what is right, but it is a disgrace that we live in a country where, if a person of color dons a ‘Make America Great’ hat, people now, on MSNBC and other news agencies, they call that hat a trigger ... But you can invite a man married to man to a Christian church and there is no outcry,” Wooden declared in a message to his church earlier this month. “Something is wrong with that. And the only way to get you to buy into that, they’ve got to try and get you to ignore the Scriptures and to take Jesus Christ out of the public eye.”
Wooden was upset about Barber hosting Buttigieg at his church on Dec 1. The Christian Post points out that during the event Barber addressed the so-called divide between the LGBTQ and black community. He called it a "false narrative." He also said we must address issues of poverty and social justice instead of being exploited by false narratives:
“Just to clear the house, because I know it’s out there, we here to talk about poverty. Somebody sent me this question: ‘What are you gonna say to the mayor about being gay?’ I said, ‘Nothing.’ That’s not a Bible question. You don’t see Jesus raising that. It’s not a constitutional question. There’s no constitutional provision. I just got on a plane and flew four hours from Arizona here. I ain’t ask the pilot was he gay, but I did ask him could he fly the plane,” Barber said to applause.
“My surgeon, I don’t ask him if he’s gay. I want to know, can he do the surgery? And right now, what we’re looking at is, are there candidates who can have the political courage, wisdom to address the issue of poverty and the interlocking injustices. That’s the question before us. … We need to kill some of these false narratives,” he asserted.
'Rent' by Big Freedia is the perfect anthem for Trump's impeachment.
On Wednesday night, Donald Trump got impeached. It's not a surprise. The man has no impulse control or maturity, so he was bound to do something which would finally get him into trouble. Now whether or not he will be removed is another story. The conventional wisdom is that the GOP led Senate will not convict him. Of course in 2016, the conventional wisdom was that Hillary Clinton would be our first female president (and she should have been), so I think it's safe to have a wait and see attitude.
At any rate, I have a perspective on Trump's impeachment which I think needs to be shared. Instead of writing a long diatribe on the matter (because I don't think I can add anything new to the outpouring of long diatribes by folks who get paid to do that sort of thing), I am going to make mine short, succinct, and with the help of fellow "family" member, "The Queen of Bounce" Big Freedia. I'm sure when she recorded the song 'Rent' in 2018 Big Freedia didn't think someone would use it as an anthem of the Donald Trump Impeachment. But I think it perfectly fits the situation, because Trump is a big freeloader.
Don't be surprised. You just KNEW someone would be coming out with this.
Impeachment or no impeachment, removal or no removal, I sincerely hope that Trump's legacy will include how he unleashed a "grifter class" on America. From conspiracy theory spewing slop artists to propaganda rags to Twitter bomb-throwing shysters, a segment of hucksters felt emboldened by Trump ascension to the highest office to grab a moment for themselves in the spotlight hoping to gain attention and few bucks.
And no where is this more prominent than in right-wing evangelical circle. Trump has given them an unwritten, self-appointed mandate to hustle and sell their wares. Trump's personal pastor Paula White,(or as I call her - "Sister Hot Mess) is just one of many.
Disgraced former PTL head Jim Bakker is another. He has hopped with both feet on the Trump train, as you can see via this tweet in which he and another religious leader are selling a coin which is then supposed to be used to pray for Trump possible re-election. It can be yours for $45.
For $45, Lance Wallnau and Jim Bakker will sell you a Trump/Cyrus coin that you can use as a "point of contact" between you and God as you pray for Trump's re-election in 2020. pic.twitter.com/EwKgGL7sNp
I've been insistently covering the Hallmark Channelcontroversy because it presents something we should never forget. Behind their self-victimization and cries about persecution and accusations of "the radical gay agenda," the aim of religious right groups is to either erase the humanity of our community or confine us into their false definitions of who we are and what our lives are comprised of.
Lo and behold comes a long-time anti-LGBTQ activist by the name of Scott Lively to further illustrate this point. To the lucky who have never heard of him, Lively is an extreme homophobe. He wrote and published discreditedbook, The Pink Swastika, which accused gays of creating the Nazi party in Germany.
But Lively's biggest claim to infamy was going overseas to Uganda in 2009 with other religious right figures and railing against the LGBTQ community with such vitriol that Ugandan officials proposed the infamous "Kill the Gays" bill. If this bill had become law, people could have been legally executed in the country for being LGBTQ. Before it died in 2014, the part about execution was changed to long prison sentences.
Dear religious right, are you mad? Good. Stay mad.
To say that the religious right and conservatives are breathing fire over the Hallmark Channel's decision to apologize for axing a gay marriage ad would be an understatement. With articles bearing titles such as Hallmark surrenders to pressure from homosexuals, the American Family Association and other like-minded groups have no room for subtlety. They are furious.
Monica Cole, head of the AFA affiliate One Million Moms, had this to say:
“Most of (Hallmark's) viewers are conservative, and so they’re going to push away a majority of their viewership if they do this to appease a small percentage of viewers . . . "so we just want them to realize that they are offending their primary audience by doing this and ruining family movie time. So many feel betrayed because this is one of the very last channels that families could go to and not be bombarded with politically correct commercials and LGBT agenda."
And of course the majority of the comments on the article reads as such:
Well now I am dizzy. The Hallmark Channel pulled an ad featuring a same-sex couple after hate group the American Family Association and its affiliate group, One Million Moms, complained.
The company behind the ad, the wedding site Zola, pulled all of its ads from the channel in protest. In addition, LGBTQ organizations, LGBTQ community, and a lot of other folks spent the entire weekend figuratively dragging Hallmark, especially on Twitter with the hashtags #boycotthallmark and #BoycottHallmarkChannel .
Now comes this:
Hallmark CEO's statement: "I am sorry for the hurt and disappointment this has caused… Hallmark Channel will be reaching out to Zola to reestablish our partnership and reinstate the commercials… We will continue to look for ways to be more inclusive & celebrate our differences"
Okay, American Family Association and One Million Moms, it's your turn. Top that if you can. Whatever happens next, this is still a victory for the LGBTQ community. Our lives, our loved ones, our families, and especially our children will not be excised, erased, or eliminated to fit someone else's narrative. We don't need anyone's "tolerance" or "acceptance." And we damned sure aren't going to take your disrespect.
Have you ever read a book considered to be a "classic" and wondered "who the hell picked this to be put on a pedestal?"
I feel the same way about certain folks proclaimed to be great thinkers or intellectuals. At the top of my list is conservative Ben Shapiro. I know all about his "pedigree" and honors, but I still say while he may have a mind, his maturity is something to be desired. But I will give him credit for exploiting the angry people - those on the right who always have to be pumped up about something no matter how stupid - for profit. That, and going on college campuses for rigged debates later described on Youtube as him "destroying an argument" has gotten Shapiro more acclaim than he originally had. And more money.
He certainly knows how to get his audience riled up such as with this excerpt and clip below in which he is raising hell when someone from our community say that they relate to Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer:
Right wing extremist Ben Shapiro is demanding LGBTQ people leave Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer alone. Shapiro, who runs the far right website The Daily Wire, says the popular children’s Christmas character has enough problems and doesn’t need any more.
“Can’t you just leave Rudolph alone?” Shapiro asked on his radio show. “Like, he’s got enough problems without you putting your own issues with sexual orientation on his fragile flying back.”
Shapiro, who is virulently anti-LGBTQ, was reading from Wednesday’s New York Times opinion piece, “‘Rudolph,’ the Queerest Holiday Special.”
Ben Shapiro attacks the LGBTQ community for saying they relate to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer: "Can't you just leave Rudolph alone? Like, he's got enough problems without you putting your own issues with sexual orientation on his fragile flying back" pic.twitter.com/TxoQs4DQh1
Oh Ben, you get so many things wrong. First of all, no one is talking about "sexual behavior" but you. And no one is talking about "political sexual behavior" but you. Folks can talk about LGBTQ issues and our community without mentioning anything about sexual intercourse, but apparently YOU can't. However, since I am not a psychiatrist, I won't ponder any further about your state of mind on that plateau.
There doesn't seem to be much going today when it comes to the LGBTQ community and the anti-LGBTQ industry, so I thought I would take a jaunt through the history of homophobic images via a publication I have used on many occasions.
Homosexuality: Legitimate, Alternate Deathstyle was created and published in the mid 1980s by a man named Dick Hafer. As you can see below, it spotlit all of the anti-LGBTQ stereotypes of the day and presented them as facts. And as you can also see by the second image, several noted public figures at the time (including a Congressman who died this year), endorsed it as fact. There really is no need to refute this booklet because it basically refutes itself. But it's important for that things like it be remembered for two reason:
1. It is a wonderful, albeit nauseatingly foul, historical resource on homophobia in the United States.
2. If you took a look at the images, you would see that the religious right/anti-LGBTQ industry are saying pretty much the same things about our community as this book, but with more subtlety and less shock. It's not that hard to go from "homosexuality is a dangerous lifestyle" to "Christians need religious liberty to protect their rights from the homosexual agenda."
A Starbucks in Oklahoma fired its transgender manager after a policeman complained about her employee's actions; actions she knew nothing about until it happened and then tried to rectify.
The latest in the religious right's "How dare Chick-fil-A betray us! We are going to grind them into dust!" saga came my way via email from Tim Wildmon, head of hate group the American Family Association :
On Monday, December 2, I overnighted a letter to Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy. In the letter, I asked him to clarify statements made by the leadership of Chick-fil-A and the Chick-fil-A Foundation. You can read the letter here.
As you know, Chick-fil-A recently said it would no longer be supporting The Salvation Army and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Moreover, the Chick-fil-A Foundation announced its support of Covenant House, an outreach that affirms homosexual orientation and funds LGBTQ causes.
At the time I sent this email to you, Mr. Cathy had not responded to my letter. This is disappointing.
Specifically, I asked Mr. Cathy to answer these two questions: (1) Will Chick-fil-A publicly state that it does not believe The Salvation Army and FCA are hate groups because of the ministries' beliefs about sexuality, marriage, and family? (2) Will you publicly state that Chick-fil-A will not hesitate to fund these two ministries again, should the opportunity arise in the future?
Along with the letter, I included the signatures of over 100,000 people who want clarification from Chick-fil-A regarding its recent decisions.
This means that Mr. Cathy has not only snubbed AFA's concerns, he has also chosen not to respond to your concerns.
If Chick-fil-A is truly funding the Covenant House, then it's a good thing and more power to the restaurant. But I still won't be singing its praises any time soon. I'm indifferent about the entire thing mostly because I remember how, in 2012, reasonable attempts to explain the LGBTQ community's problem with the fast food restaurant got overwhelmed by lies generated by Mike Huckabee that Chick-fil-A was supposedly being attacked because its "Christian" values.
The religious right and other Trump supporters have been trying to establish a narrative that Donald Trump supposedly 'brought Christmas back.' Their subtle dog whistle appealing to racist attitudes make it imperative for us to remind people of the wonderful Christmas greetings and celebrations which took place when Obama was in office.
The religious right and other Trump supporters are not only intent on handing himcredit for Obama's policy successes, but they also seem to be determined to craft a narrative that Obama wrecked American traditions and values and that Trump is restoring them.
It's especially annoying during the religious right's annual "War on Christmas" freak out. There has been a vile addition to their yearly bitchfest that the forces of darkness are trying to eliminate "Christ in Christmas."
They are claiming that Donald Trump "brought Christmas" back.
Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council- "America isn't the only thing making a comeback under President Trump -- so is Christmas! The candidate who vowed, "We're gonna be saying Merry Christmas again," delivered on that promise again in a big way Thursday night. Thirty-feet of big, to be exact. In front of the giant spruce, the president made it very clear that this event wasn't about illuminating the tree -- but shining a light on the real reason for the season."
