Why Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor of course!

GOProud head Jimmy LaSalvia has added his signature to an open letter calling Senate Republicans to filibuster Judge Sotomayor. The other signatories are a distinguished group to be sure, including a number of luminaries in the anti-gay movement, including:

Gary Bauer, American Values
Tom Minnery, Focus on the Family
Wendy Wright, Concerned Women for America
Donald E. Wildmon, American Family Association
Rev. Rick Scarborough, Vision America
Rev. Louis Sheldon, Traditional Values Coalition
Andrea Lafferty, Traditional Values Coalition
Linda Harvey, Mission America
Sandy Rios, Culture Campaign
Peter LaBarbera, Americans for Truth
Brian Camenker, MassResistance
Kris Mineau, Massachusetts Family Institute
Gary Glenn, President, American Family Association of Michigan
Diane Gramley, American Family Association of Pennsylvania
Don Feder, Feder Associates, Massachussetts
Janet M. LaRue, Esq., Jan LaRue Consulting, Texas
Larry Cirgnano, Virginia
Janet Parshall, Nationally Syndicated Talk show Host

GOProud, or the Log Cabin Republicans Part Deux, hopes to be more successful than their predecessors in moving the gay conservative agenda forward, whatever that is.  While I desparately try not to think them as self-hating homosexuals, bent over and enjoying a reach around by the social conservatives who drive the agenda of their party (have I said that before), it’s sometimes hard to think otherwise by the company they keep.

More at GoodAsYou.

This of course is just a small smattering…

Matt Barber, Director of Cultural Affairs with both Liberty Counsel and Liberty Alliance Action

“Here we go again. While citing the specter of ‘equal protection,’ the Iowa Supreme Court today has unanimously joined a leftist gaggle of ideologically driven judges in California, Massachusetts and Connecticut, creating, from thin air, a phantom ‘right’ to the ridiculous, oxymoronic and postmodern ‘gay’ marriage counterfeit… The U.S. Supreme Court long ago rejected the untenable notion that ‘equal protection’ requires two biologically incompatible persons to be permitted to ‘marry.’ Marriage, of course, by its very spiritual, historical and biological nature, requires binary compatibility. It is no more discriminatory to disallow two men from marrying each other, than it is to prohibit a man from marrying his house plant.”

Douglas Napier, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund

“The Iowa marriage law was simple, settled and overwhelmingly supported by Iowans … There was simply no legitimate reason for the court to redefine marriage.”

Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst at Focus on the Family Action, said the ruling took his breath away.

“The justices brazenly asserted that their role was not only to redefine marriage, but also to legislate whatever new social agenda they favored, ‘free from the influences’ of a society resistant to such change,” he said. “Such an admission is breathtaking in its arrogance and scope.”

Tony Perkins, president of FRC Action

“We need to remember that the marriage-amendment movement has been many times more successful than the same-sex ‘marriage’ movement,” he said. “We urge Iowans to contact their legislators and urge them to move quickly to pass a constitutional amendment protecting marriage … We hope the Legislature will heed the powerful swell of statewide support for an amendment and reclaim from the High Court its rightful place as the state’s policy-making body.”

Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America

“Marriage is a civilizing institution that brings a man and a woman – two fundamentally different yet complementary people – together in an unparalleled bond that provides children with the benefits of the two sexes, male and female. The Iowa justices in reality regress in their attempt to impose ‘progress’ by destroying the concept of marriage in a naked, self-serving power grab. Claiming that they have a ‘keen and respectful’ understanding of the Constitution doesn’t make it so, anymore than claiming marriage can be complete without one or the other sex.”

Rev. Louis P. Sheldon, Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition

“If this ruling is permitted to stand without challenge, it will result in the persecution of Christians and anyone else who criticizes homosexual conduct. This ruling will mean that schools will be forced to teach that homosexual marriage is normal – and parents who object will face ridicule and possible criminal penalties against them. This ruling will be used to force pastors to conduct same-sex ceremonies or face penalties.”

Chuck Hurley, Iowa Family Policy Center

Pardon me while I hunt down my extremely small violin.

That’s right. As reported by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the number of hate groups have grown from 602 to 926 since the year 2000. The highest concentration not surprisingly falls below the Mason Dixon line, and unfortunately, my own home state of California with 88 groups.

From the SPLC Report…

As in recent years, hate groups were animated by the national immigration debate. But two new forces also drove them in 2008: the worsening recession, and Barack Obama’s successful campaign to become the nation’s first black president. Officials reported that Obama had received more threats than any other presidential candidate in memory, and several white supremacists were arrested for saying they would assassinate him or allegedly plotting to do so.

While the vast majority of hate groups groups are comprised of neo-Nazis, white nationalists, skins heads and the KKK, some have made it their mission to target and vilify the LGBT community as well. Those include…

• Traditional Values Coalition – Anaheim CA
• Abiding Truth Ministries – Temecula, CA
• Family Research Council – Colorado Springs, CO
• Traditional Values Coalition – Washington D.C.
• Illinois Family Institute – Carol Stream, IL
• Heterosexuals Organized for a Moral Environment – Downers Grove, IL
• Westboro Baptist Church – Topeka, KS
• The School of Christian Activism – Springfield, MA
• Mass Resistance – Waltham, MA
• Watchman on the Walls – Seattle, WA

Noticeably absent from the list…

• The American Family Association – Tupelo, MS
• Focus on the Family – Colorado Springs, CO
• Americans for Truth – Naperville, IL
• Concerned Women for America- Washington, D.C.

It’s hard for me not to believe that the rise in the number of hate groups, or at least a rise in their membership, has been fueled in part by anti-muslim sentiment after 9/11, the LGBT community demanding equality, and stoking the fires of  hard religious right leading up the election.

And sure, I definitely blame the Bush administration, which allowed an environment of hate, intolerance and economic suffering to grow and fester during his watch, allowing hate groups to flourish. Need we be reminded of the hate we witnessed during the end of the Presidential campaign?