So How Bad Is Pence?

Update: Tengrain, no. I am so sorry, but you got the link at Crooks & Liars wrong. I never met Pence. RUDE PUNDIT did, which is why I opened the article quoting him. Ack, please please please change the Mike's Blog Round-up link to reflect Rude Pundit's actual article. I am so so sorry about this to anyone coming from the Round-up link. Just, you know, hey here's my blog, just hang out, I update from time to time with moderate, left-leaning views, and hey buy my books and stuff, and... ahhh, so sorry. :(


Okay, so...

Probably this bad. The Rude Pundit actually met the guy once:

See, he was this blogger's Congress member for a brief, horrible period when the Rude Pundit was slowly watching his life seep away in that hellhole of flat land, cold winds, and backwards ass people, Indiana. So he has met Pence, spoken briefly to him, looked into those beady, sleepy eyes and realized, "Holy (bleep), this guy is so (expletive) dumb that he could hammer a nail in with his head and it wouldn't do any damage." No wonder Donald Trump chose him (although, hilariously, it looks like Trump was trying to back out of it at the last minute, possibly realizing that touring the nation with an tight-assed evangelical Christian with the personality of a corn-speckled turd wouldn't be a nonstop party).

Okay, so I curse often on my own blog, but I occasionaly filter it out to tone down the anger just a smidge... Anywho, I digress. Back to Rude Pundit:

Back in 2009, while in Congress (where he squatted and dumped until 2013), Pence was ahead of the curve in trying to defund Planned Parenthood... Or maybe we can look fondly back to when he declared that the Affordable Care Act was antithetical to the ideals of the American Revolution...

And, in 2010, in a preview of the kind of leadership we could expect from Veep Pence, he set the tone for the House of Representatives in telling President Obama and his agenda to go f-ck itself: ..."Look, the time to go along and get along is over...Look, there will be no compromise on stopping runaway spending, deficits and debt. There will be no compromise on repealing Obamacare. There will be no compromise on stopping Democrats from growing government and raising taxes. And if I haven’t been clear enough yet, let me say again: No compromise..."

Yes, yes, yes, Mike Pence, who, at the time, was harboring illusions that he might be president hisself one day, was one of the people responsible for the congressional f-ckery that stalled virtually any legislation in the House...

As for myself, my first direct confrontation with Pence came with his sadistic push as Governor to make Indiana a home for "religious freedom" by essentially mandating private businesses discriminate against gays:

The governor who signed this, Mike Pence, has spent the past few days trying to defend this law.  He keeps saying that the law is about "protecting religious liberty," but when asked about whether the law discriminates, or asked if it's wrong to discriminate, he avoids giving a straight answer.

It's telling that this "great and wonderful and Christian law" for religious liberty had to be signed behind closed doors and with only a handful of religious leaders - some of them known for their rabid brand of hate - rather than a broad range of church pastors and fellowships.  That's probably because a lot of the larger Christian denominations - Presbyterians, Episcopalians and most Lutheran churches in particular - support gay rights.  And a lot of other Christian churches such as the Methodists may oppose homosexuality on principle due to Leviticus and other books, but they refuse to make it a public stance to openly discriminate. 

The thing is: this law does not protect religious freedom at all.  It has nothing to do with ensuring our churches stay open, it has nothing to do with protecting people who gather in public to pray, it has nothing to do with making sure that God remains in Heaven while the flock tend to their affairs within the world.

It has everything to do with letting haters use religion as a weapon to hurt others.  It has everything to do with twisting the words of love and forgiveness from Christ himself to justify rash and reckless judgment of others.  It has everything to do with those few so-called Christians who want to persecute and punish a very small minority group in the name of other Christians who do not want to hate at all...

You can see why Trump saw value adding Pence to his lineup. Pence has inroads to the Religious Right that push their social conservative agenda on the Republican Party - so much so that the party's official platform favors their faction to a disgusting degree - that Trump wants to double-down on keeping that faction - the biggest part of his Nativist base - satisfied.

"It has everything to do with letting haters use religion as a weapon to hurt others." Trump's been campaigning on hate ever since his opening speech against Mexicans and Asians, he's been campaigning on misogyny and racism throughout his primary run, and he's campaigning on that so strongly that he can't "pivot" lest he lose that hater base.

This is the starting lineup for your 2016 Republican Party, America.

For the Love of God, for the Love of Love, do not vote Republican.