The truth about Mitt Romney's "charitable" donations →

Here, via Forbes, is a breakdown of where the Tyler Charitable Foundation has given the more than $7 million it doled out since 2000:

1. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: $4,781,000
2. Brigham Young University: $525,000
3. The United Way: $177,000
4. Right to Play: $111,500
5. The George W. Bush Library: $100,000
6. Operation Kids: $85,000
7. Center For Treatment of Pediatric MS: $75,000
8. Harvard Business School: $70,000
9. City Year: $65,000
10. Deseret International: $50,000
Weber State University: $50,000

As you can see, the majority of the funding goes to the Mormon church. The second-biggest recipient is the Mormon university that Romney attended. Other recipients include Romney’s former business school, and the library of the former president he has an incentive to curry favor with. In all, it is clear that Romney’s donations are about taking care of his own and advancing his personal interests. Relative to his vast wealth, he has given relatively little to programs that assist those truly in need.

Donations to religious organizations are considered “charitable contributions” for tax purposes. So are private schools. But that doesn’t mean that giving your church money for a new stained glass window or helping your alma mater build a new swimming pool is charity in the colloquial sense.

The Business Insider breakdown of Romney’s personal donations in 2009 and 2010 is worth quoting at length, because it exposes just how miserly he actually is.

In 2010, Mitt Romney took $3 million in charitable deductions on his tax return, against adjusted gross income of $22 million.

• $1.5 million was a direct cash donation to the LDS Church

• $1.5 million was a stock donation to the Romney’s private foundation, which is called the Tyler Foundation. The Tyler Foundation, in turn, gave away $647,500 in 2010, of which $145,000 went to the church. (The Tyler Foundation is controlled by the Romneys, so any money the Tyler Foundation gives away is effectively money the Romneys are giving away)

In 2010, therefore, Romney gave third parties (other than his foundation) a total of $2.1 million, with a total of $1.7 million going to the church. 78 percent of Romney’s donations in 2010, therefore, went to the church.
In 2009, meanwhile, Romney’s private foundation gave away a total of $631,000. This was made up of four gifts:

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints ($600,000)

• My Sister’s Keeper ($5,000)

• The Becket Fund ($25,000)

• Mass General Hospital Cancer Center ($1,000)

In 2009, therefore, 95 percent of the money Romney’s foundation gave away went to the church.

The other recipients of Romney’s money are often right-wing anti-gay groups. As Raw Story reported: “The Tyler Charitable Foundation, set up and funded by the Romneys, donated $10,000 in 2006 to the Massachusetts Family Institute, which promotes the ex-gay therapy. The charity also donated $25,000 to the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which opposes same sex marriage and has compared LGBT activists to the terrorist group al Qaeda.”

Chick-fil-A Ceases Anti-gay Donations, Clarifies Stance on Gay Customers & Employees →

September 18, 2012 – Chicago, Illinois – The Civil Rights Agenda (TCRA), Illinois’ leading lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights advocacy organization, has learned that Alderman Moreno has finalized his negotiations with Chick-Fil-A.  Alderman Moreno has confirmed that Chick-fil-A will no longer give money to anti-gay organizations and that they have clarified in an internal document that the company will treat every person equally, regardless of sexual orientation. The Civil Rights Agenda worked closely with the Alderman in an advisory role as he negotiated these concessions with the executives at Chick-fil-A.  Additionally, members of TCRA spoke directly with executives at Chick-fil-A during negotiations to aid in educating their decision makers about anti-discrimination policies and issues affecting the LGBT community.

In a letter addressed to Alderman Moreno and signed by Chick-fil-A’s Senior Director of Real Estate, it states, “The WinShape Foundations is now taking a much closer look at the organizations it considers helping, and in that process will remain true to its stated philosophy of not supporting organizations with political agendas.”  Winshape, a non-profit funded by Chick-fil-a, has donated millions of dollars to anti-LGBT groups, including some classified as hate groups.  In meetings the company executives clarified that they will no longer give to anti-gay organizations.

“We are very pleased with this outcome and thank Alderman Moreno for his work on this issue,” said Anthony Martinez, executive director of The Civil Rights Agenda. “I think the most substantive part of this outcome is that Chick-fil-A has ceased donating to organizations that promote discrimination, specifically against LGBT civil rights.  It has taken months of discussion, both with our organization and with the Alderman, for Chick-fil-A to come forward with these concessions and we feel this is a strong step forward for Chick-fil-A and the LGBT community, although it is only a step.”

The Hypocrisy of Homosexuality.

creepradio:

Recently, I watched a debate between Dan Savage, a popular blogger and gay activist,

Do you mean to say “a nationally syndicated columnist?”

and Brian Brown, the president of

the hate group,

the National Organization for Marriage. One prominent opinion during the debate was that Savage stated he would not support polygamous marriages because they are harmful to society; in fact, he stated he doesn’t know of a homosexual who would support polygamous marriages.

OK, so the way you’re framing this, they asked two people against polygamous marriage to debate it. That sounds like a really boring debate. Oh, unless this was a debate about gay marriage and Savage was tricked into responding to a slippery-slope fallacy that he shouldn’t have been made responsible for by the bully from that hate group he was talking with.

I find it interesting that the Conservatives conjecture

And it is pure conjecture

homosexual marriage is detrimental to society, but homosexuals conjecture polygamous marriages will be detrimental too. this is an issue of not having an ultimate meaning of marriage. 

Bullshit. First off, like I said, the gay marriage issue has nothing to do with polygamy. You clearly have this law-and-order view of the world so I guess I have to disabuse you of the notion that people need to be controlled, but the reason gay people want to be able to marry legally is so they can receive the same benefits under the law. That means, hospital visitation rights, non-discrimination, tax benefits, adoption privileges, etc. The law protects people, it doesn’t control them. That’s why children can’t marry in most places, because they can’t provide sound consent. Homosexual adults can provide sound consent and the law doesn’t need to protect them, simple as that. People in group weddings are often coerced either by culty/religious mumbo-jumbo or some svengali. The government needs to protect against people like that.

If Americans allow homosexuals to marry, they will not be the final group to protest for marital rights.

So? People protest for/against stuff everyday, who gives a shit?

There was a time when people thought interracial marriages was the final group to fight for their marital rights, but look how they were wrong.

Do you know how shitty this thing you said was? It was so shitty I bolded it so people who read this would feel extra compelled to shame the fuck out of you and your bigotry.

And, if homosexuals believe they can have their marital rights, and deny polygamous marriage their rights then they are enacting the same bigot treatment as Conservatives act on them.

No, one group meets the requirement of needing government intervention and the other doesn’t. Simple as that.

Conservatives view marriage equality between a man and a woman more valuable than homosexual marriage because Conservative marriage can procreate.

not necessarily.

Homosexuals view their marriage more valuable than polygamous marriage because heterosexual men will become greedy with wives, and eventually finding a mate for American men will become as difficult as it is in China.

What? Maybe you should check this out before we go any further.

But, as Liberals move from fighting for gay marriage to a more politically correct term, marriage equality,

It’s not politically correct, it’s just correct.

they fail to realize that there can be no such thing as marriage equality because every group cannot define marriage to fit their personal pleasures.

So now you’re engaging in the slippery-slope fallacy.

Professional sports; for example: professional sports are highly valued because it requires specific skills to play professionally. If Americans play professional sports by their personal views of what skills it takes to play professionally, the value of professional sports will greatly decrease.

Oh my, this analogy is just….you are a very, very stupid person. Like, you should really be embarrassed that you wrote something like this. If I were you I would take this as an opportunity to delete my entire internet presence, stop discussing issues and look into getting off the grid because you’re so embarrassingly out of step with civilized society that you actually wrote the above paragraph.

If Americans grant marriage equality for all groups, each group will value and devalue certain meanings of marriage. Heterosexual marriage will be the highest valued because it has the longest practice and it is valued by many religious moral standards then there is homosexual marriage, polygamous marriage, bestiality marriage, and so on.

Can you believe the sales on bestiality marriage these days!? They must be in season!

Therefore,

Don’t use lawyer terms when you can barely fucking read, dipshit.

marriage should be defined between one man and one woman.

Disagree, plus fuck your face.

Yes, marriage and religion have many issues within itself

oh, within itself, you say? How interesting! lol.

such as how some kings in the Bible had hundreds of wives, and the divorce rate amongst Christians today, but Liberals who use these arguments has a misinterpretation.

I can has misinterpretation?

Ancient polygamy and current divorce rates amongst Christians are not absolute depictions of how God defines marriage,

How what defines marriage? I don’t know what you’re talking about, you haven’t introduced me to your make believe friend and his rules yet.

but a recording of cultural customs and evidence of imperfections.

Alright so my cultural custom is the one that is used in this place called America and it’s about sound consent.

If we remove the errors of cultural records in the Bible and study God’s meaning of the Bible

You mean if we take out the mistakes in the Bible (according to you) and reinsert what God meant (also according to you)…

then we will learn that the Bible is perfect

because having fixed it so that it says what you want, it now says what you and is, THEREFORE, (lol) puuuuuuurrrrrrfect!

for defining marriage, and anything contrary to that meaning is the beginning of destroying marriage for all.

I bet your attitude about love and acceptance has pretty much destroyed any possibility of marriage for you!

Wanna see a homophobe (and obvious closet case) accidentally light himself on fire while trying to protest against equal rights? →

Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!

edit: is this fake?

the-girl-from-hyrule:

I missed the part where running a Christian movie review site, giving advice on everything from parenting to helping friends with depression/cutting/suicide, offering counselling for struggling couples/teens/etc., and selling Christian books….

was funding hate.

Whoops my bad. 

Oh, I’m so glad you posted this because it provides me the perfect platform to both explain why it’s hate and point out how willfully ignorant people like you are.

Here’s ten reasons Focus on the Family, the shady tax exempt arm of the Family Research Council, is a hate group.

1. Despite the best scientific evidence from every credible sociological and psychological research group, these stubborn bastards insist there is a link between homosexuality and child predators.

2. They use their money to support discrimination in the workplace against homosexuals.

3. They promote insane conspiracy theories (in order to demonize) asserting that anti-bullying efforts are a secret gay plot to make kids gay or some shit.

4. They instruct their followers to marginalize their own children should those children come out as homosexual by telling them they’re immoral and engaging in risky behavior.

5. While continuing to refer to gay teens as “simply confused” (more marginalization) they have taken steps to assure that foster parents can continue to reject or abuse them and they have the fucking gall to reframe the issue as one of “liberal sensitivity.”

6. Oh, among those Christian books you’re so proud to see them promoting, is one that lead to the deaths of at least three children and the horrific abuses of countless others.

7.In a bizarre double whammy of homophobic bigotry, one of FotF’s leaders showed that he both a) believes ex-gay therapy is a thing, even though it’s been shown again and again and again to be abusive and false and that b) ex-gays should have a pride day, the way “gays have a pride day.” I call that the ol’ “white pride” or “kid’s day” fallacy.

8. They lied to the government, wasting your time and money, to promote lies about homosexuality and parenting.

9. James Dobson, FotF’s de-facto head dickhead, said of the 9/11 that while unruly women and dirty words on TV didn’t actually cause 9/11, they did prevent god from stopping it.

“Christians have made arguments on both sides of this question. I certainly believe that God is displeased with America for its pride and arrogance, for killing 40 million unborn babies, for the universality of profanity and for other forms of immorality. However, rather than trying to forge a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the terrorist attacks and America’s abandonment of biblical principles, which I think is wrong, we need to accept the truth that this nation will suffer in many ways for departing from the principles of righteousness. “The wages of sin is death,” as it says in Romans 6, both for individuals and for entire cultures.”

10. Among the most successful methods of arousing hate is to confuse people into thinking they’re being personally assaulted. For instance, telling someone that a gay marriage in New Mexico will have any impact on your marriage in Maryland. See, in order to make people believe everyday people are, in fact, villains, you have to confuse them and make them feel defensive. So when a group asserts, using insane silliness, that any gay marriage is a step toward fascism, well, you know they’re a hate group.

So, you see, you stupid asshat, you have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s not even just because you’re too fucking dense to understand it, which you are, but that’s not the reason. The reason is you refuse to understand it. Willfully ignorant. Best option for you is to delete your entire internet presence at this point because the crushing weight of my followers is about to just shit straight down your throat. “Whoops,” indeed. Bon appetit, bigot!

Bad mother, Bristol Palin, has a three-year-old who says "faggot" when he's angry. →

I guess she learned how to be a piece of shit mother from her own piece of shit mother.