News Roundup for 4/8/11

Strangely, this isn't what gay people are like

-Headline of the day-
"Strategist For Anti-Gay Marriage Group Comes Out In Support Of Marriage Equality."

Doesn't seem like much of a strategy, if you ask me, but it turns out that Louis Marinelli of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is now for same-sex marriage.

According to the report, Marinelli -- who drove the bus during a national tour and "ran NOM’s Twitter account and Facebook page" -- "credits exposure to the NOM tour as the very thing that led to his change of heart." Turns out that he had crazy ideas about gays and lesbians because he'd never actually met any.

"Even though I had been confronted by the counter-protesters throughout the marriage tour, the lesbian and gay people whom I made a profession out of opposing became real people for me almost instantly," he confessed. "For the first time I had empathy for them and remember asking myself what I was doing."

The report goes on to say that "public opinion polling has found a correlation between knowing gay people and being supportive of equal rights for the LGBT community." See when you find out they aren't Nazi child-rapists who want to destroy western civilization and Christianity, they get a lot easier to like.

Weird, huh? (Wonk Room)


-So long, human joke factory-
Jon Stewart says goodbye to the cancelled Glenn Beck in the only fitting way -- by mocking Beck's "Professor Crazypants" shtick one last time.



Now I understand that some people outside the United States may not be able to get that embed to work, because Viacom are pricks. I don't know what to tell you, other than you totally shouldn't resort to torrents, because that would be wrong. (Mediaite)


-Bonus HotD-
"Bob Vander Plaats Tells ThinkProgress Homosexuality Is A 'Public Health Risk' Like Smoking."

Sounds like a certain Iowa anti-gay activist needs to go on a NOM bus tour. (ThinkProgress)