It started innocently enough. Supporters of a Colorado Springs domestic-partnership ballot initiative launched what they called the “born different” campaign, featuring a little Brittany spaniel named Norman. In the ads, [tag]Norman[\/tag] says “moo,” instead of “woof,” as a round-about way of trying to say that gays and lesbians are “born different” and don’t choose their sexual orientation.<\/p>\n
Of course, this is Colorado Springs, home to James [tag]Dobson[\/tag]’s [tag]Focus on the Family[\/tag]. It didn’t take long for Norman to meet a rival dog<\/a> named [tag]Sherman[\/tag].<\/p>\n James Dobson’s Colorado Springs-based ministry stands firmly against same-sex marriage, gay rights initiatives and, now, mooing puppies.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, Focus unveiled its new “straight” puppy Web site, www.no-moo-lies.com, featuring a basset hound named Sherman, who barks as biology intended. During a news conference, a Focus employee dressed in a dog suit, who serves as a mascot at the group’s visitors center, made a brief appearance. “Dogs aren’t born mooing, and people aren’t born gay,” a Focus news release stated.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Bill Maier, a Focus psychologist, conceded that people who believe that gay people were born gay are “more likely to support gay rights.” Indeed, I think it’s safe to say that if the far-right ever had to give up on claiming homosexuality is a “choice,” the whole movement would struggle to justify their hatred.<\/p>\n So, what are we left with? At least in Colorado Springs, a fairly silly [tag]dog[\/tag]fight between Norman and Sherman.<\/p>\n Given Dobson’s personal family background<\/a>, and his disturbing experience with cruelty against dogs<\/a>, there’s a great psychological thesis in here somewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It started innocently enough. Supporters of a Colorado Springs domestic-partnership ballot initiative launched what they called the “born different” campaign, featuring a little Brittany spaniel named Norman. In the ads, [tag]Norman[\/tag] says “moo,” instead of “woof,” as a round-about way of trying to say that gays and lesbians are “born different” and don’t choose their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}