“I am sorry. I can’t do your wedding because of my relationship with Jesus Christ.” —Richmond, Washington, florist Barronelle Stutzman, declining to do business with gay ten-year customers and bringing the wrath of the state attorney general upon her. [Seattle P-I]

It does explain why Romney didn’t pick him as the running mate.

[New Yorker: Rob Portman and His Brave, Gay Son]

“husband, wife: Regardless of sexual orientation, husband or wife is acceptable in all references to individuals in any legally recognized marriage. Spouse or partner may be used if requested.” —New entry in AP Stylebook, following bitching about “couples or partners” for non-opposite-marriages. [BuzzFeed]

Rick Warren to Piers Morgan, Tuesday night:

“Here’s what we know about life: I have all kinds of natural feelings in my life and it doesn’t necessarily mean that I should act on every feeling. Sometimes I get angry and I feel like punching a guy in the nose. It doesn’t mean I act on it. Sometimes I feel attracted to women who are not my wife. I don’t act on it. Just because I have a feeling doesn’t make it right. Not everything natural is good for me. Arsenic is natural.”

Rick Warren to Piers Morgan, as reported on Piers Morgan’s blog:

Read more »

“On Wednesday, less than a week before he’s favored to win a third term in Congress, Schock met with top officials at the Republican Governors Association in Washington, to discuss the possibility of running for Illinois’s top job in 2014. Four sources in Illinois and Washington with knowledge of Schock’s meeting with the RGA said his interest in the race is an open secret, and that he’s told donors he is seriously considering the contest.” [National Journal, via Political Wire]

Remember last month? Yes? No? When we were all so excited about Team Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan for president? No, wait. Vice president. Remember how we were all so excited by the boldness of his economic ideas? After four years of economic stagnation and crippling debt caused by Obama’s socialist-marxist tyranny we looked forward to a president who… wait, vice-president (why do I keep doing that?) who could make America great again. The way it should be.

Turns out math is hard. And who has time to explain stuff to people who won’t understand anyway? We don’t need to know what loopholes he’s going to cut. We need to know how he keeps his body fat so low. At between 6% and 8% it’s even lower than Mitt Romney’s tax rate. And he didn’t rely on government handouts to get himself in shape. And he didn’t eat vegetables either.

Paul Ryan doesn’t have time to explain the math to losers.

Aaron Schock advises Ryan to work it. “I often spot Paul in the congressional gym,” the hunky congressman declares. “He has so got it going on. My girlfriend lives in Canada.”

Police in Portland, Texas, a suburb of Corpus Christi, continue to insist that the execution-style murder and attempted murder of a lesbian couple in a neighborhood park in late June is not a hate crime motivated by the women’s sexual orientation, but do admit that “it was not a random attack.”

What we do know:  After they encountered a man with a gun on June 22, a college freshman named Mollie Olgin was murdered, and her girlfriend Mary Kristene Chapa was shot in the head and left for dead.  Chapa had so many injuries to her face that her brother and sister could not identify her at the hospital without looking at her hands.  She is still in the hospital, unable to speak and possibly paralyzed on one side.  Her brother told NBC that she was writing “Mollie?” on paper but the family hadn’t yet told her that Olgin was dead.  Chapa’s family is struggling:  her father – an Iraq War veteran – is out of work, so the family has no health insurance. Donations for her medical care can be made here, or sent to Prosperity Bank, 1127 East Sinton, Sinton, TX 78387.

In the three weeks since the shooting, vigils have been organized by LGBT and youth groups across the country to remember Olgin and Chapa.  Read more »