In the 1984 U. S. Senate race in Iowa, incumbent Republican Sen. Roger Jepsen was facing his first re-election bid. His General Election opponent was a congressman named Tom Harkin, one of the most underhanded Democrats ever to lie through his teeth in the pursuit of higher office.
The Sunday before the election, Harkin’s campaign goons distributed a flyer on the windshields of cars in church parking lots all across the state. It accused Sen. Jepsen of advocating the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions. When questioned about it, Harkin merely shrugged and said that Jepsen supported capital punishment for murderers, and since he believed that abortion was murder, well, could any other possible conclusion be reached?
That sleazy hit piece was timed perfectly to prevent Jepsen from being able to respond before the Tuesday election. Harkin won that race, and he has been promoting his special brand of populist socialism in the United States Senate ever since.
Fast forward to 2012 and the Fascism of the Left has grown into a monster. Same-sex marriage has replaced abortion as the biggest hot potato on the list of social issues, and the President of the United States has ensured that it will be front and center to divide America right down to Election Day. Toward that end, hardcore liberals are in the process of smearing and destroying everyone who believes that traditional marriage is worth saving.
One such person is Manny Pacquiao, a boxer — and quite a successful one at that. In fact, he is a world champion welterweight who has won 16 consecutive fights in the last seven years. Pacquiao owns a home in Los Angeles, but he is the most famous person in his native Philippines. In addition to his boxing skills, he is a movie star, a singer and a member of the national legislature in his country. He also happens to be a husband, a father of four and a devout Catholic believer in the teachings of his church. So when a reporter asked him what he thought of homosexual marriage, he said he didn’t believe in it because it violates “the law of God.”
Harrumph! That kind of bigotry cannot stand in 21st Century America! Immediately, Pacquiao was attacked and misquoted. In the grand tradition of Tom Harkin’s sleazy politics, if you can’t defeat them on the issues, smear them with mendacities. In the case of Manny Pacquiao, a “reporter” for the Examiner.com chose to take his statement about choosing to honor the law of God and twist it into this: “Manny Pacquiao says gays should be put to death.”
How did this propaganda peddler come up with that? All he had to do is use the same tortured logic Tom Harkin’s campaign took in that long-ago Senate race: the book of Leviticus in the Old Testament speaks of death for “a man who lies with a man.” Ergo, if Manny Pacquiao believes in the Bible, he must subscribe to the belief that gay people should be executed.
Pacquiao, who in his public statements on the issue had never quoted from Leviticus or any other specific passage of scripture, says, “My favorite verse in the Bible is ‘Love one another, and love your neighbor as yourself.’ It’s in the Bible: do not judge. I’m not judging.”
As a direct result of the malicious lie told about this man, he subsequently has been banned from a popular Hollywood shopping mall. The sprawling Los Angeles mall known as The Grove, where the syndicated entertainment-news show “Extra” films its episodes, refused Pacquiao access to its premises, where he was scheduled to be interviewed for the program. Host Mario Lopez instead filmed the interview with Pacquiao in the fighter’s home.
If you live in the Los Angeles area, you should not shop at The Grove shopping mall. Furthermore, you should call the management of The Grove and tell them you will not shop there unless and until they issue an apology to Manny Pacquiao. As for the irresponsible so-called journalist who wrote this lie in the first place, I sincerely hope Manny Pacquiao files a lawsuit against that reporter and the publication for which he works. This kind of Fascist intimidation must stop.
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© 2012 by Doug Patton
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Doug Patton describes himself as a recovering political speechwriter who agrees with himself much more often than not. Now working as a freelance writer, his weekly columns of sage political analysis are published the world over by legions of discerning bloggers, courageous webmasters and open-minded newspaper editors.
