Ted Cruz To ALEC: 'Stand Your Ground.' ALEC To Ted Cruz: Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout?

Now, look, Ted Cruz, just because the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) wrote model "stand your ground" legislation that got adopted by a whole bunch of states , that doesn't mean they want you going around reminding people of that, OK? On Thursday, Sen. Cruz (R-Poutine) gave a speech at the group's winter meeting, and got big applause with this line: “My advice to ALEC is very, very simple: Stand your ground." (applause, whoops, etc.)

You know, exactly the kind of clever, unexpected wit that we've all come to love him for. Funny, though: after the speech, ALEC spokesdude Bill Meierling explained very carefully to CNN that it sure would be incorrect to suggest that ALEC is a proponent of standing one's ground, even metaphorically:

“I believe that he used that as a rhetorical device because it is a phrase that everyone in this room recognizes because of the challenges of the past two years ... Every single person also knows that we no longer have any model policy on that issue, or any firearms issues for that matter.”

What, this Frankenstein's monster right here? No relation to us, we can assure you. Every single person in the world knows that we aren't currently doing any reanimation research... Notnow,Igor. Shoo! Go 'way!  

You can maybe understand why ALEC isn't so crazy about standing its ground on "stand your ground," seeing as how its corporate contributions have plummeted since its parentage of the idiotic gun laws has been publicized. Since the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the group has lost 60 corporate sponsors, and roughly 400 state lawmakers, and its donations are down by about a third, poor dears. So they're in what your sportsball people would call a rebuilding season.

Maybe instead of trying to retreat from their rich heritage of rightwing lunacy, they should be like Ted Cruz and embrace it? For instance, they could bring back this blast from the past that People For the American Waydug up from a 1985 ALEC newsletter: a report titled "Homosexuals: Just Another Minority Group?" (PDF link). We bet lots of people would be fascinated to know that ALEC was pushing such cutting-edge information as the claim that in San Francisco in the 1980s, 10% of all homicides were "a result of S&M accidents among homosexuals" and that gays had to be barred from teaching in public schools, since they're involved in recruiting schoolchildren -- a necessary tactic, says the newsletter, because logic:

"What is important to remember here is the fact that homosexuals cannot reproduce themselves biologically so they must recruit the young."

The newsletter also condemned government funding for AIDS research, because why would you want to cure something that was killing teh gheys?

The most hilarious part of the report is its freshman-composition style categories of the 6 basic types of homosexual -- we're thinking they could modernize this into a listicle with GIF images:

"the blatant"; "the secret lifer"; "the desperate"; "the adjusted"; "the bisexual"; and "the situational." (The "blatant" homosexual "is the obvious 'limp-wristed' individual who typifies stereotype of the 'average' homosexual" and "Adjusted homosexuals are those who attend gay bars and pool parties to pick up a lover and try to conduct a 'conventional' gay marriage. However, gay marriages between homosexuals are shortlived due to frequent acts of infidelity.")

Obviously, there are plenty of wingnuts who'd love to see ALEC revive this kind of stuff -- and who'd probably be happy to reprint it -- but since ALEC's main goal right now is to regain big corporate sponsors, we're hoping that copies of that 1985 report end up in a lot of corporate PR departments. Every single person knows how much big companies enjoy being associated with hate groups.

And Ted Cruz would probably tell ALEC to man up and republish the 1985 report, because what are they, a bunch of fags?

[ RawStory / Mother Jones ]