Minnesota's media have noted since Friday that while elected officials who support marriage equality were swift to issue statements to the press approving the Supreme Court's decision that made love the law of the land, Republicans who oppose same-sex marriage had not done so.
Bluestem finds that they have taken to Facebook to share their sentiments. We'll have a post containing more of the reaction, but think that SW Metro Tea Party co-founder and state representative Cindy Pugh has the most interesting (we are speaking Minnesotan when we write that) reaction of all those that we've seen.
Pugh shares not just one item (screengrab above), but several memes: a photo of the White House lit up in red, white and blue, instead of the rainbow; a photo of the Washington Monument getting struck by lightning, which her friends take to be a sign of divine anger; a post by Allen West that plays the now- pedophiles-want-it-too card; the photoshopped image of pro-equality justices in colorful robes while the dissenters wear black; and, a video freak-out by conservative constitutional guru and Tea Party staple speaker KrisAnne Hall.
Below the meme of Justice Clarence Thomas, Pugh engages in an engage with a friend about their deepest fears abotu the "politically correct" court:
Sue Phenow One of my biggest fears is that the politically correct SCOTUS will say that we must allow Sharia Law in this country.
Cindy Pugh Sue Phenow ... I cannot 'Like' your comment but SHARE your concern. Thinking about my first Tea Party sign {took to the Capitol in St. Paul, MN - which I attended alone - for the Tax Day Rally in 2009!!!} which said, 'Wake Up, America ... before it's too late!' That sign {which I still may have} is JUST as pertinent today as it was waaay back then!!! {SO SAD, Sue!!}
Somehow we suspect that a court that votes for marriage equality isn't going to give the thumbs up on a legal system based on the Koran.
This isn't the first time Pugh's attitudes toward Muslims have surfaced on Facebook. City Pages reported Cindy Pugh, candidate for state rep., compares Muslim women to garbage bags in 2012. Later that year, Bluestem discovered what Pugh feared most; we were first to report on the remarks in our post, Cindy Pugh warns Tea Party about threat of illiterate, disengaged & lazy voters--and Muslims.
Back then, before the rise of ISIS, Pugh's bogeyman was the Muslin Brotherhood.
Now a court decision on same-sex marriage has revived her fears of an Islamic America or something. As for lightning striking the Washington Monument being a sign from Heaven, the Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang site noted in its 2009 post, Washington's Amazing Lightning Rod:
Of the thousands of photographs that I've taken over the years, one stands alone in my mind as my most unique shot -- lightning striking the Washington Monument. The Washington Monument is actually a frequent target of lightning bolts, sometimes getting struck multiple times during a single thunderstorm, but it's challenging and potentially dangerous to try to capture the image with a camera.
I took the above picture during the evening of July 1, 2005, from the safety of the Jefferson Memorial. It was quite an unexpected strike since the storm was over Maryland at the time, with only distant lightning flashes on the horizon. Suddenly, the bolt jumped miles ahead of the storm and struck the Washington Monument from the side. The thunder was explosive, startling everyone around me. I can only imagine how the people around the Washington Monument reacted to the strike. . . .
At the completion of the Washington Monument in December 1884, a small and very expensive aluminum pyramid was placed atop the monument to function as a lightning rod. Aluminum was a very precious metal in 1884 and was chosen because of its white color and lack of tarnish. In less than a year, however, lightning had cracked the aluminum pyramid. Eight copper points were then added to the pyramid in 1885 to help make it a better lightning rod. Despite looking like a "crown of thorns," the copper points were not visible from ground level. Over the years, the lightning protection system for the Washington Monument has been improved multiple times.
Read the short post to see the photo Kevin Ambrose mentions, along with stunning pictures of earlier strikes. Pugh and her friends can imagine that the strike last Tuesday was somehow unique---though those engineers working back in the 1880s encountered a different set of problems.
Screengrab: From Cindy Pugh's Facebook page.
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