On Facebook Saturday, Derrick Wilburn, who’s Vice Chair of the Colorado Republican Party, linked to a New York Times opinion article suggesting that pedophilia may have “neurological origins” and may not be “a choice.” The piece suggests ways to treat people with pedophilia to stop them from molesting children.

Wilburn posted the following comment about the article on the American Conservatives of Color Facebook page:

Wilburn: And here we go. I have discussed many times in the past how we stand at the top of a very slippery slope. The LBGT community itself readily admits that “marriage is just the beginning.” The “I was born this way” label is one they apply to any and every form of sexual behavior – multiple partners, cross-dressing, beastialty, you name it. Including pedophilia. “I’ can’t help it, I was born this way. I’ve just always been sexually attracted to children.” This reasoning is the doorway to acceptance. Why should we have laws & punishments in place for people who have/had no control of the way they’re wired? It’s not fair. It’s discriminatory. Yadda.

It’s coming, folks. Just as sure as the sun rises in the east, it is coming.

I called Wilburn to confirm that he was comparing gays to people with pedophilia:

Wilburn: “I wasn’t saying the two are comparable,” he said. “What I’m saying is, as a society, we are moving in the direction of, ‘how I believe I was born makes my behavior normative and therefore acceptable.’ We have to be very careful. At what point do we, as a society draw a line, or is there no line? I try to post stuff more as a topic of conversation than as my personal viewpoints, though of course I do have my views. If you read it like that, it’s really just more, this is something we need to talk about. “People are already saying, ‘Look, I was born with a genetic disposition to sexual attraction toward other men,’ if I’m a male. ‘That’s just how I was born.’ Okay, I’m not going to make that a point of dispute or argument. But then what do we do when someone ways, ‘I was borwith a propensity toward being attracted to children. I was born with a propensity toward being attracted to German Shepherds’.’

I don’t get it. By trotting out the slippery-slope argument, Wilburn is actually factually comparing pedophilia (a mental illness) to homosexuality, a healthy sexual preference. The two are not on the same slope! Here are a few of the comments on Wilburn’s Facebook post:

Jim Maerk Pandora’s box was opened with society’s approval of Homosexuals as a special class of people and now, the Demons are coming!

Emily Cantrell It seems like you are saying homosexuality and pedophilia are the same. Two things: 1)Those are not the same. And 2)Being hateful to gay people is going to lose us the election in 2016 so quit it!

Nick Bosco Did anyone actually read the article? Nowhere in it was there any suggestion, or even allusion, that child molesters should not be punished “because they can’t help it”.

Jeffrey Hickey And this is why liberals have as much power as they do; you conservatives prove them right every time you open your ignorant, bigoted mouths. Equating Homosexuality to Pedophilia and Bestiality is just pure and utter ignorance

Trish Mann Herbert Wow, comparing Pedophilia to homosexuality is ridiculous. One is between two consenting adults the other is preying on children who have no choice. You are relying on fear to perpetuate your idealolgy

Carla Salomone Rowland Then there should be no punishment for murderers because they can’t help them selves…they were born with a disorder..right?

After being investigated by Washington DC authorities for having an AR-15 assault rifle in his Washington office, freshman Republican Congressman Ken Buck said he intends to be part a congressional effort to weaken DC gun-safety laws, which are among the nation’s toughest.

Asked on NRA News’ “Cam and Co” Show April 23 if his experience gives him “added impetus” to address DC’s gun laws, Buck replied, “Yes, it does,” noting that the issue falls under the jurisdiction of two committees on which he sits: the Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform Committees.

“It’s something I will look at,” said Buck on the podcast, noting that it’s not “on the top of the heap,” but he’s already talked to other Members of Congress about it.

“There is going to be an effort to look at what DC does and to try to rein in the really irrational–if you’re an honest law-abiding citizen, you want to have a means to protect yourself,” Buck said on air, discussing Washington’s gun-safety laws. “And it’s just unbelievable that people in DC believe that honest people should not be able to protect themselves. They should be victimized.”

Buck revealed the presence of the assault weapon in his office last week, when he tweeted a photo of it along with: “My friend Trey Gowdy stopped by the office — had to show him my AR-15 to commemorate the occasion.”

The tweet was first reported by the progressive blog ColoradoPols, which Buck referred to as “knuckleheads” in his NRA news interview.

“There were some knuckleheads back in Colorado that decided they wanted to cause some problems, and so they forwarded the picture to the Attorney General here in DC,” Buck said, when asked how Washington authorities became aware of the assault weapon in his office.

It appears that Buck did not break Capitol-Police rules by having the weapon in his office, but the Metropolitan DC Police have apparently not commented. The Washington DC Attorney General looked into the matter and referred it to the DC police,

“As conservatives, we are more cautious [with their weapons], because we understand that there is a double standard,” Buck said on air. “But in this case they ate crow, and I hope they continue to eat crow for a long time. I hope other Congressmen see that they can have a gun in their office and follow the lead.”

“I have a very patriotic AR15 hanging in my office. It hangs directly above my Second Amendment flag,” Buck said in a statement, as reported by The Denver Post.

It’s not for everybody, but if you’re me, you can’t help but be curious about a guy who asks Azucar Bakery, on Broadway in Denver, to make cakes shaped like an open Bible with the these messages:

One cake: God Hates Sin, Psalm 45-7. Homosexuality Is a Detestable Sin, Leviticus 18-22.

The other cake: God Loves Sinners. While We Were Yet Sinners, God Died for Us. Romans 5-8.

It turns out that Bill Jack, the man who placed this cake order, is also a sometime talk-show host, which gives a radio aficionado an opening to find out more about him.

After listening to a few hours of his shows on “Generations Radio,” a fundamentalist Christian outlet, and talking with him on the phone, I would describe him as a deeply religious individual who feels so besieged and alienated by cultural norms that he has to carve out an extreme path to function in everyday society.  His path has an internal logic to it, but to the rest of us, it can be hateful and discriminatory.

For example, on a podcasted “Generations Radio” show in January (below), Jack and co-host Steve Vaughan got angry about Planned Parenthood teaching sex-education in public school.

They read an article alleging that a student felt “pressured to have sex” by the lessons. This led to some harsh words about Planned Parenthood and public school education.

Vaughan: (@23:45 below): “The reason why, especially with Planned Parenthood, tthe more sex these kids have, the more business [Planned Parenthood] has in aborting the babies.

Jack: It’s conflict of interest [for Planned Parenthood to be teaching sex education], I would think.”

Vaughan (at @26:15 below): “If you are a Christian, you should not have your kids in public school anyway. This is not a place for them to be witnessing to other people. Bad company corrupts good morals. And your children are going to be the ones to get changed. If you hug a pig, the pig doesn’t get cleaner. Your kid gets dirty. [Laughs]

Jack: I never heard that one before. [Laughs] But everybody needs a hug. But this is what Planned Parenthood does. They want your children to be pigs.

Vaughan: Yeah.

Jack: They want them to wallow in the muck. And what we need to is, we as Christians need to expose evil…Shine the light of truth and grace on such activities. And so I urge you, as home schooling parents, to investigate what’s being taught in the public schools.

I told Jack that my kids go to public school, and even though rats were discovered at East High School in Denver this year, the place is full of beautiful kids. Why call my kid a pig?

Jack: That’s an illustration. It’s an analogy, and the analogy is fairly succinct and pithy, and makes it clear. You don’t want to entrust your student to someone who has an opposing worldview. That’s not as pithy, as punchy.

Salzman: But it’s mean. Would you agree?

Jack: No. it’s not mean. It’s a statement of fact.

Salzman: I take it as mean. I respect what you just said about not sending your kid to public school. That’s your right. But you’re telling me my kid is dirty?

Jack: No. I didn’t say your kid’s dirtier. Your kid gets polluted by a secular worldview.

Jack’s war against the “secular worldview” is key to understanding where he’s coming from.

“For a Christian, your faith dictates your economics, you view of science, of art, of education,” said Jack, who’s a founder of Worldview Academy, which “trains Christians to think and live in accord with a biblical worldview.”  “It’s not compartmentalized.”

Jack has produced a video, showing one way he applies this thinking. It’s titled, “Biblically Correct Tour of The Denver Zoo, The Denver Museum of Nature and Science, The Denver Museum of Art, Law and Order at the Colorado State Capitol, and Dinosaur Ridge outside Denver.”

Which brings us back to Jack’s cake order, with the anti-gay message.

When we spoke, Jack was upset that The Denver Post characterized what he’d asked the baker to write on the cake as “gay slurs” and “hateful words.”

I told Jack I agreed with The Post’s decision to report, in a news story, that the phrase “homosexuality is detestable sin” is a slur, even if it’s in the Bible. Our laws and cultural values affirm this, and so did Colorado’s Civil Rights Division when it rejected Jack’s complaint that his civil rights had been violated when Azucar Bakery refused his order for a cake emblazoned with “homosexuality is a detestable sin” and other phrases.

But Jack believes the “the Civil Rights Commission is acting like the Nazis. They are acting like those who want to re-educate the public.”

It’s a bible verse, Jack has said in numerous interviews about homosexuality being a sin. He emphasized that if the Civil Rights Division is going to force one baker not to discriminate against gays who request cakes for their weddings, then it should force another baker not to discriminate against Christians who request an anti-gay Bible verse on another cake.

“So the Bible is an illegal, immoral book to be censored from the public arena?” he says. “That is offensive. It’s censorship. It’s tyranny. You either believe in the First Amendment or you believe in tyranny.  My bottom line is that this is an effort to censor God from the public square.”

But there are competing rights, I told Jack. Colorado’s public accommodation law bars businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation and religion, among other things. Even Colorado Republican John Suthers agreed that, under Colorado law, a baker must serve gay costumers. Or it’s discrimination.

But, under the law, a baker isn’t discriminating against a Christian if he or she refuses to make a cake with slurs on it. Civil society can reject the hateful words in the Bible, and still protect Christians from legitimate discrimination.

“We are gutting the First Amendment,” Jack said. “I’m talking about Bible verses, and suddenly they are being labeled gay slurs.”

So for Jack, his religion, his practice of strict adherence to the Bible, no matter how archaic and out-of-step with how most people practice Christianity, is the trump card, his license to do things that most people—as well as Colorado law—see as hateful and discriminatory.

It’s also the reason why he thinks my public-school-attending children are dirty, polluted by a secular worldview. It’s part of the same continuum.

One wonders if the conservative-run Leadership of the Rockies Program, which schooled GOP operative Lisa Pinto, needs to add a class on how to gracefully ignore anonymous tweets.

In her job as Chief Communications Officer for the Jefferson Country  School District, Pinto has massively more important problems on her plate than complaining tweets directed at her. Yet, she’s wasting time on conservative talk radio whining about her tweets.

You’d any right-leaning talk radio program, normally home base for the get-over-it approach to personal problems, would boot her off the show, but KNUS host Krista Kafer wrapped Pinto in a warm blanket, introducing a April 3 segment on the tweets:

Kafer: “So there are these people out there. I don’t know. Do they not work? Do they not have a hobby? Do they not garden? I don’t know, but apparently they have a lot of extra time just to be mean. I guess being mean is a hobby.”

This opened the floodgates from Pinto, who emphasized that she took time on vacation to discuss the tweets on KNUS 710 AM, not on the taxpayer dime. (Listen below.)

“Thanks for taking up this really important topic,” Pinto told Kafer. “It’s really crazy that this is going on in this day an age in Colorado.”

Really important? Crazy in this day and age?  She’s a communications pro? Maybe she’s under the spell of the Independence Institute, which found recent tweets about Jeffco-School topics so important that it established a website, MeanGirlz.org, to promote them. Read more about this in Westword.

Anyway, Pinto went on for the next 20 minutes or so, making me wonder if she knew anything at all about the content of Twitter.

Pinto: “It’s so personal…I’m a staff member. I’m being paid to do my job. I show up. Sometimes I work 50 hours a week…It’s really hurtful. From day one, I kept hearing this. Unqualified. Had no experience. And if you think back to the civil rights struggle, this is what they always said….Not to brag, but I’m a Yale grad. I’m a lawyer, admitted in the state of New York. I’ve been a veteran prosecutor. I’ve hosted cable TV shows…I’m here for the children…Why don’t we join in doing what’s good for the children, which is modeling mature, kind, spiritual behavior. And when I said spiritual, I don’t mean religious. I mean a path of kindness and tolerance…I marched against injustices in college. I served women and children as a prosecutor advocating for domestic violence victims and children who have been sexually abused. And they don’t know any of that about me, and they don’t seem to care…It’s hurtful. Coming from the east coast, we were really unprepared for this type of name calling…It’s shocking…I have a terrific boss, who’s very supportive…And you know a reporter came up on this, and the tone of outrage in her article, it really made me realize I’m not alone on an island…

Kafer: Racism, to me, is so grotesque, as well as sexism, is so grotesque that when I run into it, which is rare, it’s like running into a dinosaur.

 Pinto: …So that, I guess, would be my ask today. Everyone who sees this stuff say. ‘That is not okay.’ Direct message the site…Unfriend. Direct message. Make your statement. Say it’s not appropriate. That ends the discourse right there.”

Bottom line: These are anonymous tweets! I’ve reviewed the tweets, and I can’t believe Pinto doesn’t have better things to focus on.

As for Kafer, there’s just gotta be better ways to advance the conservative agenda on talk radio than holding the hand of Lisa Pinto.

You’d be excused for assuming, from all the talk about The Denver Post being in free-fall, that the newspaper is shedding writers like a cat in springtime.

But it turns out, when you do the bean counting, that The Post has pretty much maintained its editorial staff over the past year or so. If you count two positions that are apparently waiting to be filled, the departed staffers equal the hired/filled positions.

Many veterans have left, leaving serious memory loss, but some excellent reporters have been hired as well (e.g., the newish politics reporters: John Frank, Mark Matthews, Jon Murray.)

You can argue that the journalistic stability at The Post, such as it is, is the owner’s, Digital First Media, transparent attempt to prop up a sick business that’s currently for sale.

Against a backdrop of stability, even if it’s manufactured, you wonder whether the newspaper has plans to replace opinion writer Alicia Caldwell, who left last month. I asked Post Editorial Page Editor Vincent Carroll about this.

“The position that Alicia vacated has not been filled, and I am not currently looking for a replacement,” Carroll told me via email on Thursday. “Alicia was a valuable colleague and I regret that she moved on, but her new job sounds like a great opportunity for her.”

If you look below at the Post’s editorial jobs that have been filled over the past year or so, it’s hard to comprehend why the newspaper wouldn’t hire a replacement for Caldwell, given the impact the opinion page continues to have on civic affairs in Denver. Would you argue with my estimate that 90 percent of political elites, even Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt (here’s proof), read The Denver Post’s political coverage, including its opinions,despite the paper’s serious circulation drop overall.

It’s not feasible to expect other staff on the opinion page to pick up Caldwell’s work. Her position is essential.

So, please-oh-please, Digital First Media, whoever and whatever you are, please add another writer to The Post’s opinion page to allow it to continue to produce informed opinion, with meaningful input from the community.

List of Denver Post Departed and Hired Editorial Staff over the Past Year or So

Departed (15)

Kristen Browning-Blas from features
Alicia Caldwell
Karen Crummy
Adrian Dater from sports/hockey
Mary Idler, an editorial assistant
Nancy Lofholm
Kurtis Lee
Kristen Painter from business
Ryan Parker from police
Howard Pankratz from business
Tim Rasmussen, photo editor (replaced from within by Meghan Lyden)
Allison Sherry in D.C.
Zahira Torres from education (replaced from within by Eric Gorski)
Andy Vuong in business
Kyle Wagner from features/travel

Hired/Filled (13)

Dave Krause (filled the opening when Dana Coffield was named business editor)
Molly Hughes for DPTV
John Frank, politics
Jon Murray, politics
Mark Matthews, (replaced Allison Sherry)
Alicia Walace (replaced Pankratz)
John Aguilar, general
Noelle Phillips, general
Jesse Paul, general
Tamara Chuang in biz (replaced Andy Vuong)
Jean Fields, Features
Brent Lewis, Photography
A replacement for Mary Idler

At the heart of Thursday’s Denver Post editorial supporting a personhood bill introduced by State Sen. Bill Cadman is the argument that Colorado needs a new law to penalize people like Dynel Lane, who faces over 100 years in prison for her alleged attack on Michelle Wilkins, who was pregnant and lost her fetus.

But just last year, The Post argued that existing Colorado law, specifically addressing crimes against pregnant women, was sufficient for cases like Wilkins’. The 2013 Crimes Against Pregnant Women law balances severe penalties for crimes harming fetuses with the preservation of abortion rights and the protection of pregnant women from criminal investigation.

Here’s what The Post said last week in its editorial endorsing Cadman’s bill:

A 2013 law made it a felony to unlawfully terminate a pregnancy, but it is a Class 3 felony with a sentencing range of 10 to 32 years unless the mother dies — when it becomes a Class 2 felony. The Class 3 felony is utterly inadequate.

But when The Post opposed last year’s personhood amendment, the newspaper argued that even a “horrific incident” did not justify a new law because “the state legislature already made the necessary statutory fix.” Here’s what The Post wrote last year:

The horrific incident laid bare a gap in Colorado law that did not allow authorities to charge the drunken driver with anything for the loss of Brady [an eight-month-old fetus].

The Yes on 67 campaign attempts to capitalize on this circumstance, saying the amendment is needed to protect pregnant mothers from violence. Proponents conveniently ignore the fact that the state legislature already made the necessary statutory fix.

It’s because of this 2013 “statutory fix” that Lane faces the 100-year prison term, because the 2013 Crimes-Against-Pregnant-Women law allows charges to be added on top of one another, over and above the Class 3 felony.

This severe penalties of Colorado’s 2013 law were apparently good enough for The Post last year, but now the statute is suddenly inadequate? What gives?

Clearly, both Cadman’s bill and Amendment 67 are attempts to take advantage of nightmarish incidents to pass different versions of “personhood.” Colorado’s 2013 law, considered the gold standard in balancing women’s rights with criminal justice, was a good argument against Amendment 67, as The Post understood at the time.

Newspaper editorials are supposed to be consistent and above-the-fray, so you’d expect The Post to point again to the 2013 Crimes Against Pregnant Women law and argue against Cadman’s personhood bill. But, alas, no, and the logic of the inconsistency escapes me.

Last week, The Colorado Independent spotlighted Dave Kopel’s response to Dudley Brown, the director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, who’s been claiming Kopel is a weak supporter of the Second Amendment, specifically a sleeper cell for former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Here’s the take-away quote from Kopel, who works for the conservative Independence Institute, in which he calls out Brown for lying to Congress:

Kopel: That’s why [Brown] is lying right now in Congress against the NRA’s National Right to Carry bill, which would mean that you as a Colorado resident with you carry permit, you could carry in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and New York city.  [Kopel sent me this as the source for his statement.]

Kopel concluded his comments with this:

Kopel: So, there are two possible views of reality. One is Dudley is a liar, a huckster, and a hoax who is preying off people and taking their money, not for gun rights but to support himself.  The other possibility is that Dudley’s telling the truth and that I am a sleeper cell for Michael Bloomberg.  You can decide which one is more plausible.

Here are Kopel’s full comments, as delivered on Channel 12’s Colorado Inside Out April 17:

Lynn [Bartels] nailed it at the end. It’s a “Fundraising  for Dudley” problem if the magazine ban is 99 percent repealed – to change it from 15 to 30 [rounds].

Dudley and his group have been around in Colorado as lobbyists since the late-90s. And yet, they have never passed a single bill. He’s also got his national group – so-called National Association for Gun Rights—which has never passed a single bill in Congress. An impressive record of futility, but only if you think of his group in the same way you’d think of real gun-rights groups like Gun Owners of America, or the National Rifle Association, or the Firearms Coalition of Colorado.

As Dudley explained to a meeting of friendly, recently-elected legislators a few weeks after the election, he said, ‘Don’t work with people like Kopel, because then when they pass something, it makes it harder for us to raise money.’  Dudley’s shtick is to keep people upset and angry and giving him money, and never to solve any problem.  So, that’s why, for example in 2003, he opposed the Conceal Carry Act, which was passed and signed by Governor Bill Owens, supported by the National Rifle Association, by the Firearms Coalition of Colorado, and by the county sheriffs of Colorado.  It is not a perfect bill, but it was huge improvement from what existed before, and it has been very positive in how it has helped many, many tens of thousands of gun owners exercise their right to bear arms.

But Dudley always opposes something that could actually pass and help gun owners.  That’s why he’s lying right now in Congress against the NRA’s National Right to Carry bill, which would mean that you as a Colorado resident with you carry permit, you could carry in Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and New York city.  It’s why he lies about everyone in the ‘real’ gun rights movement.  It’s why he says that Alan Gottlieb of the Second Amendment Foundation is the national leader for national gun registration. It’s why he says I am Bloomberg cell – a sleeper cell.

So, there are two possible views of reality. One is Dudley is a liar, a huckster, and a hoax who is preying off people and taking their money, not for gun rights but to support himself. The other possibility is that Dudley’s telling the truth and that I am a sleeper cell for Michael Bloomberg. You can decide which one is more plausible.

CORRECTION: An early version of this article incorrectly attributed this sentence to Kopel: “It’s either the huckster or homeland – one of the two.  At least it gives us something to look forward to, here.”

Before she interviewed Dudley Brown, who spontaneously called her show this morning, KHOW 760-AM’s Mandy Connell told her listeners she had no opinion about Rocky Mountain Gun Owners, which Brown directs.

After the interview, Connell, an arch conservative, said she had an opinion–and I’m guessing you will too if you listen below.

In this case, Brown talked as if he has more of a right to interfere in gun legislation at the state Capitol than the Independence Institute has because RMGO bought and paid for the state GOP Senate majority.  And he went on about it, implying he’d organize primaries against five Republicans who voted against a violation of state Senate rules yesterday.

Connell started the conversation, which was first reported by Complete Colorado, with a question about why RMGO was opposed to raising the limit on magazine capacity from 15 to 30 rounds.

Then she asked, “So, why take out Dave Kopel?  Why go after him?”

Brown: Well, look, I don’t want to go into personalities on a public format. Dave Kopel is a wonderful writer. On strategy, he’s horrid! Dave Kopel is actually a Democrat. He has always advocated for compromise at every single turn. Every time we’ve ever had a gun bill in Colorado, he’s always advocated for compromise. And in fact, Dave Kopel is the one who fixed the Democrats mag ban so it did not include shotguns. He showed Senator Mary Hodge how to do it, mechanically. Probably being the one who enabled it to pass. Now, I have no qualms about being honest. But in politics, I don’t want it to be about personality. I want it to be about principle and strategy.

But, in all honesty, we simply don’t agree with Dave Kopel and never have, and for that matter, the Independence Institute, none of whom got these legislators into office.

It’s our organization and our PAC that spent the money to elect the legislature and take the Senate from the Democrats. We were the biggest funders of Republican candidates in the last election. Far bigger than the NRA. And let me be clear, I don’t know if this is – you could ask them, but my understanding is even the NRA opposes this compromise. Now, if the NRA opposes a compromise because it’s too squishy on the gun issue, that pretty much means that it’s as far left as it can be because the NRA usually buys into every compromise. In this case, my understanding is that they opposed it, too. Look there aren’t the votes to pass a 31 round ban –the repeal of the 30 ban, to make it 31. But there aren’t the votes for repeal, unless the Republicans take the House and the Governor’s mansion, neither of which are assured…

Now, to those people who say, “Wait a minute!  I want to be able to buy my 30 round magazine!”  I say, “Shut your pie hole and go buy one!”  There are many retailers who sell them right now.  They ignore the law, and God Bless them for doing so. And in many cases, your District Attorney and your sheriff won’t be involved in any cases against you, anyway…

Connell said, “You’re saying, ‘Go break the law.’”

Brown: I’m saying, “Do what you want.” But, the fact is, the ban, really — it’s like jaywalking. There really is no ban, right now. It’s largely a ban on some of the businesses who manufacture and didn’t want to be here, anyway.

“Now, wait a minute, Dudley, here’s the thing,” replied Connell.  “You just said earlier you don’t want to make this about personalities, but the Facebook post by Rocky Mountain Gun Owners says, “Does Bloomberg have a sleeper cell in Colorado?  All of a sudden, Dave Kopel is fighting as hard as he can to save the magazine ban.  Maybe it’s because he’s a lifelong registered Democrat and a Ralph Nader voter.”   So, that hardly sounds like you’re arguing the issue.  It sounds like a personal attack.”

Brown: Well, that actually, we didn’t start this.

Connell: “We didn’t start it” is not a mature response.

Brown: We didn’t start the battle, Mandy!  But I can guarantee you, we’re ending it….

Connell: You know, Dudley,  I’ve got to take a break.  But, one thing I will say about Jon Caldara is he is no man’s puppet…So, you are saying you don’t want to make this personal, and yet you keep making personal attacks.  I just want to point that out.

Brown: That’s because, frankly, we were ambushed in a dark alley…From our perspective, this is a principled strategy.  Yesterday morning, if you followed what happened in the House, we forced a recorded vote on the entire House floor on the full mag ban repeal, Senate Bill 175.  Kim Ransom and Justin Everett and a number of others forced the recorded vote. And they had the chance. The Democrats had the chance to break ranks and vote with us. And they didn’t, of course. And five Republicans voted wrong.  And all five of those Republicans are suspect, and in danger in the next primary…

Connell: I appreciate the phone call.  [hang up with Brown]  I now have an opinion about Rocky Mountain Gun Owners.

Who wouldn’t?

In response to the March 18 attack on a pregnant women in Longmont, state Senate Republicans have introduced legislation expanding the definition of “person” in specific state laws, including Colorado’s murder statute, to include an “unborn child at every stage of gestation from conception until live birth.”

If that sounds like personhood to you, giving legal rights to zygotes (fertilized eggs), that’s because it is a form of personhood. It establishes the fetus as a person, opening the door to possible bans on abortion and the arrest of pregnant women for crimes (e.g., child abuse) against their own fetus. And that’s what concerns Senate Democrats, who are opposing the legislation and saying Republicans are taking advantage of the horrific crime against Michelle Wilkins to pass personhood legislation.

“I am disappointed that the Republicans are choosing to use what happened to the Wilkins family to get ‘personhood’ into law,” said state Sen. Pat Steadman (D-Denver) in a statement after the GOP bill was introduced Tuesday afternoon.

Steadman, along with pro-choice advocates, point out that Colorado’s 2013 law, the “Crimes Against Pregnant Women” act, allows for severe penalties for crimes like the one Wilkins endured, while protecting abortion rights and preventing prosecutors from arresting pregnant women, for example, for abuse of her own fetus–which has been done even in states with laws specifically prohibiting prosecutors from doing this.

“What occurred in Longmont was horrible, and the perpetrator deserves to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which if found guilty could result in a sentence of over 100 years in prison,” said Steadman. “Using this tragedy to promote new laws that Colorado voters have soundly rejected is out of bounds.”

Reporters should be clear that the bill introduced yesterday and sponsored by state senate Bill Cadman and 14 other Republicans, is a variation of personhood legislation, even though it excludes from prosecution acts “committed by the mother of her unborn child,” “a medical procedure” performed by medical professionals or doctors, or the “administration” of legal medicine.

This vague language, like “medical procedure” puts abortion rights in jeopardy–particularly because “abortion” is not mentioned at all in the text of Cadman’s bill.

In contrast, similar laws, like a one in Kentucky, very explicitly exclude the performance of an “abortion” from possible persecution. Kentucky’s law states that prosecution would not be allowed for “any abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman has been obtained or for which the consent is implied by law in a medical emergency.”

So I don’t understand why some personhood activists, like Jennifer Mason, say the language in Cadman’s bill affirms abortion. It’s too vague to do this.

“We are urging a reconsideration of this bill – it can be written to ensure justice for victims like Heather Surovik and Michelle Wilkins, without going out of its way to protect abortion,” said Mason. “The overt inclusion and protection of abortion is not only wrong, it’s extremely inappropriate considering the tragic circumstances that call for fetal homicide laws in Colorado.”

Even when abortion is specifically excluded, pro-choice advocates say laws like Cadman’s, ironically, tread on the rights of pregnant women.

“Our research shows that in the current U.S. political environment, there is no way to put one of these laws in place without it becoming a tool for controlling and punishing pregnant women themselves,” said Lynn Paltrow, director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women.

If you’re looking for 1) horrible analogies and 2) a way to lose an argument about whether it’s ok to discriminate against gays, here’s a model for you, from KLZ AM-560’s  “Rush to Reason” April 8, guest hosted by David Leach:

David Leach, the “Strident Conservative:” You’re an evil person if you’re a Christian, and you don’t want to bake a cake for a homosexual marriage. But, if you’re the CEO of Apple, it’s totally cool to sell your products to Saudi Arabia, where they will murder you if you are a gay. Give me a break! What’s the deal with this? I mean, where’s the media outrage?

Producer Zach: You know, murderers need music too. You can’t discriminate against them. They need their IPods.

David Leach: In fact, maybe we should make a music video. They are throwing the gays off of the building, while we play Tom Petty’s “Free Falling.” That would totally work. I’m sorry, we’re kind of making fun, and some of you probably just got mad at me for saying what I just sad. But that’s too bad. That’s just the way things are. I can’t stand hypocrisy… If I’m in Saudi Arabia and you come into my business and say, ‘Yeah, I would like a cake for my homosexual wedding.’ I’m going to shout Allahu Akbar and cut your head off.”

Listen to David Leach on KLZ 560-AM’s Rush to Reason

Eric Teetsel, Director of the Manhattan Declaration, a right-wing Christian organization, was a guest on the same segment, but wasn’t asked about the Saudi Arabia analogy.