Ryan Mauro claims that I called him a racist — I didn’t — and posts yet another one of those straw man attacks for which the right wing has become infamous: Darnit! Charles Johnson Catches Me Being a Racist! Whatever Shall I Do?

Oddly, he includes no link to LGF in his post. And he makes sure no one can accuse him of racism by including an animated picture of a black child with the caption “That’s racist!” Oooohkay.

Y’know, I’m really glad that Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs.com let me know I was a racist, because if I don’t fix that soon, it’s going to cause me major social problems.

No, I did not let him know any such thing; in fact, Mauro quotes what I said in the Bloggingheads interview, about his PJ Media article on the John Birch Society at CPAC, and refutes his own straw man argument:

“… [the article] wasn’t based on the fact that John Birch Society was an illegitimate group, or a racist group, which they are. The criticism was based on allowing them to attend was politically not very smart. So it wasn’t based on principle, it was based on politics.”

Obviously, I didn’t accuse Mauro of being a “racist,” I said he objected to the John Birch Society on grounds of political expediency, not principle.

Then, Mauro proceeds to admit the political agenda of CPAC was the main focus of his article. And just for that extra right wing emotional goodness, he concludes with a silly shot at the shirt I wore in the Bloggingheads video. Now that’s how to win an argument.

Mr. Johnson, you should be ashamed of himself [sic] for implying I was indifferent or somehow supportive of racism. And next time you’re doing an Internet show, don’t wear a shirt that looks like one of those giant lollipops I used to try to win at the fair.

Sorry my shirt brought up such a bad memory for you, Mr. Mauro. Next time I’ll wear my purple hibiscus aloha shirt; maybe that will remind you of something more pleasant.

Or maybe the color purple will invoke other kinds of associations.

Since you’re listed at PJ Media as “national security researcher for the Christian Action Network,” perhaps you’d like to defend these statements made by the founder of CAN, Martin Mawyer?

Martin Mawyer, longtime editor of Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority Report, founded the Christian Action Network (CAN) in 1990, a year after Falwell folded the original Moral Majority.

In his “dirty and dangerous” battle against “militant homosexual groups,” Mawyer has not held back. In 1997, after Ellen Degeneres came out as a lesbian on her TV sitcom, Mawyer accused her of “DUMPING HER FILTHY LESBIAN LIFESTYLE RIGHT IN THE CENTER OF YOUR LIVING ROOM!! … If we allow the tidal wave of gay and lesbian smut to continue to pour into our homes, it will utterly consume us in no time at all!”

In 1999, he asked the Federal Communications Commission to put an “HC [homosexual conduct] warning label” on TV programs with gay characters. The following year, CAN caused a national stir when TV stations refused to air its inflammatory ad attacking Hillary Clinton, who was then running for U.S. Senate.

Over ominous drumbeats, the narrator intoned: “It is rumored that Hillary Clinton is a lesbian. It is rumored that Hillary Clinton supported homosexual marriage. It is rumored that Hillary Clinton will leave her husband upon taking office. … Sometimes, rumors are true. Shouldn’t you know the truth? For more information on traditional family values, please contact the Christian Action Network.”

More recently, CAN protested “Gay Days” at Disney World and other theme parks — events that Mawyer’s wife and CAN partner, Bonnie, says demonstrate “the true intent of these homosexuals: they are after our children!!”

A 2000 Mawyer mailing incorporated militia-like paranoia: “I am not ready to give this great nation over to one-world government extremists … radical, disease-carrying homosexuals … anti-family lesbian feminists … or anti-American U.N. globalists!”

CAN activists today are familiar faces at Gay Days, videotaping “bad behavior.” In 2003, CAN turned its footage of “homosexual kissing, hugging and fondling” into a video tour of the Southeast, warning parents about the perils of Gay Days and warning that “homosexuals live in a pattern of sin and debauchery.”

Or perhaps you’d like to defend the Christian Action Network’s association with the BNP-connected English Defense League, as documented in this LGF post?

It’s more than a little ironic that Mauro is complaining he’s being accused of racism, when he works for an openly extremist, virulently anti-gay religious right organization like the Christian Action Network that’s been linked to neo-fascist groups in the UK.