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Here's something you don't see every day. One of these talking heads stopped in their tracks for lying on the air. MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan calls out The Family Research Council's Cathy Ruse (what a name for a spokesperson, huh?) for lying about what affect the Stupak amendment would have on private insurance if passed.

After noting that The Family Research Council called the Stupak amendment a “huge victory for women", Ratigan asked her this:

Ratigan: Cathy, what was the victory?

Ruse: Well the victory is that the question is elective abortion and who should be forced to pay for those, the individual or the government. Before the Stupak amendment passed, Americans would be forced to pay for other people’s elective abortions.

Ratigan: That’s not true.

Ruse: It is true, under both the public option plan and…

Ratigan: No, that’s not true…

Ruse: …and under the federal subsidies…absolutely true. That’s why…

Ratigan: The objection was to the use of the exchange. I’ll have this debate but you have to operate in the factual reality which is you’re saying that all the private insurance being sold on a publicly established exchange cannot fund elective abortion, and that is not federal dollars paying for abortion—that federal dollars paying for an exchange upon which private insurance is sold where elective abortions are provided.

Ruse: The Stupak amendment did two things. It prohibits federal funding for covering elective abortions, but it allows private insurance to carry coverage of elective abortions so long as no federal tax dollars are involved. And let me just…

Ratigan: Cathy, you’re not dealing with—you can’t—just coming on television and lying is not journalism, nor is it actually beneficial to the country. Let’s talk about what we’re discussing which is the establishment of an exchange upon which private insurance that we bought and sold establishes federal dollars. Nancy you were going to say?

Keenan: Yeah listen, we know that about 80-85% of private insurance companies today privately cover abortion care, and what the Stupak amendment does, is basically means that women will not be able to purchase insurance coverage that covers abortions with their own money, with their own money in this new healthcare system. That’s the reality of the Stupak amendment and it is outrageous that they are saying that this is good for women or that this is somehow the status quo. This goes far beyond the status quo.

Maybe Tony Perkins should get himself someone else go to up against Dylan Ratigan if his group wants to continue to try to spread misinformation about what the Stupak amendment does, although I don’t think Perkins himself would have faired much better against Ratigan. Both Ratigan and Keenan go on to point out what the real purpose of the amendment is, which is to prevent private insurance from paying for any abortions, get Roe v Wade overturned and to derail health care reform.

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Lou Dobbs brings in the Family Research Council's Tony Perkins and Sojourners' Jim Wallis to debate health care reform as a religious issue in Dobb's Face Off segment. Apparently Perkins isn't satisfied with just doing his best to bash gays and abortion doctors. He's now decided to start toeing the Frank Luntz Republican line on health care reform as well.

DOBBS: Congressional Republicans for their part today proposed a centrist approach to healthcare reform as they call it, a less expensive alternative to the Democratic plan which would cost somewhere around a trillion dollars over the next decade. The role of religion also rising to the surface of the health care debate and that is the topic of tonight's face-off.

Joining me now Tony Perkins, he's the president of the Family Research Council. Tony good to have you with us and the Reverend Jim Wallis, president and executive director of a Christian social justice organization. It's great to have you both with us. How in the world is god and politics moving to the center of a debate on national health care reform? If I may Reverend start with you?

REV. JIM WALLIS, FOUNDER & PRES., SOUIJOURNERS: The community of faith should never be involved in the weeds, policy weeds, but there's a fundamental moral issue here, 50 million Americans don't have health care coverage. And a lot of those are low income families, middle income families. On the way over here, Lou, I got a voicemail from a friend who said he's only 38. He said my wife this morning got diagnosed with lymphoma cancer. He's terrified yet he has health insurance. Imagine if he didn't have health insurance, he and his wife. So this is an injustice.

So we have to fight, we have to achieve coverage for all those folks who don't have it. That's a moral issue. We won't get involved in all of the details of policy. But the moral issue has to be front and center here.

DOBBS: Tony Perkins?

TONY PERKINS, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: Well, Lou, there's no question that we have a health care problem in America. In fact, for many families it's a crisis. But we need a common sense approach that will make sure that those truly in need will be covered and that our health care stays patient-centered and not government-centered. And that's what's at question here. And I think what we're seeing in this debate is -- and I appreciate what Jim says. I agree, now I take issue with the 40 million. It's really 43 million that do not have health insurance, not health coverage. Health insurance because we actually have 80 percent at a CDC report says 80 percent of poor children have public health care now. And my home state of Louisiana, we actually are one of the few states that have kind of a two-track system. We have a public health care system that runs parallel to the private system. And I'll tell you, it is fraught with problems. And I'm fearful of what will happen if we go to a one size government health care program.

WALLIS: But we're not.

DOBBS: I'm sorry?

PERKINS: That's what's being pushed. That's what's being pushed is a government-mandated. No, it is, that's what we're talking about.

WALLIS: We haven't had health care reform for years because before the debate there's a lot of scare tactics going on. This proposal is about people having choices. Keep your own doctor, keep your health care if you want it. If you don't have a health care plan, you can choose another plan. So there's choice here. This is not a government plan, government-control plan. There's a choice here.

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Tony Perkins claims on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 that gay people are "rioting" over Proposition 8's narrow success at the California polls:

Perkins: The people have played by the rules. Why will not the homosexual activists quit rioting, quit, you know, attacking Mormons, and using religious bigotry. And if they want to change the laws, get the consent of the people.

Anderson Cooper: Where have the riots been, Tony? Where have the riots been?

Perkins: Well, they've spray-painted churches in California, they've been jumping on police cars.

Lisa Bloom of In Session proceeds to give Perkins hell. You can see from the videotape that these are peaceful demonstrations.

Perkins also has a peculiar definition of "playing by the rules," considering that, as Bloom just pointed out, the rules for amending the California Constitution were clearly not followed with this vote.

Last night on the "The Report," Stephen Colbert hosted Family Research Council President Tony Perkins to discuss the recent landmark court ruling in California legalizing same sex marriages, and ended up catching the "family values" crusader in some serious contradictions in the way only Colbert can.

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"I think it would really be much better for the anti-gay-marriage side if they obeyed everything in the Bible, not just the anti-gay-marriage part. Don't you?"

Californians apparently agree:  

A majority of registered Californian voters oppose changing the constitution of the most populous U.S. state to bar gays from marrying, according to poll released on Wednesday.

The Field Poll survey found 51 percent against approving a possible November ballot measure to prohibit gay marriage, with 43 percent in favor. A slightly differently worded question on the same issue found 54 percent opposed and 40 percent in favor.

Markos has some of the historical data showing how far Californians have come in just the past 30 years, as well as the age breakdown that bodes very well for the future of ensuring our gay brothers and sisters receive equal treatment under the law:

Approve Disapprove
5/2008 51 42
2006 44 50
2004 44 50
2003 42 50
1997 38 56
1985 30 62
1977 28 59

In other promising news, the AP is reporting that California will start issuing same-sex marriage licenses on June 14. Expect the wingnuts to fight this tooth and nail, but it's good news nonetheless:

Same-sex couples in some California counties will be able to marry as soon as June 14, the president of the California’s county clerks association said.