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As the anti-government uprising in Syria has unfolded, Syrian-American blogger Amina Abdallah has attracted readers and been noticed by The Washington Post, CNN, Time,and The Guardian for her musings on the protest movement and what it's like to be gay in Syria. But her blog--A Gay Girl in Damascus--broached a very different topic today: Someone introducing herself as Abdallah's cousin wrote that Abdallah was seized by three armed men while on her way to meet with protest organizers. The cousin adds that while the family suspects Abdallah was seized by Syrian security forces, all that's known right now is that she's missing.

A Facebook page demanding Amina's release has been launched.

Newt Gingrich has recorded the below commercial endorsing the law school at Dead Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, where students are given failing or bad grades if they fail to cite "God's law" as having precedence over American civil laws. Like that one against kidnapping.

Right Wing Watch reports that a legal defense fund has already raised $30,000 for Timo Miller, the man arrested by the FBI last month for helping "ex-gay" Lisa Miller illegally take her daughter out of the country rather than comply with court-ordered custody sharing with her former partner. From the defense fund website:

Since God has not intended for two men or two women to raise children as a family unit, they can’t produce children on their own. This creates a problem in their agenda to create the perception that homosexual behavior is normal. Thus they resort to adopting children or using artificial insemination from a male donor in the case of a lesbian relationship. Can you imagine being a child growing up in the middle of such an environment?

It is a tragedy that laws and courts in our nation can be manipulated to allow an innocent and defenseless child to become a pawn of the agenda of those who desire to “normalize” homosexuality. Truly sin has devastating consequences. A mother goose will fight to the death to protect her young. So will a robin or a mama bear. God has put instincts into a mother to protect their young. Lisa did what any good mother would do. She “died” while attempting to protect her young child from what she perceived as very imminent danger. Rather than risk what she felt was certain harm to her daughter, she took her child, and fled to Nicaragua.

Last month we also learned that Miller and her daughter are living in a house owned by the father of Liberty Counsel head Mat Staver's secretary. Which is totally a coincidence, right?

"Tennessee pastor Timothy Miller is now in jail. His crime? Allegedly helping a mother protect her daughter from the pernicious influence of sexual deviancy ('deviancy: actions or behaviours that violate cultural norms'). [snip] Rosa Parks gained civil rights immortality because she refused an order to obey an unjust law. If there was ever a contemporary case in which civil disobedience is justified, the Lisa Miller case is it. May God have mercy on Lisa Miller, her daughter Isabella, and Pastor Timothy Miller. And may God, the Judge of the living and the dead, bring the guilty before his bar of pure and uncompromising justice." - American Family Association radio host Bryan Fischer, writing on his AFA blog.

RELATED: Fischer posts this disclaimer at the top of the above-linked column: "It should be noted that the American Family Association has taken no formal position on either Lisa Miller’s actions or the actions of Pastor Timothy Miller."

Even though their most famous client magically turned up at a Nicaragua house owned by the father of Mat Staver's secretary, the Liberty Counsel chairman is denying being involved in the disappearance of "ex-lesbian" Lisa Miller, who fled the country in 2009 rather than comply with a court order to share child custody with her former partner.

"It's absurd to try to suggest Liberty Counsel had anything to do with the whereabouts or the disappearance of Lisa Miller," Mathew Staver, Dean of Liberty University's School of Law and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. Staver served as Miller's attorney through 2009. [snip] "She simply stopped communicating by phone, by e-mail, by letter," said Staver. "We have no idea where she went." Staver says Miller's actions forced Liberty Counsel to drop her case. [snip] But some believe Liberty had another motive and took part in hiding Miller - a claim Staver says is 100-percent false. "None of us would be stupid enough to place our careers and our futures and our law licenses on the table to try to help someone violate the law," said Staver.

Is anybody buying this? I'm betting the FBI isn't.

"So GLADD, a self-described anti-defamation group, gives an award to one of the most vicious, vile and vulgar anti-Christian bigots on the planet and expects to be taken seriously? Hey, while we’re at it why not give Muammar Gaddafi the ‘Humanitarian of the Year’ award. Or how about a Nobel Peace Prize for Barack Oba… Oh, wait" - Liberty Counsel douchebag Matt Barber, as quoted by Porno Pete, who's apparently polling other hate groups about my GLAAD award.

TOTALLY FUCKING RELATED: Today the FBI revealed that the Liberty Counsel is being investigated for conspiracy to commit kidnapping in the case of Isabella Jenkins-Miller, an action I first began to call for on this blog more than 18 months ago.

The FBI have made an arrest in connection with Lisa Miller, the "ex-gay" mother who vanished with her daughter in 2009 after courts awarded custody of the child to Janet Jenkins, her former partner. When Miller failed to surrender Isabella Jenkins-Miller, now age nine, to her ex, police issued a warrant for parental kidnapping. Metro Weekly reports:

According to court documents, the FBI arrested Timothy David Miller in Alexandria on charges that he aided in the international parental kidnapping of Isabella Miller-Jenkins by one of her two mothers, Lisa Miller. The FBI statement says Lisa Miller took her child to Mexico in September 2009 ''with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights by Janet Jenkins,'' her former civil union partner. The statement says Timothy Miller provided assistance with Lisa Miller's travel from the U.S. to Toronto and then to Mexico City, and provided shelter for her. The Millers then continued on to Managua, Nicaragua, later that month. A warrant for Lisa Miller's arrest was issued in April 2010. Sarah Star, a Vermont attorney representing Jenkins, said Friday that, despite Timothy Miller's arrest, ''We still don't know where they are now." Jenkins issued a statement saying she hopes ''Isabella is safe and well" and that she is looking forward to "having my daughter home safe with me very soon."

According to the FBI, Lisa Miller has been receiving checks issued by the Lynchburg Christian Academy, an affiliate of Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Church. Before vanishing, Miller had been legally assisted by the anti-gay Liberty Counsel, leading many to speculate that they had a hand in her disappearance. That appears to be the case as the Liberty Counsel is also affiliated with Falwell's Liberty University. Let's hope the FBI is questioning Matt Barber.

UPDATE: In an extensive story on today's news, the Advocate notes that Miller's Liberty Counsel attorney is named in the FBI's affidavit.

Miller’s attorney, Liberty associate professor of law Rena M. Lindevaldsen, could not be reached for comment Friday, though a Liberty representative asked to see Kaegel’s affidavit and said that any allegations of misconduct on the part of the organization were false.

Every involved Liberty Counsel member should be indicted!

Read the FBI affidavit. (PDF)

UPDATE II: In an addition to their above-linked story, the Advocate notes that the Liberty Counsel has now scrubbed their website of the bio of an employee named in the FBI affidavit. The normally Twitter-happy Liberty Counsel has so far remained mum on the growing scandal.

UPDATE III: Right Wing Watch notes that the FBI's affidavit reveals that Lisa Miller and her daughter have been living in a Nicaragua house owned by the father of Liberty Counsel president Mat Staver's secretary.

How it is that Liberty Counsel's most high profile client kidnaps her daughter and flees the country and the organization insists for more than a year that it has no idea where she is ... only to have it turn out that she is reportedly living in a home owned by the father of an admin assistant in Staver's very own office?