Blah, blah, blah—the defenses for Prop 8 support keep on coming and are offensive, bigoted, ignorant—and wholly expected. It’s nice to see the Catholic church, as a “mainstream” religion, accept that its role in the battle to pass Prop 8 was to give the Mormon church PR cover and utilize the wealth of its flock and the control it wields. So now it has to take on a big role in damage control.
“Religious leaders in America have the constitutional right to speak out on issues of public policy,” Niederauer wrote in a statement posted on the archdiocese’s Web site. “Catholic bishops, specifically, also have a responsibility to teach the faith, and our beliefs about marriage and family are part of this faith.”
Niederauer, who has declined interview requests, wrote that “to insist that citizens be silent about their religious beliefs” would have had a detrimental effect on history, gagging the voices of important abolitionists and people in the civil rights movement.
Niederauer’s statement, coming more than a month after the vote to ban same-sex marriage in the nation’s most populous state, underscored the complex role he plays. As archbishop of San Francisco, Niederauer is the ultimate teacher of Catholic doctrine in a region at the forefront of gay and lesbian rights.
During the campaign, Niederauer issued statements, sent flyers and gave a videotaped interview posted at http://www.marriagematterstokids.orgBu.t Niederauer’s most prominent action was drawing in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members responded with intensive grassroots organizing and an estimated $20 million in campaign contributions from individuals that accounted for half of the Yes on 8 campaign’s total.
The Mormon church has said Niederauer, previously the Bishop of Salt Lake City for 11 years, played a pivotal role in its joining the cause.
“We were invited to join the coalition,” Michael Otterson, managing director of public affairs for the church, told The Chronicle in an interview shortly after the election. “We didn’t unilaterally go into the battle.”
One of the professional Christian set, Jan LaRue of the Culture and Media Institute has published a whiny, hand-wringing diatribe about the eHarmony settlement—the Christian-owned matchmaking company recently agreed to provide a dating service for same-sex couples.
To LaRue, this “caving” is beyond the pale.
New Jersey resident Eric McKinley, 46, a self-described homosexual, decided to sign up for the California-based eHarmony.com online dating service in 2005. He says he couldn’t get past the first screen, “because the pull-down menus had categories only for a man seeking a woman or a woman seeking a man.”
So naturally the aggrieved McKinley ignored the plethora of “gay” on-line dating Web sites and filed a complaint with the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights (NJDCR).
The claim makes as much legal sense as if McKinley had sued Victoria’s Secret because it doesn’t sell jockstraps. But after three years of litigation, the Christian-owned dating service caved, announcing on Nov. 20 that it would establish a same-sex dating service early next year. In the face of intimidation litigation, eHarmony chose to settle, rather than defend its rights under the U.S. Constitution or cease doing business in New Jersey.
The surrender followed a finding by the NJDCR of probable cause to believe that McKinley was unlawfully discriminated against because eHarmony didn’t provide same-sex matches. If McKinley’s intimidation litigation continues its trajectory, New Jersey may have the first Victor/Victoria’s Secret.
While the homosexualists get beaten up by Jan, she slams eHarmony with equal vigor:
Apparently the certainty of losing is more compatible than the possibility of winning. Contrary to some media, eHarmony wasn’t “forced” or “compelled” to comply with McKinley’s demands; eHarmony surrendered to his demands.
...Since married people are expressly prohibited from using or registering to use eHarmony’s singles service and the (LAD) prohibits discrimination based on marital status, how long will it be before some budding adulterer sues because eHarmony doesn’t facilitate that swinging option? Will it expand its new “Compatible Partners” to include ménage á trois types, spouse swappers, sadomasochists, cross-dressers and transgenders?
Intimidation litigation is what’s happening to privately owned businesses, especially Christian-owned businesses, churches, and para-church organizations when state anti-discrimination laws, which were meant to end discrimination based on immutable characteristics like race, are amended to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
And there you have it—the dishonesty of this position is breathtaking. People of LaRue’s ilk didn’t mind, back in the day, when it was A-OK to discriminate based on race. How tired is it to see LaRue equate sexual orientation and gender identity to sexual practices. Yawn. This bizarre need by the fundies to play victim is absurd.
And they support inclusive hate crimes laws and the ability of gays and lesbians to openly serve in the military. The voters in California, Florida and Arkansas clearly aren’t on the same page as most Americans when it comes to extending rights to gay couples.
A national survey conducted in November, “The Pulse of Equality” by Harris Interactive that was commissioned by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is out today. The survey is the first national snapshot after election day to poll U.S. adults’ overall attitudes towards LGBTs on several key issues. Among its findings:
* Three-quarters of U.S. adults (75%) favor either marriage or domestic partnerships/civil unions for gay and lesbian couples. Only about two in 10 (22%) say gay and lesbian couples should have no legal recognition. (Gay and lesbian couples are able to marry in two states, and comprehensive civil union or domestic partnership laws exist in only five others and the District of Columbia.)
* U.S. adults are now about evenly divided on whether they support allowing gay and lesbian couples to legally marry (47% favor to 49% oppose).
* Almost two-thirds (64%) of U.S. adults favor allowing openly gay military personnel to serve in the armed forces. (The current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law bans military service by openly gay personnel.)
* About six in 10 (63%) U.S. adults favor expanding hate crime laws to cover gay and transgender people. (Hate crimes laws cover gay and transgender people in 11 states and the District of Columbia, and an additional – 20 states’ laws cover sexual orientation but not gender identity.)
* A slight majority of U.S. adults (51%) favor protecting gay and transgender people under existing laws that prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations. (Existing non-discrimination laws cover gay and transgender people in only 12 states and the District of Columbia, and eight other states’ laws cover sexual orientation but not gender identity.)
* Nearly seven out of 10 U.S. adults (69%) oppose laws that would ban qualified gay and lesbian couples from adopting children. (In several states, gay and lesbian couples are banned from adopting.)
Here are the full results - PDF. As usual, one of the usual fundie suspects was quick to comment.
Mathew Staver, founder of the Liberty Counsel, an Orlando-based conservative organization, said the survey was flawed because it was commissioned by a homosexual advocacy group and “is flat wrong on same-sex marriage.”
So the commissioning group just makes sh*t up for the polling org, is that what he’s saying? Why bother with the survey and spending all those buxxx? Good grief. As one reader said, “Oh, my, I am so looking forward to quoting this man when the American Family Association or the Family Research Council publishes poll results.”
To show how opinions have evolved so quickly on this issue, the Sun-Sentinel compared the 2008 findings to a February 2005 CBS/New York Times poll:
* only 23 percent of those surveyed said gays should be allowed to marry;
* 41 percent said there should be no legal recognition of any kind for gay couples.
I’m starting to think that Rachel Maddow has an issue or professional discomfort with taking on publicly anti-gay figures on her show. It’s an oddity, given 1) she’s out and has a high-profile; and 2) her fellow MSNBC host, Keith Olbermann, has been extremely forceful as an ally on the issue by comparison. She’s spoken at length about the debacle of Prop 8, so one would assume that if given the opportunity, Maddow would address the issue with well-known homophobes.
The reticence to take on agents of intolerance surfaced in a recent interview with former GOP clown car occupant, rapist/murderer-releasing Baptist minister-without-a-theology-degree Mike Huckabee. (Think Progress):
Maddow was notably silent on the issue of gay rights when interviewing former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. On Tuesday, Huckabee had insisted that gay rights and civil rights were totally different because gay rights activists’ “skulls” weren’t getting “cracked.” On Wednesday morning, Huckabee claimed that Prop. 8 “did not prohibit” gay marriage; it “simply affirmed that which already has and forever has existed,” he said.
During the seven-minute interview last night, however, Maddow never forced Huckabee to defend these claims. Instead, Maddow repeatedly asked him about his future presidential plans and speculated about the influence of the Christian Right in the GOP.
Huckabee has a long history of making statements that indicate an ignorant worldview when it comes to LGBTs—as Think Progress noted, Huckabee has equated homosexuality with bestiality and necrophilia, said being gay is a choice, wants sodomy recriminalized, and would like to see gay couples banned from adopting, and prevent same-sex partners from receiving spousal survival benefits.
Now here comes the interesting part to discuss here in the coffeehouse. Maddow was contacted by ThinkProgress to ask why she avoided LGBT issues with Huck. Her response? See it after the jump.
“Online-enabled voice chat” has become my biggest videogame turnoff ever; I’d rather spend the next three days of my life whacking at overlarge forest rats with my Stick of Beating than listen to a fourteen year-old’s desperate insistence that I’m a.) a faggot, b.) a nigger or c.) a faggot-ass nigger for five minutes. Kotaku interviewed a couple of mental health professionals who revealed the obvious: it’s about the power dynamics at play, and there’s a common dynamic whereby many young white men feel most empowered by reducing everyone they encounter to demeaned scum.
The post discusses methods of dealing with the abuse, which basically focus on ignoring it and/or calling out the psychology behind the epithets. But what I’m more interested in is why the need for dominance so readily expresses itself in sexual and racial terms, particularly when such terms would be completely anathema in real life. It’s not just shitty trash talk, aggression when your everyday life calls for restraint. It’s wholesale cultural warfare, lived out through commandos, space commandos and other forms of fantasy and/or science-based commandos.
It’s striking how much the politics of cultural resentment resemble the feelings of constant victimization that accompany puberty. If you’re asking whether or not this means the Corner is a glorified reliving of the angry kids in your high school who read the first hundred pages of The Fountainhead and refused to smoke not because it was bad for them, but because it was the vice of their intellectual inferiors (read: people that were actually liked by others), then yes. Yes, it is exactly that. The blame and hatred that occurs here isn’t just about meaningless abuse, it’s about a very meaningful form of abuse that lumps together and transfers a set of real-life cultural grievances, transferred and taught, onto what functions as far more than just a game for the people in the abuser’s seat. The irony is that, despite the anger, it’s precisely because the targeted groups are so inherently powerless over a white male majority that they feel so free to heap abuse on whoever comes their way.
Reactionary social conservatism may not be best explained through the backlash to civil rights movements of the past 50 years, the rise of Ronald Reagan or Rush Limbaugh’s call queue, but instead the nastier end of a Counter-Strike tournament.
It’s nice to see rapist/murderer-releasing ex-governor, Baptist minister-without-a-theology-degree and failed GOP prez candidate Mike Huckabee engaging in the Oppression Olympics when it comes to doling out civil rights. In this appearance on The View, the former Arkansas chief executive thinks homos should get a taste of the Bull Connor violence in order to rise to the level of respect to beg to receive the same rights as other Americans. (h/t JMG):
HUCKABEE: It’s a different set of rights. People who are homosexuals should have every right in terms of their civil rights, to be employed, to do anything they want. But that’s not really the issue. I know you talked about it and I think you got into it a little bit early on. But when we’re talking about a redefinition of an institution, that’s different than individual civil rights.
BEHAR: Well, segregation was an institution, too, in a way. It was right there on the books.
HUCKABEE: But here is the difference. Bull Connor was hosing people down in the streets of Alabama. John Lewis got his skull cracked on the Selma bridge.
Here I am about to kick back and relax my weary bones and then this completely deranged document lands in my inbox.
After today’s news about the California Supreme Court’s decision to review Prop 8’s constitutionality, we got wind of this amicus brief filed in support of letting Prop 8 stand from some outfit called The Kingdom of Heaven World Divine Mission. You have to read it to believe it…it’s filed on behalf of God and His Plan. I’m not sh*tting you.
I. OVERVIEW STATEMENT OF FACTS
Throughout the world, each and all countries have constitutions and federal laws. These laws must be enforced accordingly. In the United States of America, we have the United States Constitution and federal laws. In addition, each and all states in the Union have State Constitutions and State laws.
Whether a law is created under the United States Constitution or an individual state’s constitution, the enforcement of all laws is vested to the people!
The House and Senate members represent people, and they must always act on the desires of the majority of their constituents.
Throughout the world, it is the responsibility of judges and justices to interpret the laws accurately, and they must then issue their opinions based on the laws and the merits of these cases. Judges and justices are prohibited from making laws from the bench.
The power of making laws in the United States and State of California is vested to the people, not to judges or justices. On November 4, 2008, the majority or 52% of California voters voted “YES” on the Proposition 8 initiative and Constitutional Amendment: Marriage between one man and one woman! These 52 % of voters obeyed the order of the Almighty Eternal Creator of the earth and human race as recorded in the Holy Bible in Genesis 1: 26-27.
The Almighty Eternal Creator created all planets, including the earth and all living creatures, including human souls. Through elections and appointments, Global government leaders and officials are selected by the Almighty Eternal Creator to serve the people. The Almighty Eternal Creator is the sole owner of the earth and everything above, below, and in it. Global government leaders work under authority of the Almighty Eternal Creator. Therefore, throughout the world, government legislatures and people must make laws under the Almighty Eternal Creator’s Laws. Global government leaders, judges, justices, and law enforcement officials must practice the sole owner of the earth’s Laws in their daily practice.
The Kingdom is just getting warmed up. The unhinged document continues below the fold, as it goes into detail about why the Almighty Eternal Creator’s Laws overrule global government laws when it comes to the homos.
This column is so ludicrous, given that the aging action star makes a living pretending to kick ass. More importantly, Chuck Norris is a hypocrite calling for mob rule at the ballot box. I’d love to see how he’d feel if the rights of his fellow “Christians” were subject to majority rule.
[T]he tolerance-preaching activists also have taken their anger to the blogosphere, where posts have planted ideas ranging from burning churches to storming the citadels of government until our society is forced to overturn Prop. 8. You even can find donor blacklists online. The lists include everyone who financially backed Prop. 8—even those who gave as little as $46—with the obvious objective that these individuals will be bantered and boycotted for doing so.
What’s wrong with this picture? Lots.
First, there’s the obvious inability of the minority to accept the will of the majority. Californians have spoken twice, through the elections in 2000 and 2008. Nearly every county across the state (including Los Angeles County) voted to amend the state constitution in favor of traditional marriage.
Nevertheless, bitter activists simply cannot accept the outcome as being truly reflective of the general public. So they have placed the brainwashing blame upon the crusading and misleading zealotry of those religious villains: the Catholics, evangelical Protestants, and especially Mormons, who allegedly are robbing the rights of American citizens by merely executing their right to vote and standing upon their moral convictions and traditional views.
Wow. Even better, he compares protests over the act of civil rights being taken away from a group of citizens to the right’s dismay over the election of Barack Obama.
There were many of us who passionately opposed Obama, but you don’t see us protesting in the streets or crying “unfair.” Rather, we are submitting to a democratic process and now asking how we can support “our” president. Just because we don’t like the election outcome doesn’t give us the right to bully those who oppose us. In other words, if democracy doesn’t tip our direction, we don’t swing to anarchy. That would be like the Wild West, the resurrection of which seems to be happening in these postelection protests.
I agree with Prison Fellowship’s founder, Chuck Colson, who wrote: “This is an outrage. What hypocrisy from those who spend all of their time preaching tolerance to the rest of us! How dare they threaten and attack political opponents? We live in a democratic country, not a banana republic ruled by thugs.”
The ignorance takes your breath away - how have his rights been removed in any way by the presidential election? Perhaps someone should point him to The Blend McCain mob files, where there are a ton of incidents of good, hard-working Christians turning into anarchists as they saw victory slipping through their fingers. How soon he forgets.
As you can see, the meme of the violent gays is out there, and Newt Gingrich and Co. are more than happy to stir the pot. He’s the last person who needs to talk about protecting marriage.
From the November 14 edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor:
O’REILLY: OK, now, the culture war. I know you’ve been flying around the country, and you’re doing stuff. In the last three or four days, this is really nasty stuff. I mean, you know, hyper—we’re gonna show you some of the video. A woman getting a cross smashed out of her hand. We had a church in Michigan invaded by gay activists. We’re gonna show you the video on Monday of that—we have exclusively. We had a guy in Sacramento fired from his job. We had boycotts called on restaurants.
I mean, it is getting out of control, very few days after the election. How do you assess that?
GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank—for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they’re the opposite, of what you’re taught in Sunday school.
OMFG. He’s at it again—recloseted homosexual and anti-gay activist James Hartline is ensuring his place in the nutbag hall of fame with another one of his rants on Acts of GodTM being caused by TEH GAYZ.
God keeps trying to get their attention. They, for their part, are shouting so loud for the acceptance of homosexuality, that they cannot hear the thunderous warnings of God: “Repent! For the judgment comes soon!”
Each time homosexual activists attempt to force their agenda on California, there have been raging, massive, incinerating fires sweeping across the California landscape.
Today, people are running for their lives as 800 California homes have burned down and the firestorm is spreading like a nuclear holocaust. Yet, the radical homosexual anarchists rampage upon the streets of this state demanding the destruction of marriage and family, and the establishment of their socialistic dark vision for society.
You see, the problem is this: God has plans for California in the near days ahead. Thus, these attempts to force an ungodly tyranny on this state are being met blow with blow by God. God is saying, “California shall be a refuge for America when the catastrophes come. California belongs to Me, not the advocates of sexual anarchy.”
The more that homosexual activists press their battle in California, the more there will be great calamaties in this state.
You know, this bleating seems very familiar…oh yeah, he did this same sort of nonsense last year, same time, same bat channel, in the “homosexual stronghold of Hillcrest” over the fires in San Diego.
They shook their fists at God and said, “We don’t care what God says, we will issue our legal brief to support gay marriage in San Diego!” Then Mayor Jerry Sanders mocked the Christian vote and signed off on this rebellious legal document to support same-sex marriage.
And then the streets of La Jolla under the Mt. Soledad Cross began to cave in.
They shook their fists at God and said, “We don’t care what the Bible says, We want the California school children indoctrinated into homosexuality!” And then Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law the heinous SB777 which bans the use of “mom” and “dad” in the text books and promotes homosexuality to all school children in California.
And then the wildfires of Southern California engulfed the land like a raging judgment against the radicalized anti-christian California rebels.
How many ways of wrong is this? CEO of Cinemark, Alan Stock, who gave $9999 to Yes on 8, be allowed to earn one dime on the back of Harvey Milk’s legacy by running Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” in his theaters (it opens wide on Nov. 26)?
If 1,000 of us commit to see MILK at a competitor’s theater instead of Cinemark, at an average cost of $10 per ticket, that’s $10,000 of lost revenue.
Boycotts work. A boycott of a Sacramento theatre company resulted not only in the resignation of a Yes on 8 contributor, but a public apology and donation to Human Rights Campaign! We can do this again.
You can find an alterative theater using the links on the left, and join our facebook group below to spread the word! Help us reach 1000 members so we can send a message to Mr. Stock: YOU WILL NOT PROFIT FROM HATE.
The movie houses to avoid are “Century”, “CinéArts”, and “Tinseltown” theater chains.
In the end, Protect Marriage estimates, as much as half of the nearly $40 million raised on behalf of the measure was contributed by Mormons.
That was the statement confirming the extent of the financial involvement of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to pass Prop 8. That is mind-blowing.
The extent to which this church felt the need to involve itself, not only with cash from its faithful, but by marshalling an army of Mormon volunteers to participate in phone banking, canvassing and disseminating propaganda and lies to remove a civil right from a group of citizens in California is beyond disturbing.
In the NYT article, “Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage,” the details emerge about the win-at-all-costs strategy that seems less about pure belief and faith than political activism and bullying.
First approached by the Roman Catholic archbishop of San Francisco a few weeks after the California Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in May, the Mormons were the last major religious group to join the campaign, and the final spice in an unusual stew that included Catholics, evangelical Christians, conservative black and Latino pastors, and myriad smaller ethnic groups with strong religious ties.
And the bottom line is that the full-frontal assault by Yes on 8 came down to the fact that the Mormons were willing to go door to door in a systematic manner—to make the difference. See how they did it below the fold.
Marjorie Chrisoffersen, the manager of eatery El Coyote in Los Angeles, is a Mormon who donated to “Yes on 8.” With a large gay clientele, the owner should not have been surprised when they decided to boycott the establishment. In an attempt to explain her position she held a lunch to “personally speak” with her regulars. Well, it didn’t go so hot for Margie. Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin was there and he had this to say about it:
Although Margie is usually a spry woman, today she was breathless, and distraught and appeared fragile, not an easy task for a woman of her height. She stood supported between her daughters and read a prepared speech - most of which had already been released.
She praised the restaurant as a beacon of diversity, people from all places and where everyone doesn’t have to agree, where they can get along even with differing views. She credited her aunt for being sympathetic to the plight of the “gay individual” before there was support and how the restaurant became a safe haven for “that community”. She told of visiting sick people and providing “a healing place”.
She explained that she had been a member of the Mormon Church all her life and that she had responded to their request with a personal donation. She shared that El Coyote had contributed to many gay interests and charities.
Margie told of the 89 employees whose families relied on their job. She expressed how customers were part of the Coyote family. She lamented that this situation could harm a place with such diversity and harmony and joy and mutual respect and diversity of viewpoints.
“It saddens me that my faith will keep some from coming to the Coyote. But I cannot change a lifetime of faith in what I believe deeply. And I cannot and will not change my love and respect for your views”.
Out of the 43 men who have been raised to the office of the presidency, exactly 43 have been some version of professed Christian. How genuine or thorough their beliefs were or are is, of course, an area of debate, but it’s simply inarguable that each of them claimed to adhere to some belief in Christ as a divine savior. According to Ken Blackwell, American Christians are to this day persecuted, and should rise up and take to the streets to fight for their beliefs and representation in our public discourse.
Out of the 43 men who have been raised to the office of the presidency, exactly one has been black. We can be pretty sure of that. According to Ken Blackwell, racism’s pretty much dead, and black people should stop whining about how hard things are for them.
Again, to clarify: Christianity being a de facto qualification for the highest office in the land is indicative of how many obstacles there are to Christian advancement in public life; one black president in nearly two and a half centuries means that all barriers to black advancement have fallen. There is one thing about Blackwell’s argument that deserves a deeper look, though, and it’s this:
There was no mandate to change our social culture.
The most visible social issue in this election is marriage. State constitutional amendments protecting traditional marriage passed in all three states where it was on the ballot. While such measures passing in Florida and Arizona is no surprise, the fact that it also passed in California, a liberal state, is proof that the vast majority of Americans regard marriage as a union between a man and woman.
Another cultural measure is racial preferences. The U.S. Supreme Court has struck down racial quotas as unconstitutional. In 2003, the Court also struck down a race-preference program that resembled a quota by giving extra points to the college applicants because of race. And in 2007, the Court also struck down a public-school districting program that made race a major factor in determining which school a student attends.
The thread of thought inherent in Blackwell’s remarks hearkens back to this famous passage:
The argument also assumes that social prejudices may be overcome by legislation, and that equal rights cannot be secured to the negro except by an enforced commingling of the two races. We cannot accept this proposition. If the two races are to meet upon terms of social equality, it must be the result of natural affinities, a mutual appreciation of each other’s merits, and a voluntary consent of individuals.
That’s Plessy v. Ferguson.
It’s hard to look at modern-day arguments against such steps as affirmative action and same sex marriage and not come to the conclusion that this same principle of culture superceding rights still governs the right today. Sure, they’re willing to accept those steps which are universally agreed to have been good for us after the fact (who didn’t support desegregation - except for the parts where they actually made people desegregate?), but Blackwell openly mirrors this rationale. Society (by which we mean his brand of Christian) cannot be forced to recognize the rights or even, necessarily, the humanity of those against whom they are bigoted until such point they decide to do so. Anything else is an unfair incursion upon their liberties, answerable only by social action focused on preserving their right to refuse the recognition of others as full members of society.
You could almost appreciate the originalist adherence to one of the most shameful moments in our nation’s history if it wasn’t coupled with the embrace of a totally ahistorical victimology. We’re supposed to resist the revision of our social history while guided by an even larger and far more dangerous revision of the exact same social history. Being a lying, hateful jackass isn’t justified by the fact that the lie would make your hatred the national pastime.
Here we have Keith Olbermann, a straight ally, putting the whole Prop 8 mess into perspective. He noted that at one point in our history, blacks couldn’t marry one another, as slaves were property and those unions were not legal. He is assertively harsh on the bible beaters and anyone who voted Yes on 8.
Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.
Some parameters, as preface. This isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics, and this isn’t really just about Prop-8. And I don’t have a personal investment in this: I’m not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.
And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn’t about yelling, and this isn’t about politics.
This is about the… human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.
If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not… understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don’t want to deny you yours. They don’t want to take anything away from you. They want what you want—a chance to be a little less alone in the world.
“Online-enabled voice chat” has become my biggest videogame turnoff ever; I’d rather spend the next three days of my life whacking at overlarge forest rats with my Stick of Beating than listen to a fourteen year-old’s desperate insistence that I’m a.) a faggot, b.) a nigger or c.) a faggot-ass nigger for five minutes. 
