We had The Call in Nashville last summer for a huge revival. It was bizarre. They had planned a march from Centennial Park through downtown Nashville—and ironically, right past the offices of the Tennessee Equality Project. It was wonderful to see all gay pride folks handing out water to these marchers (this being July in Nashville, it was oppressively hot). Really shamed them with some hospitality that the bigots would never have offered back.

I did have to mount a major media education campaign. Every single local media outlet kept referring to The Call as some kind of benign Christian revival, completely ignoring their anti-gay beliefs.

I’m not sure how any of you LIEbrals could be offended by any of this, these are Christianist folks, just havin a pray-up, hoping G*d will take the lives of gay types so the rest of us can get on with livin ours.  I mean, it’s not as though they’re callin for the execution or imprisonment of these sinners, they’re just hoping that the Lord will obey their wishes, drop whatever He’s doin and kill the queers and send them to Hell to suffer for all eternity.  There’s a big difference between the two, and I would hope that you DEMONcraps would acknowledge that having one’s rights taken away and being forced to wear a pink triangle is nothing like being sent to a death camp.

the fervor, the sweaty, clueless show of certainty that the sky fairy is listening to this stadium brimming with delusion is a reason beyond mere justice for fighting prop 8: when these hate filled ignoramuses lose, what will they have to conclude:
1. the big guy is not listening to us
2. the big guy hears us but is not on our side of this issue
3. there is no big guy.
4. __________________ [provide your own conclusion, none could comfort the christofascists and homophobes with delusions of godly approval.]

Prop 8 really blows my mind. Being in an interracial marriage myself, I can’t help but think that these are the same people who would have not only tried to take away my right to marry the love of my life, but used the Bible to justify their illegal and immoral behavior.

What’s scary though, is that in this day and age it is possible that religion (in particular, homophobic christianity) will trump legality; that in this day and age religion will be legislated.

Vote NO on Prop 8!

Could have sworn those were Muslims at prayer in the pictures.

I’d pay a lot for the chance to interrupt The Call’s prayer-crouch with an announcement: “Everyone move, please, you’re accidentally facing Mecca!”

And after a few seconds of everyone shuffling around in an uncomfortable crouch, “No, oops, sorry, that way wasn’t toward Mecca. Totally not. Everyone turn back that way.”

That’s what it’s all about.

RiM, I guess some of us feel it’s kind of arrogant for the fundies to be telling God what to do.

I don’t follw you.  I mean, Christianists have to weigh their options, right?  If G*d isn’t gonna do what they want him to do, they’ll tell him to f*ck off and they’ll get a new G*d!  Just the other day, on Wall Street, a huge crowd of Jeezoids went to pray at the statue of the bull, you know, the Golden Calf?  They were praying for money, laying their hands on the statue and speaking in tongues.  It was there way of saying “Jesus, either fix the economy so all of the debt we built up disappears and let derivatives be leveragable at a billion to one, or we’ll toss you and find a better Jesus…..or maybe just this cow statue here”.

Sometimes you gotta twist G*d’s arm to get what you want, right?

Do you remember the Pentagon’s fabled “homo bomb”, a weapon to make soldiers rip off their fatigues and make sweet sweet sodomistic love to those sharing the same fox-hole?

Not that I think it exists, but wouldn’t this rally make a perfect test site if it did?...

At least if they’re all holed up in a stadium together, they can’t be out bothering the non-crazy folks.

Win or lose, I enjoy seeing democracy at its finest.

Here we have a large block of citizens that believe that the courts got it wrong. What is their redress isf they can’t get the legislature to act? The referendum.

Exciting stuff!!

“piled into their holy-rollin’ Battlewagons-for-the-Lord”

Painting them red makes them go faster.  WAAAGGGGH!!!

>>>Could have sworn those were Muslims at prayer in the pictures.

I was thinking the same, Yamara.

Sent another $50 to the No On 8 people

Why are all those people lookin’ for a contact? Did it drop from God’s eye or something?

“Of course, these same people would have been coming unglued about Loving if they had been around 40-years ago. “
From the looks of some of them, I bet quite a few of them were.

As an African American, I find myself repulsed by Proposition 8 and like other commenters here, I have neighbors with yes on 8 signs in their driveways.  There is a house down the road with Obama signs and several other Democrat candidates and a Yes on 8 sign.  Boggles the mind. There is a Mormon church with a huge congregation about 3 miles from my house and for the last few Saturdays they have been flooding the streets with kids and Yes on 8 signs.  Very little no on 8 presence.  I work on California State projects and I can honestly say that most (if not all) of my coworkers are against the proposition and several (including myself) have donated to no on 8.  My assessment is that those that are intellectually honest (many of them also religious) are against this proposition in spite of the overwhelming presence of the signs.  This gives me hope, though I am not certain that the proposition will fail.  I believe that the newest commercial (which I have not seen on television yet) will have an impact.  My fear is that it could be too little too late.  I have seen many no on 8 commercials in the last few days and very few yes on 8 commercials, but I see lots of yes on 8 demonstrators and I also believe that many Californians vote absentee so the surge in commecials could be too late.  The passage of this proposition would prove to be a huge sore on what I belive will be a spectacular election.  I sincerely hope that it fails.  The fact that we are voting on this at all is abhorrent.  No on 8.

I can’t understand why this would even have a chance of passing in a deep-blue state like Cali. I mean purpleish Arizona rejected a gay marriage ban in 2006.

Those pictures remind me of Jamestown and the Electric Kool-aid test that Jim Jones laid on his followers. 

So, I’ve been married 30 years and so far, gay marriages haven’t hurt my hetero marriage. The kids around here where I live (in a gay marriage state) are still doing just fine. No harm’s been done, although I understand a few of the local bigots are still grasping at hatred. 

So, where do these bigots get off using their Moron religion to make toilet paper of the Bill of Rights?

Why aren’t they losing their tax-exempt status?  Will we turn around move to have them stricken from the tax freeloader rolls?  It will be about time. Words cannot express how sick these people are and how much I wish they’d just drink the Koolaid and fall over so the rest of us can get on with living our lives as we see fit.

PIATOR, it would be just as fun a test to TELL them that someone ‘gay bombed’ the area, and that if they had sudden, sodomistic urges that it was not their fault.

But Ben D., AZ has a constitutional amendment on the ballot this year, don’t they?

So, where do these bigots get off using their Moron religion to make toilet paper of the Bill of Rights?

That’s Moroni, Dejah. He’s the angel from the alternate history with the ancient North American Jewish Empires that all killed each other off down to the last woman and child.

Disclaimer: Not to flatter Dejah or anything, but I enjoyed Edgar Rice Burroughs’ science fantasy more than Joseph Smith’s.

I think the reason the v.reiligious groups are so against gay marriage is because they still view marriage as a sacred institution, meant to exist between a man and a woman, and hopefully a family along the way. Obviously if you see marriage rationally, as a union between two people who wish to support each other and build a life together, gay marriage has nothing to do with your marriage, or lack thereof, at all. A lot of the people or couples who are opposing this see the institution of marriage as an intrinsically sacred thing which their own wedding inducts them into, and so giving gay couples the right to marry actually will devalue their marriage, in their eyes. 

But quite apart from that, how camp was that Mormon-hate ad? I kept expecting them to put their hands on their stomachs, lean back and bellow: “Bwa ha ha ha!!”

The whole problem with all this ‘believe it or else’ attitude popular with shut-ins and others who aren’t very cosmopolitan is this:  If it’s true, it’s not necessary for anyone to ‘believe’ it.  If it’s a fact, it’s a fact, so there’s really no need for all this hocus-pocus.

As for people like this being ‘christian’, as in following the philosophy of a character named Jesus, well, I’d say that if their friend were here today he’d be voting NO on Prop 8 and disowning the lot of them.

This is just your average pitchfork-and-torch crowd hunting witches - who happen to be gays this time around.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Easy to manipulate, easy to fleece because they have god on their side heh heh.  Of course, if there were a god and he or she were on their side, there’d also be no need for this kind of performance.

Some scary shit goin’ down in the 21st century, isn’t there?

Yes, gravitybear, and it will probably win this time because unlike the last time there’s virtually nobody fighting it.

Oh, and by the way, marriage as we know it today was invented as a contractual agreement, long after the bible stories were passed on, modified and recorded by who knows how many storytellers.  The old ‘till death do us part’ thing came about in the Middle Ages, when it meant about five years.  People weren’t living too long in those days - plague and other things that we take lightly now were likely to kill them off.

My point?  These fundagelicals didn’t invent marriage and don’t own it.  Hopefully the vote on Prop 8 will pwn them, though.

btw Lots of gays get married here and nobody seems to think it’s a big deal except some fringe types.  I live in Canada where fortunately, we’ve managed to keep religion the hell out of politics except for some traditional things that aren’t offensive.  I think we have more atheists up here though, it’s not as much of a minority in Canada as it seems to be in the US.

My favorite anti-gay-marriage argument goes like this:

Me: Gay people should be able to marry, it’s a civil right.
Fundie: Traditional marriage is in danger! Soon we’ll have polygamists getting legal marriages!
Me: You know, the Bible is chock full of polygamy, and God seemed okey-dokey with it.
Fundie: Um…not in the New Testament!
Me: So can you show me where the verse is that changed it? When did God say, exactly, “No more polygamy, I’ve changed My mind?”

Inevitably we hop-skip into “people will start marrying animals” and “people will start marrying kids”, which are even easier if you remind them that both parties have to be consenting (um, human) adults for a contract to be binding.

Not that it makes a dent with the hard cases—because what they really mean deep down is “I am freaked out by same-gender sex, and also possibly intrigued, and I want to smack it down before it spreads like wildfire and my son gets Teh Gay!!!” or something similar.

Everybody,

Please vote for prop 8 and protect marriage and children. Every child deserves a mother and a father.

So, okay, please tell me if I got my facts straight: the California supreme court overturned a previous proposition against gay marriage. And if this new proposition passes, it will overturn the supreme court’s decision. So can’t the supreme court just overturn the proposition again and keep doing this every couple of years until same sex marriage gets turned into federal law?

Hi, LKM.

You seem to have turned down a wrong alley, there.  If you go back a few blocks and turn left, it takes you directly to Bigotville.

Thanks for visiting.

2 people of the same sex shouldn’t be getting married..2 men? or 2 women getting married? that’s not marriage, whats wrong with you people?  It will never be a marriage. Give the children a break, they have enough to deal with.

Hi LKM,

In the Bible, a marriage is between a man and his wives.  Do you mean that’s the definition of marriage we should follow?

Or is it the definition of marriage as a system of property transfer between owners (father to husband)?

What would your definition of marriage be, again?

To procreate and to have children?  Well, then what about those childless couples that cannot conceive or do not choose to conceive?  That chose not to have children, either through conception or means such as adoption?  Do they have a marriage or not?

If you’re referring to marriage between a man and a woman, do you mean the 1,7400 legal rights that is conferred upon the husband and wife as by the state? If so, how do you reconcile that with the fact that those marriages are authorized by the state, a secular, legal authority?

If you are referring to marriage between a man and a woman, as consecrated by the church, I do believe that freedom of religion is in the Bill of Rights, and so, by denying the state the legal right to confer marriage benefits for same sex couples, you are discriminating against other religions that do believe that two men can marry and that two women can marry?

Do you have any real reason to oppose marriage equality, other than your own bigotry and ignorance of the real-life impact upon children of those marriages?  Is it just the ick factor? The fact that you are embracing purposefully ignorant beliefs that have no basis whatsoever in reality?

And last, why the fuck are you here on Pandagon spouting this shit?  It’s not like you’ll win any converts over here.  What, does it make you feel good preaching to us heathens?

Well, get the fuck out, then.  You’re wasting your time and ours.

Good night.

trista—

unfortunately, there are two types of props in california—statues and constitutional amendments.  the one the calif supreme court declared unconstitutional was a statue amendment (prop 22 passed in 2000 iirc)—something the court can overturn.  prop 8 is a constitutional amendment—in theory the supreme court is then supposed to treat it as part of the calif constitution if it passes (whereas prop 22 was just an ordinary statute the court could strike down as violating the constitution).

not being a lawyer or anything, I am still hopeful that the supreme court could strike prop 8 down because it violates basic rights of freedom as described in their decision striking down prop 22.  but hopefully it won’t come to that and prop 8 will just die

oops—that was for brista, not trista

LKM, as a teenaged bisexual girl, I think I count as being close enough to a kid to answer you.

Us kids? We’re not in any way shape or form effected negatively by gay marriage.

And my religious parents have probably done way, way, WAY more harm to me thanks to their “you’re lying to yourself/you just need to pray/we love you BUT…” attitude than any gay couple will ever do to me by getting married and being happy. The best break you and my parents could ever give me would involve shutting up. Trust me on this one.

(And if you ignore this, you have officially proved that you aren’t even worth talking to.)

... Back on topic, Prop 8 makes me glad I live in Canada, and sad for the state of my neighbouring countries.

Wait, how many neighboring countries does Canada have?  (OK, ok, I mean “next door”—maritime borders don’t count.)

It’s a shame that a place I have such a connection to (I grew in SD my family still lives there) could turn even 5,000 for this ridiculous kind of shit.  It’s sad.  That’s really all I can say.

She *is* a kid, Eric. I think you should give her a pass on her figurative use of the plural form.

LKM -

Please go back to your megachurch and worship Ted Haggard.

No love,

me

Are those corporate logos up there on the stage (Sprint, Pepsi, Toyota) indicative of support of this rally, or were they sponsors of the venue?

Is that a Toyota logo in the second photo? Does the collapse of the US auto industry mean there’s now an opening for a pro-bigotry carmaker? If Toyota neither explains, apologizes, or makes amends, is that reason enough for a lifelong boycott?

You know, one thing that really peeves me in this whole debate is the fact that the fundies like to say that Marriage Equality endangers their freedom of religion, but the truth is, it doesn’t rather their opposition endangers MY FREEDOM OF RELIGION. If you don’t want to marry a particular couple as a clergy person, you don’t have to. For example, Catholics require marriage education classes and the commitment of a couple to raise their children Catholic in order to receive the sacrament of marriage. Accomodation laws DO NOT APPLY. However, I’m a Unitarian Universalist and I am ordained to perform marriage ceremonies. My faith tradition SUPPORTS marriage equality and the rights of GBLTQQ individuals, yet I CANNOT perform a legally binding ceremony for a loving same-sex couple, though I can for heterosexual couples. That impinges on my freedom of religion. If you, as a clergy person, are against same-sex marriage, you can simply refuse to perform the ritual, as you can to heterosexual couples that you find to be incompatible for marriage. If a straight or gay couple came to my office and were fighting the entire time they were discussing wedding details, I probably would decline to perform the ceremony (this has never happened, but I’m trying to come up with an example in which I might perform a wedding for a couple). Because weddings are a ritual, a sacrament in some religions, clergy have discretationary rights. So, stop, Fundies, trying to take away my freedom of religion.

The logos are on the scoreboard and have nothing to do with the rally.  From what I could see looking at the high res stuff on rex’s site, there were no corporate logos on the stage of any kind.

Here we have a large block of citizens that believe that the <strike>courts</strike> framers of California’s constitution got it wrong by leaving out explicitly discriminatory language. What is their redress isf they can’t get the legislature to act hastily by adding said disciminatory language? The referendum.

Fixed that for you, Rob. Again. Keep trying, though, as it gives me continued opportunities to destroy a bogus right wing talking point aimed at getting well-intentioned but low-info voters to accept this piece of crap legislation.

The Xtian fantasists (and their supporters, like Rob) would make the argument that Prop 8 is just reg’lar folks fighting back against evil (i.e liberal) “activist judges” and do-nothing legislators. In fact, the Xtian fantasists earlier succeeded in getting their legislators to pass an anti-gay marriage law, which the CA Supreme struck down because it was clearly unconstitutional. Since the legislators see no point in going through the process of adding discriminatory (i.e. subtractive) language to the state constitution, the Xtian fantasists (who have all the mature patience of my candy-loving 6 year old niece on 9PM last Halloween) took advantage of the initiative process to amend the constitution.

“Democracy at its finest”? Only in the very narrowest sense of the concept of democracy.

2 people of the same sex shouldn’t be getting married..2 men? or 2 women getting married? that’s not marriage, whats wrong with you people?  It will never be a marriage. Give the children a break, they have enough to deal with.

What’s the source of that opinion? If your answer involves a book written by a group of bronze age and iron age authors, or some brand of Invisible Bearded Sky Man&tm;, you’re going to have to do a lot better if you want the California constitution re-written to include discriminatory language. And if you’re going to cite studies about damage to “the chillllllddddreeeennnn,” please make sure they’re peer reviewed (by real universities with real childl psychology faculties—places like Bob Jones and Liberty don’t count).

I have a lesbian relative in CA who married her partner—one of the most complementary marital partnerships I’ve seen, straight or gay. In fact, it’s one of the few marriages that makes this single heterosexual guy suspect it may be a worthwhile institution for him after all.

Eric, ... Let’s blame that one on it being two in the morning at the time, hahaha.

Yeah, the one-man, one-woman rule evident in the New Testament was imposed by the Romans, a (gasp) pretty pagan outfit. Fundies back then would have been demanding polygamy.

Oh I wasn’t carping (re Canada neighbors), Mercury, just double-checking <u>my own</u> geographic knowledge.

Like: Is Greenland its own nation??  (3 seconds w/Wiki gets the answer—Danish PROVINCE!!!!—rhetorical questions are gonna have a hard row to hoe in the future.)

(Danish PROVINCE!!!  Dang.)
(So that means one of the Canadian maritime neighbors is Denmark!!!)  ::headslap::

Ugh…

there were about 40 or 50 Yes on 8 protesters near my office this morning. They’ve expanded their message beyond “protect marriage”—now, a vote on 8 will “reduce government,” be a vote for “freedom of speech,” and my personal favorite: “THEY want to condition children; WE want to protect them.”

At least they’re being more open about the true meaning of this proposition…teh gays are going to get our kids unless we…don’t let them marry? Wait a minute…

The truly hilarious part of this is that all these idiots have actually caused my 5-year-old daughter to ask about the issue; she thinks telling anyone who they can’t marry is “stupid,” although she finds the thought of two boys marrying hilarious (for some reason, she’s totally cool with the idea of 2 moms).

Religion has little to do with marriage, which is a civil contract dissolved in the civil courts originally devised to benefit men and disempower women, those scary folk who can have babies. 

Freedom of religion = freedom from religion.

Little known fact by those who want everybody to believe in their very odd brand of magic: 

Gay Marriage Isn’t Mandatory.

I’m a ninth-generation atheist and not gay.  To me, the reluctance by some to support equal rights for all is wasting a lot of valuable time and getting far too much attention in media.  Screw the haters, let’s move forward on this and other issues.

Here’s a fascinating link with which to make Yes to 8 heads explode:

http://www.wouldjesusdiscriminate.org/biblical_evidence/gay_couple.html

The story of the centurion and his “servant”, with the original Greek translated and explained in context, showing the meaning was meant to be the centurion’s male lover.

Great stuff.

On PostSecret today, there’s a card proudly proclaiming the owner’s vote fraud—he or she has been sifting through early ballots and removing all the “no on 8” votes.

I give up. People are defrauding the system and **bragging** about it, bragging about their idiocy, hate, and criminality.

I’m en route to Canada now…the plan was to return if Obama wins. But now I don’t think I’m coming back either way. This country makes me sick.

On PostSecret today, there’s a card proudly proclaiming the owner’s vote fraud—he or she has been sifting through early ballots and removing all the “no on 8” votes.

If this is the postcard you’re talking about, I read it as the author keeping (as in holding back from mailing) the “Yes on 8” ballots and only mailing in the “No” ones to be counted. Which is still vote fraud, but isn’t cause to give up on a liberal America and move to Canada.

As much as I loathe Prop. 8, I hope this guy is caught or that the postcard is a poor joke. No excuse for that crap.

I read it as the author keeping (as in holding back from mailing) the “Yes on 8” ballots

I read it as they were responsible for passing along the ballots, and only kept (for passing along) the ones reading “Yes.”

But yes, either way I find it reprehensible. Between that and the outpouring of pure, unabashed racism and idiocy (aka The Sarah Palin Variety Hour) I really doubt I can stomach coming back. I mean…this is what we’ve got? As a country? I just don’t know. I thought I’d be feeling more optimistic about the nation, by now. But I’ve moved past anger to sadness and sickness. And I don’t want it to progress one step further to violence, so…

(I did, however, consider that it could be all bluster and bullshit…I imagine the vast majority of those cards ARE, which makes the genuine ones all the sadder).

(So that means one of the Canadian maritime neighbors is Denmark!!!)

I can see Denmark from Montana.

Eh, I read that Secret as saying that s/he was keeping for hirself the Yes ones and mailing in the No ones. Still vote fraud.

Also, LKM (=KLM) was banned ages ago. It’s not working, kid.

(Oh, and thanks for linking the story, Mhorag - I was familiar with it, but I didn’t know that the word the centurion uses is actually the word for a same-sex partner. Lovely thing to know!)

My comeback for “what about the children - they deserve two parents!” is to advocate for elimination of divorce.  That usually provokes a change of subject.

(So that means one of the Canadian maritime neighbors is Denmark!!!) ::headslap::

Hey, really? I’m going to have to store that in the “relatively useless information that actually comes in useful quite often” creases of my brain!

Proposition 8 is the reason I traveled nearly 200 miles roundtrip to vote early last Tuesday. I unexpectedly had to move just before the election and stupidly hadn’t requested an absentee ballot.  I live in California, so Obama for prez is a foregone conclusion and I’m not as worried about Proposition 4 (parental notification of a minor’s abortion) as perhaps I should be, but similar measures have been defeated twice now. The unknown nail-biter for me is Proposition 8. That bill needs to be shot down for the filthy hatefulness it is and I couldn’t risk NOT voting against it. I’m very nervous about it, as I am nervous as about Obama on the national election. I feel my heart beating so fast all the time with hope and fear for both these important events.