My cartoon for this week’s Baltimore OUTLoud…

I’ve been paying so much attention to my AAEC presence I’ve woefully neglected my own political cartoon pages.  I will be working on bringing them back up to date soon.

Baltimore OUTLoud (Hey, I do political cartoons for them!) wins the 2011 aRGies!

Congratulations to my fellow contributors, and especially to my editor, Steve Charing.     Great Job!   We done good!

Now that I’m offically a member of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists my bi-weekly cartoon chores for Baltimore OUTLoud will be taking on some additional tasks.   I need to be more punctual about updating the cartoon page here for one thing.   OUTLoud will be carrying my cartoons on their page soon, and I can now create a small space of my own on the AAEC web site.   Since I don’t do this as my primary occupation, I am an “associate” member, not a “regular” one.   The difference is regular members get to vote in the board elections and post their cartoons in the main cartoon space.   I don’t begrudge them that…those folks are trying to earn a living in an economy that is very bad for cartoonists of any sort, let alone editorial cartoonists.

I’ve no illusions now about ever earning a living by my artwork alone.   I’m just not that competitive a soul for one thing.   But also, my cartoons can get brutal.   My aim isn’t merely to provoke…I have always believed that political cartoons are best when the artist takes a passionate stand for (or against, but mostly for) something.   But that’s not a selling point to newspaper editors in today’s climate…

More over at The Cartoon Page.

After decades of demonizing gay people and blasting devotion of same-sex couples as fraudulent, Maggie Gallagher suddenly surprises everyone by announcing she thinks she has a heart…

“The suicide of that teen was not only a tragedy it was a crime. The young people who violated laws out of mindless desire to bully or embarrass or whatever the heck kids do this stuff will be prosecuted and probably jailed, I hope. Nothing in the press accounts suggest the kids who did this were motivated by homophobia, and the cruelty of cyberbullying is causing teen suicides among those who are not gay, as well. I do not think the absence of gay marriage is the cause of these tragedies or its presence will resolve them. We can make this a symbol of all our other fights, or we can try to save all our kids, gay and straight, from this kind of ugly and mindless cruelty. My heart goes out to the family of the young man. God bless him and them.” – Maggie Gallagher, commenting on NOM’s blog.

Ugly mindless cruelty?   Like this…?

“A group of San Francisco first-graders took an unusual field trip to City Hall on Friday to toss rose petals on their just-married lesbian teacher – putting the public school children at the center of a fierce election battle over the fate of same-sex marriage,” the front page story by Jill Tucker begins.

In fact, the parents who decided to surprise the beloved schoolteacher didn’t put the children “at the center of a fierce election battle” – the Chronicle did for sensationalism.

According to blogger Paul Hogarth in his Oct. 24 dissection of the piece for Beyond Chron and Daily Kos (“SF Chronicle Jeopardizes Marriage Equality”),  Tucker said that “the parents who organized the trip actively sought media coverage—and the paper decided on its own that it was ‘news’ enough to deserve front-page treatment.”

Since lesbian weddings were legal then, one can image that the parents might have expected any coverage to go in the back with the other wedding announcements. On Oct. 26 two aggrieved parents sent a letter to the Yes on 8 campaign and the Chronicle complaining about their children “being exploited and used as pawns” by the Yes campaign which downloaded the front page picture from the Chronicle’s website to use in their ads.

Sapphocrat, who blogs at LavenderLiberal, complained vociferously about the Chronicle’s failure to put the field trip into the larger context of the Creative Arts Charter School’s philosophy.

But the damage was done. In an in-depth interview with me after Prop 8 passed, campaign consultant Steve Smith said they were winning back the critical undecided women’s vote until the Yes ad featuring the Chronicle story on the lesbian teacher.

That post by Karen Ocamb centers on the roll of the San Francisco Chronicle in instigating the successful Yes On 8 attack ads which used that teacher’s wedding as a hook for their The Homos Are Invading Your Schools To Turn Your Kids Gay message.   But lurking in the background of her story is this simple, brutal fact: Maggie Gallagher and her fellow travelers in the Proposition 8 battle used the love those kids had for their teacher as a knife to cut their teacher’s ring finger off.

But she wants to save kids from mindless cruelty.   Right.   And Osama Bin Laden wants to save them from terrorist attacks.

More cartoons on The Cartoon Page…and many more in the archives I’ve been neglecting to update for so long…

I’ve updated the cartoon page…

A bunch of stuff from OUTLoud, and a few others…all on the Political Cartoon Page.  I’m continuing work on A Coming Out Story as well…and hope to have more episodes up by the end of the year…

A few readers here have asked me what’s up with the silence.  It’s nothing serious…just life apart from the web.  I’ve been real super busy with a major high visibility project at work and I’ve been putting in a lot of overtime on it.  That’s "non-comp" time for all you salaried workers out there.  But I don’t mind.  Working at Space Telescope has been a dream come true for me, and the vacation package is so nice here I really don’t mind putting in long hours on something.

I have a bunch of stuff I want to talk about…but first, I’ve posted a bunch of new cartoons to the political cartoon page…two of which have been published in our local Baltimore gay paper, OUTLoud.  I have a steady gig with them now and it’s been a real source of satisfaction seeing my cartoons in print.  I’ve been published elsewhere but just randomly, whenever someone somewhere takes an interest in one of my cartoons and asks for reprint rights.  This seems like it’s going to be a real steady gig so I’m delighted.  Cartooning was the first love.

Here’s one I didn’t get into this month’s issue…

There’s more on the cartoon page.  Hopefully, more to come soon as I get back into this.  I have several other fun-er cartoons on the drawing boards, including the next episode of A Coming Out Story.  Plus several political cartoons I didn’t put up from way back.  You may have noticed that the last cartoon was from the aftermath of Proposition 8, and before that practically nothing for almost a year.  I was just getting burned out on it, burned out on staring hate in the face week after week after week.

So I’ll try to post some more stuff soon.  I have lots to talk about.  But end of next week I’m going to disappear again for a while and visit Disney World in Orlando for my birthday and try to leave the ugliness behind.  There are two anti same-sex marriage referendums coming up and it seems every time I look at the news I’m seeing anti-gay crap that just makes me angrier and angrier and venting about it here and on the cartoon page only gets it out of me a little.  I’m at a stage in my life where I just want to bale out of civilization altogether and forget that I ever heard of the likes of NOM and Proposition 8 and so many people who don’t know me from Adam but keep screaming in my face that I’m a cancer on society…but they have nothing against gay people personally.

I see they’re agreeing to have a "civil" campaign over same sex marriage…

Gay-marriage supporters and foes on Thursday exchanged vows to take the high road in their campaigns in an anticipated referendum.

The lead organization fighting to keep the state’s gay-marriage law on the books made its request of Frank Schubert of Schubert Flint Public Affairs. Schubert Flint led the successful Proposition 8 proposal to overturn same-sex marriage in California, and it has been hired to do the same in Maine.

"Maine voters expect us to take the high road, avoid poisonous attacks, and make our case based on fact and principle. Today, NO on 1 pledged to abide by that high standard," said Jesse Connolly, campaign manager for NO on 1/Protect Maine Equality.

Reached in Washington, D.C., Frank Schubert said his firm’s campaign to toss out Maine’s gay-marriage law will be conducted in an ethical manner.

"I’m not sure what point they’re attempting to make, but every campaign we’ve run has been an ethical campaign based on factual information. We plan to run exactly that type of campaign in Maine," Schubert said Thursday.

Do I really need to explain the hopelessness of agreeing to a civil debate with the architects of the Proposition 8 campaign?  Particularly when these thugs still think that campaign of smears, lies and hatemongering hysteria Was eithical?  And…Factual?

Let’s Review some of the ethics and factuality on display in California shall we…?

The Proposition 8 Playbook Of Lies…

The L.A. Times knocks down a few…

The campaign promoting Proposition 8, which proposes to amend the state Constitution to ban same-sex marriages, has masterfully misdirected its audience, California voters. Look at the first-graders in San Francisco, attending their lesbian teacher’s wedding! Look at Catholic Charities, halting its adoption services in Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal! Look at the church that lost its tax exemption over gay marriage! Look at anything except what Proposition 8 is actually about: a group of people who are trying to impose on the state their belief that homosexuality is immoral and that gays and lesbians are not entitled to be treated equally under the law.

That truth would never sell in tolerant, live-and-let-live California, and so it has been hidden behind a series of misleading half-truths. Once the sleight of hand is revealed, though, the campaign’s illusions fall away.

Take the story of Catholic Charities. The service arm of the Roman Catholic Church closed its adoption program in Massachusetts not because of the state’s gay marriage law but because of a gay anti-discrimination law passed many years earlier. In fact, the charity had voluntarily placed older foster children in gay and lesbian households — among those most willing to take hard-to-place children — until the church hierarchy was alerted and demanded that adoptions conform to the church’s religious teaching, which was in conflict with state law. The Proposition 8 campaign, funded in large part by Mormons who were urged to do so by their church, does not mention that the Mormon church’s adoption arm in Massachusetts is still operating, even though it does not place children in gay and lesbian households.

How can this be? It’s a matter of public accountability, not infringement on religion. Catholic Charities acted as a state contractor, receiving state and federal money to find homes for special-needs children who were wards of the state, and it faced the loss of public funding if it did not comply with the anti-discrimination law. In contrast, LDS (for Latter-day Saints) Family Services runs a private adoption service without public funding. Its work, and its ability to follow its religious teachings, have not been altered.

That San Francisco field trip? The children who attended the wedding had their parents’ signed permission, as law requires. A year ago, with the same permission, they could have traveled to their teacher’s domestic-partnership ceremony. Proposition 8 does not change the rules about what children are exposed to in school. The state Education Code does not allow schools to teach comprehensive sex education — which includes instruction about marriage — to children whose parents object.

Another "Yes on 8" canard is that the continuation of same-sex marriage will force churches and other religious groups to perform such marriages or face losing their tax-exempt status. Proponents point to a case in New Jersey, where a Methodist-based nonprofit owned seaside land that included a boardwalk pavilion. It obtained an exemption from state property tax for the land on the grounds that it was open for public use and access. Events such as weddings — of any religion — could be held in the pavilion by reservation. But when a lesbian couple sought to book the pavilion for a commitment ceremony, the nonprofit balked, saying this went against its religious beliefs.

The court ruled against the nonprofit, not because gay rights trump religious rights but because public land has to be open to everyone or it’s not public. The ruling does not affect churches’ religious tax exemptions or their freedom to marry whom they please on their private property, just as Catholic priests do not have to perform marriages for divorced people and Orthodox synagogues can refuse to provide space for the weddings of interfaith couples. And Proposition 8 has no bearing on the issue; note that the New Jersey case wasn’t about a wedding ceremony.

Emphasis mine.  Go read the rest of it. 

But then, asking how you can possibly have a civil debate with an opponent who lies through their teeth every chance they get is begging the larger question.  Tell me please, what exactly is civil about wanting to cut your neighbor’s ring finger off?  The very premise of the debate is about as uncivil as they come.  There is nothing else this can be, but a knife fight.  That’s exactly what our enemies not only need it to be, but want it to be.  They hate us.  They want everyone else to hate us as much as they do.  Or at least be afraid of us.  Very, very afraid.  There is no such thing as a civil debate about whether or not gay people are a danger to families and children.  There is no such thing as a civil debate about whether gay people are seeking to bring about the fall of western civilization.  There is no such thing as a civil debate about whether same-sex couples defile the very meaning of marriage.  There is nothing civil about prejudice.  There is nothing civil about hate.  There is nothing civil about mob rule.

I could change the caption on this guy representing the Massachusetts Family Institute to one of any of the dozens and dozens of anti gay crusaders out there who insist when the cameras are turned on them that they want to keep the debate civil while spreading every filthy lie about gay people they can think of to their base and just keep reusing this cartoon over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over…

I rarely sketch out my cartoon ideas before I begin work on them.  Nearly always, I picture it in my mind.  I have a good imagination.  Maybe too good.  I can disappear into it for hours at a time.   My political cartoons begin as imagery that just comes to mind as I read about, or think about current events.  Occasionally I’ll grab one as it passes by, and work on it, entirely inside my brain.  When I actually start to draw something, I almost always approach the paper seeing what I want to draw clearly and exactly in my mind.  This is pretty much how I draw and paint everything, the only difference being when I paint I will do a quick color study first. 

As the fight over California Proposition 8 approached voting day, I had two cartoons already done inside my head, one of which I hoped I wouldn’t have to draw.  Had the vote gone the other way, I might have just waited until the weekend to do the other, more light-hearted one.  It might even have stayed on the drawing board, like so many other half-finished cartoons have this past year.  But this pretty much expresses how I feel right now, and I just had to get it out now.  I have nearly two months of vacation time stored up at work, and I took the day off (mostly…I still had things I had to do from home) so I could get this out of my system…

Copyright © November 5, 2008 by Bruce Garrett
All Rights Reserved.

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It’s horrible to say it…but I have a new-found interest in doing these now.  And…more spare time to do them since I’m not visiting people I know down in Washington every Friday-Saturday now.  But that’s another spill-my-guts-out story for another time…