Chambers: We’re being portrayed as group of people making judgments on peoples’ lives whereas I and thousands of others like me, who experienced same-sex attraction, are trying to live out our lives through the filter of our faith, not through the filter of our sexuality…
…he said, making a judgment not just on gay people (they live their lives through the filter of their sexuality), but also on gay Christians (they place a higher value on sex then they do their faith). Yes, yes…it’s all about sex with homosexuals, isn’t it, Alan.
You manipulated Cooper so deftly there. I’m impressed. That what years of talking parents into throwing their gay kids into your soul grinder has done for you?
On Monday, the State Department issued a joint statement in the UN’s Human Rights Council opposing the criminalization of homosexuality. Currently, well over 70 countries impose criminal penalties for gays and lesbians, and the statement has the support of 84 countries. According to the Family Research Council, however, the US is committing a great injustice by condemning the criminalization of people because of their sexual orientation. The FRC dubs it “Operation International Tolerance,” complete with a picture of Obama wearing a rainbow helmet
And here comes the double-speak…
Obviously, FRC believes that homosexuals and transgenders shouldn’t be subjected to violence. But this resolution goes well beyond that to endorsing a behavior that dozens of member nations oppose. No binding document of international law has ever recognized a universal “human right” to engage in sex with a person of the same gender. And although even the U.N. admits that “resolutions” like this one “aren’t legally binding,” they do help to create a legal norm.
[Emphasis mine] As though rounding up gay people and locking them behind bars isn’t an intrinsically violent act. But pay attention to that business about legal norms. In his 1990 essay The Hypocrites of Homosexualty Orson Scott Card acknowledges what most other right wing culture warriors only soft peddle in public: that sodomy laws exist mainly to create a climate of fear among gay people…
Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society’s regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
The goal of the polity is not to put homosexuals in jail. The goal is to discourage people from engaging in homosexual practices in the first place…
This can’t be emphasized enough: right wing culture warriors really do want homosexuality criminalized. This fight isn’t just about marriage, hospital visitation rights, the ability of gay Americans to hold down a job, get a professional license, or walk into a restaurant and expect the same service anyone else gets. It’s about fear. Gay people must be afraid. Every minute of every day, we must be afraid. And we are not. And that makes them angry. They are angry that we can live our lives openly, that we don’t have to worry about being turned into the police by some neighbor or co-worker with a grudge and get thrown in jail. They hate it that we don’t have to be afraid.
Because a fearful homosexual is a good homosexual. A fearful homosexual isn’t merely one who does not agitate for civil rights. We must be afraid just to live our lives openly. The closet must be our world. It must go back to this, all over again:
“If only we didn’t hate ourselves so much…if only we could just not hate ourselves quite so very much…” -Michael, The Boys In The Band
We must hate ourselves, at least as much if not more then they hate us. Because then we will never know the one thing we must never be allowed to know: what it is to be loved, and to love another… wholeheartedly… joyfully… body and soul.
Because love stays the course. Because love can move mountains. Because the one thing you never want the scapegoat to be able to do, is move mountains.
Drew Call, 32, a returned missionary who is gay, was a supervisor in the church’s printing department until March 7. At a February private meeting with his Salt Lake City stake president—who declined to be interviewed—Call says he was asked to abandon his gay friends as a condition for renewal of his temple recommend. Surprised and fearing people may not believe him, Call surreptitiously made an audio recording of the follow-up meeting in March so there could be no doubt about what happened.
…The recording makes clear that Call’s association with gay people was the problem.
Call is gay, but celibate as the church (sic) requires. His sexuality wasn’t the issue here…it was his gay friends.
On the recording, the stake president expresses concerns that Call recently had taken his daughters to “gay bingo,” a monthly charitable fundraiser hosted by the Utah Pride Center and the drag/comedy troupe Utah Cyber Sluts. “I think it’s inappropriate to take children, and I really think it’s inappropriate for you to go, myself, to this gay bingo,” the stake president says on the recording. Later, the stake president says of the gay community, “They are conducting themselves in a manner that is definitely in opposition to teaching and practices of the gospel. I’ve talked to you about this, about your association with [gay people]. Last time you left here, you were willing to give up your four, or so, individuals.” Call responded that he’d thought about it, but wasn’t willing to give up his gay friends after all.
To receive or maintain a temple recommend, Mormons must answer certain standardized questions. The stake president says on the recording that the question Call could not answer honestly asks, “do you support, affiliate with or agree with any group or individuals whose teaching or practices are contrary to or opposed to those accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?” The stake president goes on to say that that question applies to Call’s gay friends “because of the moral decay that is going in the world and that’s part of it. The church opposes the relationship between a man and a man and a woman and a woman, and you’re associating with those individuals. I don’t know how to get around that.”
“So what are you going to do?” Call asked.
“You’re going to have to look for a job,” the stake president replied.
Read this carefully. The prohibition against having gay friends, as outlined by this “stake president”, is unconditional. Clearly it applies to Everyone. Mormon or not, gay or straight, it matters not. Anyone can be fired from LDS employment simply for having gay friends.
This is how serious this organization is behind the scenes about its anti-gay kulturkampf. It’s not just a matter of Insular Cult Administration 101, which says you mercilessly punish those who shake hands with people on the other side of the barbed wire fence because once they get the slightest taste of the world outside the compound next thing you know they’re out of there. Beyond that aspect of it there is this: when the scapegoat becomes human, persecuting them becomes immoral.
There’s the bottomless fear. Not of the moral decay of the world, but that the world begins to see, clearly, sickeningly, the moral decay within. That can never come to pass. The people must never be allowed to reach out to the scapegoat, the hated other, for once they do the scapegoat becomes human, and then the questions start. Oh my god…what have we been doing to these people all this time…? So much pain we’ve inflicted on so many for so long…and for what? For what?
Today the subjects in the LDS pews fear the judgement of their leaders. But the reality is the leaders are much more afraid of the judgment of the pews, and that day is coming.
As with the SLK online owner’s manual we’ve shown you before, Mercedes-Benz has now launched the interactive manuals for the Mercedes-Benz C-Class (w204) compact executive car and the C-Class Estate station wagon (s204). -BenzInsider.com
Mercedes Benzwill equip their executive compact sedan, the Mercedes Benz C-Class 2012, with Nokia Terminal Mode technology. -Ninga Media
The ‘C’ comes in three flavors, only two of which are imported here to the States: the Sport and Luxury versions. So I note that Daimler is pushing the ‘C’ class Luxury now as its “Executive Compact Sedan”, and the first thought that crosses my mind is that little word “Executive” is good for an additional five or six grand on the sticker price.
But this is good. When the W204 first came out people were displeased at the reduced level of wood trim and other small refinements compared to the ‘E’. Initially there were no memory seats and other little things that raise the level of elegance and in their defense people said that the ‘C’ was never meant to be that anyway. But others like myself were thinking Daimler also didn’t want to take customers away from the ‘E’ which is their bread and butter “Executive” sedan. The smaller ‘C’ sold for less and if people could get ‘E’ class elegance in a less expensive car (and…seriously… we’re talking a Mercedes-Benz here…none of them are cheap!) they’d go get a ‘C’ instead.
But you would also want a ‘C’ if you’re like me, single, childless, and not needing a larger car. I’ve looked at the new ‘E’…it is just magnificent. I could afford one (barely). But it’s too much car for me. I just don’t need something that big. And the fuel economy hit is more then I can morally justify in a car that is 99 percent rolling down the road with just me in it. That gasoline is just being wasted and I am still, deep down inside, a waste not want not little Baptist boy. Okay…who drives a Mercedes-Benz. But still.
Small car = cheap basic transportation car is not such a simple calculation anymore. Rising gasoline costs and fleet fuel efficiency mandates require that car companies sell smaller, more fuel efficient cars. And German companies to their credit, are way more interested in being “green” then either American or Japanese car companies. So Daimler needs to aim for at least ‘E’ class elegance in the Mercedes ‘C’. There is no reason why a compact sedan cannot also be a sumptuous one, other then the stereotype of the compact car as inevitably being the basic transportation bare bones economy model. In an age of rising fuel costs, that has to change. The small car can be sumptuous too.
Now then…er…about that “Executive” thing…
Eddie Izzard…darn him. I watched Dressed To Kill and now I just can’t read anything with the word “Executive” in it nowadays without thinking of this bit…
“I’m much more in the executive transvestite area.”
Fucking weirdo transvestite…Executive transvestite. Fucking weirdo transvestite…Executive transvestite. Economy compact sedan…Executive compact sedan. Fucking weirdo transvestite…Executive transvestite… I am really not in the market for trading in the car I have now…I am still thoroughly happy with Traveler…I think it will eventually become one of those quarter to half million mile Mercedes you see every now and then in the pages of enthusiast magazines. Really, that’s how I feel about it. My instinct is to hold on to a car until it simply can’t be driven anymore and that’s one reason why I was attracted to the Mercedes brand back when I was a little teenage geek. Right now I feel like I can just spend the money on servicing and pampering my car and it will last forever. And Daimler will give you a special over quarter million kilometer grill badge when your Mercedes odometer clicks over that much. How many other car companies Want you to be proud you held on to the car that long? But I go to my dealer for routine service and I still wander around the showroom floor while Traveler is back in the shop…and I just know I will have to work at keeping a straight face when the sales agents pitch this executive compact sedan stuff at me. Yes yes, I’m much more in the executive compact sedan area…
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…
Looking at my server logs I see the recent release of the trailer to the coming Atlas Shrugged movie (part 1…and I’m not the only one guessing that the John Galt speech will probably amount to nearly the total running time of part 3…) has brought more then a few readers to my little corner of the net. More specifically this post. Cool.
I think the movie has at least a fighting chance of not being completely horrible that The Fountainhead never did, largely because the Atlas Shrugged movie has an advantage The Fountainhead didn’t; that Ayn Rand is dead and so she can’t fuck with the producers. But it still has the deadly problem of bringing Ayn Rand characters to life and seldom outside of the pornography industry have characters been drawn that are so deathly one-dimensional. Rand’s characters are little more then slapped together hand puppets she waves around in her morality plays. They’re not there to tell you anything about life and existence and what it is to be human, they’re there to let Rand create a world of her own where she could take revenge on everyone and everything in the real world she hated. But this is something people who have never actually read Atlas Shrugged need to see for themselves.
I am all about giving Atlas Shrugged its moment on the silver screen. Especially the part that takes place in Galt’s Gulch. If nothing else, that scene alone will convince a lot of people who might be otherwise bamboozled by it, that Rand’s claim to intellectual fame is pure hokum. I walked a reference back to one blog’s link to my post and found a link to this which is an even more priceless take-down of Galt’s Gulch then I could have ever done. But you would expect a farm boy to see the fundamental stupidity of it even more clearly then a kid from the suburbs like me…
The most egregious example of this comes in that pile of pap that Glenn Beck shucks like the Bible’s smarter, prettier sister: Atlas Shrugged. I have desire to go into a list of why that book is a pile of shit, at least not right now. But there is a moment in it that so completely sums up everything that is wrong with the Tea Party/Randite/Libertarian worldview that it is breathtaking in its elegant stupidity. It is when Dagny Taggart finally gets to Galt’s Gulch, and it is a breathtaking panorama of loveliness with fertile fields and little houses, and people fishing and etc. It’s para-fucking-dise. And John Galt himself leads Dagny around showing her all the wonderful things they’ve done. And there are oil pipes in the mountains, and fields full of…stuff (She’s not much for details, our Ayn.) And it’s the most hilarious moment in the book, because you realize, at that moment, that Ayn Rand has no clue how the world works.
See, I grew up on a farm. And I’m familiar with the sheer, bloody amount of work it takes to run a farm. Notice, I am not saying build a farm. Building a farm from scratch is an almost impossible undertaking. (Which is why *gasp* the pioneers did it all together in groups. No payment expected, just help out when its their turn. Buncha commies.)
Certainly, a few years after this project got started, they would still be on the frontier edge of starvation, desperately going hungry in the winter so they wouldn’t have to touch their seed corn for the next year, anxiously scanning the skies for clouds. Living in one room cabins. Of course, Rand handwaves this by essentially giving them cold fusion, but even so, it Doesn’t. Work. Like. That.
It is at that moment that you realize Rand probably never did a day of real work in her life.
And when you hear the Tea Partiers, or Glenn Beck naively parroting her back as if her words were found in the desert, cut into the living rock by the invisible hand of Adam Smith himself, it is worth remembering that a lot of them haven’t done an honest day’s work in their life either.
You need to read this whole thing. I had this image of this blogger, who grew up on a farm, reading this…
“…Since the time I saw you last, I have designed and manufactured just one new tractor. I mean one – I tooled it by hand – no mass production was necessary. But that tractor has cut an eight hour workday down to four hours on” – the straight line of his arm, extended to point across the valley, moved like a royal scepter; her eyes followed it and she saw the terraced green of hanging gardens on a distant mountainside – “the chicken and dairy farm of Judge Narragansett” – his arm moved slowly to a long, flat stretch of greenish gold at the foot of the canyon, then to a band of violent green – “in the wheat fields and tobacco patch of Midas Mulligan” – his arm rose to a granite flank striped by glistening tiers of leaves – “in the orchards of Richard Halley.”
…and breaking into fits of hysterical laughter. An Eight Hour Workday? An Eight Hour Workday???
Right there is Rand, and her cheerleaders on the lunatic right in a nutshell. Many of those right wing billionaires massively funding faux grassroots political movements like the Tea Party and poisoning the national dialogue with a variety of pseudo think tanks inherited their wealth. Below them are rank after rank of winger nutcases who have never had to work a day in their lives and never bothered to explore the world outside of their gated communities. They have not clue one how to earn a living. Theirs was essentially given to them and I suppose one of the reason the rest of the human world frightens them so much is they know we can survive just fine without them while they wouldn’t last a season without their trusts and hedge fund portfolios. They love Rand for her righteous assurance that only selfishness and greed are truly moral, that the true evil is to care for your neighbor and that somewhere in the Colorado Rockies is a beautiful fairy tale land wherein we who work for our living are the ones who cannot live without the likes of them.
There’s a lot of comment and some righteous snark going around the net over the Atlas Shrugged trailer. Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution writes, “Hank Rearden’s line about only wanting to earn money comes across as either a parody of Gordon Gecko or as something worthy of Gecko’s parody.” Since Gordon Gecko is a fictional character I can’t really make the comeback that Gecko got his greed is good lines from Rand and that he is the embodiment of her ideas, but it’s a fair guess that the writer who put those words in his mouth either had Rand in mind or some Wall Street asshole disciple of hers. Some of the thread comments are delightful like “Dagny drives a Camry?” But I particularly liked, “Anyway, since the passing of Leni Riefenstahl I can’t imagine anyone being able to give Atlas Shrugged the cinematic treatment Rand no-doubt believed it deserved.”
Yeah… If I could wave a magic wand and travel back in time to when both women were still alive, I’d get them both to agree to make the movie of Atlas Shrugged somehow without Rand being aware of who the director really was and Riefenstahl not being aware of whose book she was making a movie of. Then with the finished product absolutely delighting them both I’d then pull back the curtain and introduce them to each other, hand them each a knife, close the door and take bets on which one gets out alive. Bet I could make back both the production costs and the time-travel costs selling DVDs of the fight.
The Fourth Annual Casa del Garrett Valentine’s Day Poster Contest…(Part 3!)
Well it looks like we’ve come to the end of our fourth annual Valentine’s Day Poster Contest. And once more this year’s crop of disturbingly sincere losers worked even harder then last year’s to achieve that ultimate glory…which must make all our previous year’s losers feel even more pathetically inadequate. But that losing is a prize that never stops giving is what makes every Valentine’s Day so special. It’s like the finest wine…that feeling of losing out on the big prize only gets better and better as the years go by.
So lets all give this years worthy losers a pat on the back, a brief but sincere look of understanding, and some helpful advice to get out more and meet people!
Coming next: The Big Winner! You should probably have somewhere better to be then here with me…
The Fourth Annual Casa del Garrett Valentine’s Day Poster Contest…(Part 2!)
Yes…I know…I failed to show up Friday. And Saturday too. I’m sorry. I had to be somewhere else. I really wanted to get together with you but, you know, things happen. I was busy. This isn’t a good time. I’ll give you a call when I have time.
Happy Valentine’s Day Eve! It’s the big night before…when the message of that empty mailbox finally starts getting through. What…not even a card? Cheer up. Here are another three worthy entries to remind you that Valentine’s Day isn’t just about getting a last minute card with the same boilerplate love poem several thousand other people got too. It’s about holding in your hands proof that it’s the thought that counts. You should probably put that letter opener down now. No…seriously…
We’ll dash the hopes of three more worthy entries later today. And then…Tomorrow Is The Big Day!
The Fourth Annual Casa del Garrett Valentine’s Day Poster Contest…(Part 1!)
Once again right off the bat we have a selection of very worthy entries which would have absolutely won the Big Prize if only someone else hadn’t come completely out of nowhere to walk away with it, leaving them alone in the dust to wonder for the rest of their lives how they could have been so terribly wrong. Let’s all give these worthy losers a very brief but sincere look of understanding and then quickly change the subject.
More oh so sincere hopes and dreams will find the floor suddenly cut from beneath their feet, only to thrash their way to the bottom of the briny deep tomorrow…but we’ll keep the bad news from them for a while longer, letting them toss and turn all night long clutching at that slender chance that maybe, just maybe, just…maybe…it will all work out after all. It has to work out for me sometime doesn’t it? I can’t crash and burn Every time can I? But oh yes…oh yes you can…
The Fourth Annual Casa del Garrett Valentine’s Day Poster Contest!
Has it been a year already? Another bright-eyed and bushy tailed spring, ready and eager to take on the world with bright cheerful blossoms full of color and delight, fading…fading…into dogged summer, hanging on long after the blooms are just a playful memory, hanging on…hanging on…hanging on…then one final burst of hopeful autumn color, only to end up in the dead of winter buried in ice and snow, with nothing but brief barren daylight and bitter eternal cold to look forward to? Why…yes…yes it is!
It’s the time of year when we pay tribute to that which is most deeply human within us. The heart? Well…Not Exactly. That almost infinite ability of the human heart to bleed? Hahahaha…no. But close. No, no…we come together every time this year to celebrate the knife in the heart.
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Nothing says love like ten percent off! Eighty dollar roses for a mere twenty bucks! Valentine’s Day Lap Dances! It can only mean one thing…it’s time once again for our annual Casa del Garrett Valentine’s Day Poster Contest! A celebration of the spirit of Valentine’s Day, that traditionally begins with the following announcement:
We’re terribly sorry, but the deadline for entries has already passed. I’m afraid the deadline had already passed when I announced the start of this year’s contest. I know you must feel terrible about this. Don’t blame yourself. It isn’t you, it’s me. Please try to find it within yourself to forgive me.
Now that that’s out of the way, let us pause for a moment and reflect on our past. Because after all, endlessly digging up and reburying the past is part of what makes Valentine’s Day so very special! Here are some of our worthy losers from days gone by. They came oh so close to the big prize, only to walk away confused as to what went so terribly wrong. All those endless nights they have spent afterward tossing and turning, wondering what they could have done differently, was its own very special Valentine’s Day prize that they are all still enjoying to this very day!
These contestants gave it their all, only to have their personal best cast aside as if they never even existed. Then they all received our very special consolation prize handshake, followed by helpful advice to get out more often and meet people.
But our winners were truly one with the spirit of Valentine’s Day. This one, from our Very First poster contest is still my personal favorite:
But let us not forget our other winners, without whom there would not have been so many losers, so lost, so dazed and bewildered. This is one of our year two winners (Yes…there was a tie!)
And finally…our year three winner who gave us all words to live by…
This year’s crop of oh so painfully earnest hopefuls will have to work extra hard to achieve glory. They are going to have to give it everything they’ve got to give…only to spend the rest of their lives blaming themselves for not giving it even more when they had the chance. They will spend long sleepless nights minutely re-examining everything they did, trying to pin point exactly where they went wrong, then dreaming hopeless dreams of getting a second chance to do it all differently and make everything right again. If that scene in The Yearling where Jody shoots Flag is your favorite part of the movie then you have certainly come to the right place!
Tomorrow we begin our annual celebration of the knife in the heart. Love is in the bag! Let the twisting begin!
#7 In Our List Of Reasons Why Valentines’ Day Occurs In the Dead Of Winter…
VII
He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?
He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.
I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,
And went with half my life about my ways.
- A. E. Housman, from "Additional Poems"
The problem is you can’t fit that on a candy heart…
In our continuing series of posts plumbing the very heart and soul of Valentine’s Day…
Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.
To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
'Good-bye,' said you, `forget me.'
'I will, no fear', said I.
If here, where clover whitens
The dead man's knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,
Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word.
Thank you A. E. Housman for capturing it all so exquisitely well in this, and so many other fine poems…
Any guy who gives flowers on Feb. 14 is a blooming idiot.
So says Marc Rudov, a relationship expert in Los Gatos, Calif., who is on a campaign to get American men to boycott Valentine’s Day.
According to Rudov, who has authored books such as “Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze or Jumper Cables,” believes Valentine’s Day should be canceled permanently because it promotes unequality of the sexes.
No, no… That sense that you have been cast forever into the status of abject inferiority is all just part of the light-hearted carefree Fun! Smile…You Are Not Worthy!
Need some jumper cables there guy? Well…you could go buy yourself some flowers and chocolate and send yourself a Valentine’s Day card from that imaginary girl friend whose engine you crank every night at bedtime. Or…
…you could enter our Forth Annual Casa del Garrett Valentine’s Day Poster Contest! That is…if you can manage to slip your worthy entry in before the deadline passes. So Hurry…the deadline is February 5! You might just make it. It’s a slim, almost totally hopeless chance…one in a million. No…one in a zilllion. One in a Bazillion. You’d be crazy to even think of trying. But…isn’t that one slim chance of success in the face of certain doom worth the risk? You might just beat the odds after all. Maybe. Just maybe. If you don’t try you’ll wonder for the rest of your life if you might have won The Big Prize after all. So do it! Go for it man! Crank that engine! Remember…deadline is February 5th. If you give it your all you might just make it.
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