The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints didn’t just rend the marriages of thousands of devoted, loving same sex couples. They have ground under foot a good many longstanding community ties to local businesses too…
About 75 people showed up for the early lunch at El Coyote Cafe to listen to Marjorie Christoffersen explain her decision to contribute to the Yes on 8 Campaign. Most of those attending were men who had been customers of Margie’s restaurant for many years. Some were children of Mormons or had been raised in the faith. And while there was at least one who just wanted to vent his anger, most truly wanted to hear Margie out and, if possible, find a solution.
El Coyote Cafe has been a little neighborhood landmark for generations. Timothy Kincaid over at Box Turtle Bulletin, when news of Christoffersen’s donation first became public, said of it…
El Coyote Café is a Los Angeles landmark. Over 75 years old, and still family owned, it is perhaps best known as the site of Sharon Tate’s last meal.
Locals know it as a favorite of many of who just want a meal and a drink, and don’t want to pay much to get it. A taco and enchilada with rice and beans is $9.50; pair that up with a margarita and you’re out the door for less than twenty bucks.
El Coyote is also delightfully tacky with a vast collection of “art”, the kind that includes paintings with windows that light up and frames made of shells. The waitresses wear huge Spanish dresses with lots of frills and most have been there for decades. It’s loud, it’s high in fat content and calories, it’s unsophisticated, and it’s always always busy.
But what makes El Coyote a delight is that its one of those places that are loved by straights and gays alike…
No more. Marjorie’s is another of those thousand dollar donations that you just can’t ignore or write off as a simple response to the Mormon church’s call to support 8. A thousand dollars isn’t pocket change. You throw that kind of money at it, because you really want to see it pass.
And you certainly don’t want to see it undone afterward…
The first question to Margie was if she would be willing to make a personal contribution to the efforts to reverse the proposition. She responded, “I have to be faithful to my views and my church”, and quickly left the room. Her daughters remained behind, looking angry, dismissive, and indignant that those there would question their mother or them. They answered no questions nor made any statements.
And so it goes…
It was a very sad room that left today. I did not speak to anyone who said that they would continue to patronize the restaurant. They felt that they could no longer profit a woman who used their support to take away their rights. Many felt betrayed, some had lost a home.
No one stayed for lunch.
This is the sort of thing that leaves permanent wounds in a community. The Mormon church charged like a bull in a china shop through one state after another, one community after another, one family after another, with no regard or compunction for the damage it was inflicting. All the broken hearts left in the wake of Proposition 8, the wounds of the children, the wounds of the parents, the wounds of brothers, sisters, friends, neighbors, are so much worthless rubbish…the rubble righteous men are regrettably compelled to step over on their way to attaining godhood. Same sex couples had to be shut out of the marriage chapel. Same sex love had to be denied a place in the heart of every neighborhood, every home. If we don’t bleed, they aren’t righteous. If the Mormon leadership cannot rip to shreds our hopes and dreams of love, then how on earth will their god ever know how devoted they are to him? Our ring fingers had to be cut off, so they could become gods of their own private universes. What matters the wreckage a single community, or of thousands of communities, when your own godhood is at stake?
Word of the boycott has spread around websites and Facebook. "We should put our money where our mouth AND support is AND NOT AT EL COYOTE," says a posting on one activist’s website.
The Times also received a letter threatening a boycott of an El Pollo Loco whose owner apparently contributed to the Prop. 8 campaign.
Sonja Eddings Brown of ProtectMarriage.com said the boycott threats have extended beyond eateries.
“We have received calls today from our members in Greater Los Angeles and other parts of the state indicating that today their businesses are being hurt because they contributed money,” she said. “People who contributed have been receiving calls from people dropping their business with them.”
It matters not. Someday, they will be made gods for doing this.
Mormons continued to register their resignations with, and post resignation letters to Signing for Something this week, citing "hatred" and "discrimination" among their chief reasons for quitting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These resignations come among the continuing backlash against the Mormon Church’s involvement in passing California’s Proposition 8 last week to take away the right of civil marriage for gays and lesbians.
Excepts of a few recent letters are posted here, with links to the full letters.
I am a gay man who, after serving a [Mormon] mission to the Netherlands, left the mormon church (although not officially) as they have no place for me. I’ve always felt that I didn’t need to upset my family or make waves by requesting that my name be removed from the records. After all, I didn’t recognize the church’s authority anymore so what was the point?
Since the LDS church has decided to VERY PUBLICLY extend their hatred beyond their realm I’ve decided that the time has come to make my voice heard, too. I resigned membership recently as has one of my friends from California who was recently married to his partner of 28 years. See complete letter here:http://signingforsomething.org/…
But now I see that there isn’t a community or a place for me. There’s not a place for the people I love. The Church is not a place for anybody who believes in equal rights and the Constitution of the United States of America. The Church is not pro-marriage, it is anti-gay. The leadership fights for bigotry and hate. The God I grew up with was perfect in His Love and Justice. Shame on the men who act so disgracefully in His name. See complete letter here:http://signingforsomething.org/…
Entire families are resigning:
As a member of the LDS church I was always taught to love one another and to treat everyone with a certain amount of respect. The position the church took on this particular issue went against everything I learned from the church. Not only was the church’s position discriminatory, but it was also hateful.
I found it extremely strange that it took the church 14 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act to allow black members to hold the priesthood. I just excused this inaction as a mistake, but now as I see history repeat itself I realize that it wasn’t a mistake and the Mormon Church will always discriminate.
My whole family has been traumatized by the church’s efforts and will be sending in letters of resignations. See the complete letter here:http://signingforsomething.org/…
Emotions run deep.
For 45 years I served in every calling I was asked, in leadership, in service, in every capacity. I did it because I knew I was serving my Heavenly Father, a loving God. I continue to serve him and in doing so, I am resigning from this organization that I believe to be corrupt from the egos of mere men, that has strayed so far from its’ original mission to serve God and His people. See the complete letter here:http://signingforsomething.org/…
Resigning despite deep roots and strong ties:
I served an honorable and successful mission for the Church, and I am well aware of what is at stake. Though I will never forget–and do not regret–that experience, I cannot in good conscience remain a member of the Church.
I do not take this step lightly. My family connection with the Church is old and deep: my forebears were among the first handcart pioneers, arriving in the Salt Lake Valley in September of 1856. They endured much hardship for what they believed to be a just and righteous cause, and I am proud of that heritage. It is now time for me to honor their memory and take a stand for what I myself believe to be right.
The Church’s involvement in the effort to rescind a basic Constitutional right from California citizens is shameful and misguided. These are people whose desire to marry would only strengthen that civil institution, and would benefit and further family stability. And the campaign to deny them this right was a campaign of fear and lies, for which The Church should feel the deepest shame.
In offering their imprimatur to a mendacious, divisive, and unworthy political cause, Church leaders have, it seems to me, gone against both the spirit and the letter of Scripture, to wit:
"We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others;" See complete letter here:http://signingforsomething.org/…
Even some not resigning are suffering abuse from family members:
I believe in the rights of all people, that two homosexual people who love and want to be with each other should have the right to do so. I believe that this right should be granted unto all people . . . .Every day as I drove to and from school I would pass by a major intersection where members of my church took turns holding signs promoting Prop 8 and telling fellow supporters to honk in agreement. . . . One day I came home and my brother was at our home visiting with his children. He bluntly asked me if I had honked or not. I was startled by his accusing tone and told him I had not. His eyes took on a blind rage as he demanded the reason to why I hadn’t honked. I lied and told him my horn wasn’t working but he didn’t buy it. He told me with a vinomous voice, "that is the stupidest and worst excuse i’ve ever heard." It was difficult for me to hold my tongue as he continued to harrass me, but soon I simply left the room telling him I had homework to do. At this point I knew that my true political beliefs could never be revealed to my family. . . . I will not resign from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because I truly do love my religion, but that does not mean that I am willing to go against everything I know to be right just because our prophet has told me to. I think the church has no right to assume the inner thinkings of its members and take such an open stand of any political issue. . . . I love God, I love ALL people, I try to live the way God wants me to, I pray, I repent, I read the scriptures, I go to church. . . .I WILL NOT BE TOLD WHAT TO BELIEVE! So here I am, going against the church i’ve stood up for so many times, and for what? for the rights of the people, our people, we as the people. So sorry Bretheren, I love you, but I will not at this time stand by you as you attempt to make me your soldier of a war I don’t wish to fight. . . . I WILL STAND FOR WHAT I BELIEVE IN! Whether you will stand by me or stand against me, I WILL PREVAIL! And as my sunday school teachers have always taught me, "if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for everything." This is me standing, this is me choosing a side, and this is me telling all people that I WILL NOT STAY SILENT! See the entire letter here:http://signingforsomething.org/…
I guess they won’t have to excommunicate so many people after all…
Lisa West, regional spokeswoman for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said Eckern is a member "in very good standing" and the Mormon church supports his decision to resign.
Now you know how he could work side by side with gay people and shake their hands and smile in their faces, take their money, then cut off their ring fingers and wonder why everyone is so angry with him…
Holocaust survivors said Monday they are through trying to negotiate with the Mormon church over posthumous baptisms of Jews killed in Nazi concentration camps, saying the church has repeatedly violated a 13-year-old agreement barring the practice.
Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints say they are making changes to their massive genealogical database that will make it more difficult for names of Holocaust victims to be entered for posthumous baptism by proxy, a rite that has been a common Mormon practice for more than a century.
Now…look at this carefully. On the one hand they’re saying they’re trying to make it more difficult. But on the other…
In 1995, Mormons and Jews inked an agreement to limit the circumstances that allow for the proxy baptisms of Holocaust victims. Ending the practice outright was not part of the agreement and would essentially be asking Mormons to alter their beliefs, church Elder Lance B. Wickman said Monday in an interview with reporters in Salt Lake City.
“We don’t think any faith group has the right to ask another to change its doctrines,” Wickman said. “If our work for the dead is properly understood … it should not be a source of friction to anyone. It’s merely a freewill offering.”
Emphasis mine. Check out the massive weasel words there. They don’t think anyone has the right to ask a "faith group" to change their doctrines. But when it comes to other people’s faiths, it’s okay for them to unilaterally convert their dead, and never mind what they happen to think about that. They’re going to make your dead relatives Mormons whether you like it or not. A "freewill offering"…? Where’s the freedom to say ‘No’…? Oh…the free in "freewill offering" doesn’t apply to you…
Church spokesman Otterson said the church kept its part of the agreement by removing more than 260,000 names from the genealogical index.
But since 2005, ongoing monitoring of the database by an independent Salt Lake City-based researcher shows both resubmissions and new entries of names of Dutch, Greek, Polish and Italian Jews.
The researcher, Helen Radkey, who has done contract work for the Holocaust group, said her research suggests that lists of Holocaust victims obtained from camp and government records are being dumped into the database. She said she has seen and recorded a sampling of several thousand entries that indicate baptisms had been conducted for Holocaust victims as recently as July.
What a class act these people are. Note that one of the arguments raised in California’s proposition 8 battle was that same-sex marriage infringed on people’s religious freedom. But it’s okay to convert other people’s dead whether they want that or not.
I read Mark Twain’s review of The Book of Mormon in Roughing It back when I was in high school and couldn’t stop laughing, mostly because I’d read the Book of Mormon just prior to it. Another pair of helpful missionaries had come by the house and mom was never one to slam the door in anyone’s face, even if she thought they were numskulls. One afternoon I started flipping through The Book of Mormon they’d left behind and became fascinated that anyone could possibly take its drek seriously. For the next several weeks, whenever I could muster up enough stamina to read a few more pages of unmitigated crap, I plodded through the damn thing. It was probably the hardest reading chore I’d ever set myself to.
I’d grown up in a Baptist household and had my nose shoved in the King James bible from an early age. Whatever doubts I’d begun having then about the faith I was raised in, there was no mistaking the Bible for the work of one man, just as there was absolutely no mistaking the Book of Mormon for anything but. It was a staringly obvious hack, written in the sort of strained King James bible-esq language you couldn’t mistake for the real thing unless you’d never once poked your nose into the real thing while paying attention. To read Twain eviscerate it was delightful. When Twain mocked Smith’s pet decorative phrase I felt vindicated. The words had lept out at me all through the book, every time my eyes beheld the damn things like a neon light screaming in my face that the whole book was one big sorry, pitiful hoax. Did I put enough And It Came To Passes in this thing? No…perhaps just one more…
Yet it did its work on people. And it still does. But not on this guy…
Roughing It – Chapter 16, pages 107-115
All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the "elect" have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so "slow," so sleepy; such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. If Joseph Smith composed this book, the act was a miracle – keeping awake while he did it was, at any rate. If he, according to tradition, merely translated it from certain ancient and mysteriously-engraved plates of copper, which he declares he found under a stone, in an out-of-the-way locality, the work of translating was equally a miracle, for the same reason.
The book seems to be merely a prosy detail of imaginary history, with the Old Testament for a model; followed by a tedious plagiarism of the New Testament. The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James’s translation of the Scriptures; and the result is a mongrel – half modern glibness, and half ancient simplicity and gravity. The latter is awkward and constrained; the former natural, but grotesque by the contrast. Whenever he found his speech growing too modern – which was about every sentence or two – he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. "And it came to pass" was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet.
The title-page reads as follows:
THE BOOK OF MORMON: AN ACCOUNT WRITTEN BY THE HAND OF MORMON, UPON PLATES TAKEN FROM THE PLATES OF NEPHI.
Wherefore it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites; written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the House of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile; written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation. Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed; to come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof; sealed by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by the way of Gentile; the interpretation thereof by the gift of God. An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also; which is a record of the people of Jared; who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people when they were building a tower to get to Heaven.
"Hid up" is good. And so is "wherefore" – though why "wherefore"? Any other word would have answered as well – though – in truth it would not have sounded so Scriptural.
Next comes:
THE TESTIMONY OF THREE WITNESSES.
Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that we, through the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, have seen the plates which contain this record, which is a record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanites, their brethren, and also of the people of Jared, who came from the tower of which hath been spoken; and we also know that they have been translated by the gift and power of God, for His voice hath declared it unto us; wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true. And we also testify that we have seen the engravings which are upon the plates; and they have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man. And we declare with words of soberness, that an angel of God came down from heaven, and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engravings thereon; and we know that it is by the grace of God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, that we beheld and bear record that these things are true; and it is marvellous in our eyes; nevertheless the voice of the Lord commanded us that we should bear record of it; wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, we bear testimony of these things. And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with Him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.
OLIVER COWDERY,
DAVID WHITMER,
MARTIN HARRIS.
Some people have to have a world of evidence before they can come anywhere in the neighborhood of believing anything; but for me, when a man tells me that he has "seen the engravings which are upon the plates," and not only that, but an angel was there at the time, and saw him see them, and probably took his receipt for it, I am very far on the road to conviction, no matter whether I ever heard of that man before or not, and even if I do not know the name of the angel, or his nationality either.
Next is this:
AND ALSO THE TESTIMONY OF EIGHT WITNESSES.
Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people unto whom this work shall come, that Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated, we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen; and we lie not, God bearing witness of it.
CHRISTIAN WHITMER,
JACOB WHITMER,
PETER WHITMER, JR.,
JOHN WHITMER,
HIRAM PAGE,
JOSEPH SMITH, SR.,
HYRUM SMITH,
SAMUEL H. SMITH.
And when I am far on the road to conviction, and eight men, be they grammatical or otherwise, come forward and tell me that they have seen the plates too; and not only seen those plates but "hefted" them, I am convinced. I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.
The Mormon Bible consists of fifteen "books"–being the books of Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mosiah, Zeniff, Alma, Helaman, Ether, Moroni, two "books" of Mormon, and three of Nephi.
In the first book of Nephi is a plagiarism of the Old Testament, which gives an account of the exodus from Jerusalem of the "children of Lehi"; and it goes on to tell of their wanderings in the wilderness, during eight years, and their supernatural protection by one of their number, a party by the name of Nephi. They finally reached the land of "Bountiful," and camped by the sea. After they had remained there "for the space of many days"–which is more Scriptural than definite—Nephi was commanded from on high to build a ship wherein to "carry the people across the waters." He travestied Noah’s ark–but he obeyed orders in the matter of the plan. He finished the ship in a single day, while his brethren stood by and made fun of it–and of him, too–"saying, our brother is a fool, for he thinketh that he can build a ship." They did not wait for the timbers to dry, but the whole tribe or nation sailed the next day. Then a bit of genuine nature cropped out, and is revealed by outspoken Nephi with Scriptural frankness–they all got on a spree! They, "and also their wives, began to make themselves merry, insomuch that they began to dance, and to sing, and to speak with much rudeness; yea, they were lifted up unto exceeding rudeness."
Nephi tried to stop these scandalous proceedings; but they tied him neck and heels, and went on with their lark. But observe how Nephi the prophet circumvented them by the aid of the invisible powers:
And it came to pass that after they had bound me, insomuch that I could not move, the compass, which had been prepared of the Lord, did cease to work; wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, insomuch that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they began to be frightened exceedingly, lest they should be drowned in the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be exceeding sore. And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea.
Then they untied him.
And it came to pass after they had loosed me, behold, I took the compass, and it did work whither I desired it. And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed, the winds did cease, and the storm did cease, and there was a great calm.
Equipped with their compass, these ancients appear to have had the advantage of Noah. Their voyage was toward a "promised land"–the only name they give it. They reached it in safety.
Polygamy is a recent feature in the Mormon religion, and was added by Brigham Young after Joseph Smith’s death. Before that, it was regarded as an "abomination." This verse from the Mormon Bible occurs in Chapter II. of the book of Jacob:
For behold, thus saith the Lord, this people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the Scriptures; for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son. Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord; wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph. Wherefore, I the Lord God, will no suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.
However, the project failed–or at least the modern Mormon end of it—for Brigham "suffers" it. This verse is from the same chapter:
Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate, because of their filthiness and the cursings which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our fathers, that they should have, save it were one wife; and concubines they should have none.
The following verse (from Chapter IX. of the Book of Nephi) appears to contain information not familiar to everybody:
And now it came to pass that when Jesus had ascended into heaven, the multitude did disperse, and every man did take his wife and his children, and did return to his own home.
And it came to pass that on the morrow, when the multitude was gathered together, behold, Nephi and his brother whom he had raised from the dead, whose name was Timothy, and also his son, whose name was Jonas, and also Mathoni, and Mathonihah, his brother, and Kumen, and Kumenenhi, and Jeremiah, and Shemnon, and Jonas, and Zedekiah, and Isaiah; now these were the names of the disciples whom Jesus had chosen.
In order that the reader may observe how much more grandeur and picturesqueness (as seen by these Mormon twelve) accompanied on of the tenderest episodes in the life of our Saviour than other eyes seem to have been aware of, I quote the following from the same "book"–Nephi:
And it came to pass that Jesus spake unto them, and bade them arise. And they arose from the earth, and He said unto them. Blessed are ye because of your faith. And now behold, My joy is full. And when He had said these words, He wept, and the multitude bear record of it, and He took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them. And when He had done this He wept again, and He spake unto the multitude, and saith unto them, Behold your little ones. And as they looked to behold, they cast their eyes toward heaven, and they saw the heavens open, and they saw angels descending out of heaven as it were, in the midst of fire; and they came down and encircled those little ones about, and they were encircled about with fire; and the angels did minister unto them, and the multitude did see and hear and bear record; and they know that their record is true, for they all of them did see and hear, every man for himself; and they were in number about two thousand and five hundred souls; and they did consist of men, women, and children.
And what else would they be likely to consist of?
The Book of Ether is an incomprehensible medley of if "history," much of it relating to battles and sieges among peoples whom the reader has possibly never heard of; and who inhabited a country which is not set down in the geography. These was a King with the remarkable name of Coriantumr, and he warred with Shared, and Lib, and Shiz, and others, in the "plains of Heshlon"; and the "valley of Gilgal"; and the "wilderness of Akish"; and the "land of Moran"; and the "plains of Agosh"; and "Ogath," and "Ramah," and the "land of Corihor," and the "hill Comnor," by "the waters of Ripliancum," etc., etc., etc. "And it came to pass," after a deal of fighting, that Coriantumr, upon making calculation of his losses, found that "there had been slain two millions of mighty men, and also their wives and their children"–say 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 in all–"and he began to sorrow in his heart." Unquestionably it was time. So he wrote to Shiz, asking a cessation of hostilities, and offering to give up his kingdom to save his people. Shiz declined, except upon condition that Coriantumr would come and let him cut his head off first–a thing which Coriantumr would not do. Then there was more fighting for a season; then four years were devoted to gathering the forces for a final struggle–after which ensued a battle, which, I take it, is the most remarkable set forth in history,–except, perhaps, that of the Kilkenny cats, which it resembles in some respects. This is the account of the gathering and the battle:
7. And it came to pass that they did gather together all the people, upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether. And it came to pass that Ether did behold all the doings of the people; and he beheld that the people who were for Coriantumr, were gathered together to the army of Coriantumr; and the people who were for Shiz, were gathered together to the army of Shiz; wherefore they were for the space of four years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it was possible that they could receive. And it came to pass that when they were all gathered together, every one to the army which he would, with their wives and their children; both men, women, and children being armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breast-plates, and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war, they did march forth one against another, to battle; and they fought all that day, and conquered not. And it came to pass that when it was night they were weary, and retired to their camps; and after they had retired to their camps, they took up a howling and a lamentation for the loss of the slain of their people; and so great were their cries, their howlings and lamentations, that it did rend the air exceedingly. And it came to pass that on the morrow they did go again to battle, and great and terrible was that day; nevertheless they conquered not, and when the night came again, they did rend the air with their cries, and their howlings, and their mournings, for the loss of the slain of their people.
8. And it came to pass that Coriantumr wrote again an epistle unto Shiz, desiring that he would not come again to battle, but that he would take the kingdom, and spare the lives of the people. But behold, the Spirit of the Lord had ceased striving with them, and Satan had full power over the hearts of the people, for they were given up unto the hardness of their hearts, and the blindness of their minds that they might be destroyed; wherefore they went again to battle. And it came to pass that they fought all that day, and when the night came they slept upon their swords; and on the morrow they fought even until the night came; and when the night came they were drunken with anger, even as a man who is drunken with wine; and they slept again upon their swords; and on the morrow they fought again; and when the night came they had all fallen by the sword save it were fifty and two of the people of Coriantumr, and sixty and nine of the people of Shiz. And it came to pass that they slept upon their swords that night, and on the morrow they fought again, and they contended in their mights with their swords, and with their shields, all that day; and when the night came there were thirty and two of the people of Shiz, and twenty and seven of the people of Coriantumr.
9. And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and prepared for death on the morrow. And they were large and mighty men, as to the strength of men. And it came to pass that they fought for the space of three hours, and they fainted with the loss of blood. And it came to pass that when the men of Coriantumr had received sufficient strength, that they could walk, they were about to flee for their lives, but behold, Shiz arose, and also his men, and he swore in his wrath that he would slay Coriantumr, or he would perish by the sword: wherefore he did pursue them, and on the morrow he did overtake them; and they fought again with the sword. And it came to pass that when they had all fallen by the sword, save it were Coriantumr and Shiz, behold Shiz had fainted with loss of blood. And it came to pass that when Coriantumr had leaned upon his sword, that he rested a little, he smote off the head of Shiz. And it came to pass that after he had smote off the head of Shiz, that Shiz raised upon his hands and fell; and after that he had struggled for breath, he died. And it came to pass that Coriantumr fell to the earth, and became as if he had no life. And the Lord spake unto Ether, and said unto him, go forth. And he went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled; and he finished his record; and the hundredth part I have not written.
It seems a pity he did not finish, for after all his dreary former chapters of commonplace, he stopped just as he was in danger of becoming interesting.
The Mormon Bible is rather stupid and tiresome to read, but there is nothing vicious in its teachings. Its code of morals is unobjectionable – it is "smouched" from the New Testament and no credit given.
California Musical Theatre is Sacramento’s "oldest professional performing arts organization and California’s largest nonprofit musical theater company" according to the Sacramento Bee and its artistic director Scott Eckern, who has been with the theatre for 25 years, has placed it in turmoil following revelations that he donated $1,000 to the campaign to pass Prop 8.
Hairspray director Marc Shaiman is leading the charge to boycott the theatre. Shaiman reportedly told Eckern: "The idea that your donation came from a salary that for a short amount of time was drawn from profits from a show I wrote upsets me terribly and I would never allow anything I write to play there and will encourage my colleagues to consider doing the same."
Backlash…was it you said Dreher? Backlash was it…? It’s not only same sex couples you gutter crawling bigots attacked. You have obliterated longstanding friendships, and family ties, so you could feel righteous about yourselves. Welcome to the morning after. I’ll be your server today. My name is Fuck You.
I believe you and the reader you quote are missing what is fundamentally different about the Mormon attacks. This was not typical church activism. The Mormon Prophet commanded that every California member give time and money to pass Prop 8. Each member was then contacted by a church authority to make sure the orders from Salt Lake City were obeyed. Mormons were organized into groups to canvas neighborhoods, knock on doors, distribute yards signs, and otherwise organize against gay marriage rights.
Sounds like standard civic participation, right? But remember, Mormons are not allowed to dissent.
Those who openly speak disagreement with the church’s orthodoxy are routinely excommunicated (you can easily Google public examples, most are secret). There are reports on public websites that Mormon Bishops even questioned individual’s actions supporting Prop 8 in “Temple Interviews,” a form of confessional where members validate that they are living up to the highest church standards.
Questioning support for Prop 8 in such a setting is an implicit threat to the individual’s church membership and continuation as a member of Mormon society. Deliberately complicating matters for outside observers, church members were ordered to disguise their actions. Official church orders told them to disguise their Mormon identity, not go in pairs, and not to wear white shirts and ties.
As the campaign escalated, the church broadened its call to members, drawing in activists and money from around the country. So although Mormons are less than 2% of the California population’s, several gay websites claim that over 70% of the private money donated in support of Prop 8 was Mormon. Yes, some Mormon individuals stood up against their church. Of the 13+ million Mormons, about 300 signed an online petition. A Mormon ex-football player’s wife put out a supportive statement. He didn’t join it.
Dig that they were told to conceal their affiliation with the church. The Mormon church has been waging a furious war against gay equality for decades now, but by stealth. But it couldn’t last. As more and more people come to see their gay and lesbian neighbors not as some kind of depraved monsters but as fellow travelers in life, the work it takes to demonize us becomes harder and harder. In 1998 they were able to buy the vote in Hawaii and Alaska with under two million dollars, because public opinion then, while improving, was still strongly against gay equality. But in 2008 they needed over 40 million dollars and you just can’t shovel that kind of money into something in stealth.
So now everyone knows how big the Mormon hand is in this. And you can appreciate why they wanted to keep it generally unknown for as long as possible. The more you understand what Mormons believe, the crazier they look.
In 1827 Joseph Smith and his bride, Emma, arrived at her father’s farm near Great Bend in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. Here in this peaceful country along the banks of the Susquehanna River, Joseph would spend the next two-and-a-half years translating the Book of Mormon into English.
He had been born twenty-one years earlier in Sharon, Vermont. His father, also named Joseph, and his mother, Lucy, had started their marriage auspiciously with Lucy’s ample dowry of one thousand dollars. But the dowry was quickly spent and the farm was overgrown with weeds. In a last desperate attempt to recoup his losses, Joseph’s father had invested everything he had left in a shipment of ginseng to China. He had heard that the Chinese would pay high prices for the root of the ginseng plant, which grew wild in Vermont. When he failed to get a penny for his ginseng, Joseph’s father moved his family to a farm near Palmyra, New York, in the western part of the state. There he fared little better than in Vermont. The Smith family often went hungry during the winter months. As soon as they were able to work, the Smith children had to help support their family. Consequently, Joseph obtained little schooling.
When Joseph was adolescent, an itinerant magician and diviner stopped over in Palmyra and offered his services to the local residents. The diviner claimed that he could locate not only ground water near the surface, but also treasure which had been buried by Indians many years before. Some farmers hired the diviner at three dollars per day to look for buried treasure on their lands. The diviner had several magic stones which he looked into, in order to discover the sites of the buried treasures.
Young Joseph Smith took a deep interest in the diviner’s skills and spent as much time as he could in the magician’s company, trying to master the man’s divining abilities. When no treasure was found and no more farmers would pay him, the diviner left town, but by that time Joseph had picked up some of his lore. Acquiring some magic stones of his own, Joseph was successful in using the stones to locate some lost tools.
A visitor to Palmyra who heard about Joseph’s clairvoyance was interested in meeting the young seer. The visitor was from the eastern part of New York State, and convinced that Spaniards had once deposited treasure on his property. Joseph agreed to accompany the visitor east, and to help him locate the treasure, provided that Joseph was paid three dollars a day, the same fee the diviner had charged. Joseph’s father accompanied his nineteen-year-old son on this expedition in 1825.
The site of the hoped-for treasure was the Susquehanna Valey near Damascus, New York, just north of the Pennsylvania border. While hunting for the treasure, Joseph and his father lived at a farm in Pennsylvania, where the Susquehanna dips into that state near Great Bend.
A large party of diggers stowed up to help in excavating the treasure. All of them contributed to Joseph’s wage, in return for a share in the expected treasure. The work progressed slowly. For the first few days the diggers worked with a will, anticipating the riches that would soon be theirs. But as they dug and found nothing, their spirits began to sink. When Joseph told them that the treasure had begun to sink lower due to an "enchantment," they suspected him of being a charlatan and felt that he had made fools of them.
The search for treasure ended, and Joseph’s father returned to his home in Palmyra, but Joseph stayed on in the Susquehanna Valley. He had fallen in love with Emma Hale, the daughter of Isaac Hale, in whose house Joseph and his father had boarded during the treasurehunt. Emma, who was one year older than Joseph, was a beautiful and self-contained schoolteacher who kept herself aloof from Joseph.
Despite Emma’s coolness, Joseph took a job as a farmhand just over the border in New York State, within walking distance of the Hale house in Pennsylvania. In his spare time he attended school to improve his skill in reading and writing, very likely so that he would seem a worthier suitor to a schoolteacher.
As Joseph persisted in his courting of Emma, she gradually yielded to his ardor. But when Joseph asked her father for Emma’s hand in marriage, he was brusquely refused. Mr. Isaac Hale had been one of the original diggers for treasure under Joseph’s direction, and one of the first to lose confidence in the young diviner. He considered Joseph to be an arrogant, fraudulent, and lazy young man, totally unworthy to marry his daughter. After being turned down by Isaac Hale, Joseph continued to visit his daughter while Isaac was away on frequent and extended hunting trips.
In the spring of 1826, some of the former treasure-hunters brought legal charges against Joseph in the court at Bainbridge, New York. Joseph was accused of "disorderly conduct" and also of being an "impostor." One of the witnesses testifying against him was his sweetheart’s father, Isaac Hale. Joseph was found guilty on both charges. There is no record of the sentence imposed on him.
Despite this public humiliation which was aided and abetted by her father, Emma Hale remained attracted to Joseph. In January 1827, when Joseph was twenty-one, he succeeded in persuading Emma to elope with him. After getting married in New York State, they went to live with Joseph’s parents in Palmyra.
In the fall of 1827, Joseph and Emma returned to her parents’ home in Pennsylvania to pick up her belongings. There was an emotional meeting between Isaac Hale and his son-in-law, in which Isaac accused Joseph of having stolen his daughter. Amid tears, Joseph asked his father-in-law for forgiveness. Joseph promised to lead a more honest and responsible life, and to be a worthy husband to Emma. Isaac seemed reassured by Joseph’s contrition, and offered to give the young couple a small house on his property.
Joseph and Emma moved into the small house, and Isaac expected that Joseph would help with the work on his farm. Instead, Joseph kept himself occupied with some mysterious indoor activity. One day Isaac decided to investigate what was going on in the small house, and paid a visit to his son- in-law.
Isaac found Joseph sitting at a table with a hat over his face, uttering long Biblical phrases. Emma sat behind a curtain, hidden from Joseph, while she wrote down the words Joseph was speaking. On the table-top in front of Joseph sat some square object concealed by a cloth. When Joseph removed his hat from his face, Isaac could see two stones in the hat, similar to the stones Joseph had used in divining the location of the "buried Spanish treasure."
Alarmed, Isaac demanded an explanation of this strange activity. The explanation that Joseph and Emma gave him only alarmed Isaac more. They told Isaac that Joseph had seen a vision of an angel back in Palmyra. The angel had led Joseph to a place which Joseph called Cumorah, a hill near Palmyra. There, digging in the spot the angel indicated, Joseph had found a set of golden plates comprising a holy book, called the Book of Mormon. The book was written in symbols which Joseph called "reformed Egyptian," but with the gold plates were two stones, with which Joseph could decipher the ancient symbols on the gold plates .
Joseph told Isaac that the gold plates were right in front of them on the table, in a box covered by a cloth. It was not necessary for Joseph to see the plates in order to decipher them. He could read the plates, understand them, and translate them into English, by gazing into the stones. However, in order to see into the stones, he had to shut out all extraneous light. Therefore, he put the stones into his hat and covered his face with the hat.
When Isaac asked to see the golden plates, Joseph refused permission. Joseph said that, if anyone besides himself looked at the golden plates, it would mean instant death for the person.
So far as Isaac could tell, no change had occurred in Joseph since his treasure-hunting days. Isaac later said, "The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret was the same as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stones in his hat, and his hat over his face."
Isaac failed to notice that, although Joseph’s occult techniques had not changed, the purpose of Joseph’s life had taken a new direction. Formerly, Joseph had been looking for gold. Now, he seemed indifferent to money. As described by Joseph, the gold plates he had found at Cumorah were worth millions of dollars; yet Joseph valued only the message engraved on them.
Isaac felt certain that there were no gold plates, and that Joseph was plotting some elaborate fraud. But Emma remained loyal to her husband, dutifully taking down Joseph’s dictation, hour after hour, day after day. The words Joseph spoke through his hat told the story of Jewish families which had migrated to America from Israel in the seventh century before Christ, becoming the ancestors of the American Indians. According to the scriptures which Joseph was translating, Christ himself had come to America before his ascension.
During his work of translation, Joseph received some financial support from a few acquaintances who believed in the importance of his task. One man mortgaged his farm to support Joseph. The man’s wife, who considered Joseph’s scriptures a hoax, was so incensed that she left her husband.
Emma worked as Joseph’s secretary until the summer of 1828, when she gave birth to a son who survived for only a few hours. Emma was so depressed by the death of her firstborn that Joseph was deeply worried about her. To give Emma a rest, he called in one of his supporters to serve as his scribe, and Emma regained her health and stability.
The following year 1829, the second secretary was replaced by a third. Finally, in 1830, the work of translation was completed. Joseph was now twenty-four years old, and had spent two and a half years translating the Book of Mormon. He had dictated a total of 275,000 words.
His translation complete, Joseph had one further use of the golden plates. To assure skeptics that the plates did, indeed, exist, he showed them to several trusted witnesses, who signed statements affirming that they had beheld the plates. In preparation for viewing the plates, the chosen witnesses prayed for several hours. After lengthy praying, one witness reported that he saw only an empty box. Joseph sent him out for additional prayer, after which the golden plates were fully visible to the witness.
Joseph later announced that he had returned the plates to the angel who had first led him to them. The angel took them off to eternity.
This is not a religion that’s going to want a lot of time in the spotlight…
One thing I noticed while watching this, is that theologies created before the invention of the telescope all have a very earth-is-the-center-of-the-universe feel to them, while those created after all read like bad science-fiction novels.
So this cult, started by a nineteenth century psychic treasure hunter, who apparently found his gold in the pockets of a lot of suckers willing to believe that God wants them to become a God too, with their very own universe someday, has taken it upon itself to banish gay people from the book of love. Well forgive us if there is no love lost in return. You called down the thunder. Now you have it. And it came to pass that the spotlight turned back upon the kooks. And it came to pass there was no hiding from its awful light. And it came to pass the people of the land saw the kooks among them for what they were. And it came to pass there was much laughter. And it came to pass that there was also much anger. For the kooks had cut off the ring fingers, of many loving couples…
Via Atrios… I’m going to be like a damn broken record for the next couple of years telling people that their gay and lesbian neighbors have been seeing all this for decades already. I just know it …
I used to have an idea of what a "good faith debate" was; that was in 1999. My general feeling now is that a liberal who says "fuck" a lot is one who got mugged by a conservative who pretended to be interested in a "good faith debate."
Now you know why this blog contains a lot of cursing.
I am going to insist here upon the grouchy perspective: I do not believe that there is any such thing as a "conservative intellectual," never mind one who is "thoughtful" or "sane." I contend that "conservatism" in its 21st century incarnation is nothing more or less than a particularly ill-conceived social formation based upon pernicious doxa. Or to be blunt, it is stupid identity politics. Sound unfair? Well then. To be a conservative nowadays and not be Cast Forth from the Tribe, you need to believe:
1. Anthropogenic climate change is a Lie.
2. The "Main Stream Media" has a partisan bias in favor of Democrats.
3. The invasion of Iraq was based on an honest appraisal of the evidence.
4. Torture is acceptable, and also, we do not torture.
I could go on, but these will do to make the point. To be a conservative in the 21st century American sense, you need to believe things that are not true, and you need to tie yourself into knots to pretend otherwise.
You could go on? Oh…get me started… How about:
Homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.
The average homosexual relationship only lasts a few days.
The average homosexual has thousands of sexual partners in a lifetime.
Homosexuality is a mental illness. The APA only removed it from the list of mental illnesses because of protests by militant homosexuals.
Homosexuals have more money then everyone else.
Gay Liberation caused AIDS.
The Nazis were all homosexuals.
So were the communists.
No society that tolerated homosexuality ever lasted very long. Homosexuality caused the fall of Rome.
No society has ever allowed same sex marriage.
Same sex marriage will cause heterosexuals to stop getting married.
If same sex marriage is legalized, churches will be forced to marry homosexuals.
If same sex marriage is legalized, people will be jailed for speaking out against homosexuality.
If same sex marriage is legalized, the human race will die out.
If same sex marriage is legalized, homosexuals will be allowed to recruit children in kindergarten.
All homosexuals are pedophiles.
Homosexuality is the result of being molested as a child. All homosexuals were once molested.
Homosexuality is the result of poor parenting.
Male homosexuality is the result of failure to bond with the father.
Lesbianism is the result of failure to bond with the father.
Poor Fathering is the cause of all homosexuality.
No…wait…it’s overbearing mothers.
No…it’s godlessness…
…and so on. Get me started. And here’s the thing…It doesn’t matter that none of this is true. The point is, this is their Belief. Beliefs don’t have to be true. Accepting the Belief identifies you as being part of their tribe. That’s what’s important. Not that the Belief is true, but that you are either in the tribe, or an outsider. To put it into gang terminology, these are their colors. Wearing them identifies you as a member of the gang.
This is why rational discussion with these people is impossible. It’s not about what is true and what isn’t. It’s about defending the tribe against outsiders. We in the reality based community are always wrong, because we are outsiders. Their colors have to be stronger then our colors, because the most important thing on earth isn’t what is true and what is not…the most important thing on earth is defending the tribe against outsiders.
But when true and false stop being your guide to right and wrong, then you just walk eyes wide open into a pit. Why did the bottom fall out of the economy all of a sudden? Why did the splendid little war in Iraq that was only supposed to take a few days drag on and on and on and kill thousands? Facts, as it so happens, matter more then Belief after all. And came election day 2008, a lot of people were looking at their 401k quarterly reports, and seeing possibly for the first time, what kind of world you get when people think Belief is more important then facts, and decided it was time to kick the bums out. Facts matter.
So while I quite respect Hilzoy, I think she is dangerously mistaking the nature of movement conservatism. To go back a bit to the Tim Burke post she cites:
But I think we can all make things just ever so slightly better, make the air less poisonous, by pushing to the margins of our consciousness the crazy, bad, gutter-dwelling, two-faced, tendentious high-school debator kinds of voices out there in the public sphere, including and especially in blogs. Let them stew in their own juices, without the dignity of a reply, now that their pipelines to people with real political power have been significantly cut.
Tempting, but absolutely wrong. In the 1990s this was a fashionable attitude towards the crazy anti-Clintonoids — against whom the best and the brightest on the left failed to mobilize. This failure occurred because Clinton was, well, not really very far to the left, so why defend him? But it was also because it was assumed that Clinton could take care of himself. Which he could. But what happened underneath…? Well, the foundations were laid for the Bush administration, that’s what. The media in particular had their own institutional biases manipulated, with almost no pushback from liberals, who should have known better, but let themselves by and large get rolled. Where did the 21st century wingnuts come from? The 1990s. The case rests. And then throws up.
It seems to me that there is a powerful, but foolish, desire on the part of certain liberals, especially academic liberals, to want to engage in a nice, friendly, open debate with "conservatives." This is an error. You will always lose a game you do not realize you are playing.
Bingo. They are not about debating anything…they’re on a mission from God. They’re fighting a culture war where right and wrong are measured in terms of what is good for the party. It’s way past time to call this for what it is, and fight it for what it is. Assuming good faith only allows the other side to keep pretending they’re something they aren’t. What we are up against are theocrats and other sorts of totalitarians who think the "radical individualism" of the American Dream must be defeated by any means necessary. We can all just stop pretending now, that the divisiveness of the past few decades is about two different visions of America…one liberal, one conservative. It isn’t. We are fighting an enemy as old as the first tyrants, and just as bereft of scruples. At rock bottom, these people are thieves, who want to steal everything precious from our lives, not so much to fatten their own, as to make sure we never feel the joy of life more then they ever could.
Bitterness generated by the bruising battle between Betsy Markey and Marilyn Musgrave apparently lingers days after voters decided the winner of the 4th Congressional District.
Incumbent Republican Musgrave, who lost to Democrat Markey by a 56 to 44 percent margin Tuesday, has yet to call and congratulate Markey on her win.
Musgrave also hasn’t conceded the race, said Markey spokesman Ben Marter. "She has yet to admit defeat," he said. "It’s a little bizarre."
Calls to Musgrave’s campaign and congressional office went unanswered Friday.
Now that California voters have outlawed same-sex marriage, an LDS Church leader called Wednesday for members to heal rifts caused by the emotional campaign by treating each other with "civility, with respect and with love."
"We hope that everyone would treat [each other] that way no matter which side of this issue they were on," said Elder L. Whitney Clayton, of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Presidency of the Seventy.
…
In a statement, the LDS Church said it does not object to domestic partnership or civil union legislation "as long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches."
Which same sex marriage does not. But…you know that…
As for Proposition 8, "we consider this to be a moral issue," Clayton said. "We’re not anti-gay, we’re pro marriage between a man and a woman."
Right. Like you weren’t racist when you were denying black people a seat in your church…just pro white. You don’t have to be racist to be pro-white.
You gutter crawling scum have been lurking in the background of this battle for over a decade now, and all that is over. You fought to make your gay and lesbian neighbors second class citizens in their own country. Own it. Trust me…you will have to. Nobody is forgetting this. You want civility? Get The Fuck Off Our Backs.
“The crowd just moved onto the intersection , blocking traffic at Santa Monica and San Vicente,” reports Slog Tipper Keith.
As long as nobody gets hurt…good.
I would suggest two things. First…document all the support that Proposition 8 got…from its inception to passage. Everyone who gave it money…everyone who gave it time. Individuals and businesses. And put that information online somewhere it can be accessed. Not to harass anyone, but to boycott the companies that helped cut our ring fingers off, and to know who our friends are, and who they are not. Trust me…I’ll be keeping up on who supported Proposition 8 in my own state, although I’m glad to say that nearly all the money coming from Maryland was in opposition.
Second: Never Forget. Never forget our friends. Never forget our enemies. Raving homophobes like Dobson and company will naturally take pains to make sure we never forget how much they hate us. But in the coming weeks and months there will be a ton of poltroons coming forward, like Rod Dreher, whining that they had nothing against us Personally…they just think same-sex marriage is too radical…
Don’t gloat over this. While I would have supported Prop 8 had I been a Californian, because I do not think there exists a right to same-sex marriage and I fear for the religious liberty implications of constitutionalizing same-sex marriage, I recognize that this is a tremendous blow to good men and women who disagree. It seems to me to be unseemly, even cruel, to rub salt in their wounds.
…But by appealing to the courts to impose something as radical as same-sex marriage, something that has never in the history of human society existed, they invited this backlash.
Juan and Leroy lived together in Long Beach for eight years. One day, Juan came home from the grocery store and found Leroy, who had fallen off a ladder, lying on the concrete patio. Leroy was rushed to the hospital where he stayed in a coma for several days. Although Leroy regained consciousness, he remained hospitalized for nine months. Juan visited Leroy once or twice each day, feeding him and encouraging him to recuperate.
Leroy’s estranged brother, who lived in Maine, filed a lawsuit seeking to have himself appointed as Leroy’s conservator.
When Juan accidentally found out, he showed up at court in Long Beach. Although Juan, who was not represented by counsel, stood up and protested, the judge refused to consider Juan’s plea because he was a stranger to Leroy in the eyes of the law.
The brother subsequently had Leroy transferred from the hospital to an undisclosed location. When Juan finally discovered that Leroy was being housed in a nursing home about 50 miles from Long Beach, he attempted to visit Leroy there. The staff stopped Juan in the lobby, advising him that the brother had given them a photo of Juan with strict orders not to allow him to visit Leroy. Unfortunately, no one else ever visited Leroy there.
It took Juan about two weeks to find an attorney who would take the case without charge. The attorney filed a lawsuit seeking visitation rights.
A few hours before the hearing was scheduled to occur, the brother’s attorney called Juan’s attorney, informing him that Leroy had died three days before.
Since the body had already been flown back to Maine where it was cremated, Juan never had an opportunity to pay his last respects.
Fuck you Dreher.
Gregory Anderson and Michael Connolly lived together for nine years. They jointly owned a condominium in New York where the couple lived. Michael was murdered by a stranger when he was visiting Los Angeles. After police investigated the case, a key suspect admitted that he was guilty.
When Gregory heard that the man had been sentenced, he contacted the detective assigned to the case to determine the defendant’s name, the terms of his sentence, or the place of his imprisonment.
The detective refused to disclose this information because Gregory was not a spouse or blood relative of the victim.
Fuck you Dreher.
Terry Taylor worked for the City of Los Angeles and belonged to the Los Angeles City Employees Federal Credit Union. Taylor was living with her fiancé, Roger Naas. Terry wanted to buy a new car but did not make enough money to qualify for credit on her own. She and Roger therefore sought to apply for a joint loan from the credit union.
They were turned down. Not because of bad credit or lack of joint resources. The loan was rejected solely because the credit union would not give joint loans to unmarried couples.
The problem was that credit unions can only issue loans to members. Members can be city employees or their immediate family members.
Terry and Roger discovered that the board of directors of the credit union had voted to define "immediate family" as being limited to spouses or blood relatives of employees.
Although Terry and Roger never got a loan, the problem was later corrected after it was exposed by the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Consumer Task Force on Marital Status Discrimination.
The credit union board finally changed its by-laws to define "family" in a more expansive manner, so that spouses, blood relatives, or other household members such as domestic partners may now join.
Fuck you Dreher.
Ken Phillips and Gail Randall were looking for an apartment to rent in Chico. They found the perfect place, filled out an application, and handed the landlady a deposit. There was one last minute inquiry: "You are married, aren’t you?" When the landlady found out that Ken and Gail were unmarried partners, she flatly refused to rent to them. Never mind the fact that they had lived together for years, had good jobs, and could give wonderful references from prior landlords.
Ken and Gail fought back. They filed a complaint with the state fair housing agency. The tribunal ruled that the landlady had violated a state law against marital status discrimination in housing.
But the landlady appealed and won the first round in court. The Court of Appeal agreed that discrimination against unmarried couples in housing is illegal. But the court sided with the landlady anyway, on the theory that a business owner with religious objections to unmarried cohabitation does not have to obey the state’s civil rights laws.
Dreher would say the lady had a right to her religious objection. And according to him we invited a backlash. And we invited it, simply for not wanting to live anymore, as second class citizens in our own country. Yes Dreher, you gutter crawling bigot…it’s our country too. We live here. And we’re not asking politely anymore, for your kind to get the fuck off our backs.
So same-sex marriage is Radical is it? Sure it is. And here’s why: because homosexuals are perverts. Seriously. Homosexuals are disgusting disease spreading, child molesting, sex addicts who can no more know and understand what normal human relationships are then an ape can do calculus. Homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex. That’s why same-sex marriage is radical. To call what homosexuals do marriage, defiles the decent loving relationships of every normal heterosexual couple on earth. It spits in their faces. Homosexuals prowl the toilets for sex. They lurk in bushes and behind schools. They drink urine and eat shit. Picture a pair of homosexual sex partners walking down the isle and you have pictured the end of western civilization. You can’t whitewash perversion by calling it something it isn’t. Homosexual relationships are no more marriage, then feces is food. That’s why same-sex marriage is radical, isn’t it Dreher? But you won’t come out and say so, because you want people to think you’re better then this man…
…and you’re not Dreher. You’re actually deeper in the human gutter then he is. Fred’s a bigot like you, but at least he’s an honest one and you can’t even be that. Afraid for religious liberties are you? Bullshit you’re afraid. There’s already a constitutional protection for religious liberty Dreher…it’s called the first amendment you motherfucking bigot. You know it. I know you know it. Everybody knows you know it. You’re not afraid for your religious liberties. You’re afraid of the day that gay people don’t have to wear the shame you feel every time you look in a mirror and glimpse the slippery cheat inside.
You don’t want to live with us as your neighbors? Fine. We’re not your neighbors. We’re the people who get up every day and get to work getting you motherfuckers off our backs, and then go to bed that night vowing to work harder at it the next day. We’re the people who are in your face today, tomorrow, and the day after and the day after that. And it never stops Dreher…It Never Stops…until your kind are off our backs.
Welcome to the morning after. I’ll be your server today. My name is Fuck You.
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…
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…
In what the Washington Post called "perhaps the most ill-timed press release of the 2008 campaign," the California Republican Party announced that they’d filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Sen. Barack Obama had illegally funneled funds from his campaign account for his personal use.
The use? Visiting his dying grandmother, whose passing was announced this afternoon.
The GOP sent the release at 1:30 pm ET, a few hours before Obama’s grandmother’s death was announced.
"Obama for America violated federal law by converting its campaign funds to Senator Obama’s personal use," the release stated. "Senator Obama recently traveled to Hawaii to visit his sick grandmother. This was the right thing for any grandson to do — at his own expense — but it was not travel that his campaign may fund."
Federal law prohibits campaigns from using campaign funds for personal travel. Obama’s campaign said beforehand that they had reviewed the trips with their lawyers and believed it was allowable. Republicans, meanwhile, contend that because Obama did not campaign in Hawaii, it should not have been budgeted as a campaign expense.
We have our far right nutcases here in Maryland, but I rest easy at night knowing my brother can go about his day with absolutely batshit wingnuts like these babbling in his face constantly and still keep a mellow attitude.
Via Pam’s House Blend… Janet Porter says if you don’t vote for McCain God is going to cast you into hell for all eternity. Can we just stop pretending now that the religious right wants anything to do with democracy…?
To all those who name the name of Christ who plan to willfully disobey Him by voting for Obama, take warning. Not only is our nation in grave danger, according to the Word of God, so are you.
Insert the usual antiabortion, anti-gay rhetoric here…
Be forewarned: If you willfully disobey God on life and marriage because of race or false hope for the economy, you will usher in the kind of change that brought the Soviet Union to collapse.
But the warning goes far beyond that. To those who think that God’s grace gives them license to willfully disobey Him without consequences – think again:
Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!" (Matthew 7:21-23)
That deals with your eternity. Matthew 7:26-27 says if you don’t obey God, prepare for a crash even sooner that that:
But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash (Matthew 7:26-27).
I just hope you won’t take the rest of the nation with you.
If the word of God matters more to you than your perception of personal gain, Joel 2:12 issues a call to repentance I pray you will heed:
"Now, therefore," says the LORD, ‘Turn to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning’" (Joel 2:12).
Then obey Him in the voting booth and out of it. If not, do us all a favor and quit calling yourself a Christian.
Right. I get the message…
I get it all right…
The America where everyone has a right to their own life, their own bodies, their own conscience, is something you couldn’t have any less use for. The American Dream of liberty and justice for all is apostasy as far as you’re concerned. America belongs to fundamentalist Christians. The rest of us just live here. Conditionally.
America’s biggest sin isn’t abortion is it Janet. It isn’t same sex marriage. It isn’t pornography. America’s biggest, most unforgivable sin is this…
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
There’s where it all went wrong, isn’t it Janet? Justice? Domestic Tranquility? Common defense? General Welfare? Blessings of Liberty? Makes you sick to your stomach to read it, doesn’t it Janet? And this…this must make you positively livid…
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
The Golden Door. The Golden Door. Does that make you want to laugh Janet, or puke? The people who fled the old world and its state churches and religious wars didn’t found a new nation dedicated to freedom of worship just so babbling Darbyite pre-millenial nutcases like you could build a theocracy over their graves. Do us all a favor and stop calling yourself an American Janet. You are a Christian Nationalist, and the United States of America is to you as a cricket is to a digger wasp.
The Long Dark Night Of My Empty Soul…Let Me Project It On To You…
It’s been…interesting…to watch the reactions of the heterosexual mainstream to the gradual unraveling of the Bush republican mask. Wow…these people really are Nuts! And…they really Do live in their own separate reality… Yes. Yes they do. And now comes the dawn, that they not only live in their own separate reality, they project their own private demons onto everyone who doesn’t live there with them. This from David Krutz Talking Points Memo…
Barack Obama is noted for his powerful intellect, but I don’t think he gets nearly enough credit for the mental dexterity it takes to be simultaneously an Islamic theocrat, atheistic communist and national socialist while posing as a center left candidate. Those must be the compartmentalization skills they taught him at that Manchurian madrasah in Indonesia.
The fact that Obama embodies the worst nightmares of so many on the political right says far more about them that it does him. In this piece at The Corner, Mark R. Levin, bristling over normally rational conservatives like Colin Powell and Charles Fried falling under Obama’s demagogic spell, pushes ajar the door to his inner psyche, where the horrors are of the communist-cum-Nazi variety. Levin doesn’t go in much for the Obama as closet Muslim nightmare. I’m sure it’s just a failure of imagination.
Emphasis mine. Re-read that sentence again… The fact that Obama embodies the worst nightmares of so many on the political right says far more about them that it does him. Ya Think? And here, via Sullivan, is Eric Martin over at The Poorman…
Anyone familiar with the history of communism knows enough to be terrified by utopian visions. Equally frightening is the staggering breadth of the Moonbat Messiah’s ego. Not long ago, Obama told Sunday worshipers in Greenville, South Carolina that they don’t have to wait for any Second Coming:
“I am confident that we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth.”
Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, et al. had ambitions on a similar scale, although I don’t recall them comparing themselves to God. For the messianic aspect, you normally have to leave politics for cults like Heaven’s Gate.
Obama isn’t the first to mix Marxist utopianism with cult deification. Jim Jones did it with his Peoples Temple. Fortunately Jim Jones never had access to the USA’s nuclear codes.
A bit of a misstep here, comparing Obama to Jim Jones, rather than the more evocative Charlie Manson. True, Jones brewed the original Kool-Aid, and did go to darkest Africa swarthiest South America. But Charlie Manson was much scarier, was all about the class and race war, and – and this is critical here – was from the Epochal and Very Scary Late Sixties, rather than the Forgettable and Mostly Embarrassing Late Seventies. Now, one could construct a perfectly serviceable Culture War narrative based on late-70’s resentment – in fact, I can think of 3 without even trying:
Obama as secret (black, gay, urban, coastal) disco partisan opposed to salt-of-the-Earth (white, suburban/rural) Eddie Money fans;
Obama as secret (London/NYC, jobless, stoned, callow) anarchist punk rocker/reggae listener opposed to John McCain’s steady, hard-working Frank Sinatra-listening establishment type;
Obama as creepy glam transsexual Ziggy Stardust Bowie vs. coked-out fascist but sensibly-tailored Thin White Teuton Duke Bowie;
The last one made more sense when it was in my head – substitute some kind of scary forced-busing liberal Negro vs. punk-killing “Death Wish” Charles Bronson narrative here. It’s not hard. But once you’ve made a narrative choice, you do have to stick with it – you can’t just keep bouncing around, or people become confused. If you are telling the story of a scary vampire, you can’t decide in chapter 2 that he’s also 500 feet tall and radioactive and bent on destroying Tokyo, in chapter 3 that he is actually a giant man-eating shark, and in chapter 4 that he is all this and a super-terrorist trying to plant a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. All of these things are, indeed, scary, but taken together they add up to a muddle.
This is the problem. It’s not just the McCain campaign’s problem – although their inability to pick a narrative and stick to it is a special kind of inexcusable – it’s a problem for the entire wingnut noise machine. Obama is a Marxist Muslim Arab Jesus Black White Terrorist Technocrat Racist Do-Gooder Liberal FDR Stalin Hilter Commie Fascist Gay Womanizing Naive Cynical Insider Noob Boring Radical Unaccomplished Elite Slick Gaffe-Prone Pedophile Pedophile-Seducing Liberation Theology Atheist Etc. & Anti-Etc. with a bunch of scary friends from – wait for it! – the Nineteen Hundred And Sixties. It makes no sense. It’s a jumble sale of fears and scary associations from 50 years of wingnut witch hunts and smear campaigns, a flea market of pre-owned and antique resentments, and if one does detect a semi-consistent 1960’s motif running through it all, that’s because that’s when most of these ideas were coined.
But Sullivan should have at least recognized all this. Consider the Militant Homosexual: If he’s male he’s a contemptible, mincing, swishing, girlie-boy faggot with limp wrists and a high pitched voice that giggles a lot. He cowers pathetically and hides behind his purse at the first sign of trouble. But he’s also a dangerous psychopathic killer lurking in the alleyways, waiting to pounce out a rip the liver out of you and eat it. Lesbians are male haters who just need a real man but are so ugly they couldn’t get a real man if they wanted one, which they all secretly do. But lesbian are hot…especially when they’re having sex so real men can watch them and get off.
Gays are a weak and pathetic minority of very sick and mentally unstable individuals. They are a powerful gay mafia that controls Hollywood and the news media. They lurk in back alleys and dirty slums and engage in petty theft and prostitution to support themselves. They’re a rich and powerful elite who control congress and the courts. Their minds have been completely destroyed by sex and drugs and AIDS. They are clever and scheming and secretly manipulate governments and the media. They are narcissistic. They hate themselves. They have sex with hundreds of partners every night. They are lonely. They engage in every kind of filthy, sadistic, sexual perversion known to man, and invent new ones every day. They are delicate prissy dainty little fairy boys. They have no friends and are incapable of emotional connection. They occupy in a vast secret subculture with its own code words that they all know and recognize. They lurk around schools looking for children to molest. They lurk in public restrooms trying to seduce men into having sex with them…
The long dark night of the bigot’s soul. When I was busy growing up, black men…negros…coloreds…were shiftless shuffling lazy stupid servents. When they weren’t big and powerful criminal thugs that went around raping white women. The fact that Obama embodies the worst nightmares of so many on the political right says far more about them that it does him. But doesn’t it always, no matter whose face the nightmare has?
Because in the end, it is the world that is their nightmare. The world they cannot cope with. The world that doesn’t need them. Every time we tell them to get the fuck off our backs, we remind them that they need us far more then we need them. And so they despise us a little bit more. And so the nightmare, the demon, the destroyer of worlds, has our face.
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