Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committe held the first-ever hearing on the Uniting American Families Act, which would equalize the status of foreign-born same-sex partners of American citizens. Heterosexual Americans can earn citizenship for their foreign partners by marrying them. Gays, obviously, cannot do that, effectively making a gay American and his or her foreign spouse legal strangers.
Testifying was Shirley Tan, a Fillipino woman who has been with her American partner for 23 years. Together, they are raising twelve-year-old twin boys…
…one of Tan’s children started crying within seconds of the start of her testimony. At the sight of this, Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy stopped the hearing and asked Tan if her son might want to sit in another room, where presumably a Senate staffer would console him for the duration of what was clearly an emotionally fraught experience. For most people, the sight of a 12-year-old boy in tears at the prospect of his mother being deported halfway around the world would invoke some sympathy. Unmoved, however, was Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions, ranking minority member of the Committee and the only Republican to bother to attend the hearing. At the sight of the weeping boy, according to a Senate staffer who was at the hearing, Sessions leaned towards one of his aides and sighed, "Enough with the histrionics."
Take Note:
Sessions opposes the bill, stating that it would amount to a federal recognition of same-sex marriage.
I keep drumming on this but it’s a simple fact: Everything we have ever asked for in this fight, from hospital visitation to the repeal of the sodomy laws amounts to recognition of same-sex marriage if you listen to our enemies. This has always been their trump card in Every Fucking battle over any and everything: turn it into a fight over same sex marriage.
So it makes no sense to say that we are wasting energy fighting over same-sex marriage when we could be putting our resources into fighting for anti-discrimination and hate crime laws. Everything is a fight over same-sex marriage. Which is to say, everything is a fight over the legitimacy of our emotional lives. The pieces make up a whole at the center of which is a simple question: do gay people experience life the same way heterosexuals do, or do we, as Orson Scott Card would say, merely play house in hollow mimicry of genuine emotions that heterosexuals feel?
Look at Sessions’ gut level knee jerk response to that kid’s tears again. Histronics. He doesn’t believe they are real. They can’t possibly be. Because that family is only playing house. It isn’t a real family. They don’t have real feelings. It’s just an act they have convinced themselves of. Even the kids. This is the enemy your gay and lesbian neighbors have been facing for decades now.
Fred Clark writes about the persecution complex behind the NOM ads…
We’ve seen how this plays out on the national scene two, three times a month. Some pious dignitary remarks that homosexuality is just like pedophilia or bestiality — a statement regarded within the hegemony of the sect as wholly innocent and inoffensive. Someone outside the sect will reply, accurately, that this is an offensive lie, a vicious slander. That response will be perceived, within the sect, as "religious persecution." The response — any response other than "thank you, sir, may I have another?" — implicitly rejects the legitimacy of the hegemony and rebels against the privilege enjoyed by the sect. (A big part of that privilege, it turns out, is the expectation that one can say offensive things without others taking or expressing offense. This has become far more important as a hallmark of American evangelicalism than, say, Sabbath-keeping.)
I’d say this isn’t just a religious right phenomena. You see culture warriors on the right holding the same two mutually contradictory positions that Fred points out in certain American evangelical circles. On the one hand, we represent the Great American Heartland…the Common Folk…The Moral Majority…The Silent Majority… And so on… But on the other, we are oppressed. Our values and our way of life are in danger of becoming extinct.
Your gay and lesbian neighbors have been hearing a version of this self contradicting complaint for decades now. On the one hand, gay people are a teeny-tiny minuscule minority, whose claims of oppression don’t even merit a laugh, let alone any serious thought. On the other, we are a vast and powerful conspiracy that will soon extinguish any trace of American values. On the one hand we are contemptible, weak, easily frightened swishing faggots. On the other hand we are dangerous militants. Huh?
The thought police are always out to get them. Political Correctness is always taking away their right to express their deeply held beliefs. Whenever someone is called out for their cheap bar stool prejudices, they complain that they are being silenced. It isn’t that people find their knuckle dragging bigotries disgusting. It’s that a vast liberal socialist communist homosexual conspiracy is out to get them. When Mrs California endorsed cutting off the ring fingers of all the gay citizens of California, and promptly fell out of favor with the Mrs America judges, a great wail arose from the kook pews, clamoring that she was the victim of political correctness, and that people who opposed the gay agenda were being silenced.
PRAGUE (AFP) — A former US Ku Klux Klan chief was arrested Friday in a Prague restaurant while he was on a speaking tour here, Czech police said.
Former Grand Wizard of the Louisiana-founded Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, David Duke, was arrested on suspicion of promoting movements seeking the suppression of human rights, police spokesman Jan Mikulovsky told local media.
Regardless of how low in the human cesspool Duke is, that charge sent a little chill down my spine. It was pure reflex, most likely born of having spent my entire life swaddled in American culture. But there it was. David Duke is lower then spit in a urinal in my book, but I am much less afraid of anything David Duke might say, then I am of the charge he was arrested under. …suspicion of promoting movements seeking the suppression of human rights… What the hell does that mean? Suspicion of promoting movements…? Seeking the suppression…? What is the fucking criminal act here? It could be anything. Today that might mean talking about suppressing the rights of black people. Tomorrow it might mean arguing against it, thereby suppressing the right of white people to keep black people in their place. It could be anything. Totalitarian states love that kind of thing. It’s the kind of law that can be whatever they want it to be, whenever they want it to be that. And you don’t have to actually Do Anything to break that law. Just talk about doing something. Maybe with one person. Maybe with a whole roomful of people. It doesn’t matter. You open your trap, say the wrong thing, and you’re toast. And you can never be sure what the wrong thing to say is. It’s whatever the state wants it to be. Probably just right then, in order to arrest you and make it all seem legal. Giving police the power to arrest someone for speaking their mind just greases the skids for fascism.
Mrs Proposition 8 California and her fans aren’t being silenced. Critics of same sex marriage aren’t being silenced. Their freedom to dispense horseshit about morality, religion, family values and same sex marriage does not trump other people’s freedom to call their cheapshit prejudices for what they are, and regard them with disgust. If you can’t tell the difference between loosing a crown or loosing a tax break and going to jail then go get yourself arrested in some foreign land for opening your trap at the wrong time in the wrong place and find out.
Exactly what Lopez said in Matteson’s class is unclear. Lopez turned down an interview request, Matteson did not respond to e-mails, and French said he did not know enough about the speech to detail it.
So we still don’t know what it was he actually said. And that’s the crux of the entire episode. But…dig it. Lopez, the kid who is suing (through the courtesy of the culture warriors at the Alliance Defense Fund), isn’t saying. Now…why would he not want to tell anyone what it was he actually said? Better yet…why would couldn’t the reporters covering this story not be bothered to find out?
His Alliance Defense Fund mouthpiece (French) says Lopez spoke two verses from the bible that "had nothing to do with homosexuality." But…look at this…he’s not saying what they were. If he knows for a fact that they had nothing to do with homosexuality, then he knows what they were and he can tell the reporters what they were. If he doesn’t know what Lopez actually said then he can’t say that they had nothing to do with homosexuality.
They’re being very evasive here. It’s not hard to figure why.
Some time ago the Bay Shore Gay and Lesbian Center for Youths was vandalized. Its front door was broken and its van had its tires slashed, its windows busted out, and its sideview mirrors mangled.
Today I read that arrests in the case have been made and…surprise, surprise, the police have in their impartial wisdom determined that the vandals had not a prejudiced bone in their bodies after all…
Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy called the vandalism at a Bay Shore gay and lesbian center for youths an "attack against the gay community."
Gov. David A. Paterson dispatched the state’s commissioner of human rights to visit the site and deliver a message calling for acceptance.
And the Suffolk County Police Hate Crimes Unit investigated last week’s incident as a hate crime.
It turns out the vandalism at the Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth Center was not a hate crime after all, police said Tuesday.
What a relief to know that! Because…er…because… Well because the police just say so…
Police declined to say what led them to determine the crime was not bias-related.
I see. Three men and a woman, two of them 21 years old, one 20 and one 19, decided to slash a van’s tires completely at random. And then they broke out all its windows. And then they mangled the sideview mirrors. And then…again completely at random, they decided to break out a door that only happened to belong to the same group that owned the van. Just…on a lark… It had nothing to do with the fact that the van had the Long Island LGBT Youth center logo on it. And that door…it was just a coincidence that it also happened to be the door to the Long Island LGBT Youth center. There was no anti-gay animus involved here. Take our word for it. Because we insist you take our word for it.
Police arrested three men and a woman, all from Bay Shore, Monday in connection with the vandalism and charged each of them with second-degree criminal mischief. None of the four was charged with a hate crime.
Mischief…
Mischief…
But seriously…what more could attacking homosexuals amount to anyway, other then mischief? You say "hate crime" like its a bad thing…
[Update…] Reports are coming out now that two of the suspects were former clients of the center, who had been asked to leave for an as yet unspecified disruptive behavior…more then three years ago.
Zombie Rhetoric That You Just Can’t Kill No Matter How Hard You Try…
Over at Pam’s House Blend, the Homophobia Is A Made-Up Word argument rises grimly once more from its grave, and starts eating brains…
Words have meaning. Henceforth, I shall make a reasonable effort to eliminate "homophobia" and "homophobic" from my vocabulary.
The word "homophobia" suggests that the intolerant are afflicted; It follows that a treatable pathology can be associated with the condition. Moreover, the implication is that this condition represents an irrational fear like "acrophobia," a fear of heights or "zoophobia," a fear of animals. How about "pogonophobia" which is a fear of beards?
Hey…how about lexophobia, which is fear of dictionaries? Okay…I just made that one up. But a lot of people suffer from it.
Yeah words have meaning. And homophobia is a perfectly useful word that takes its meaning from another word, xenophobia, and applies it to homosexuals rather then foreigners or strangers. Here is xenophobia:
xenophobia
noun
Etymology:
New Latin
Date:
1903
Fear or hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign.
The word homophobia simply replaces strangers or foreigners with homosexuals in the definition. The meaning is the same, it just refers to a different class or category of people who are the object of the fear and/or hatred. Simple, no?
Apparently not. This isn’t complicated. Yes, the words phobic and phobia do not have that meaning, but the motherfucking suffixes can! Learn to read a dictionary and look up the goddamned suffix! There is nothing wrong with the usage of the suffix in the word homophobia.
This argument makes me want to scream whenever I hear it. How about hydrophobic? That’s a molecule that does not bind with water. How can a molecule have an irrational fear of water? Tell a chemist that they should eliminate that word from their vocabulary because a molecule cannot have fear, irrational or otherwise. Or hydrophobia…which is another term for rabies. There’s thermophobic, which is intolerance for high temperatures by either inorganic material or organisms. Or photophobia…which is hypersensitivity to light? There are a lot of words like these, that do not refer exclusively or even partially to irrational fear.
The argument that homophobia just means an irrational fear of homosexuals is another one of those cute little rhetorical ploys that bigots throw out there to confuse people. They do that. They will always do that. Accepting their definitions for words and terms and employing others you only think makes the concept more clear doesn’t buy you anything because they will simply redefine those new words and terms too. And they’ll keep on doing that.
How…just how…do you spend Any time in this fight without knowing that, as a matter of fact no, the other side actually does Not want to make the meaning of things clear? Do you just sleepwalk through the culture war? Look at how they redefine the word homosexual for chrissake. On the one hand, there is no such thing as a homosexual because it is a leaned behavior we could all stop engaging in if we wanted to. There are no homosexuals, there is only homosexuality. On the other hand, the homosexual agenda threatens the very fabric of western civilization, and militant homosexuals want to destroy the nuclear family. Yes words have meaning. And to the culture warriors that meaning is whatever they need it to be at any given moment. They don’t want to make anything clear. They don’t want you to understand their point of view. They aren’t arguing in good faith. They never argue in good faith. They want to win.
We don’t have to help them by letting them turn every converstation about gay people into a game of Calvinball. Homophobia is a perfectly legitimate word that describes a particular kind of bigotry. When one of those bigots starts yap, yap, yapping that they’re not a homophobe because they aren’t afraid of homosexuals, smack them upside the head with a dictionary and show them their photograph next to the word Bigot.
Posted by kdawson on Sunday February 01, @10:45PM from the hitch-hiker dept.
An anonymous reader writes
"While doing a weekly scrub of my Windows systems, which includes checking for driver updates and running virus scans, I found Firefox notifying me of a new add-on. It’s labelled ‘Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant,’ and it ‘Adds ClickOnce support and the ability to report installed .NET versions to the web server.’ The add-on could not be uninstalled in the usual way. A little Net searching turned up a number of sites offering advice on getting rid of the unrequested add-on."
The unasked-for extension has been hitchhiking along with updates to Visual Studio, and perhaps other products that depend on .NET, since August. It appears to have gone wider recently, coming in with updates to XP SP3.
Dig it. Microsoft is not only trying to modified everyone’s Firefox browser, they’re doing it surreptitiously And in a way that makes it difficult for most home users to undo.
People switch to Firefox, largely because they are concerned about the many security flaws in Internet Explorer. So what does Microsoft do? Instead of making a better web browser, they infect the one people are turning to in order to have a more secure computer. Here’s what I think: Microsoft didn’t do this simply to get its .NET technology into Firefox whether users wanted it or not…they did it to make users who are afraid to use IE, afraid to use Firefox too. Because now you have no idea what new security holes Microsoft has opened up in Firefox. This is an absolutely brilliant bit of Microsoft FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt).
Somehow, I don’t think this is going to win them any fans. Somehow I don’t think Microsoft gives a damn either. Microsoft will never change its predatory behavior. It needs to be broken up.
[Update…]
Some Microsoft droids on Slashdot are bellyaching that…well gosh, Adobe installs plug-ins onto Firefox and so does Sun in the form of its Java plug-in and golly a bunch of other software makers do that too so what’s so bad about Microsoft doing it? You people just like to hate on Microsoft is all. Which of course conveniently ignores the reality of Microsoft’s ownership of the operating system and the fact that this Firefox plug-in is being delivered in an update to the fucking operating system.
Microsoft’s position for years has been that its browser (Internet Explorer) is part of the operating system and cannot be separated from it. Fine. Swell. Great. Really. But Firefox is not part of the operating system. So Windows updates need to leave it the fuck alone! Or…at minimum…ask first. I realize that asking is not part of the Microsoft vocabulary though…
What’s significant about this is that Hanks is seen as the same sort of American Everyman character actor that Jimmy Stewart once was.
“The truth is this takes place in Utah, the truth is these people are some bizarre offshoot of the Mormon Church, and the truth is a lot of Mormons gave a lot of money to the church to make Prop-8 happen,” he told Tarts. “There are a lot of people who feel that is un-American and I am one of them. I do not like to see any discrimination codified on any piece of paper, any of the 50 states in America, but here’s what happens now. A little bit of light can be shed and people can see who’s responsible and that can motivate the next go around of our self correcting constitution and hopefully we can move forward instead of backwards. So lets have faith in not only the American, but Californian constitutional process.”
This, I can see from the other Google news headlines, has the kook pews up in arms.
Actor Tom Hanks went after The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for their support of California’s Proposition 8 while talking to Fox News. Today, the Church responded.
…
Church spokesman Scott Trotter issued a one-sentence statement today in response to Hanks’ comments. It reads: "Expressing an opinion in a free and democratic society is as American as it gets."
So cutting off your neighbor’s ring finger amounts to expressing an opinion. See how easy it is to live without a conscience? You don’t have to give a shit about anything or anyone. You can rip apart your neighbor’s marriage. You can brutalize children for profit. The lives of other people don’t matter. Only your quest for Godhood matters. Who cares how many lives you destroy, when at the end of it all you get to be a God?
What you need to keep in mind as you are reading this, is that it is happening to a fifteen year old boy. He has been sent to a Mormon "tough love" camp by his mother, who had recently married a religious fanatic.
I was led down a long hall of doors with nameplates. I had no clue what kind of place this was. I didn’t see any cows or horses…no sign of what I thought a "ranch" would resemble. Paul took me into a small room that was no bigger than a broom closet, which was stacked to the ceiling with three colors of cloth, blue, green and brown. There were green t-shirts, blue t-shirts, and blue jeans.
There were also brown army wool blankets, and I remember thinking that I didn’t want to sleep under such a coarse covering before I was told to "put it on." I was told to wrap a thick, itchy blanket around my waist like a towel and wear it like a dress.
I was then given a "leash" made of climbing rope and what I think was a square knot to tie around my waist.
I had never imagined being tethered and walked like a dog, but here I was, being walked like a dog towards a cluster of about 12 other boys. They were lined up facing a wall while two large men in red sweatshirts watched them from a couple of chairs off to the side.
Some of the boys had camouflage pants on, a few others wore dresses. I wondered how long I was to be in this blanket dress. I was later told that it was so I wouldn’t run away – and they were right – I literally could not run in this humiliating getup. I could barely get a full stride walking.
That’s when I saw Brent – or ‘Captain America,’ as he was called disparagingly – for the first time. My leash was handed off to him, but he told me to wrap it around my waist and go join the group of young men who were standing with their noses touching the wall, all spread out about arms length from each other.
I turned to the boy who was standing to my right and asked him how long he had been here, but before I could get my question all the way out, my forehead careened into the carpeted wall in front of me. A sharp pain stabbed the back of my head, and suddenly bad breath filled my nostrils. "Are you talking on my work crew, boy?" a red-shirted man screamed at me.
My head was ringing. I was still trying to piece together what had just happened when I looked behind me and massaged the pain in my head. Suddenly my legs fell out from underneath me and I was on my back.
He had just slammed my forehead into the wall, and now he had put his foot behind mine and pushed me, sending me to the floor flat on my back.
He stood over me and bawled, "Don’t look at me. Don’t look around. Don’t you MOVE without permission! You don’t do anything without permission! If you talk, I think you are talking about running away, and I will restrain you. Do you understand?" I nodded. I knew then that I had to get out of this place. I wasn’t going to last here.
…
His filthy digit tasted like rust and fish. "I can hurt you without leaving any marks," Brent growled as I writhed in agony on the ground. I struggled for breath as he mounted my back, put his finger in my mouth, and pulled back on my cheek, fish-hooking me. The pain was incredible. I tried to beg him to stop, but the words would not come.
After he finished beating and bludgeoning submissiveness into me, he pulled me up by the rope that was lassoed around my waist. The wool army blanket I had fashioned as a skirt had shifted askew and I stood there in my boxers bleeding from my nose, humiliated.
My green Utah Boys Ranch t-shirt had been ridiculously stretched out and looked more like a low cut blouse. I loosened the noose around my waist and pulled the itchy blanket through the loop and folded it over so it looked like a brown bath towel secured by a belt. He wasn’t satisfied, he wanted more.
Another notorious gulag for children is Tranquility Bay, located in Jamaica to it keep safely away from the reach of American law. Like Utah Boy’s Ranch it is also operated by Mormons. If you think the camps operated by Christian fundamentalists are horrific, take a look at what it is Mormons do to children. The righteous Mormon gentleman running the Utah Boys Ranch? His name is Chris Buttars. He is a Utah state senator.
More information the Mormon Gulag Here. Think about it the next time you hear someone from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints bellyaching that the gays are hateful. Think about the TV ads they ran in California, warning voters about how the homosexuals were coming for their kids.
Dan Savage takes note of the case of the California teenager who escaped his captors with the chain still dangling from his ankle, and complains, thusly…
Paul linked this in Morning News, but more details are emerging…
A husband and wife have been charged with torture and other counts after a bruised, terrified 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, claiming he had just fled his captors, authorities said Tuesday.
Kelly Lau Schumacher, 30, and Michael Schumacher, 34, were arrested late Monday, said Matt Robinson, a spokesman for police in Tracy.
They had been taken into custody for questioning earlier in the day at their home in Tracy, where the emaciated boy was allegedly held against his will. A search of the home turned up evidence implicating the couple, Robinson said…. Robinson said the boy was confused when approached by detectives Monday, unsure where he had come from and how long had been held against his will. He was taken to a hospital.
"The wounds he had and his physical condition as well as having a chain around his leg corroborated his basic statement that he was being held against his will," Robinson said.
Kelly and Michael Schumacher are legally married—and they can stay legally married, even if they’re found to be guilty of this horrendous crime. They can stay legally married even if the decomposing remains of twenty other teenagers are found buried in their backyard. Their marriage license cannot be revoked. If Michael dies in prison, Kelly can remarry—even if she’s serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. If Kelly decides to divorce Michael, he can remarry—even if he’s sitting on death row. He can remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce and remarry and divorce until he runs out of prison pen pals. Because the courts have declared that marriage is so fundamental a right that it cannot be denied to convicted rapists or to serial killers.
But it’s a right that’s denied to me and my boyfriend. Because we’re both men and that ain’t right.
What you have to understand, and I’m sure Dan Savage understands this perfectly well, is that killing twenty teenagers isn’t nearly as big a sin as loving someone of your own sex. You can sit on death row for torturing, killing, and eating an entire classroom full of children and still get sympathy from the kook pews. They forgave Susan Smith the moment, the instant, it was discovered that she, and not the black man she’d claimed, killed her own two boys by locking them in the family car and pushing it into a lake and letting them drown. Her stepfather, Beverly Russell, who had abused her since she was 15, was a figure in the South Carolina republican party, and the Christian Coalition, and after all Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven. But if someone splits your head open because they saw you walking down the street with your boyfriend’s hand in yours, you had it coming.
The Jonah Goldberg complains that things are getting ugly. No…not that cutting the ring fingers off of devoted couples is an ugly thing to do…but that those couples are fighting back is ugly…
Did you catch the political ad in which two Jews ring the doorbell of a nice, working-class family? They barge in and rifle through the wife’s purse and then the man’s wallet for any cash. Cackling, they smash the daughter’s piggy bank and pinch every penny. "We need it for the Wall Street bailout!" they exclaim.
No? Maybe you saw the one with the two swarthy Muslims who knock on the door of a nice Jewish family and then blow themselves up?
No? Well, then surely you saw the TV ad in which two smarmy Mormon missionaries knock on the door of an attractive lesbian couple. "Hi, we’re from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!" says the blond one with a toothy smile. "We’re here to take away your rights." The Mormon zealots yank the couple’s wedding rings from their fingers and then tear up their marriage license.
As the thugs leave, one says to the other, "That was too easy." His smirking comrade replies, "Yeah, what should we ban next?" The voice-over implores viewers: "Say no to a church taking over your government."
Obviously, the first two ads are fictional because no one would dare run such anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim attacks.
The third ad, however, was real. It was broadcast throughout California on election day as part of the effort to rally opposition to Proposition 8, the initiative that successfully repealed the right to same-sex marriage in the state.
What was the reaction to the ad? Widespread condemnation? Scorn? Rebuke? Tepid criticism?
Nope.
This newspaper, a principled opponent of Proposition 8, ran an editorial saying that the "hard-hitting ad" was too little, too late.
Look at this. Just look at it. Goldberg is saying that to call the Mormon church’s campaign against same-sex couples for what it is, is comparable to spreading the antisemitic lies that greedy Jews are controlling the world’s financial markets. And as for calling Muslems terrorists, just what the hell did Goldberg think was going on among his pals at in the kook pews after 9-11?
But Mormon’s really did spend millions, and made the critical difference in organizing the vote on Proposition H8. This isn’t a lie, it’s a matter of record. Although exactly how much money and manpower the Mormons put into it is still being dragged out of them by California authorities. That ad Goldberg calls ugly, was simply calling the Mormon’s attack on loving, devoted couples for what it was in meaning and in fact: an invasion of their homes, their lives, that destroyed their Marriages. That is literally what it was.
But Goldberg doesn’t see it that way. In his twisted moral sewer, it isn’t the Mormons who were the aggressors here, but the same sex couples who’s only crime was to be in love…
It’s often lost on gay-rights groups that they and their allies are the aggressors in the culture war. Indeed, they admit to being the "forces of change" and the "agents of progress." They proudly want to rewrite tradition and overturn laws. But whenever they’re challenged democratically and peaceably, they instantly complain of being victims of entrenched bigots, even as they adopt the very tactics they abhor.
Here’s what I tried to post in the comments to his column at the LA Times…
Tell Bill Robert Flanigan Jr., who had to wait outside the hospital doors while his beloved partner Robert Lee Daniel, died at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center that he is the aggressor in the culture war. Tell Janice Langbehn, who had the hospital door shut in her face while her partner Lisa Marie Pond died of a stroke in Jackson Memorial Hospital in Florida that she’s the aggressor in the culture wars. Tell Sam Beaumont, who was evicted from the ranch he shared with Earl Meadows, his partner of decades, by Meadow’s cousins, and then sued for backrent on top of that for back rent, that he’s the aggressor in the culture wars. Tell all the loving, devoted cross-national couples who cannot marry their loved ones, and have to wave goodbye to them as their visas expire, that they’re the aggressors in the culture wars. Tell Sharon Bottoms, whose son was taken from her because she is a lesbian, that she’s the aggressor in the culture wars.
Then look at yourself in a mirror, and ask the knuckle dragging lout you’re staring at what kind of person cuts the ring fingers off of devoted, loving couples, and then has the nerve to call Them aggressors?
…but the Times limits comments to 650 characters, so I had to whittle that down a tad. It’s pending "approval".
Goldberg and his smarmy kind need to understand one thing if they understand nothing else…the days when we passively accept having our home lives torn to bits by gutter crawling bigots like him and then being spit on for good measure, are over. No more Mr. Nice Gay. Welcome to the morning after. I’ll be your server today. My name is Fuck You.
Here’s what I don’t get about California and the recent Proposition 8 vote: Why all the commotion over yet another passage of yet another marriage amendment?
This was the 30th time a state has placed either a constitutional amendment proposal or its equivalent on its ballot, and the 30th time the amendment has passed.
Thirty straight wins is formidable. It’s downright Globetrotter-esque. The New England Patriots didn’t even go 30-0.
Nice. Tens of thousands of loving, devoted couples have just been forcibly divorced, care of the tens of millions of dollars the Mormon church shoveled into California’s ballot initiative process, and this prize Mormon lout is comparing that trauma to a sports game. I guess part of the process of becoming a god involves laughing at the humanity of those mere mortals who just happen to be your neighbors in this life too…
To: Lee Benson (benson@desnews.com), The Mormon Times.
Subject: Sore Losers
Sore losers Mr. Benson? The thousands of loving, devoted same sex couples who’ve just had their ring fingers cut off by your church are sore losers are they? Well…I reckon. But count on more sore losers to come. Sore losers like Richard Raddon, who just lost his job at the Los Angles Film Festival after his donation of 1500 dollars came to light. And Scott Eckern, who lost his job at the California Musical Theater when his donation of a thousand dollars came to light. Sore losers like Marjorie Christoffersen, owner of the El Coyote in Los Angles, who has lost customers and the respect of her neighborhood when her donation came to light. Sore losers. Election day has come and gone, and the votes have all been counted, and still the ranks of sore losers grow. And grow. And grow. We were supposed to just go away now weren’t we? Because it couldn’t possibly matter to us that our ring fingers had just been cut off. Because homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.
Eckern and Raddon, and all the sore losers still to come got exactly what they asked for, exactly what they worked so righteously to achieve. A world without love, without sympathy, without kindness and trust. A world where love grovels before the mob, and the human heart is something anyone can spit on if they have enough votes. Your church spent millions to tell our neighbors, our co-workers, our parents and children, our brothers and sisters, our families and our friends, that their gay and lesbian companions in this life were invading their schools to molest their children, imprison their clergymen, and destroy western civilization. And now we’re sore losers too. Well…I guess if we can be destroyers of western civilization, we can be that too without too much additional burden.
Sore losers? Okay. Fine. Whatever. And you…may you spend every second of the rest of your life watching victory laugh in your face. You reached for the poison. Now drink it.
Toyota, one of the biggest car companies in the world, is often a name synonymous with quality. There is even a philosophy of doing business, called “The Toyota Way”, which emphasizes that the right result will come from the right process, and that solving the root problems brings the organization the greatest benefit.
This ‘Way’ is probably not communicated to its lawyers in great detail, which is why Desktopnexus, a site that provides desktop backgrounds, has been contacted by them. In perhaps one of the most wildly arrogant demands in DMCA history, Toyota’s lawyers are demanding the withdrawal of all wallpapers that feature a Toyota, Scion, or Lexus. The site’s owner, Harry Maugans contacted Toyota to clarify. He was told that all images featuring Toyota vehicles should be removed, even images with copyright belonging to others.
Speaking to TorrentFreak, Maugans said: “Their lawyer, Garrett Biggs, told us that if we wanted them to specifically identify their images, we would have to pay for them to do so”. Maugans also said he was afraid it would come to a lawsuit, fearing the attrition effect that is so common now in copyright disputes. Toyota, with cash assets of over $23 Billion can surely afford to spin out the legal costs in an attempt to bankrupt the site – the same strategy that is often used to ‘encourage‘ a settlement in RIAA cases.
Yet, Toyota has also been cagey. These demands have not been sent in the form of a DMCA notice. While sending such a notice would require the takedown, it also requires that the person sending the notice legally certify that they are legal representatives for the copyright holders at issue. Making a false statement is ‘punishable under penalty of perjury‘, which is not taken lightly in US courts.
This is a multi-billion dollar corporation, basically using the legal system to grind a small website owner into dirt. A good faith legal challenge would contain specifics about what which images were infringing and which ones weren’t. This is about corporate arrogance, less then greed, because there is no way Toyota is suffering financial loss from a fan website that is putting up wall papers for the use of other fans. It’s not even like the RIAA sending out takedown notices. At least what’s being illegally copied in that case is the actual product. A web site that allows people to freely upload and download their own photographs of automobiles isn’t stealing anything from Toyota. A Toyota copyrighted image, yes. But Toyota is telling them to take everything down, or be either billed or sued into oblivion.
I have a suggestion. How about people upload their images of broken down or wreaked Toyotas instead? Maybe Toyota would like it if all anyone ever saw of their products on the Internet were images of broken down, rusted, junked abandoned or wreaked ones instead.
And just to get my digs in…I looked at a Lexus back when I was thinking about trading in the Accord. I looked at two different Acura models, the new Accord, the Lexus ES, and the (then) new Mercedes C300. I’d have bought any of the Acura’s before I’d have bought the Lexus. Yes, the Lexus was the more sumptuous of the lot, but that cushy comfort came at the expense of everything else an autombile is supposed to be, including road feel, performance and handling. It Looked nice. And it felt nice too. Until you sat in the Mercedes and right away you noticed how much more solid the German car was. The Mercedes, the Accord and both the Acura’s ran rings around it on the highway, and I have never experienced anything like the Mercedes at high speeds, or on twisty backroads. And mine’s only a ‘C’ class. A Lexus sedan is worth the money, only if you care more about the upholstery then the way it drives.
The Mormon Amendment To The California Constitution
The more people look at what happened in California, the more the vast scope of Mormon involvement in anti-gay politics, both in terms of money and organizational prowess, becomes known. In this article in Today’s New York Times, the bottom line is made perfectly clear: without the vigorous support of the Mormon church, Proposition 8 would have failed. The Mormon church wrote its will into the constitution of the state of California though lies and stealth, and lots and lots of money that its members were ordered to contribute…
As proponents of same-sex marriage across the country planned protests on Saturday against the ban, interviews with the main forces behind the ballot measure showed how close its backers believe it came to defeat — and the extraordinary role Mormons played in helping to pass it with money, institutional support and dedicated volunteers.
“We’ve spoken out on other issues, we’ve spoken out on abortion, we’ve spoken out on those other kinds of things,” said Michael R. Otterson, the managing director of public affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormons are formally called, in Salt Lake City. “But we don’t get involved to the degree we did on this.”
…
Jeff Flint, another strategist with Protect Marriage, estimated that Mormons made up 80 percent to 90 percent of the early volunteers who walked door-to-door in election precincts.
The canvass work could be exacting and highly detailed. Many Mormon wards in California, not unlike Roman Catholic parishes, were assigned two ZIP codes to cover. Volunteers in one ward, according to training documents written by a Protect Marriage volunteer, obtained by people opposed to Proposition 8 and shown to The New York Times, had tasks ranging from “walkers,” assigned to knock on doors; to “sellers,” who would work with undecided voters later on; and to “closers,” who would get people to the polls on Election Day.
Suggested talking points were equally precise. If initial contact indicated a prospective voter believed God created marriage, the church volunteers were instructed to emphasize that Proposition 8 would restore the definition of marriage God intended.
But if a voter indicated human beings created marriage, Script B would roll instead…
…
…the “Yes” side also initially faced apathy from middle-of-the-road California voters who were largely unconcerned about same-sex marriage. The overall sense of the voters in the beginning of the campaign, Mr. Schubert said, was “Who cares? I’m not gay.”
To counter that, advertisements for the “Yes” campaign also used hypothetical consequences of same-sex marriage, painting the specter of churches’ losing tax exempt status or people “sued for personal beliefs” or objections to same-sex marriage, claims that were made with little further explanation.
Another of the advertisements used video of an elementary school field trip to a teacher’s same-sex wedding in San Francisco to reinforce the idea that same-sex marriage would be taught to young children.
“We bet the campaign on education,” Mr. Schubert said.
They lied through their teeth and they threw a torrent of hate and Mormon church money into it and they steamrollered over the rights of devoted loving couples so they could become gods in their own universe someday. And now they’re upset that people are taking the fight back to them.
Mr. Ashton described the protests by same-sex marriage advocates as off-putting. “I think that shows colors,” Mr. Ashton said. “By their fruit, ye shall know them.”
And just what would you do, you gutter crawling bigot, if someone cut your ring finger off? Laugh it off? Shake the other guy’s hand? No you wouldn’t. But you expect us to roll over and play dead because we’re homosexuals and homosexuals don’t have feelings, and homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex. There is no reason for us to be angry with you, because you didn’t take anything sacred away from us, because we don’t feel love the way you do, because we’re not human like you are. We’re Satan’s followers, and we don’t have human emotions like you Future Gods In Training do.
Fruit…did you say? Fuck you Ashton. I’ve got your fruit right here. You sow poison in the earth, you get poison back out of it. Now eat it. Or as another gay man, James Baldwin once said…
People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
Baldwin wouldn’t have been allowed in one of your churches, even if he wasn’t gay, because according to your…prophets…black people were cursed by God and that’s why their skin is black. Your church has been elevating the cheapshit prejudices of its barstool prophets into holy writ for generations and now and a reckoning is long overdue. This isn’t your private universe, it’s the United States of America and it belongs to all of us, not just you White And Delightsome Gods In Waiting. The United States of America is not your private universe, and you are not gods, however highly you might think of yourselves. So fuck off.
Hundreds of people rallied outside a theatre in Sacramento today in support of the artistic director who resigned over his stand on Proposition 8.
After 25 years with California Musical Theatre, Scott Eckern, a BYU graduate and distinguished alumnus, has left his position as artistic director because of how he voted.
Ticket holders, donors and friends rallied outside the theatre supporting Eckern.
"Freedom should be respected, and they haven’t respected his freedom to do what he would with his funds," said supporter Jaynie Dufort.
Freedom? Like…freedom to marry? That freedom?
Look…it’s simple. You kick me in the face, I will not work with you. I will not shake your hand. I will not walk in your door. I will not patronize your business. I will not give you my hard earned money, just so you can take it and buy a knife to cut my ring finger off. Don’t kick me in the face one day lady, and then expect me to forget you did it the next.
"This is a witch-hunt," said Lance Christensen, who says he’s a regular patron of the theater and took off work to show his support for Eckern.
Witch hunt…did you say? Witch hunt? Like telling everyone that homosexuals are going to storm the schools and start recruiting everyone’s kids? That kind of witch hunt? Like telling everyone that their ministers will be thrown in jail if they don’t marry same sex couples? That kind of witch hunt? Witch hunts like this …?
The woman continued to poke at my face with her sign and call me "nasty." Genuinely disturbed by the complete lack of rational behavior I’d seen up to this point, wanting to look into her face and possibly connect on some level with her as a fellow human being, I pulled a corner of the sign down away from my eyes and asked "why are you calling me nasty?"
That’s when she attacked, clawing, grabbing and then shoving. I didn’t fight back; she was much bigger than me. Calling me a "nasty fucker" and threatening to kick my ass, she pried my phone out of my hand and tried to break it in half while her friends egged her on.
Please note that I never touched or threatened her in any way (unless you want to consider my pulling the edge of her sign out of eye-poking territory a threatening gesture).
As she grabbed at my phone, I stood there stunned, not really sure what to do. One of the counter-protesters (the woman who you see saying "No on Prop 8" towards the beginning of this clip) quickly intervened and calmed the attacking woman down enough that I felt safe enough to try to take my phone back. After a second or two of grappling, she let go and went back to screaming at cars from a lawn chair near the side of the road.
(Big love and gratitude to the kindly counter-protester who pleaded for calm. I don’t think my phone would have survived without you!)
I stood there for another minute or two, checking the phone’s applications for damage. One of the other sign-wavers, a teenage boy standing nearby, leaned over and whispered "fuck you, dyke."
Even though I wasn’t hurt besides a small scratch on my hand, and my phone was okay, being attacked definitely shook me up. I was a bit tearful. Call me naive, but I never thought I’d actually be in physical danger just for shooting footage of their activity and pulling the edge of a person’s sign out of my eyes. Verbal insults, sure. But attacked by an anti-gay activist? In one of the most queer-friendly neighborhoods in the bay area? Yikes.
The man holding the "Vote No" sign noticed that I was in tears and approached me. We hugged to a chorus of jeers, exchanged some reassuring words, and I turned to leave. Someone called after me: "keep crying, and keep walking."…
James Dobson dedicated his radio program today to explaining his sudden decision, which we mentioned earlier, to go to California this weekend to join Lou Engel, Tony Perkins and others for a massive "The Call" rally of prayer and fasting in the name of saving "traditional marriage."
In the clip below, Dobson has just explained that he received a letter from Rev. Jim Garlow, one of the leading organizers of the "yes on 8" movement pleading with Dobson to attend and, after reading it, felt God’s hand on his back telling him to attend "The Call." Dobson chokes up explaining that despite having been on the go for weeks and being exhausted, he knew God wanted him there. Dobson had to call his son to tell him he couldn’t babysit for his grandson this weekend as planned and his son Ryan then confirmed that God wanted him in California instead. Dobson could barely keep it together when he explained that "the Lord must be involved in this" and then hands over the program to Garlow, who also gets choked up and speaks of their level of spiritual desperation and their constant "crying out to God" to save California because they are "watching the destruction of Western civilization."
The destruction of Western civilization. The destruction of Western civilization. The destruction of Western civilization. You people spewed a torrent of venom on people whose only crime was being in love and wanting to get married, and now you’re complaining that we’re angry. Bullies always complain when their playthings start fighting back don’t they? It’s so…unfair. We’re supposed to just accept our station in life, as their punching bags.
I know…I know… We were supposed to just keep crying and keep walking, weren’t we? You didn’t think there would be any hard feelings the morning after, because homosexuals don’t have any feelings. We’re all so…flighty. We were supposed to just go back to cutting your hair, redecorating your homes and waiting on your tables. Fine. Hello…I’ll be your server tonight. My name is Fuck You.
No doubt we will be inundated by the religious right who will wax about evil intolerant gay folks but please spare us your usual twists in logic.
You are the same folks who boycotted McDonalds and Ford Auto because of their supposed support of the "gay agenda."
Nail. Hammer. Bang. And…Disney…and Kraft…and many others, especially sponsors of gay friendly TV shows. Every goddamned time some corporation steps forward as a friend to the gay community the gay haters are all over them threatening boycotts.
Fine. You don’t like our boycotts? Fuck You. You think our boycotts amount to religious persecution? Fuck You. You want us to respect your deeply held religious beliefs? Fuck You. Welcome to the morning after. I’ll be your server tonight. My name is Fuck You.
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