If homosexual marriages or civil unions are the equivalent of traditional marriages, you can’t discriminate. If you do, at the very least you put your government benefits at risk.
This is the same rationale that was used by the Supreme Court in 1983 to uphold stripping Bob Jones University of its tax-exempt status due to its racial policies.
That it was. Gosh it’s so uncanny how racists and homophobes look so much alike isn’t it? You’d almost think they were cut from the same cloth or something…
And in the end, it all comes down to money, not theology. What motivated the Pat Robertsons and Jerry Falwells and James Dobsons of America to pour their poison into American politics for the past several decades wasn’t abortion, and it wasn’t gay rights, and it wasn’t even racism, it was loosing their tax-exemptions.
Moral Judgements Are Easy When God Is Always On Your Side
On Box Turtle Bulletin I had a very brief argument with someone named David who could not believe that a fundamentalist crackpot once told me on Usenet that the Golden Rule gave him the right to harass gay people. David assured me that he had argued with them over on BeliefNet over the course of many years and never once encountered such an argument and asked me to provide him with an example. Which I did after a very quick scan of my Usenet archives.
The fundamentalist’s argument went something like this: "If I was engaging in self destructive behavior I would want someone to rescue me from it, even if I fought it at the time because I would thank them later." David assured me that such a stupid argument was "easily refuted". And yes, it is. But if fundamentalists were willing to listen to reason and logic we wouldn’t still be arguing over evolution in this country, let alone the human status of gay people. That David could find it "easy" to refute a fundamentalist about anything made me wonder how often David every really argued with any.
I was thinking about that reading This Story over at the New York Times about an atheist soldier who is currently suing the department of defense over violations of his religious freedom by officers and other soldiers. This follows years of horror stories of military personnel being subjected to forced proselytizing by evangelicals in the ranks. Not all of the victims, as the Times story notes, are atheists. In fact most of them are other Christians who were deemed to be not Christian enough for their tormentors…
In an e-mail statement, Bill Carr, the Defense Department’s deputy under secretary for military personnel policy, said he “saw near universal compliance with the department’s policy.”
But Mikey Weinstein, a retired Air Force judge advocate general and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said the official statistics masked the great number of those who do not report violations for fear of retribution. Since the Air Force Academy scandal began in 2004, Mr. Weinstein said, he has been contacted by more than 5,500 service members and, occasionally, military families about incidents of religious discrimination. He said 96 percent of the complainants were Christians, and the majority of those were Protestants.
Emphasis mine. When faith has degenerated into certainty you have lost all your brakes. You have become God’s own right hand and gods don’t feel shame. Or to put it another way…
After his run-in with Major Welborn, Specialist Hall did not file a complaint with the Army’s Equal Opportunity Office because, he said, he was mistrustful of his superior officers. Instead, he told leaders of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, who put him in touch with Mr. Weinstein. In November 2007, Specialist Hall was sent home early from Iraq after being repeatedly threatened by other soldiers. “I caution you that although your ‘legal’ issues are yours and yours alone, I have heard many people disagree with you, and this may be a cause for some of the perceived threats,” wrote Sgt. Maj. Kevin Nolan in Specialist Hall’s counseling for his departure.
Though with a different unit now at Fort Riley, Specialist Hall said the backlash had continued. He has a no-contact order with a sergeant who, without provocation, threatened to “bust him in the mouth.” Another sergeant allegedly told Specialist Hall that as an atheist, he was not entitled to religious freedom because he had no religion.
Emphasis mine. This is the mindset by which the Golden Rule becomes a license to do whatever you damn well please to your neighbor. This is the mindset by which putting a knife into the hopes and dreams of gay people becomes a form of love. There is no reasoning with this. It’s not that God is on their side, it’s that God is the face in the mirror. Good is whatever you decide it is. Evil is other people.
The anti-gay religious right is mounting Yet Another protest against the Day Of Silence, itself a protest against anti-gay violence in schools. First it was the misnamed Day Of Truth. Now it’s the Golden Rule Day. Jim Burroway over at Box Turtle Bulletin writes about the competing religious right activity, and sums it up pretty thoroughly here…
More than a year ago, I attended a Love Won Out conference in Phoenix put on jointly by Exodus International and Focus On the Family. That’s where I heard Focus’s Mike Haley address anti-LGBT violence in a Q&A session:
I think, too, we also have to be just as quick to also stand up when we do see the gay and lesbian community being come against as the Body of Christ. We need to be the first to speak out to say that what happened to Matthew Shepard was a terrible incident and should never happen again. And that we within the Body of Christ are wanting to protect that community and put our money where our mouth is…
That was a real “Wow!” moment for me. I thought finally, someone gets it. I can’t tell you how encouraged I was to hear Mike Haley say that. It was an ultimate Golden Rule moment. And I can’t begin to describe how disappointed I’ve been since then.
One year later, Lawrence King was killed in cold blood on February 12 in front of his teachers and classmates. Since then, conservative Christians leaders have celebrated seventy-three consecutive Days of Silence.
Emphasis mine. You should go read the whole thing. Day of Silence? How about seventy-three Days of Silence after a 15 year old gay boy was shot in the head.
That says it all. Can we please stop talking about their "sincerely held religious beliefs" now? This isn’t about faith. This isn’t about how much they love God. It’s about how much they hate us.
Slog reader Price makes a good point about the FLDS saga—DNA tests to determine whose kids are whose are underway—in Eldorado, Texas. These polygamists have been all over cable news and the front pages of American newspapers for weeks now. Says Price…
WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE?
Where’s the outrage from the “marriage should be between one man and one woman” crowd about this nonsense in Eldorado? You’d think they would be up in arms about this. Aren’t these people DESTROYING all marraige for normal straight couples
When I was in South Carolina before that state’s primary for Real Time with Bill Maher, I asked a religious conservative—a supporter of Mike Huckabee—who was the bigger sinner: a gay man married to one man or a polygamist married to a hundred women. He didn’t even hesitate: the gay man. You hear very little from the one-man-and-one-woman shriekers for the same reason you heard so little from them during the decades straight people spent redefining marriage for themselves. After straight people redefined marriage to a point that it no longer made any logical sense to exclude same-sex couples from the institution’s rights and responsibilities, suddenly marriage had to be defended from the gays. Activists that want to “save marriage” have never been motivated by what they’re for (one man and one woman) but what they’re against (gay sex, love, desire, etc.).
This has been another edition of What Dan Savage Said. Can we stop talking about the sincerely held religious beliefs of the anti-gay opposition now?
Many times on this site, I have offered to anti-gay Christians the idea that they could still oppose homosexuality without spewing hate or contributing to the culture of violence that exists for gay people. I still truly believe that can be done. I would like to start offering some concrete suggestions that anti-gay, Christian organizations could use to oppose homosexuality but without the hate speech.
But then he goes a little further…
I would appreciate pro-gay folks taking a moment to empathize with those who are oppose gay rights and give them some concrete requests to how they can voice religious opposition to homosexuality and gay marriage without promoting violence or hate toward gays. Understanding that some people believe homosexuality is against their religion, not everyone who voices opposition to us is a religious extremist. Some people just hold different beliefs. Perhaps we can talk about better ways to voice those beliefs and even run organizations that lobby for anti-gay rights groups without hate.
I have several problems with this Joe. Thirdly, you shouldn’t assume that us "pro-gay" folks haven’t tried…hard…to understand what is motivating the opposition. Do not assume that its easier to write off the opposition as malicious and hateful unless you’ve looked, really looked, into that Pit called Hate. There is nothing easy about walking up to that terrible edge, and looking in. There is nothing easy about having to go on living with what you saw. Nietzsche was right about the danger of gazing into an abyss.
Secondly, opposition to some things, like same sex marriage, is predicated upon the very dehumanization of gay people you’re asking them to refrain from. There is just no way to oppose same sex marriage while upholding opposite sex marriage without dehumanizing gay people first. It’s one thing to assert that marriage is essentially a religious rite and another to oppose even civil unions, let alone civil marriage. A lot of deeply religious people see the difference there perfectly well. The problem is that haters tend give their principle objection to same sex marriage a religious gloss to prevent people from actually looking right at it and seeing it for what it is.
If atheists can marry in ceremonies utterly bereft of any acknowledgment of God, then what, really, is the objection? It isn’t religious. It’s constitutional in the sense that they regard same sex relationships as a perversion of normal love. That’s what is being said in the opposition to same sex marriage. They’re not objecting to sinners marrying in sin. Someone else’s sin does not defile their own marriages or every 24 hour church in Las Vegas would have been closed down decades ago. Sinners are free to marry every day of the year as long as it’s to a person of the opposite sex. What the haters have been saying, unambiguously for decades now, is that letting gay couples marry defiles their own marriages. By making a mockery of their feelings for one another. Because homosexuals are incapable of those same feelings. Because all we can do, as Orson Scott Card once put it, is play at house.
Witness their insistence lately on that so-called complementary essence of heterosexual unions. Really look at it. What they’re saying is we don’t even have genuine sex, let alone authentically love the person in our arms. What they’re saying is that by calling our damaged, degenerate, empty assignations marriages we are mocking, deliberately mocking, their authentic humanity. That is not about sin, it’s about how they regard gay people as subhuman deviants. Perverts. Degenerates. That is what we are to them, and that is the basis for their opposition to same sex marriage, or they wouldn’t be using the language of defilement to describe their opposition. Two heterosexual drunks getting married after having sex in a Las Vegas hotel doesn’t devalue marriage. Two sober homosexuals claiming to love and cherish one another just like heterosexuals do does. You are asking them to stop dehumanizing gay people in their opposition to same sex marriage when the bedrock of that opposition is how thoroughly they’ve dehumanized us.
But my first and biggest problem with your suggestion is that the folks who aren’t extremists have never acted toward us in hateful ways. There are many devout people out there who aren’t waging kulturkampf against us but are simply and sincerely, if misguidedly, trying to steer us away from what they regard as sin. They aren’t lobbying against us in the statehouses and in Washington. They aren’t flinging mud at us, at our relationships, at our homes, at our hearts. They are instead, offering us a kind of hospitality. The "Good News" as they say. But that hospitality is hard to see beneath all the static the religious right is throwing out into the public discourse.
We don’t need to give those folks any of this advice because they know it all instinctively. And…this is important…they know it instinctively because They Can See The People For The Homosexuals. We are not some faceless other to them. We are not monsters. We are their neighbors. We are human beings to them, as real and as human as they. They have always known this, and they have always treated us as they would treat any neighbor in this life.
Joe…I think you should look…really look…at the advice you are giving the ones you think should hear it, and ask yourself in all seriousness, what sort of person needs to be told any of this…
…start talking about anti-gay violence and condemning it very vocally…
…be sure your information is balanced and based on PEER REVIEWED research…
…If your message is truly about “reaching out” to gays and lesbians than stay away from calling us insulting and dehumanizing names like sodomite and militant…
…Promote youth safety. If you are opposed to teaching about homosexuality in schools or anti-bullying campaigns that include homosexuality as a subject, then you damn well better have a solution to offer that stops the violence and shame that makes life miserable for these kids…
…Gays and lesbians want the same things out of life that you do. I cannot and will not believe that you unable to come up with ways to present your message without the barrage of negative pictures of gays and lesbians…
…Gays and lesbians really are reasonable human beings. Have you ever thought of setting up some meetings with your organization and pro-gay organizations to see what you can work on together and what you can agree on…
…The only reason this is a “war” is because you continue to promote it as one. If you promoted it as a collaboration or a disagreement, then it would be that instead of a war…
…Admit it when someone on your side just goes too far. Comparing us to terrorist went too far…
…We would appreciate it if you could acknowledge that our requests are valid requests even if you disagree with what we want. There is no secret agenda. We want equality and safety…
…Lastly, vow yourself and your organization to abandon myths about homosexuality, especially the one about us choosing to be gay. No one chooses to be gay. Each time you say that you minimize the whole issue to a simple choice and if it were so simple, I wouldn’t be writing this list of requests right now…
Exodus has been saying out of both sides of its mouth for years how "thousands have made the choice to leave homosexuality" and at the same time when asked to back that up with some cold hard facts admits that it is not, as you say, so simple after all. Do you think they cannot hear themselves talking out of both sides of their mouths?
Who needs this advice Joe? No one who would actually take it is who. You are looking for good faith where there is none. What does opposition to homosexuality minus the hate look like? Well I’ve seen it…rarely…but I’ve seen it, and it looks like hospitality. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I would also ask pro-gay folks to try their best to frame their request in Positive Actions Language. In other words, ask people what you DO want them to do, not what you DON’T want them to do.
I want them to get off my back. I want them to get the hell out of my garden. I want them to finally one day look at themselves in a mirror and die of that shame they’ve been running away from ever since they sold their soul to hate because it was easier then living in a world where other people are happy and content. That positive enough?
The US army doubled its use of "moral waivers" for enlisted soldiers last year to cope with the demands of the Iraq war, allowing sex offenders, people convicted of making terrorist threats, and child abusers into the military, new records released yesterday showed.
The army gave out 511 moral waivers to soldiers with felony convictions last year. Criminals got 249 army waivers in 2006, a sign that the demand for US forces in Iraq has forced a sharp increase in the number of criminals allowed on the battlefield.
The felons accepted into the army and marines included 87 soldiers convicted of assault or maiming, 130 convicted of non-cannabis-related drug offences, seven convicted of making terrorist threats, and two convicted of indecent behaviour with a child. Waivers were also granted to 500 burglars and thieves, 19 arsonists and nine sex offenders.
SANTA BARBARA, Calif., April 21 (AScribe Newswire) — New information released today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee shows that in 2006 and 2007 Americans who were convicted of serious crimes including sexual offences, manslaughter, "terrorist threats including bomb threats", burglary, kidnapping or abduction, aggravated assault and sexual assault were allowed into the military under moral waivers granted by the services.
According to the data given to the committee by the Department of Defense, the Army allowed the most waivers in 2006 and 2007. During this period, moral or felony waivers were given to 3 soldiers who had been convicted of manslaughter. One soldier was allowed in following a kidnapping or abduction conviction, 11 were convicted of arson, 142 convicted of burglary, 3 who were convicted of indecent acts or liberties with a child, 7 who were convicted of rape, sexual assault, criminal sexual assault, incest or other sex crimes and 3 who were convicted of terrorist threats including bomb threats.
So…let me get this straight. Letting gay people serve will harm the moral and readiness of our armed forces…but allowing child molesters and rapists to wear the uniform won’t. Look at this. No…really look at it. The leaders of the armed forces of the United States of America would really rather be saluted by rapists and child molesters then by a homosexual.
Well…this explains why Iraq is pretty much FUBAR doesn’t it? It wasn’t just Rumsfeld and Bush. They had help running our military into the ground from all the country club thugs in the pentagon executive suites. And it explains all this too…
All the culture warriors, all the fine culture warriors who fought to keep gay people out of the armed forces… All the righteous men and women of high moral standards and values… And in the end they turned out to be nothing more then a pack of street thugs, dragging America into their gutter…into that open sewer they call virtue…
David Roberts, over at Ex-Gay Watch, observes the kook pews falling over each other to excuse Sally Kern’s calling gay people a greater threat to the nation then terrorists, and writes…
I’m beginning to realize that, in at least some cases, what I thought was a more civil, sincere change in the hearts and minds of those who have opposed gay rights and equality in this society, perhaps was only a thin veneer which they feel has been imposed upon them.
Welcome to bigotville David. Yes…now they hate our guts even more for making them pretend to love us.
Sometimes a news article just jumps off the screen and laughs in your face. Via Box Turtle Bulletin… If you have any doubts about the depth anti-gay hate in this country, read this:
The General Assembly yesterday approved a resolution calling for expanded opportunities for Kentucky public schoolchildren to learn about the Holocaust and other acts of genocide.
House Joint Resolution 6 is named after the late Ernie Marx of Louisville, a Holocaust survivor who made a life’s mission to spread education about the horrors he witnessed.
It passed the Senate on a voice vote and the House by a vote of 83-12. It now goes to Gov. Steve Beshear.
The resolution would direct the Department of Education to make curriculum materials available for optional use in public schools by March 2009.
The material would be part of the Kentucky Program of Studies, which has state approval but is not required.
The resolution reflects four years of efforts by middle-school students at St. Francis of Assisi School in Louisville, where Fred Whitaker offers instruction on the Holocaust and takes students to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.
He said the pupils began lobbying for legislation that would give students in public schools access to opportunities to study the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
"These middle school students really knew something we should all know," Whitaker said. "They really knew there was something powerful that (happens) to anyone when they study the Holocaust and genocide."
Not powerful enough for some, apparently…
The Senate deleted a clause in the House version that cited other people the Nazis deemed "undesirable" because of their "race, nationality, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation, religion, and political ideology."
Whitaker said he received indications earlier in the session that the reference to sexual orientation was a "red flag" that could have endangered the bill.
Dig it. It took them Four Years, just to get the Kentucky statehouse to agree that school kids should probably learn something about one of the greatest human catastrophes of the twentieth century…Maybe. We’ll suggest they learn about it, but not require it. And then someone spies a clause in the bill suggesting that school kids learn that there were other victims besides Jewish folk, and that would have been fine too except for the homosexuals. You know…these guys…
But the republican majority leader tut, tuts, any suggestion that they wouldn’t have been fine…really…with including the gay victims of the holocaust in their Completely Optional Curriculum…
But Senate Majority Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, said in an interview that was never an issue for Senate leadership.
He said he had no problem with curricula discussing homosexual victims of the Holocaust as long as it’s "age-appropriate."
Whitaker said that, even without the language on other victims of the Nazis, "you can’t study the Holocaust and not also come across pink triangles," the insignia that homosexual prisoners were forced to wear.
You know goddamned well you can. For decades after World War Two nothing, Nothing was ever said about the pink triangles, until gay scholars started digging into it based on rumors and stories they’d heard from survivors. I started learning about the Holocaust in Junior High schools (middle school these days) and it figured in every lesson on that period of time for the rest of my grade school years and Not Once did I ever hear mention of the pink triangles, or how the Nazis had toughened Germany’s seldom enforced anti-gay laws, even before they enacted the brutally antisemitic Nuremberg laws, or how when the death camps were finally liberated, the surviving Jewish prisoners were released, as well as the gypsies, the Slavs, the intellectuals, the opposition party members…hell, even the communist prisoners were let go…but not the pink triangles. They were considered vermin by both the Nazis, and the American liberators.
Yes Mr. Republican Majority Leader Sir, you can goddamned well teach about the holocaust and not once mention the fact that gay men were rounded up by the Nazis too and shoveled into the death camps. That was the status-quo all during both our school years wasn’t it? And you’d like very much to go back to that status quo wouldn’t you? Because you know most of your voter base doesn’t think the Nazis did anything wrong when it came to exterminating homosexuals don’t you? And you know goddamned well you’ll loose votes if you do anything to suggest otherwise don’t you? If you have no problem with curricula discussing homosexual victims of the Holocaust, then why didn’t you have that line put back into the bill?
The Holocaust museum says the Nazis arrested about 100,000 men as homosexuals and that an unknown number died amid brutal conditions.
Marzian said she could accept the Senate changes.
"You have to compromise in legislation," she said.
You did a great job of putting the knife into it Kelly. You had your boys whisper that the bill Whitaker and Marzian worked on four four years was dead unless they deleted the line about gay victims of the Holocaust and they did it and now you can look at the cameras and claim you’re shocked, shocked, that anyone would bother caring about all that. This is why you’re majority leader isn’t it. You could have had it fucking put back in and insisted to your caucus that it stay there and you didn’t, and make no mistake, everybody knows who ripped that little page out of the history books and why.
And one other thing they’ll always know… In 2008, over sixty years after World War Two, Kentucky school children still aren’t routinely taught about the Holocaust, and won’t be because after four years of trying all the Kentucky state house could do was pass a bill that suggests they learn about it. That was about as far as you could go without loosing the bigot vote, wasn’t it Kelly? And now you get to play civilized man for the cameras.
Whitaker said he regretted that Marx, who died last year at age 81, didn’t live to see passage of the bill.
If it’s too much to ask that your schools teach about what happened to six million Jews I suppose it’s way too much to ask that it also mention the unknown thousands of gay victims too. Especially when you and your fellow republicans need to be able to gay bash for votes every few years.
Despite the fact that I still don’t have my college degree and that I struggled to make ends meet for most of my life working various low paying blue collar jobs, I suspect I could never pass myself off as "a man of the people", were it not for the shot of "Bartender’s Special" a very foxy bartender gave me once at Larry’s Lounge in D.C..
To run for president, you need to drink a lot…
I think it had Southern Comfort in it, which automatically gives me extra bonus populist points. Which is good, because I wouldn’t have touched that glass with a ten foot pool if I hadn’t been completely twitterpated by the guy who handed it to me, and having a drink with a cute guy in a gay bar penalizes me severely on populist points.
Three Cheers For Heterosexuality. Oh Come On Now…Cheer!
Via Pam’s House Blend… Brian Blair is the opponent of Kevin Beckner, the openly gay man running for the Hillsborough County Commission in Florida. The county is holding its Day of Silence in honor of 15-year-old hate crime victim Lawrence King this year, and naturally, as Pam puts it, "…the idea of kids engaging in a silent, passive act against violence, harassment and prejudice during the school day is just too much to bear for these people of apparently weak faith." Here’s what Blair has to say about it:
"I have always believed that all citizens are equal and should be treated accordingly. On the other hand, no group of citizens should be given government sanction and support to promote their social and sexual agenda upon the rest of us and especially, on our children."
"Considering the fact that the same school system does not want to allow just one Minute of Silence in the classroom for God, this is preposterous."
"Can you imagine asking for a ‘Day of Cheer for Heterosexuality?’ If no action is taken to change this policy, then perhaps it is time for another surgical strike from the majority; ‘A Day of Abstention’ from school participation might be considered."
Brian Blair brings a high degree of seriousness to American politics, and Florida politics especially, not simply because he is a defender of heterosexuality against the militant gay agenda, but also because he was once a WWE professional wrestler. Here’s a photo of Mr. Blair (on the left) in his role as part of the WWE "Killer Bees" team…
Can you imagine asking for a ‘Day of Cheer for Heterosexuality?
Via Box Turtle Bulletin… Now what the hell was this supposed to accomplish…?
We commented earlier on how the mainstream media omitted all mention of Major Alan Rogers’ orientation or of his efforts to overturn the military’s ban on open gay servicemen. We told you how the Washington Post ombudsman wrote a column to repair that deliberate exclusion. Now there’s a new twist.
The user on Monday redacted details about Rogers that appeared on the online encyclopedia site. Information that was deleted included Rogers’ sexual orientation; the soldier’s participation in American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group that works to change military policy toward gays; and the fact that Rogers’ death helped bring the U.S. military’s casualty toll in Iraq to 4,000.
And while the individual responsible isn’t known,
The IP address attached to the deletion of the details and the posted comments is 141.116.168.135. The address belongs to a computer from the office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) at the Pentagon. The office is headed by Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, who was present at Rogers’ funeral and presented the flag from Rogers’ coffin to his cousin, *Cathy Long.
The factual information has been reinstated in the Wikipedia entry.
* Long is the cousin that was unaware of Rogers’ orientation and thought it should be left out of the Post article.
Alan Rogers’ was a soldier and a gay man. He was dedicated to equal rights for gay soldiers. He kept his sexual orientation at least partly in the closet, so he could continue to serve. That is the devil’s bargan Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell demands of gay soldiers. He could have easily avoided the FUBAR that George Bush made of Iraq by coming out of the closet and getting his discharge. He didn’t. Whatever you think of Bush’s splendid little war, Alan Rogers’ was obviously proud of his service to the United States. While in uniform, bearing arms for the sake of his country, he made the ultimate sacrifice for his country. The least his country could do, is be proud of him too.
And I think his country Is proud. Even the piss ignorant jackasses who still believe in Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Some of them anyway. Probably not James Dobson or Sally Kern. But I think even louts like Charles Krauthammer would salute this man’s memory, just as he was. Maybe. However, as you can see, it is still far too much to ask of the stars and bars in their comfortable air conditioned pentagon offices, that they be proud of All their fallen heroes.
ORLANDO, Fla. — A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.
Fat chance.
The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.
If you think this sort of thing isn’t what the people who are pushing Abstinence Only sex education intended you aren’t paying attention. This is exactly what they want. Remember, these are the same people who don’t want young girls vaccinated against the virus that can cause cervical cancer because…well…because people who have sex without their permission deserve to die horribly. They Want kids to get HIV. They Want kids to get pregnant. They Want their bodies to shrivel with disease that could have been easily prevented. And not because it’ll serve as a warning to others about the dangers of sex. No…no…no… Not because it’ll serve as a warning to others about the dangers of sex. Because they hate them. Because they hate the joy of life they see in them. Because they hate humanity. If people can’t be taught to hate their bodies, if they can’t be taught to feel shame for being human, if they won’t beg god to forgive them simply for existing, then they have to die. It really is that simple. If you think that bottomless hatred of humanity only exists in radical Islam you are not paying attention.
The organization collecting signatures for a proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage in California says it is close to meeting the requirement.
Protect Marriage says it has collected 881,000 of the 1.1 million signatures needed. The deadline for turning in the petitions to county registrars is April 21.
Registrars are then required to take a random sample of signatures to verify. If that sampling shows at least 10 percent more valid signatures than required the petitions will be certified and the measure will be placed on the November ballot.
"The numbers are good, solid," Ron Prentice, a spokesperson for Protect Marriage told The Christian Examiner, a conservative Christian publication.
"We are well toward our goal. There are thousands more yet to be counted with a steady stream still coming in."
Among the major donors to Protect Marriage are a group of San Diego County businessmen. Developer Doug Manchester alone has contributed $125,000 prompting gays to urge a boycott of his properties. Manchester owns the Manchester Grand Hyatt and the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina.
Mission Valley developer Terry Caster has donated $162,500, Carlsbad car dealer Robert Hoehn gave $25,000, and La Jolla businessman Roger Benson has given $50,000, according to state records.
It would just break my heart if the land of my birth did that to me. I’ve noted before that the only reason I can travel freely around the United States is that I’m single. If I had a spouse, there are many states in this so-called union that we simply could not set foot in because if one of us had a sudden health problem, or there was an accident, it would become a nightmare for both of us. Even with a so-called durable power of attorney, we could be denied the right to simply be with each other in a hospital…even with a medical directives document…we could be denied the power to make medical decisions for each other should one of us become suddenly incapacitated. Some state constitutional amendments, like Virginia’s are so stringently and thoroughly crafted to ostracize same sex couples from the protections of the law, that they can even be read to deny same sex couples the right to hold a joint checking account.
There are simply not that many people in this country who hate us enough to want to do that to us. The problem, like it was for another hated minority group over in Europe back in the 1920s and 30s, is that the rest of the nation doesn’t care enough to tell them to stop it. So when these amendments are put up to a vote, they stay home and allow hate to have its way. These are the people who say later, "We heard the rumors, but we didn’t believe them…"
Once upon a time I planned to move back to California after mom passed away. Then I got the job I do now, and my little Baltimore rowhouse, and I stayed in Maryland. But even now I think sometimes that when my time to retire comes, if it ever does, I’d like to spend the last years of my life back there where I was born. It’s a lovely state. It would break my heart if the day ever came that I couldn’t even visit California again.
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