First time I left Disney World and walked back into the real one it was to headlines screaming at me that over 170 people had been killed in coordinated terrorist attacks in India.   This time:

Binghamton Rampage Leaves 14 Dead, Police Don’t Know Motive

By 10:33 a.m., the shooting was over and 14 people — including the gunman — lay dead, the chief said.

At least four people were listed in critical condition. Earlier, sources said as many as 26 people were wounded.

3 Pittsburgh officers killed; suspect taken after standoff

An ambush that resulted in the shooting deaths of three Pittsburgh policemen was precipitated by an emergency call from the gunman’s mother over a dog urinating in the house.

…later identified as Richard “Pop” Poplawski, 22. A dishonorably charged Marine, he adhered to a number of right-wing conspiracy theories and expressed fears of a “Zionist nation” revoking his right to own guns.

Breakup ignited dad’s deadly rage in Graham

He jumped in a car with oldest daughter Maxine, 16, who tracked her mother through a cellphone global-positioning system.

They homed in on a convenience store 20 miles away in Auburn, north of the Muckleshoot Casino. James confronted his wife, who was with another man. He wanted her home. She said she wasn’t coming back.

He stormed home, consulted relatives and calmed down. Maxine went to bed about 11 p.m. with her four younger siblings. She sent a classmate a text message from her cellphone: “I’m tired of crying. I’m going to bed.”

Within hours, James Harrison, 34, grabbed a rifle and shot each child multiple times. Four were found in bed. One of the girls died in the bathroom after a violent struggle.

Armed with a second rifle, he returned to Auburn on Saturday morning, perhaps in hopes of finding his wife. Perhaps to kill again. Instead, sitting inside his running SUV, he turned the rifle on himself. His body was discovered about 8 a.m. by children playing in the area.

Welcome back to Realityland Bruce…

Oh…and the Iowa Supreme Court Unanimously decided that not letting same sex couples marry was an unconstitutional denial of equal protection.   I should be happy about that and I am, but I dread reading the news accounts because inevitably they have to give the gutter a chance to spit on gay people, happy couples, and all their hopes and dreams.   But more and more I’m seeing words like these, finally…

There was a time, not that long ago, when it was possible to imagine, however inaccurately, that gay sex was in and of itself a self-destructive pathology, something no happy, healthy person would willingly engage in. That time is past. The evidence of stable, loving relationships between well-adjusted, successful people is all around us. Indeed, this abundant evidence–and not the tides of the sexual revolution, which peaked more than three decades ago and have since receded–is the reason that gay rights, and in particular the question of gay marriage, have moved so quickly in recent years.

That time is past…   Yes, for the people willing to let reality speak for itself.   I am of a generation of Americans who were taught all kinds of horrible, filthy lies about gay people, and not simply in school, but in church, in the movies, in magazines and newspapers, and on TV.   Where we were not dangerous sexual psychopaths we were contemptible faggots.   When I was 17, and just beginning to grasp that I was gay myself, I got the message about how people felt about homosexuals from just about every direction I looked…

Mad #145, Sept ‘71, from “Greeting Cards For The
Sexual Revolution” – “To A Gay Liberationist”

At the beginning of James Burke’s PBS series The Day The Universe Changed, he tells a story of some students of philosophy, bragging to the teacher about how ignorant people were to think that the earth was the center of the universe, and that the sun orbited around the earth rather then the other way around.   How ignorant, said the students, when all they had to do was just look up and observe the sun rising as the earth turned.   Yes, said the teacher, but I wonder how it would have looked to them had the sun actually been orbiting the earth?   The point being that it would have looked the same.   Sometimes what we see is what our knowledge tells us we’re seeing.   And for generation upon generation, people have been taught to see gay people as monsters…sick, perverted, disgusting, pathological monsters.

Which was how we saw ourselves for so very long.   That time is past.   And years of living openly and proudly are having their effect on anyone open to the evidence.   But there’s one more movement to go in this civil rights dance…

Gay Bashing Suspect: ‘The Faggot Deserved It’

A 62-year-old man assaulted in an alleged hate crime in a Vancouver gay bar remains in hospital care.

In the wake of the attack, the local GLBT community has mounted protests against the attack, as well as a string of earlier incidents that may also have been anti-gay hate crimes.

On March 17, Xtra.ca reported that a witness described how the suspect, 35-year-old Shawn Woodward, declared, “He’s a faggot. He deserved it” after allegedly striking Richie Dowrey in the face, knocking him down.

The suspect also reportedly declared, “I’m not a fag. The faggot touched me. He deserved it.”

The alleged bashing took place at a gay bar, The Fountainhead Pub, in Vancouver’s West End.

Said the witness, Dowrey’s friend Lindsay Wincherauk, “[Dowrey] fell like a board to the ground so hard that a hollow thud could be heard throughout the bar.”

Dowrey reportedly suffered severe brain damage.

Said Wincherauk, “There’s a chance if he survives he won’t walk again.”

The sun doesn’t just suddenly rise on a day when we are an equal and respected part of our communities.   What happens is gradually, step by step, the chains that hate put on our lives slowly loose their power over us, and we walk free.   But we are not free yet.   The simple, elegant, beautiful gesture of couples simply holding hands as they walk together, is still enough to get us beaten to death.   What happens is that as we walk out of the shadow of hate our heterosexual neighbors begin to see us, finally, as the people we really are.   What happens is that hate, greedy, envious, hungry, follows us out of the shadows also, and into the light, where it can be seen by everyone too…

Community responds to gay bashing near campus

The two men charged in the gay bashing of two University of Cincinnati students near the Main Campus will each reappear before a judge within the next week.

Ethan Kirkwood, 20, of Meadow Creek Drive in Anderson Township, and Matthew Kafagolis, 20, of Ramundo Court in Anderson Township, were arrested on two counts of felonious assault and released on bond. Since the arrest, the charges have been dropped to two counts of misdemeanor assault, according to the Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Web site. The charges were lowered on March 20 and March 19, respectively.

The maximum penalty for a misdemeanor assault charge is less than one year in jail.

…The two men are being charged with allegedly assaulting two men – both are UC students – after the men found out one of the victims was gay, around 4 a.m., Friday, March 6, in the 2500 block of Clifton Avenue.

The gay man was knocked to the ground, kicked and punched after the assailants found out he was gay, according to court records. The other victim was attempting to defend his friend when he was also beaten.

That our neighbors see us for the fellow human beings we are is good, but it is not the end of it.   They must also see the hate for what it is too.   That will be the end of it, finally.   But it is going to destroy more lives before this thing is over.

It seems, the golden state is bankrupt…

California goes broke, halts $3.5 billion in payments

California, the eighth largest economy in the world, is broke.

"People are going to be hurt starting today," said Hallye Jordan, speaking on behalf of the state Controller. "There’s no money."

Since state legislators failed to meet an end of January deadline on an agreement to make up for California’s $40 billion budget gap, residents won’t be getting their state tax rebates, scholarships to Cal Grant college will go unpaid, vendors invoices will remain uncollected and county social services will cease.

It takes a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases in all state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates. It also requires two-thirds vote majority in local elections for local governments wishing to raise special taxes.   What that means in practice, is a small minority of anti-government republicans can veto all tax increases, but not any spending bills. 

This was deliberate.  Knowing that the voters would never accept lower taxes if it meant reduced services, the ideologues decided to sell the voters on the free lunch theory of government…that taxes were high because government was inherently wasteful and corrupt, not because the public wanted it to do things above and beyond the basic services of police, courts, armed forces, like…fight fires…build roads…keep the water supply drinkable…prevent mass outbreaks of food poisoning…provide for the needy…put the unemployed back to work…and so on.  Right wing anti-Government operatives like Howard Jarvis and Grover Norquist knew exactly what they were doing.  The idea Was to bankrupt government, as a back door way of killing the New Deal.  As Grover Norquist put it, to starve government "down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub."

Well…here we are.  In right wing Nirvana…

"Some 46 states face budget shortfalls, forcing them to slash funding for many services," reported CNN. "But California, the largest state in the union by population, faces a deficit that totals more than 35% of its general fund."

Nice work Mr. Norquist, Mr. Jarvis.  The whirlwind you ordered is in the mail.  And all those people you sold free lunch government to won’t be very happy with you when they’re watching their homes being auctioned off, and their children going hungry, so that your fat cat bankrollers could buy a few more yachts and luxury condos…

Timothy Kincaid over at Box Turtle Bulletin, has the party line vote on the first of the so-called "common ground" bills put forward in Utah.  These bills actually do very little to insure equal rights for gay and lesbian citizens…almost the bare minimum you could imagine.  The first of these to come to a vote, simply made it possible for financial dependents, other then legally married spouses, parents and children, to sue if their breadwinner suffers wrongful death.  Keep in mind that these so-called "common ground" bills were introduced after the passage of Proposition 8, when the Mormon church’s staggering level of involvement became widely known, and the Mormon leadership, while in the glare of the public eye, averred they had no problem with extending gay people many of the rights of marriage…just not marriage itself.

Many of us found that statement interesting, since nothing was stopping them from giving gay Americans in Utah those rights and gay Americans in Utah have damn few if any.  The only places as bad to be gay are the deep south

The bill failed along party lines.  Republican verses democrat?  Oh my, no…

Let me be clear. There is no legitimate reason to exclude those who rely on someone for their livelihood from suing should that livelihood be taken away due to the wrongful actions of another. If a woman is killed directly due to the reckless or wrongful actions of another, why should her partner who stays home and raises the kids not be able to sue?

But because this bill was understood to benefit (among others) those gay persons who rely on each other, Sen. Buttars’ committee killed the bill 4 – 2.

And did the Mormon Church live up to its claim? Did it encourage its members to allow for probate rights for gay couples? Let’s see.

Voting “no” were:

Chris Buttars, Mormon
Lyle Hillyard, Mormon
Mark Madsen, Mormon
Michael Waddoups, Mormon

The three non-Mormons either voted Yes or were absent.

As Kincaid notes, this fits pretty well with recent polls showing that Utah Mormons are hugely against granting their gay neighbors any rights whatsoever, other then maybe, possibly, the right to breath.  So long as they don’t flaunt it.

Expect the Mormon church to claim it has no influence over the state legislature.  They’ve shown repeatedly that they can look you right in the eye, smile, and lie through their teeth.  Your hopes, your dreams, every smile you ever gave the one you love, and every smile you ever received in love, and placed somewhere deep within your heart: these things are their stepping stones to Godhood.  Nothing else matters to them.  Nothing.  They will walk over your every hope and dream, and grind them into dirt, for that promise of Godhood at the end of the road.

I know…I know…  But there are Mormons who don’t hate their gay neighbor…  Yes.  And they are either silent or they are on the road to excommunication.  We, that is America, saw it all during the battle over Proposition 8.  There are no Mormons who are not on board for the war on gay Americans…only Mormons who are about to leave, or be shown the door.

Via Brad DeLong…  Now I see that the republican bellyaching over contraceptives is even more dishonest then just their usual crude sexual mores posturing…

Bad Faith Economics

Paul Krugman:

Bad Faith Economics: As the debate over President Obama’s economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan’s opponents aren’t arguing in good faith…. John Boehner, the House minority leader, has already made headlines with one such shot: looking at an $825 billion plan to rebuild infrastructure, sustain essential services and more, he derided a minor provision that would expand Medicaid family-planning services — and called it a plan to “spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives.”…

Emphasis mine.  And it get’s better…

[T]he bogus talking point that the Obama plan will cost $275,000 per job created…. It’s as if an opponent of the school lunch program were to take an estimate of the cost of that program over the next five years, then divide it by the number of lunches provided in just one of those years, and assert that the program was hugely wasteful, because it cost $13 per lunch. (The actual cost of a free school lunch, by the way, is $2.57.)…

Nice.  They keep this up throughout the recession and they’ll be lucky if they get more votes next election then Lyndon LaRouche.

Just ran across this on SLOG…

A Friend, Who’s a Lawyer, Stayed Up Last Night Reading Obama’s First Two Executive Orders

Posted by Christopher Frizzelle on Thu, Jan 22 at 6:09 AM

Here’s what he discovered:

I was perusing whitehouse.gov and, as a nerd lawyer who enjoys reading written law (meaning statutes, regulations and the like), found myself reading Mr. O’President’s first two Executive Orders. One involves procedures for release by the Archivist of documents possibly subject to a claim of executive privilege by the incumbent or a former President. Zzzzzzzzzzzz. The other is styled "Ethical Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel," setting forth rules about such things as acceptance of gifts and revolving door issues. What caught my eye, what would never have been ordered by W, is the following Ethical Commitment:

"6. Employment Qualification Commitment. I agree that any hiring or other employment decisions I make will be based on the candidate’s qualifications, competence, and experience."

This is huge. Understand that if an Executive Branch employee violates that rule, the Attorney General can go after the miscreant, including barring him or her from government service, barring him or her from lobbying the Federal government, enjoining him from the violation, and going after any cash or other things of value he or she got.

How different would today’s Justice Department, for example, look if such an Order had been in place in 2001? How many Federalist Society lawyers would have been hired ahead of Top Ten grads from major law schools?

Imagine! A requirement that public servants be selected based on their "qualifications, competence, and experience." We are entering a mysterious, brave, new world, one based on, um, common sense and the public interest.

One of my old and dear friends is a patent and copyright attorney.  I’m going to forward him this.  He might get a kick out of reading all the stuff on whitehouse.gov that’s going on in the public view now.

We are truly living in a new era…

Atrios writes…

It’ll be interesting and, more often than not, frustrating to watch as the new reality takes hold in Washington. The Village conventional wisdom has been stuck in 1984 for 25 years now, and obviously things have changed. The media have been taking their cues from Republicans for so long it’s difficult to see how that will change quickly. But things have changed.

I was watching some of the TV news coverage of the inauguration last night…I haven’t watched TV news in ages its been so pathetically worthless…and I was struck by how many of the gas bags on my screen were actually older then me.  Then I remembered that I am not young either.  So why did they look so damn old?

If the Village Conventional Wisdom has been stuck in 1984, I’ve been stuck in 1976 for 32 years now.  That is…I keep thinking of myself as young when logically and rationally I know I’m not and haven’t been for quite a while.  I look in the bathroom mirror every morning and dang if I don’t see a 55 year old man staring back at me.  But I know I’m that and when I see myself in a mirror, or in a photograph, it doesn’t bother me.  But sitting on the couch watching tv (or for that matter banging on a keyboard as I am right now) somehow I just snap back into that mental self image I had back when I was a kid.

So I have no gut level apprehensions at the passing of the generational torch that I’m seeing now in some of the talking heads.  As far as the inner me is concerned, this is the moment I’ve been waiting for all my life: when what Howard Cruse once called Kennedy Time picks back up where it left off.  I’ve been waiting out Nixon Time now for so long I’d almost forgotten how it felt to be living in an America that had a bright and promising future in front of it.  I’ve no idea if Obama is going to be the kind of president Kennedy was…in point of fact I was too young during Kennedy’s all too brief administration to really grasp what was going on in the world politically.  All I knew was after being a kid in a world where the communists were lurking in all the shadows, suddenly there was nothing to be afraid of anymore.  There was a future ahead of us, and it was going to be a great adventure after all, and not something to fear.  If Kennedy hadn’t been assassinated, I wonder if the counter-culture that came later in the decade would have pushed back as hard at that era’s Wise Old Men.  Johnson was no Kennedy.  We all felt betrayed.

There is something in the air today, very much like the feeling I had back in "Kennedy Time".  Yes, there are dangers ahead, yes there are hard times facing us, but we will meet them and rise above.  We can do it.  Liberty and Justice for All can win over totalitarianism and greed and hate.  America can walk with the rest of the world into a brighter tomorrow.  We can do it.  I’m writing here about the sense of mind and spirit you feel now, not necessarily the reality on the ground.  The next few years are not going to be a cakewalk obviously.  For one thing all the apparatus of the Nixon/Reagan right are still there.  Rush Limbaugh and all the other hate jockeys will still be pumping venom into hearts and minds, although hopefully to smaller and smaller audiences.  Right wing billionaires like Howard Ahmanson will still be destabilizing our democracy with their wealth like heroin and meth pushers destroy neighborhoods.  The enemies of democracy around the world will hate us all the more for living up to our ideals then they did while Bush and Cheney were busy pissing on them and laughing.  But America is dreaming a better dream now, then the tired and fearful conceits of the Wise Old Men. 

So there I am on the sofa, watching the talking heads on TV trying to wrap their minds around this new president and this new reality and suddenly they all just look old and tired and I have to remind myself that they’re not that much older then me some of them.  And I am struck by this fact.  The entire time Bush sat like a turd in the White House and I was hating, absolutely loathing the Washington news media, The Villagers, for kissing up to him, I never really noticed how old The Villagers were.  I saw it in their faces today.  But mostly, in their smiling bewilderment.  And I remembered how Kennedy had begun, by declaring that the torch had been passed.

We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans-born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage-and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this Nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
–John F. Kennedy – inaugural address, Friday, January 20, 1961

There’s going to be a lot of ink written about how Obama represents the passing of the tired old boomer generation.  But many of us boomers didn’t get old and tired and never let go of our dream of a better world, a just and peaceful world.  We were outflanked by the Nixonites, who simply dug in their heels and kept on fighting after Nixon resigned.  We thought the struggle was over then and it wasn’t, it was only just beginning.  Cheney and Rumfeld, who were both in the Nixon administration, and much of their gang were born either before or during the second world war.  Villagers like David S. Broder were born well before it.  If my generation is guilty of anything, it’s living too much in our dreams and not enough in the world to make them real.  I’m told that there is a saying among Jews, that when you pray you should pray as though everything depends on God, but when you act you should act as though everything depends on you.  We should treat our dreams like that.  Dream as though dreams come true.  Act as though dreams are not enough.  And never underestimate how much the darkness hates the dreamer.

One thing that struck me about Obama early in the primaries, was how good he was at taking the measure of his opposition, how decent he remained in the heat of the fight and how relentlessly focused he was on the process and the outcome.  He took the Clinton camp completely by surprise, and walked right on by them, so certain were they that their candidate was inevitable.  There’s the difference between the generations.  There’s why Obama was the better person for the job…the necessary person for the job.  Nothing is inevitable.  If the torch has now been passed to a new generation who revere the dream of liberty and justice for all, but are wise to its enemies, starry-eyed and street-smart, then we will get to the promise land.

[Edited a tad…]

I watched him take the oath of office, and heard him speak to America and the world after, with my co-workers here in the Institute auditorium.  I was too young to appreciate Kennedy, really.  But I remember not only the excitement of the adults around me, but also the sense of promise everyone saw in him.  The nation was young again, and the future was full of promise.  I never really appreciated what so many decades of Kultar Kampf had done to take that away from me.  So much Ronald Reagan.  So much Moral Majority.  So much George Bush.  So much Karl Rove.  So much James Dobson.

And then I watched Obama take the oath, and I heard him speak to America, and to the world, and I felt it again, just as I had when I was a kid, doing my duck and cover exercises, listening to the civil defense tests on the radio and TV, and nobody knew who was going to win the cold war, or the space race.  And I wasn’t the only baby boomer in that audience.  We all felt it.  I could tell.  America is young again.  The future is full of promise.  We can do it.  We can do anything…

Via Dan Savage…Via After Elton…  HBO is pointing the finger at Obama…

Developing: HBO says they aren’t to blame for not including Gene Robinson in concert special

Contacted Sunday night by AfterElton.com concerning the exclusion of Robinson’s prayer, HBO said via email, "The producer of the concert has said that the Presidential Inaugural Committee made the decision to keep the invocation as part of the pre-show."

Uncertain as to whether or not that meant that HBO was contractually prevented from airing the pre-show, we followed up, but none of the spokespeople available Sunday night could answer that question with absolute certainty.

However, it does seem that the network’s position is that they had nothing to do with the decision.

So who made the decision to closet the Gay Men’s Chorus?  Dan Savage sums it up nicely here …

When you’re throwing folks a bone it’s a good idea to make sure they can, you know, see the bone.

It’s five in the morning here in Baltimore, and already my mailbox is chock full of outrage over this.  From the Gay Democrats mail list to the local Baltimore lists its everywhere.  Everywhere but Google news which seems to think that Robinson’s prayer was seen by the whole nation.  Over at Science Blogs they’re calling it an Historic inaugural slap in the face to LGBT community.  One commenter there posted this…

We’d like to have you speak at our inaugural event…
We’d like to put your face up on the screen
Look around you; all you see are Democratic eyes.
Stroll around the Mall until it’s time to speak

And here’s to you, Bishop Robinson,
CNN—your speech they wouldn’t show
Wo wo wo
Bless us with tears, Bishop Robinson,
Heaven knows it can’t be cos you’re gay
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey….

Use another camera while the Bishop says his prayer.
Put it on a crowd scene for the broadcast
Keep him in the closet, Bishop Robinson’s not there
Most of all, we’ve got to hide him from the kids

Shoo, shoo, to you, Bishop Robinson,
CNN—your speech they wouldn’t show
Wo wo wo
Bless us with tears, Bishop Robinson,
Heaven knows it can’t be cos you’re gay
Hey hey hey, hey hey hey….

Standing on the marble steps, with Lincoln looking down
Going through the motions for TV
Laugh about it, Shout about it, Try to spread the word
Anyway, the Bishop wasn’t heard

Where have you gone, Marian Anderson?
The GMC is singing just like you
Ooo ooo ooo
What’s that you say, Bishop Robinson?
CNN sure kept you locked away
Hey hey hey… hey hey hey…

Posted by: Cuttlefish | January 18, 2009 10:38 PM

Craigkg is reporting that even those in the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial might not have been able to hear Robinson’s Prayer…

In fact, it is being reported by some who were in attendance that when Rev Robinson delivered his invocation, the speakers were either turned down or off all together.

He goes on to write…

The situation with Rev. Robinson and Rev. Warren has become so incredibly similar to the fiasco involving Donnie McClurkin and Rev. Andy Sidden its not even funny. Before the South Carolina primary, Obama held a concert for black evangelicals and invited gospel singer and "ex-gay" homophobe Donnie McClurkin to sing and emcee the event. GLBT activists reacted by denouncing McClurkin’s claims that gays can change their sexual orientation (aka be saved) and Obama for having such a divisive anti-gay figure associated with his campaign. The GLBT community is rightly very sensitive to the legitimization of  the ex-gay movement and the severe psychological damage reparative therapy can have of those subjected to this (being kind here) torture. After some hemming and hawing Obama announced he did not agree with McClurkin’s views on gays, tried to reinterate his own support of the GLBT community and announced that an invocation at the concert would be delivered by openly gay minister, the Rev. Andy Sidden. It was highly questioned at the time having a white gay minister deliver the prayer when several black gay ministers were available and willing to give it. At the concert, Rev. Sidden delivered his prayer in front of a largely unoccupied venue as most people were outside still filing in. Reports put the crowd at one quarter to one third of the eventual attendance at best. McClurkin went on to emcee and perform in  front of the full crowd and delivered his own god saved me from my gayness statement…

At Talking Points Memo…there is the Top Ten Reasons Why HBO Censored Gene Robinson…

1. HBO sound system cannot broadcast gay voices.
2. Program ran over schedule, so HBO went back in their time machine and cut the beginning of the live broadcast.
3. Appearance of a gay men’s chorus went way over HBO’s ‘gay quota’ for the event.
4. HBO is a family-friendly network that does not carry offensive material like frontal nudity, profanity, or bishops.
5. Ellen DeGeneres was jealous.
6. Dumbledore was jealous.
7. HBO was warned that terrorists were watching for a signal that America was gay weak.
8. Rick Warren was jealous.
9. Everyone knows all gays are atheists.
10. Sarah Palin used her special anti-Russian spyware to block the signal.

They also report that NPR silenced Robinson.  Over at TVBarn.com they’re reporting that Robinson’s image was kept out of the NPR gallery of event photos as well.  Also…

A search of Getty Images, NYTimes.com and WaPo slide shows turned up nothing. In short, I found no visual evidence that an invocation was ever said. 

The TVBarn blogger lists three options for team Obama to handle this:  1) Claim it was a technical glitch,  2) Admit they never intended for Robinson to be seen on national TV,  3) Admit they screwed up.  My money is on 1, and they’ll stick stubbornly with it no matter how many people point out that the event began without any problems precisely on time, and that the "glitch" only happened during Robinson’s prayer, and that it still doesn’t explain why the Gay Men’s Chorus was closeted.

So far not one of the mainstream news media outlets I have scanned have reported either that Robinson was silenced, or that the Gay Men’s Chorus was closeted.  However, the comment boards of some of them, like the  are already electric with people angry that they didn’t get to see and hear Robinson.  His prayer was beautiful and stirring to many. 

Mike Tidmus writes in his post, The incredible disappearing bishop…

Could it be that the American media has finally decided these public events should be 100% secular? Don’t count on it, friends, because you know as well as I do that pop-pastor Rick Warren will be front and center and at full volume to kick off President-Elect Obama’s formal Inauguration on Tuesday.

Today’s event at the Lincoln Memorial was entitled We Are One, but apparently We Are Minus One is closer to the truth.

It didn’t have to be this way.  And yet…it did…

Gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson just got an invitation to give the invocation to the opening of the Inaugural Ceremonies Week. Which means, as I read it, that he’ll actually be speaking a prayer before Warren does at the actual Inauguration.

Some folks are reading this, rightly in my opinion, as an olive branch from Obama’s team to the Gay community after the outpouring of anger over his selecting Warren to give the inaugural invocation. But there’s something else that just happened here that I think is also worth paying attention to…

Rev. Rick Warren takes another jab

Recapping here: After sticking a fork in the eye of gay rights advocates by actively supporting Proposition 8 — which overturned the legalization of gay marriage in California — Warren compounded their outrage by equating gay marriage with incest in an interview with Beliefnet.

The hubbub lulled down a little over the holidays but today, he’s back, with an open invitation to any group displaced by their denomination. This is code for Episcopal congregations that oppose that church’s acceptance of a gay bishop in 2003. Earlier this week, a California judge ruled that a breakaway congregation, St. James in Newport Beach, cannot keep its property now that they have left the Episcopal Church.

So…to recap…Obama invited Robinson to give a prayer Right After Warren told the homophobes in the Episcopalian Church that he was standing “in solidarity” with them. Whether that was intentional or not, it’s something Warren and his neighbors in the kook pews can’t help but take notice of. And in fact the howling has already begun.

If this is Obama trying to be the healer, the uniter, that Bush never was and never wanted to be in the first place, then perhaps the way to read all this is, Just so you know Mr. Warren, one American’s place at the table doesn’t come at the expense of another’s… If that’s the case, if that’s the president Obama really wants to be then we are, all of us, on the brink of some very good times to be alive and be a part of.

A. Serwer over at Tapped gets it…

I think it’s more likely that he’s marginalizing Warren’s rivals among the Evangelical leadership. Warren is not actually any less conservative than Dobson or Robertson or anyone else. He is less partisan. His views on abortion and violence are similarly inconsistent, with one being abhorrent and the other acceptable. (The power and legitimacy of the American state, it seems, turns the conservative faithful into moral relativists.) But Warren has shown a tendency not to attack individual political figures the way his peers have, and so Obama has made the decision to elevate Warren at his rivals’ expense. I had an argument with my colleague Brentin Mock yesterday about Obama’s decision, where he pointed out that someone else would be occupying Warren’s leadership role if it wasn’t Warren, and given the alternatives he’s the best choice.

None of this really changes the fact that mainstreaming homophobia is inexcusable, and that Warren does not deserve to share a stage with the Rev. Joseph Lowery. The contrast between Warren’s celebrity and Lowery’s life fighting for civil rights is absolutely staggering. It’s possible to interpret the decision to include Warren and Lowery as another Lincoln "we are not enemies but friends" moment, an attempt to bring the religious right and religious left together. The only problem is the most offended parties, the LGBTQ community and the women Warren equates with Nazis, are not in any symbolic sense present to make the choice to be friends or enemies. Had Obama, say, chosen a gay pastor and forced Warren to make the difficult decision of whether or not to appear, the situation might be a bit different. At the same time, Lowery’s presence as a symbol of his generation’s sacrifice is absolutely necessary. Obama simply wouldn’t be able to run for president without men like Joseph Lowery.

Even if one reads Warren’s presence as a cold political calculation, it’s hard to see why the LGBTQ community wouldn’t be outraged at being exploited for the purpose of cultural triangulation. Obama isn’t a homophobe, but you gotta wonder how long the LGBTQ community has to wait before they get a president who thinks homophobia is unacceptable…

Someone else…I forget who…remarked that it was as if it was 1993 all over again…an unpopular Bush leaves office and a bright and shining new hope for everyone who believes in liberty and justice for all takes office, only to sell out gay Americans and begin a strategy of triangulation…

How long?  Yes.  That is The Question.  How long do we have to wait for our heterosexual neighbors to finally, at long last, become appalled at what has been done all these years to their gay and lesbian neighbors…to their friends…to their own children…?  How long before they finally, Finally see the magnitude of what has been taken from?   How long before the sight of hate toward loving couples disgusts them more, then the sight of someone making excuses for hate?  How long before shaking hands with gutter crawling bigots like Rick Warren disgusts them enough that even a politician can feel it?

No matter how slowly you heat the pot…sooner or later the water comes to a boil…

Anti-same-sex Marriage Amendments Spark Distress Among GLBT Adults And Families, Says New Research

ScienceDaily (Nov. 18, 2008) — Amendments that restrict civil marriage rights of same-sex couples – such as Proposition 8 that recently passed in California – have led to higher levels of stress and anxiety among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults, as well as among their families of origin, according to several new studies to be published by the American Psychological Association.

…

Participants reported feeling not just alienated from their communities, but fearful that they would lose their children, that they would become victims of anti-gay violence or that they would need to move to a more accepting community. Some of these anxieties were mitigated by social support.

For instance, one interviewee said he became "petrified …of being raped or roughed up or killed, you know, for doing nothing, basically. I worry about being picked out as a gay guy because my mannerisms are not entirely masculine." Another said the marriage amendment supporters were using the Bible "like a brick on us. They are beating us with it."

Social support from religious institutions, families, GLBT friends and heterosexual allies led most of the participants "to greater feelings of safety, happiness and strength," the researchers wrote.

And in the third study, 10 family members of GLBT people living in Memphis were interviewed regarding how anti-GLBT initiatives and movements had affected their family. Their responses were also grouped into clusters of similar themes.

"Some participants identified so deeply with their family member’s experience that they felt equally attacked by these movements and policies," the researchers wrote. "They considered themselves members of the GLBT community and experienced rejection by others for being a GLBT family member."

"Typically, we tend to think of anti-GLBT policies such as marriage bans and Proposition 8 as affecting only GLBT people. However, our research suggests that others in addition to GLBT people are also impacted by this legislation and sometimes quite negatively. For example, we learned that some family members experienced a form of secondary minority stress. Although many participants displayed resiliency and effective coping with this stress, some experienced strong negative consequences to their mental and physical health," said Jennifer Arm, M.S.

Emphasis mine.  Hold that thought for a moment…

But of course…this is what was supposed to happen.  When louts like Lee Benson call us "sore losers" don’t be fooled.  They know exactly how we feel about having the knife in our hearts.  We’re supposed to feel that way.  And they take a good deal of self righteous satisfaction in seeing the impact hit.  We are supposed to be sore losers.  What we’re not supposed to do is fight back. 

What anti same sex marriage amendments are supposed to accomplish, particularly in states where same-sex marriages, and same sex couples, have no legal status to begin with, is further alienating gay people from their communities and their families.  That is the point.  Not that we aren’t supposed to marry, but that we are not supposed to exist.  God doesn’t want us here on this good earth.  The faithful are only doing their part to insure that we understand this.

At some point, it all boils over.  The wave of anger and revulsion after H8 passed was just a taste of what is to come if the religious right keeps hammering away at same sex couples.  Rex Wockner was getting a tad jittery a few weeks ago at all the rage being vented by gay people against their tormentors.  But it wasn’t just gay people who were out on the streets.  I suppose he was worried that the haters would start killing us in retaliation or something.  It’s easy to forget, because the deaths happen one lonely life at a time, that gay people are being killed all the time.  The struggle turned violent a long time ago.  Before Stonewall even.  And that’s not counting the suicides.  Humans kill themselves for a variety of reasons, most of which are personal and private.  But when a people are constantly and relentlessly driven to it, you have to ask yourself if that isn’t a kind of murder too.  There is already a lot of gay blood on the pavement.  What happens next, is that straight blood starts splashing down on it too.

Take another look at this article.  The stress is noticeably affecting the families and friends of gay people now too.  What happened after election night this year, was that hundreds of thousands of our heterosexual family members and friends stood with us on the streets, angry and outraged at what they can see now, finally, at long last, is happening to their gay family and friends.  What you have to understand is that isn’t going to make the haters back off.  It’s going to scare them.  And like the guy in Easy Rider said, it won’t make them running scared, it’ll make them dangerous. 

Over at Pam’s House Blend, Pam is reporting that some of the righteous folks behind Proposition H8 are planning to take out a full page New York Times ad, to accuse gay people of a campaign of violence…

According to our source, the ad will cite an incident where a white powder was sent to a church, and "document" disruptions of services at houses of worship. The Becket Fund is also allegedly contacting like-minded anti-gay organizations to request that they sign on to the ad. 

Matthew Shepard.  Nicholas West.  Scotty Joe Weaver.  Barry Winchell.  Thanh Nguyen.  Michael Burzinski, Gary Matson and Winfel Mowder and Billy Jack Gaither and Brandon Teena and William Metz and Carl Warren Jr. and Aaron Webster and all the others listed Here …and all the tens of thousands of tens of thousands more whose names we know and whose names we don’t.   A campaign of violence has been going on and on and on for generations against gay people.  It is considered so unremarkable by the bigots, and by most of the country still, that when gay people start fighting back they can accuse Us of creating a climate of violence without even smirking. They’ve been looking the other way at violence toward gay people for so long, they really think we’re the ones starting it.

What’s coming next, is that the families and friends of gay people will start dying too, because the bottomless hatred that moves the bigot is unable to distinguish between queers and queer lovers, anymore then it was able to distinguish between niggers and nigger lovers back in the 1950s.  The crime that finally shocked the nation during the struggle against race segregation in America, was the killing of three young civil rights workers in Missisisippi, two of whom were white.  I prophesy now, that somewhere, right this moment, their hearts beating, young and full of life, are one or more heterosexuals who have an appointment with a bloody and grusome death in the jaws of the same mindless sub-human beast that has been killing gay people for generations.  They will die for the crime of loving their neighbor as themselves.  And when love is put to death for loving, what is left within the human heart to take its place?  It isn’t the rage of gay people Wockner needs to be afraid of.

When I was in Disney World recently, I made a point to ride the monorails.  I’d been absolutely fascinated by those things ever since I saw the pictures of the first ones in Disneyland back in the early 70s.  I’ve wondered ever since why more cities didn’t have something like them. 

On the trip from Magic Kingdom back to the Transportation center, which is a transfer point from the Magic Kingdom and Resort lines to the Epcot line, you go past several Disney resort areas, and the voice in the cars narrating the journey takes note of a little wedding pavilion along the way, just between the Grand Floridian and the Polynesian resorts…

Disney’s Wedding Pavilion

With all the grandeur of a classic Victorian summer home, Disney’s Wedding Pavilion offers many enchanting possibilities for the wedding ceremony of your dreams. With its palm-fringed solarium and views of Cinderella Castle across the Seven Seas Lagoon, this magnificent non-denominational chapel can accommodate your Escape Wedding ceremony with style and grace.

I was coming by then to really like Disney World, and the It’s A Small World After All mentality that pervades it.  But I had to wonder if that wedding pavilion was open to all couples, or whether Disney would, to avoid controversy, stipulate that the marriages had to be legally binding in the state of Florida, which had just then passed an anti same-sex marriage amendment.

Well…know I know…

Gay couples given keys to the Magic Kingdom as Disney relents

The Guardian, Saturday April 7 2007 

Disney’s theme parks are synonymous with the great American family day out, with the company’s traditional hospitality and characters having enthralled generations for more than half a century.

Now Mickey Mouse has taken a step away from protocol by throwing open the gates of Cinderella’s castle for same-sex partnership ceremonies. Gay and lesbian couples can, for the first time, stage their own commitment ceremonies anywhere on Disney property, a privilege heterosexual couples have enjoyed for decades.

"We are not in the business of making judgments about the lifestyle of our guests," said Donn Walker, spokesman for Disney Parks and Resorts. "We are in the hospitality business, and our parks and resorts are open to everyone."

The shift in position came after complaints that gay couples were specifically excluded from the Fairy Tale Weddings programme at Disney’s theme parks in California and Florida, and on its cruise liners. While others had a wide choice of marriage options, such as taking their vows on a white-knuckle ride or beneath a fireworks show with Minnie Mouse as a bridesmaid, gay couples had to organise their own private ceremonies in rented meeting rooms at resort hotels.

The Walt Disney Company has long been a tacit supporter of gay tourism. It has come under fire from the religious right for policies that include partner benefits for homosexual employees. In the 90s, rightwing groups held protests against the annual "Gay Days", when more than 100,000 gay and lesbian visitors go to Disney resorts.

The company blamed its weddings policy on laws in Florida and California prohibiting same-sex unions. But after pressure from the gay website afterelton.com, it dropped its requirement that Fairy Tale Weddings packages, which start at $8,000 (£4,100), have to include a valid marriage licence. "This is consistent with our policy of creating a welcoming, respectful and inclusive environment for all of our guests," Mr Walker said.

Michael Jensen, the editor of the website, had complained that Disney appeared to be hiding behind the law. Although same-sex wedding ceremonies were not legally recognized, he said, there was nothing to prevent gay couples holding their own ceremonies.

"Elton John, who had a civil union with his partner David Furnish last year in England, would have been turned away from Disney’s wedding gates," Mr Jensen said, pointing out that the singer had earned the company millions of dollars with his music for The Lion King.

Note that happened back in 2007.  Nice.  And I’ll say this…you can’t stay in the Disney theme parks for long without realizing there is a ton of gay talent there, working hard to make sure everyone enjoys their stay.  From the "cast members" in character costume (including several really cute Peter Pan’s I saw during my stay) to the ones who were simply working support roles and keeping the whole complex running smoothly, my Gaydar, which has trouble going off around DuPont Circle, was going off like mad.  And even though Gay Days for this year were long over, I still saw the occasional same sex couple strolling through the crowds, hand in hand, or arm in arm.  Nobody bothered them.

The pleasant, Let’s All Get Along And Enjoy The Day attitude was infectious and disarming.  You felt it everywhere.  In Magic Kingdom I took a bad spill one night near main street, while hurrying to the monorail.  I’d mis-stepped over a curb and tumbled hard onto a cobblestone pavement with my cameras dangling around me.  Luckily neither they nor I were badly hurt, but instantly a crowd of about a dozen or so folks were all around me asking me if I was okay, and helping me back up.  In another park I am certain they’d have just walked right on by. 

We are in the hospitality business…  That, really, sums it up.  And it’s the right answer to give to bigoted louts who just can’t enjoy themselves unless other people are suffering.  But there is more to it.  It’s that It’s A Small World After All mentality.  That really does seem to be the bedrock there.  I wrote previously how refreshing, how exhilarating it was to see the story of life on earth, and the history of human progress told, not only matter of factly, but that the study of science and history and archeology was a grand adventure.  There was something else in Disney World that genuinely lifted my spirits more, much more, then I would have imagined going into it.  That, It’s A Small World After All mentality that pervaded everything there. 

Sniff at the Disney-esq sentimentality if you like…but it gave my soul a much needed boost to face the real world outside the gates (where I later learned hundreds had been killed in by terrorists in India…).  I’d thought of it as escapism.  It isn’t.  It’s taking a break.  You just can’t let the world bear down on you constantly without going nuts.  It’s good to have somewhere you can go to remember your dreams, and why they were good, and let the power of those dreams lift you once more.

So it should not surprise the Kultur Krieger that Disney of all mainstream American icons, is being gay friendly.  For one thing, they’re in the hospitality business, not the beat your neighbor over the head with ballot initiatives business.  For another, Disney has always believed in the better tomorrow, and in the power of dreams.  If all that is a fairy tale, I’ll take it over the one George Bush, James Dobson, and the Mormon church are selling to America these days.

It isn’t cheap by any means, but same-sex couples can have that magic moment now too.  They can exchange vows by the shores of a beautiful lagoon, with Cinderella’s Castle in the background.  Everything will be just right, perfect even, like a dream come true. 

Then they can go forward together, back into the world, breath their life into it, and make the dream real…

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes Come True
by Harrison Ellenshaw

Of course, while I was away in a private little world where everyone gets along, the fallout from Proposition H8 continued in full force.  As it should.  A lot of people are claiming they have a duty to strip gay people of their civil rights because their religion tells them to.  But they had another duty, as Americans, to stand up for liberty and justice for all.  We have seen time and again in this KulturKrieg, how religion is used as a wedge, to separate Americans from one another, for the benefit of the haters of the American dream.  Charles De Gaulle once said Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.  That applies to Christian nationalism as well. 

Freedom of religion doesn’t mean you’re free to impose your religious beliefs on others.  Freedom of religion means even the heathens in the church across the street have rights too.  Freedom of religion means that even the people your religion brands as pariahs have rights too.  Freedom of religion means we are all equals in the eyes of the law.  That is how the religious outcasts of Europe once conceived of the American land they fled to, when their own beliefs were being persecuted back in the old countries.  A nation of religious non-conformists, dissidents, and outcasts, cannot hold together when one group demands that its "deeply held religious beliefs" have the force of law over others.  The haters of America are well aware of this.

You can be a Mormon when you pray in a Mormon church.  You can be a Catholic when you pray in a Catholic church. You can be a Baptist when you pray in a Baptist church.  When you walk into a voting booth, you must be an American.  The American prayer is for liberty and justice for All, or America simply cannot be anymore.  If that offends your deeply held religious beliefs, find another country.  Because what you want to live in is a theocracy, not a democracy.  You can be a Christian, or a Mormon, first, before anything else, anywhere and everywhere but in the voting booth.  In the voting booth, you must be an American first.

When Are Your "Privately Held Religious Beliefs" Not So Private Anymore?

Posted by Dan Savage on Wed, Nov 26 at 10:44 AM

When you donate $1500 to a political campaign to strip other people — people who are not your co-religionists — of their civil rights. Richard Raddon is, or was, the director of the Los Angeles Film Festival. All hell broke loose after it emerged that Raddon, who is Mormon, had donated $1500 to the "Yes on 8" campaign. The LA Times:

After Raddon’s contribution was made public online, Film Independent was swamped with criticism from "No on 8" supporters both inside and outside the organization. Within days, Raddon offered to step down as festival director, but the board, which includes Don Cheadle, Forest Whitaker, Lionsgate President Tom Ortenberg and Fox Searchlight President Peter Rice, gave him a unanimous vote of confidence.

Yet, the anti-Raddon bile continued to bubble in the blogosphere, and according to one Film Independent board member, "No on 8" supporters also berated Raddon personally via phone calls and e-mails. The recriminations ultimately proved too much, and when Raddon offered to resign again, this time the board accepted.

Raddon released a statement that said, in part, "I have always held the belief that all people, no matter race, religion or sexual orientation, are entitled to equal rights." Except for when they’re not — and Raddon also believes that the religious should wield a veto over other peoples’ civil rights. He goes on to whine about being a "devout and faithful Mormon," and about how his contribution to "Yes on 8" was a "private matter." Uh… no. A donation to a political campaign is a public matter; and civil marriage rights for same-sex couples did not infringe upon the religious freedom of Mormons, devout or otherwise.

Bill Condon, the gay guy who directed Dreamgirls, attempted to get Raddon’s back: "Someone has lost his job and possibly his livelihood because of privately held religious beliefs."

No. No. No. Raddon lost his job due to criticism of his public political actions, not his private religious beliefs, and his public political actions were a part of the public record. If Raddon wanted to go to church and pray his little heart out against same-sex marriage, or proselytize on street corners against gay marriage, or counsel gay men to leave their husbands and marry nice Mormon girls instead, that could be viewed as an expression of his "privately held religious beliefs." Instead he helped fund a political campaign to strip a vulnerable minority group of its civil rights.

"Millions of Californians definitely lost their civil rights," says John Aravosis. "But I’m not hearing a lot of concern about any of those victims, only sympathy for their attacker. When you use the power of the state to rip away my civil rights, and force me to live by your ‘values,’ you are no longer practicing your religion. You’re practicing politics."

In the wake of Prop 8 millions of gays and lesbians all over the country have decided that we’re no longer going to play by the old rules. We’re not going to let people kick our teeth down our throats and then run and hide behind "Nothing personal — just my private religious beliefs!" That game’s over.

That game’s over.  When you advocate for this or that as a matter of law you are not practicing religion…you are practicing politics.  And when you attempt to use the laws all Americans must live by, to bash your neighbor and elevate yourself, you are not a patriot but a nationalist. 

This is the second time I have seen in the news since Proposition H8 passed, a Mormon who while working side by side with other gay people, first in the theater, and now in films, gave serious money to cut their ring fingers off.  One-thousand, five hundred dollars is not pocket change.  You just don’t give that kind of money to something like this, simply because your church tells you to donate.  That’s the kind of money you give, when you really, really want the measure to pass.  This was not simply religious obedience on his part.  He was serious about it.  That money became a knife in the back of every gay person he knows, every gay person he ever worked with, every gay person whose creative talent and energy gave him the means to earn a living. 

What you have to understand about this fight, is that it isn’t about marriage.  It’s about love.  Gay people, must not be allowed to love and be loved in return.  They must not be allowed to have that intimate other in their lives, that companion of the heart to walk through the years with, side-by-side, soul to soul.  To allow us to marry is to aknowledge that homosexuals love, and that cannot be.  But when you take the possibility of love away from someone, what is left?   What is left, to council peace, compassion and sympathy when rage fills the empty space where love once lived?

Do they really think, at long last, that we are not human?  What Raddon got was precisely what he asked for.  A world without love, without compassion, without sympathy, without peace.  Congratulations Richard.  Mission Accomplished.

I was only five minutes out of Disney World and moving down the Interstate when I decided to tune in OutQ on the car’s Sirius radio, and happened to get the hourly news, and hearing about the ongoing fight over Proposition H8 was all it took to make me angry, livid even, all over again.

You know…there was more to growing up with Walt Disney’s Wonderful World on the TV then the cartoons and the Disney-esq storylines. There was a sense to much of what Disney did, that, yes, it’s a small world after all, that the future was bright with promise, that technological progress was a thing to be embraced and that the study of science was good for us, part of a well balanced education.

I spent most of my time in Epcot, but a little also in Magic Kingdom, in Tomorrowland. There was a cute little Tomorrowland poster at the Main Street U.S.A. entrance to the Magic Kingdom, that read The Future That Never Was Is Finally Here. Tomorrowland is one great big nod to the retro-future of the 1950s and 60s. But at its core is this almost childlike sense of progress, grounded in knowledge, leading to a wonderful tomorrow. It was the sense of the future I grew up with. And I’m here to tell you, after eight years of George Bush and the religious right and their Republican enabler’s cultural war on reason, knowledge and science, it was exhilarating to have it served up to me again, unselfconsciously and unapologetically….like it was just everyday common sense.

I rode the Spaceship Earth exhibit at the entrance to Epcot. You get on a set of moving carts that work pretty much like other Disney “people mover” technologies. The step-on station is a platform that moves along with the carts. The carts never stop, but the access platform moves along with them so it’s a simple matter to get onto one. Once in the cart you sit in front of a touch screen video display which asks you for your language and place of origin, which it uses to tailor the narrative guide specifically to you. Each seat in the carts has its own set of speakers, and you only hear your own guide. The ride chronicles the progress of human communication, and the sharing of knowledge, from the stone age to modern times. The most soul-satisfying moments of my stay at Disney World, where those moments spent seeing the grand arc of the human story laid out before me as a great adventure, without concession to fundamentalist demands for biblical correctness. Time and again I walked through Disney World stunned, absolutely stunned, that here in the United States of America in the 21st century, kids are more likely to see in an amusement park then in their own schools, archeological and scientific facts not only told truthfully, but the pursuit of those truths seen as a great and wonderful adventure. I don’t think it’s just Disney’s gay friendliness that has the fundamentalists pissed off.

Sniff at all the staff (excuse me…Cast Members…) walking around the park in character costumes if you like. But that It’s A Small World After All mentality pervades everything in Disney World and after so many years of relentless scorched earth republican party assaults on tolerance and diversity, it was wonderful to stay for a while in a place where those things were just taken as a given. There was no preaching of diversity, it was just always there in the background, especially in Epcot. But even in Downtown Disney, which is more like a shopping plaza then a park, there was a holiday display that showcased all the different ways different cultures celebrated at this time of year. Yes, there was also “Christmas” everywhere. I went to “Micky’s Christmas Party” in Magic Kingdom Thursday night, a special event with a Santa parade and a spectacular fireworks display over Cinderella’s Castle (see below). But it was more a celebration of the holiday spirit, and believing in your own dreams, then any particular religion. There were in fact, no references to religion at all. Anywhere. Except to acknowledge, respectfully, even cheerfully, that different people have different beliefs. It’s A Small World After All. James Dobson would have hated it. He’d have joined hands with Maleficent onstage to try and tear it all down so that people won’t believe in their dreams anymore.

Walt Disney was a man of his times, and his magic kingdom was born after the second world war and at the beginning of the first American space age, when we were just learning how to launch humans into space and bring them back alive. There was so much we were going to do, and that we still haven’t. So much Walt Disney wanted to do too. Epcot wasn’t originally planned as a theme park. It was Walt’s Experimental Prototype Community Of Tomorrow. Having finally had my first hand look at what he accomplished with his theme park, I find it tragic he didn’t get a chance to realize his original dream for EPCOT. Cigarettes killed him before he could. But I think he would have done it had he lived.

And…thing of it is…had he accomplished EPCOT…so many many years ahead of its time…it would be a city today, perfectly, absolutely perfectly positioned to withstand the impact of rising energy costs. Here (in three parts) is a film that Walt produced to get investors to buy into his planned city of tomorrow. The quality on this copy is not wonderful, but it gets it across. These days you hear a lot about making cities and communities “walkable” and investing in more and better public transport. In EPCOT as originally planned, the pedestrian was going to be king. Various Disney developed “people mover” technologies were to be employed to get you from one place to another. The only reason you’d need a car in EPCOT, would be if you wanted to go visit someplace else.

“…their schools will welcome new ideas, so that everyone who grows up in EPCOT will have skills in pace with today’s world.”

I haven’t heard anyone seriously talk about schools and ideas and living in today’s world like that since Reagan began putting the knife into the New Deal. I was fortunate to enter school sometime just after Sputnik scared the hell out of the U.S. and suddenly giving kids a good science education was a vital national security thing and to hell with the fundamentalist vote. I grew up in a world where science and rationality and the pursuit of knowledge and understanding had respected and valued places in school and in society and in our dreams of tomorrow. It was either that, or let the Soviets plant their flag on the moon, and in effect, declare their ownership of space. You know…that place where all the missiles fly on their way to our cities.

Maybe it wasn’t all do-able exactly the way it was envisioned back then, but the spirit of the times is what matters more then its vision of what tomorrow would look like. Tomorrow is always different then you imagined it. But once upon a time we were all allowed to dream about making tomorrow better then today. We could envision a better world someday. The fundamentalists hate that dream. They want to take it away from us. All of us…not just gay people. We can’t be allowed to dream that dream. Because their dream is about the world coming to an end.

So I spent a while in Disney World. I saw Cinderella’s Castle and Micky and Donald and the Genie and I rode Spaceship Earth. I saw planet Earth float over the world showcase lagoon while its continents told in pictures the story of life, and the human journey from African savannas to the seas…and then the skys…

We can see a new horizon
built on all that we have done
and our dreams begin another
thousand circles ’round the sun

And I rode The Carousel of Progress…

There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of ev’ryday
There’s a great big beautiful tomorrow
And tomorrow’s just a dream away

…and I was able to remember the old dream once again. Sniff at the Disney-esq sentimentality all you want…I used to…but I swear I won’t anymore. I have lived through decades of this culture war and it is precisely this sentiment that the fundamentalists want to make us all forget, kill in our hearts forever, so they can get back down to the business of bringing a world they have always hated to an end.

I am so glad I went. And not just because I got to see a certain someone I haven’t seen face to face in decades. Got to see him smile too…

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…

Mormons Tipped Scale in Ban on Gay Marriage

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.