Andrew Sullivan almost gets it from time to time…

Althouse makes marriage equality opponent Dean Broyles’s argument clearer:

Let me see if I can make Broyles’s point. I think he means to say that if same-sex marriage remains a legal right, enshrined in state constitutional law, then homosexual relationships will come to be regarded normal and good, and, consequently, anyone who objects to them will start to look like a bigot who should not be permitted to have his way. Thus, in order to preserve the right to discriminate against gay people and to keep schools from teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth — all things Broyles wants — it’s important to outlaw gay marriage, because it will be a powerful force in changing perceptions about gay people and those who think gay people are doing something terribly wrong.

Yes! That’s it. One reason I favor marriage equality is that the simple public fact of gay married couples will in itself teach something about the reality of gay people and our lives – without any school or parent having to say a thing. It gives us a way to talk about gay couples for the first time in human history without talking about sex acts.

There is something else that the haters don’t want happening in schools, beyond teaching children that gay couples are perfectly nice and so forth as Althouse puts it.  Look more closely.  Kids don’t usually socialize with adult couples other then those of their own immediate family.  Yes, we can hope the next generation grows up without hate in their hearts.  But if they are immersed in anti-gay hate at that age, it’s their peers, those who are gay and those who are only thought to be gay, who will feel the impact of that.

And that’s what Broyles and his kind are adamant must never happen.  Gay kids must be hated.  And that is because gay kids must hate themselves.  What the example of same sex couples living normal, decent, whole lives will do is this: show the gay kids a future where love is possible to them too.  That cannot be.  Gay kids must never feel loved.  Because they are vermin.  More despicable even then the gay adults they will eventually become.  Because their hearts are sincere.  Ever wonder why right wingers seem to hate children so much? 

Or to put it in a way that might appeal to social conservatives: grant marriage equality and we can stop talking about homosexuality. We can start talking about love and friendship and commitment and family – for gays and straights. We can leave this horrible identity politics division behind.

Why would social conservatives want to do that?  Identity politics is their creation.  It’s a belly laugh listening to you blame liberals for it.  When people are discriminated against based on things like race, religion, national origin, gender and sexual orientation, when doors are closed to them again and again and again, when they are driven from neighborhoods, job opportunities, when a decent education is denied them, simply for being different, do you really think they’ll continue to see themselves as a part of the whole, or as one of the outcast?  They are supposed to see themselves in terms of their assigned identity.  You can’t marry…you’re a homosexual.  Your very presence in the house of marriage defiles it.  We don’t want no faggots in our community.  I’m just telling you Bruce that there is no place in this company for homosexuals…  That’s the whole point of prejudice.  Not to elevate the bigot, but to make hated other feel hated, cast out, separate.

I would love to see my sexual orientation as just another random, and not particularly important aspect of my being.   But I can’t.  Bigots like the ones pushing anti same-sex marriage amendments keep telling me that it’s the only part of me that matters.  You need to stop blaming the victims of identity politics, for being imprisoned in it.

That said, I’m really heartened to see you acknowledging that the breaking down of real barriers in this election cycle will go a long way towards the day when we see and end to identity politics.  I agree.  Liberals have been trying hard to break down these barriers for decades now, so that we can all be Americans one day…free and equal.

Click on the graphic above to join bloggers all over the world in taking a stand for freedom to marry.

This is not just a fight over same-sex marriage.  Same-sex marriage is but a battle ground in a much larger war against basic human freedoms.  All over the world the fundamentalist haters of liberty, from al Quada to our own domestic Taliban, rise their fists against us…we who believe in liberty and justice for all. They call us heretics. They call us corrupters. They call us destroyers. We are. For as long as there exists one place on this good earth were people can stand on their own two feet unbeaten and unoppressed, and embrace their dreams unafraid, no tyranny on earth is safe. We are the sons and daughters of the revolution of freedom, and liberty, and justice.  For all.  Join us.  

Donate Here, to No on 8.  Any small amount…any at all…can make a difference in the fight for the freedom to love, and honor, and cherish…

Believe in love.  Believe in your right to love, and be loved.  There is no more noble cause you can fight for, no greater good you can do for this poor angry world, then to take a stand for the freedom to love.  Donate now to No on 8. Make a little more room in this world for love to grow, and endure.

If you donate between now and election day online (for any amount), and send me your confirmation email, I will draw, if you wish, an editorial cartoon on the topic of your choice. Or…alternately…a Mark and Josh cartoon on the topic of your choice.  Or…if my cartoons don’t do it for you…you can have a signed 11 by 17 print of the image of your choice out of any of my photo galleries.

A reader sent me this overnight and I’m posting it here in full…

Hello Bruce!

I’ve been reading your blogs and your writings on aph for nearly twenty years now.  Thought I’d share something I wrote to my neighbors in Lake Manor CA (just to the west of Chatsworth).  And I’ve been sharing it, and sharing it, and sharing it…

Feel free to share it as well.

Cheers,
Bill

———–

Neighbor to neighbor on Prop 8

Dear Neighbor,

Bill here, as in Bill and Robert and our three dogs. I normally don’t suggest to my neighbors how they should vote, but this time the stakes are too high. On November 4, the Yes–On–8 campaign wants you to take away a constitutional right. This is unprecedented in California, and it’s wrong. I’m writing to ask, neighbor-to-neighbor, that you vote NO on Proposition 8.

Robert and I have been together for 16 years, and we’ve lived here in Lake Manor since 2005. We’ve grown to love Lake Manor, not just for its beauty, but also for its people. We’ve shared many dinners, holidays and block barbecues together, a few Super Bowl parties, and countless evenings just chatting over a few beers. During the wildfires, our neighborhood pulled together to see that everyone and their pets came to safety. Never have Robert and I been treated as less than other couples. We love our neighborhood and our neighbors. We’ve found our home here, and we are profoundly grateful.

Proposition 8 seeks to legally make us lesser people, and relationships like ours less protected under the law. There are dozens of legal rights – and responsibilities – given to married couples and no-one else. The backers of Prop 8 say they only want to preserve marriage, but marriage is not threatened by gays and lesbians living the same quiet life as any other couple. It’s sad that Yes-On-8 ads have used fear mongering and falsehoods to deny that which everyone else enjoys. I can’t believe what they’re saying, but it’s not hard to see through their campaign:

Claim: Same-sex marriage infringes on religious liberty.

Fact: The California Supreme Court specifically stated that no church, synagogue or other religious institution can be required to perform or recognize a same-sex marriage.

Claim: Children will be forced to learn, over parents’ religious or moral objections, that same-sex marriages are equal to opposite-sex marriages.

Fact: Prop. 8 does nothing about education. California law expressly gives parents the right to review classroom material on health and family issues and remove their child from hearing what is objectionable. That won’t change.

Claim: Domestic partnerships for gays and lesbians are enough, and activist judges shouldn’t make new law.

Fact: I actually read the Court’s decision. The Court recognized this as a ‘Separate but Equal’ argument, and court after court has ruled that separate-but-equal has no place in American law.

You may have genuinely-felt religious objections to same-sex marriage. I respect that. I grew up Lutheran, and if my conservative congregation isn’t exactly gay-friendly, neither is it gay-hostile. They don’t perform same-sex weddings, but they still treat Robert and me like any other couple when we’ve gone on visits to my home town. In fact, people hear about what’s going on in California, and ask us when we’re getting married!!! Why? Because in addition to marriage being a religious rite, marriage is also a civil and legal institution apart from any particular faith. The law doesn’t care who performed your marriage, nor should it. Legally, it makes no difference if you were married by a priest, minister or rabbi, or by a judge. My congregation is happy living in a pluralistic society, because while their faith is strong, they know that everybody should be equal under the law. Everybody.

It’s wrong to make gay couples pay the price for someone else’s misplaced fear. On November 4, it’ll be only you in the voting booth. Nobody will see how you vote – that’s your business. But before you mark your ballot on Prop 8, please take a moment to ask yourself, in all honesty, what does it hurt you if gays and lesbians get married? Will it make you love your spouse any less? Does it make you love your children any less? Would it hurt your family if, after 16 years, Bill and Robert finally get to tie the knot?  I think your answer will be no. Your marriage will be no weaker if Prop 8 doesn’t pass. Your family will be no less under the law or under God.

This will be a close vote, so what you decide matters. Vote NO on Prop 8.

Thank you for reading this, and thank you for helping make our life in Lake Manor a happy one.

Your neighbor,
Bill

P.S. Feel free to share this letter if you like. Get the facts at www.NoOnProp8.com and contribute if you can. If you want to talk about this issue, drop by the house or send e-mail.

P.P.S. You may have heard from Yes-On-8 about those school kids who threw rose petals at that gay wedding in San Francisco. What they didn’t tell you is that the idea was from a parent, not the school, and every one of those kids had their parents’ permission to go. Some parents declined, so their kids didn’t go. That’s OK, but the Yes-On-8 campaign seemed to miss those details. 

Thanks for sending this.  And…wow…I had no idea that some of the folks who read me once upon a time on aph (that’s alt.politics.homosexuality, the Usenet newsgroup I used to post to often, long ago, before I set up my own website), were still reading me.  That’s…amazing. 

Please, give what you can to the fight against Proposition 8.  We have closed the fundraising gap and the vote is close, very close, and that’s only made the other side raise their own stakes more furiously.  They want to swamp TVs all over California with anti-gay propaganda in the closing hours of the election.  We need to be able to match them ad for ad in the last days before November 4th.  Please give.  Anything you can spare.  So that love can have a chance in this poor angry world.

Donate Here, to No on 8.  Any small amount…any at all…can help make a difference in leveling the playing field. 

If you donate between now and election day online (for any amount), and send me your confirmation email, I will draw, if you wish, an editorial cartoon on the topic of your choice. Or…alternately…a Mark and Josh cartoon on the topic of your choice.  Or…if my cartoons don’t do it for you…you can have a signed 11 by 17 print of the image of your choice out of any of my photo galleries.

Submitted for your idle viewing pleasure… A wee taste of what your gay and lesbian neighbors have to endure every single fucking day. To my heterosexual friends and family, those of you who have married…while planning your happy day, did you remember to take into account that one or more total strangers might decide to crash it, so they could hurl insults at you, your beloved spouse to be, and everyone else in the chapel?

Of course you didn’t…

More on the guy trying to piss on the happy couple’s big day Here…

…when my editors at SN&R decided that someone with journalistic sensibilities and a sense of humor ought to look into these folks—with their extreme approach to protesting; their bold, yellow “Sodomy is Sin” banner; and their retro use of language that even many anti-gay groups have abandoned as insensitive—I volunteered. The timing was right. Real anger had been stirred up between parts of the local gay community and some members of the Slavic evangelical churches, who have protested at gay events for a few years. And since Proposition 8, which aims to end marriage equality, is on the ballot for November, the upcoming months promised plenty of discussion of gay rights as well as ample opportunity to see Luke and company in action.

So through the rest of the spring and summer and on into fall, I followed Luke and his small crew of activists to protest after protest. With my notebook and camera, I trailed after them during the first local same-sex weddings at the Sacramento County clerk/recorder’s office, at the Sacramento Pride Festival and while protesting at an area McDonald’s, which they perceived as gay-friendly. I kept an eye on the activities of Luke and his friends Viktor Choban and Yuriy Popko at American River College, where they’ve stirred up quite a fuss over the past couple of semesters. They’ve managed to aggravate an impressive list of people: the GLBTQ club, Latinos Unidos, campus progressives, Muslim students and the Improv Club.

The most important thing I’ve discovered through all this: Luke and company won’t compromise. They believe they’re on God’s side, and as far as they’re concerned, if you’re arguing with God, you deserve what’s coming to you: death, destruction and eternal torment.

Gutter crawling bigots like these are no more representative of most of America then Ed Gein, but I’ve often wondered why more good people don’t speak out about the torrent of hate coming from them. I suppose there are a lot of reasons for that, but one is almost certainly that they don’t experience this sort of relentless hatred themselves, first hand. They don’t get to see how completely disconnected the haters are from anything remotely resembling reality, and how that unreality they live in gives them a kind of schizophrenic permission to attack anyone and everyone they perceive as an enemy, without any sort of moral or ethical restraint. They embody not just virtue, but God’s own righteousness, and so they are immune from the moral considerations the rest of us must live by.

Gay Americans have been living with this adversary for decades. We’ve watched it grow in reach from the political gutter to the summit of American political power. The only thing that surprises many of us, is how surprised, how shocked, the rest of America is whenever it catches a glimpse of its essential moral degeneracy. How easily…how effortlessly…they will look you in the eye, and lie through their teeth. How they cheat, and even when flagrantly caught doing it, will deny everything. How they ignore every moral law they insist everyone else must live by when it suits them. Because fighting for God’s truth excuses them from having to live it themselves. It’s not absolute power that corrupts, it’s absolute certainty.

We gay folk need to document our experience more, so others can better understand what America faces. These people want to take everyone down into their gutter and they are determined. It isn’t just our freedoms that are at stake here. If you think these people are just a bunch of irritating, but basically weak and harmless wackos, if you don’t think they’re dangerous, you aren’t paying attention. Perhaps that’s something your gay and lesbian neighbors can help you with. Look again. That guy in the video who called us ‘sodomites’…if you don’t obey his rules, then as far as he’s concerned, you’re one too, and you deserve what’s coming to you: death, destruction and eternal torment.

Via Sullivan…  Once upon a time, gay folk were easy targets for blackmail.  And if some people have their way…

Threatening Letters Spark New Prop 8 Controversy

Video Only — A threatening letter has sparked a new controversy here in San Diego surrounding the gay marriage debate. Donors who gave money to the No on Prop 8 campaign say they received blackmail letters demanding money, and the Yes on 8 campaign now says the letters were sent by their employees.

In Nicholas Meyer’s Sherlock Holmes novel, The West End Horror, there’s a scene between Holmes and Oscar Wilde…I’m quoting from memory here…where Wilde tells Holmes that he has a perfect way of dealing with blackmailers when they threaten him with incriminating letters.  "I publish them", he says. 

Donate to No On 8, Here.  Maybe you’ll get one of these letters too…suitable for framing…or posting online…

Since last Monday I’ve finished half a page on Episode 11 of A Coming Out Story.  It’s slow work when all I have is the weekday evenings.  Tonight I was only able to finish one panel, but that got a page done and I can see the end of the pencil work on this one in front of me.

A few panels are some of my best pencil work so far.  There’s a close-up of a young me with my head on the pillow at the beginning of this one that I’m especially happy with.  And one pencil of the object of my affections that gets him pretty well right, as I remember him strolling through the hallways of my old high school.  I’m getting good now at drawing my main actors with a few simple lines.  We’ll see how well they translate into inks.

I’m able to have fun again with the whole situation I’m relating in my story.  I think now, that part of my cartoonist’s block this past year has been that it wasn’t fun revisiting it, because I was living it all over after again having found him again after 35 years of searching.  That shy seventeen year old is still there inside of me, and I’ve been walking on eggshells for over a year now, stressing all over again about what he thinks or doesn’t think of me.  It’s crazy…I’m a grown man now…but there it is.  So trying to get my sense of humor back about that part of my life so I could work on the story just hasn’t been do-able.  I’ve been stressing almost exactly like I was 35 years ago.  Maybe some day when I’ve finished A Coming Out Story, I’ll do one about how finding your first crush turns you back into the kid you were all over again, and all the things in your past you thought you’d settled and resolved you only thought you had.

The other thing that may have got me motivated again is a couple books I’m reading written by gay men who were imprisoned in Britian back in the 1950s for "homosexual offenses" or "gross indecency".  I’m into a book my Peter Wildeblood, Against The Law, in which he gives an account of his being caught up in the Montagu scandal of 1954 and his subsiquent imprisonment.  Part of what I want to relate in my own story is how it was I managed to navagate my way to self acceptance without hating myself, and how easily it could have gone the other way for me.  I was lucky in so many ways, but mostly in that.  Because I fell in love, and because the guy I fell in love with was a decent, good-hearted guy who was good to me, I never hated myself. 

But that was purely accidental.  I came of age just after Stonewall, and just before the APA removed homosexuality from it’s list of mental illnesses, and the popular culture all around me constantly told me I was some sort of disgusting, degenerate monster.  It was seeing my sexual orientation in the context of being in love, that saved me from that.  It was pure luck.  And I was fortunate also, very fortunate, to be coming of age right when the modern gay rights movement was taking off, just after Stonewall.  Ten years earlier, and I might have been locked up like Wildeblood was.  Or sent off to a mental hospital.  That would probably have killed me.  It killed a lot of people. 

And the hate is still killing people.  When I was a gay teenager, gay kids got absolutely no adult guidance while making that difficult transition from child to adult.  The only thing we were taught then was that it was tragic, if not utterly disgusting, that we existed.  It is barely any better nowadays.  The religious right is fighting a furious, bitter, scorched earth battle to keep gay kids from accepting themselves and growing up to live healthy and whole adult lives.  We have to hate ourselves, as much as they hate us.  One thing I want to try to do with my story is get across the message that gay kids need to be loved, like all children do.  They don’t need to be taught to hate themselves.  It is a crime against humanity, to teach a child to hate themselves.  Reading Wildeblood’s story reminded me of that other reason why I wanted to get my own story down, in my own way.

The database of contributors to the campaigns, for and against, California proposition 8 must be lagging a tad behind because my first contribution of $500 still isn’t in there.  But just for kicks and grins I took a stroll though the listings of contributors from Maryland, and was gratified at the overwhelming support No On 8 was getting from my neighbors.  Out of something like a hundred and thirty names, only about five or six were from folks who gave money to support cutting the ring fingers off same sex couples.  None of them were names I recognized.

I dontated another $500 dollars to the No campaign today.  That makes my stake in the fight an even thousand now.  But everyone who donates money between now and midnight Sunday (tomorrow as I write this) gets their contribution matched…

Dear Bruce,

Thanks to the outpouring of support in response to the $1 million match grant announced on Thursday, we are nearly halfway there.

Help us meet our ONE MILLION DOLLAR CHALLENGE. Every contribution made by midnight Sunday will be matched in value — and impact — by philanthropist Steve Bing and Equality California.

We will be able to buy double the amount of air time for our new, hard-hitting ad. That means more opportunity to reach important undecided voters.

Donate now before Sunday’s midnight deadline. Please forward this message to everyone you know. It’s going to take everyone we know to fill this match. Urge your friends and family to donate at http://www.noonprop8.com/challenge

In solidarity,

Geoff Kors
Executive Committee
No On Prop. 8

The Yes campaign is now dragging out the usual Homosexuals Want To Prey On Your Children scare rhetoric…some of which is being targeted at California’s ethnic communities.  Box Turtle Bulletin has a post up on a Yes ad aimed at Chinese readers, that directly links same sex marriage and pedophilia.  Also incest and polygamy.  The hate mongering from the Yes crowd has turned what was a likely victory for same-sex marriage, into a dead heat, largely because the No side is being outspent and out organized…largely with the behind the scenes support of the Mormon church.  The Latter Day Saints as they like to call themselves, account for 40 percent of the Yes money bucket. 

They’ve been swamping California TV with ads that portray gay people, both directly and indirectly, as child molesters, and claim that same-sex marriage will give homosexuals the legal means to go into schools and conduct recruiting activity even in kindergarten.  They’re also claiming that churches will be forced to marry same sex couples under threat of prison if they don’t comply.  It’s like Watching Anita Bryant’s campaign all over again.  All that’s missing is Jerry Falwell standing up in front of a room full of reporters saying that a homosexual will kill you as soon as look at you.

That’s why the polls have tightened.  We could loose marriage in California…possibly for generations, if people don’t step up to the plate and give.  Now.

I’m single.  It’s looking now as though I’ll always be single.  So why should I care.  Because I still believe in love.  Love hasn’t looked at me twice but I still believe in it.  And I can see with my own two eyes all the happy, contented, loving couples out there and they deserve a chance to make a home together, grow old together, have a life together.  So I’m in for a thousand.  Before its over I’ll probably give more.  If we loose California the bitterness will just go on and on and on and maybe I’ll never live to see the end of it.  But at least I’ll know I was one of those who did something, took a stand for freedom and justice and love even when it seemed hate would win anyway.  What is freedom worth to you?  What is equality worth? 

What is your safety worth to you?  Do you consider yourself a danger to children?  The Mormon church says you are.  They are telling every one of your neighbors that you want to enter their kid’s schools and teach them to be homosexuals.  Probably so you can have sex with them. 

Do you want to put the neighborhood pastor in jail?  The religious right says you do.  They are telling everyone, every single person you will ever walk past on the street after this election is over, that you want to put their pastors in prison if they don’t marry same-sex couples.

Do you want to put your neighbors in jail along with them.  The right wingers backing proposition 8 say you do.  They are telling your neighbors that you will have them arrested if you aren’t allowed into their kid’s schools to teach them how to have sex with you.

Maybe you don’t care all that much about same sex marriage.  But the hate mongering going on to get proposition 8 passed, if allowed to go unchallenged, could get you killed.  Or someone you love.  Maybe that someone in your arms.

We are not supposed to exist.  But we do.  We are not supposed to love.  But we do.  We are not supposed to have a share of the American dream of liberty and justice for all.  But it is the human dream, and we are as human as they.   We exist.  We love.  We dream.  Now we take our stand, for love, for life, and in the doing so, tell the world that we believe in the righteousness of our love, and our dream of freedom.  Because it is righteous.  Because our dream does not need us to hate our neighbor to make it real.

Donate Here, to No on 8.   If you do it before midnight tomorrow whatever amount you donate will be matched.  Any small amount…any at all…can help make a difference in leveling the playing field. 

If you donate between now and election day online (for any amount), and send me your confirmation email, I will draw, if you wish, an editorial cartoon on the topic of your choice. Or…alternately…a Mark and Josh cartoon on the topic of your choice.  Or…if my cartoons don’t do it for you…you can have a signed 11 by 17 print of the image of your choice out of any of my photo galleries.

Rod Dreher, who thinks that same-sex marriage will destroy not only marriage itself, but civilization, posts today in an article titled, Newsom & Truth About Gay Marriage that…

Chai Feldblum, a Georgetown law professor, lesbian and pro-gay marriage activist, writes in the new book "Same Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty: Emerging Conflicts", that there is an irreconcilable conflict between civil marriage rights for gays and religious liberty for traditionalists. "[G]ay rights leaders are trying to deal with the conflict by simply wishing it away. That is neither possible nor intellectually honest."

And what is the nature of this conflict?  Well…one commenter on Dreher’s blog sums it up thusly…

We have been over this ground hundreds of times, as Rod has pointed out. Why should the government care if Kate and Angela want to throw a party to celebrate their alternative lifestyle, which has nothing whatsoever to do with marriage?

But forcing my children to witness the lie that the relationship of two lesbians or two gay men (or three or four or twelve people of assorted genders) is *exactly the same* as the relationship of two people of opposite genders who not only can produce their own biological children but are expected to be completely responsible for them for eighteen years or so is an affront to my civil liberties, not just my religious ones.

Heaven forfend that he should be Forced to witness anything that contradicts his religion.  I suppose he’s all for outlawing Jewish holidays too.  But let it be said…he has given it a lot of thought…

The only way gay marriage and heterosexual marriage can be truly equal is if we require the sterilization of all heterosexual couples before they can marry. Otherwise, we’re creating a fiction that these two totally and radically different types of relationships, one of which has an overwhelming tendency to produce new citizens and the other of which has an overwhelming tendency not to–and *can never* do so in the same way, e.g., where each partner is equally the biological parent of each child–are exactly the same.

And if that’s not enough…

Since "marriage" as a civic concept has already been made completely meaningless by the advent of gay "marriage," and will only become more so as time goes on, I have a modest proposal: abolish it. End it altogether. Make "marriage" as important a secular concept as baptism and confirmation are–that is, not at all.

…

So, legally speaking, we’ll all be glorified cohabitators

Which is where I foolishly decide to jump into the discussion.  Here’s my comment, being held for moderation last I looked…

Since "marriage" as a civic concept has already been made completely meaningless by the advent of gay "marriage," and will only become more so as time goes on, I have a modest proposal: abolish it. End it altogether.

That’s probably coming, but it won’t be same-sex marriage that makes it happen.  When marriage in the United States becomes the moral equivalent of a whites only or gentiles only country club, heterosexual couples, good decent heterosexual couples, the very sort you really want to keep bought into it, are going to start abandoning it.

Not many certainly…not at first.  But it’s already starting to happen.  Opposite-sex couples are resorting to other forms of "civil union" or contracts or what-have-you more and more these days.  Some think marriage is "old fashioned."  Some dispute its relevance to couples in this day and age.  Do you really think putting that Heterosexuals Only notice on the marriage license is going to change people’s minds about that?  No…I don’t think you do.

How many couples with gay family and neighbors and friends are going to sign that document?  Probably many, even so.  But fewer and fewer, as people, good people, decent people, at long last get sick to death of watching loving, devoted same sex couples fighting constantly for rights they themselves can take for granted.  You may not appreciate how the feeling of being privileged can make some people feel ashamed.  Try.

So in addition to heterosexuals getting drive-in married and drive-in divorced, Plus all the heterosexual couples who just live together because they couldn’t care less about marriage to begin with, now you’ve got committed couples opting out of marriage because they don’t want their union, their mutual love, their devotion to each other and their kids, tainted by prejudice.  And so that special place of honor marriage has in society, that I keep hearing folks babbling about in the same breath as "love the sinner…" just sails off, off into the sunset along with things like antisemitic homeowner covenants.  Good job folks.  Mission Accomplished.

It’s been well said that homosexuals can’t possibly do nearly the damage to the institution of marriage that heterosexuals already have.  Orson Scott Card, who thinks homosexuality is a threat to the survival of the human race, said so in a recent column of his.  Call it a testament to its power, and its essential truth, that marriage in the U.S. hasn’t been utterly finished off by now.  A lot of big guns have been aimed at it over the course of my lifetime alone, and yet it still stands.  But the righteous aren’t through with it either.

If the religious right finally convinces the rest of America that they can and will block same-sex couples from achieving marriage equality for generations, if ever, what will almost certainly happen is a faster movement away from marriage and toward other forms of coupling.  Co-habitation is already a fact of life for a lot of young opposite-sex couples.  Turning marriage into an instrument of discrimination is hardly going to change that.  It’s just going to make decent people feel uncomfortable with the whole thing.  Call it a win for the sexual radicals, with an assist by the sexual theocrats. 

Last Saturday, Jeremy and Andrew got engaged…

October 11, 2008: The catering is all in line, and the outfits perfectly pressed. The months of planning have trickled down to hours. Andrew and I are holding our Manhattan engagement party, step one in our bicoastal wedding celebration.

October 11, 1995: I watch every word that comes out of my mouth for fear that my less-than-masculine speech patterns will lay bear the truth that is and has always been within my head. It’s unfair to date members of the opposite-sex, both for me and my partners in faux courtship. But what choice do I have? There are no gay people in my high school. Heck, are there gay people in my town? In all of Tennessee? The entire Southeastern region?

October 11, 2008: Andrew, the planner of our duo, has the day mapped out. Shave, manicure, and haircut are all booked into specific slots. I, on the other hand, am taking a fairly laxidasical approach to getting my stuff done. But while our approaches are different, our excitement is the same. We are both excited and shocked that this long overdue journey is finally in motion.

October 11, 1995: I’ll probably marry someday. I don’t feel like I have a choice. You get through school then ya get hitched. And hey, at least when I marry, I will finally prove to everyone that I am straight. I’m sure that in time, I too will believe it. Right?

October 11, 2008: The Connecticut ruling makes three states where we gays can legally marry.

October 11, 1995: It’s not like I can legally marry a dude even if I wanted to.

October 11, 2008: It’s not even noon, and there have already been two phone calls from my mom-in-law-to-be. She just might be the most psyched of all of us! And why shouldn’t she be? Her baby is finally getting married!!

October 11, 1995: Did anyone see me looking at that issue of "Entertainment Weekly"? The one with the cover story on "The Gay 90’s"? And if so, did they suspect anything? ::sigh:: I better go watch the game and talk about "hot" girls.

October 11, 2008: 115 guests will be on hand to send well wishes to the two fiancés. Acceptance or "tolerance" is not even up for debate. We are loved. We are accepted. Non-"controversially."

October 11, 1995: Will I ever feel love? Real love? A genuine, rock you to the core love?

October 11, 2008: Today is National Coming Out Day. And while the booking was purely coincidental, the resonance of the date is not lost on me.

October 11, 1995: I just learned that today is apparently something called "National Coming Out Day." I gotta remember to put my guard up extra high, since people will probably be talking about it. Questions are dangerous. And the "right" answers are hard to find since they really don’t jibe with what I know to be true.

October 11, 2008: I’m happy. Really frickin’ happy. I want to wish a joyous National Coming Out Day to everyone:

October 11, 1995: I’m scared. Really frickin’ scared. Please tell me it gets better than this. Please tell me there is peace to be had. Please tell me I will come out of this darkness.

Some photos Here.  I’m so happy for both of them.  I wish them all the best.  This poor angry world needs so much more of this.  So very much more.

Do you believe in love?  Please help fight the good fight.  Please help happy, devoted couples to keep their ring fingers.  Donate Here, to No on 8.  Or Here, to Arizona Together.  Or Here, to Say No On Two. 

If you donate between now and election day online (for any amount), and send me your confirmation email, I will draw, if you wish, an editorial cartoon on the topic of your choice. Or…alternately…a Mark and Josh cartoon on the topic of your choice.  Or…if my cartoons don’t do it for you…you can have a signed 11 by 19 print of the image of your choice out of any of my photo galleries.

There are many reason why I do not regard myself as a Christian anymore.  Probably chief among them is I am no longer convinced that God even exists.  But even so, fundamentalism notwithstanding, I think you can still regard yourself as a Christian nonetheless.  If you think God worship is all there is to Jesus’ message, then you weren’t listening.

Forgiveness.  Here is why I just can’t call myself Christian anymore: 

Over at Box Turtle Bulletin, Jim Burroway posts that he received a phone call from a reporter saying that many proposition 102 (the Arizona anti same-sex marriage amendment) yard signs are being damaged. 

I got a phone call last night from a reporter from Phoenix’s ABC15, telling me that a spokesperson for the ’Yes” side for Prop 102 says that more than a hundred of their campaign signs were vandalized. Obviously, everyone here at No on Prop 102 condemns such vandalism. While we are happy to engage in a vigorous debate on the issues, vandalism has no place in rational debate.

Oh…good grief.  Look…if some people are willing to spread the open sewer that is their conscience out on their lawns for everyone in the world to see, then by all means leave the fucking things alone.  Seriously.  Leave them alone. 

Photograph them.  Document it.   We are living through a moment in history, however these votes turn out.  Document it.  Document it.  Document it.  And later, if the thing passes, should these fine God fearing folks feel the need to pretend that they never supported it (and they will, many of them, never doubt it), remember how you felt seeing those signs waved in your face, remember how it felt to have your ring finger cut off while they praised God, and wave their signs right back in their faces.  Yes…yes you did…

It’s good to know the names on that knife in your heart.

Jesus would say that I have to forgive.  I can appreciate how anger can turn into hate.  I can appreciate how it can corrode your soul, turn it to rust.  There is a reason why we have to forgive.  Jesus was right.  But there are some things I simply cannot forgive.  Just…can’t.  Ironically my Baptist grandmother was exactly like me in this regard.  Neither one of us could let go of a grudge.  It’s a dangerous combination I’ve lived with all my life: dad’s loaded gun temper, grandma’s ability to hold onto a grudge forever.  If I didn’t have some small smidgen of mom’s endless capacity for love and sympathy I’d be some kind of absolutely legendary asshole.  I have grudges from back in elementary school I still take out and polish every now and then.

Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.
-Edgar Watson Howe

Forgiveness.  Hopefully after November gay couples in California will still have their ring fingers, and those in Arizona and Florida will still have hope.  But if not, don’t ask me to forgive.  Ever.  I’ll laugh in your face.

[Edited a tad…]

Well after all, California isn’t the only state fighting an anti-gay same sex marriage amendment.  Florida and Arizona are also fighting.  So in the spirit of we’re all in this together, if you donate to the fight in any one of those states too (any amount), and email me the acknowledgment of your contribution (sans any personal info like SSN or credit card numbers…of course) I will honor the offer I made below to No On 8 in California. 

…or photograph.  To repeat from the previous post…here’s the deal:

Donate Here to the fight against Proposition 8…the California referendum that would take away the right of same sex couples to marry.   You must be a U.S. citizen to contribute.  If you donate between now and election day to No On 8 online (for any amount), send me your confirmation email, and I will draw an editorial cartoon on the topic of your choice. Or…alternately…a Mark and Josh cartoon on the topic of your choice.

Or…if my cartoons don’t do it for you…I’ll gladly mail you a signed 11 by 19 print of the image of your choice out of any of my photo galleries.

In a world that can’t seem to hate enough, please do what you can to help same sex couples keep their marriages secure.  This poor angry world needs a lot more of this…

And a lot less of this…

Here’s a handy database form you can query to see who is donating to the fight over California proposition 8 (for and against).  It’s probably incomplete though, as it says it was updated on the 7th and my donation of $500 dollars (to the folks fighting against of course) doesn’t show up…

You can donate Here to the fight against Prop 8.   You must be a U.S. citizen to contribute.  Between now and election day, anyone who donates to No On 8 online (any amount) and sends me their confirmation email, can commission from me an editorial cartoon on the topic of their choice. Or…alternately…a Mark and Josh cartoon on the topic of your choice.

Or…if my cartoons don’t do it for you…I’ll gladly mail you a signed 11 by 19 print of the image of your choice out of any of my photo galleries.

The wind never seems to stop here on the plains.  It is October in Wyoming, and the wind carries with it a chill now.  The first tentative breath of winter dances restlessly over rolling hills of sage.  The days have grown short, the nights cold.  And long.  Very long.  And quiet, save only for the sound of the wind. 

Take a walk tonight across the rolling hills of Wyoming sage.  Leave the town lights twinkling in the distance behind you.  Walk toward the mountains in the darkness ahead.  There is only you here tonight.  You, and the wind, and the stars in the sky, so far away.  So very far away.  Around you are only rolling hills of grass and sage, fading into the night.  There are remnants of what looks like a small wooden fence here, that was torn down some time ago. 

Listen to the wind.  Listen carefully.  There are ghosts here on the plains.  Hear them talk tonight among themselves…

No one knows why Matthew was determined to go to the Fireside that night, or why he left with Aaron and Russell. It was karaoke night, which would not ordinarily have interested him. There was some speculation that he was buying drugs from Aaron and Russell, but his friends find that implausible. A close friend thinks that depression may have weakened his judgment, and wonders if he had taken a heavy dose of Klonopin before he went to the bar. "When he was depressed," she says, "he would just grab a handful." Romaine Patterson remembers how in the coffee shop where she worked Matthew "would just talk to anyone-people no one else would talk to, like this weird old man…. He had no discrimination in his person."
-Vanity Fair

Shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, 20-year-old Shepard met McKinney and Henderson in a bar. McKinney and Henderson offered Shepard a ride in their car. Subsequently, Shepard was robbed, pistol whipped, tortured, tied to a fence in a remote, rural area, and left to die. McKinney and Henderson also found out his address and intended to rob his home. Still tied to the fence, Shepard was discovered eighteen hours later by a cyclist, who at first thought that Shepard was a scarecrow. At the time of discovery, Shepard was still alive, but in a coma.
-Wikipedia

Aaron Kreifels first met Matthew Shepard in a dream last Thursday night, the night after he discovered his fellow University of Wyoming student badly beaten, barely alive and tied up to a fence outside of Laramie.

Although Shepard was in Fort Collins by then, kept alive by an array of life-support machines in Poudre Valley Hospital’s intensive-care unit, Kreifels said the gay student, who was beaten beyond recognition, allegedly by two young Laramie roofers, perhaps because he was gay, came to visit his rescuer in a dream that night. Kreifels doesn’t remember much of the dream, but he said Wednesday that he awoke the next morning comforted by the vague sensation of having met the person he found in such bad shape two days before.

Although early reports indicated that two mountain bikers had discovered Shepard on the crude fence on an old, double-rutted road, Kreifels was alone that evening, struggling on his mountain bike through deep sand and for some reason ignoring a desire to turn back and find another, easier way back to town. Before he knew it, he had fallen. He was on the ground, his front wheel broken beyond repair. He was unhurt, but what he saw as he got up struck him cold.

"I got up and noticed something out of the corner of my eye,” he said from his room in a freshman dorm at the University of Wyoming on Wednesday. "At first I thought it was a scarecrow, so I didn’t think much of it. Then I went around and noticed it was a real person. I checked to see if he was conscious or not, and when I found out he wasn’t, I ran and got help as fast as I could.”

As the former high school crosscountry runner traversed the quarter- to half-mile of scrub prairie between him and the nearest house in the nearby Sherman Hills subdivision, his thoughts froze before quickly accelerating.

"It was distressing. I was panicked for a couple minutes, because I wanted to make sure I could do all I could do to help save him,” he said.
-The Denver Post

Officer Reggie Fluty: When I got there, the first – at first the only thing I could see was partially somebody’s feet and I got out of my vehicle and raced over – I seen what appeared to be a young man, thirteen, fourteen years old, because he was so tiny, laying on his back and he was tied to the bottome of the end of a pole.

I did the best I could.  The gentleman that was laying on the ground, Matthew Shepard, he was covered in dry blood all over his head.  There was dry blood underneath him and he was barely breathing…he was doing the best he could.

I was going to breath for him and I couldn’t get his mouth open – his mouth wouldn’t open for me.

He was covered in, like I said, partially dry blood and blood all over his head – the only place that he did not have any blood on him, on his face, was what appeared to be where he had been crying down his face.
-The Laramie Project

 

Shepard suffered a fracture from the back of his head to the front of his right ear. He had severe brain stem damage, which affected his body’s ability to regulate heart rate, body temperature and other vital signs. There were also about a dozen small lacerations around his head, face and neck. His injuries were deemed too severe for doctors to operate.
-Wikipedia

At the Poudre Valley Hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, Matthew lay in bed down the hall from Aaron McKinney. Matthew was comatose; his brain stem which controls heartbeat, breathing, temperature, and other involuntary functions – was severely damaged. He also was suffering from hypothermia and had a red welt on his back, a red mark on his left arm, bruised knees, cuts on his head, neck, and face, and bruising in his groin. 
-Vanity Fair

Dr. Cantway:  I was working the emergency room the night Matthew Shepard was brought in.  I don’t think, that any of us, ah, can remember seeing a patient in that condition for a long time – those of us who’ve worked in big city hospitals have seen this.  Ah, but it’s not something you expect here.

Ah, you expect it, you expect this kind of injuries to come from a car going down a hill at eighty miles an hour.  You expect to see gross injuries from something like that – this horrendous, terrible thing.  Ah, but you don’t expect to see that from someone doing this to another person.

The ambulance report said it was a beating so we knew.
-The Laramie Project

Exactly a week after his tragic discovery, Kreifels, 18, an architectural engineering major from Grand Island, Neb., said he tries not to think about the condition in which he found the classmate he had never seen before. Authorities say Shepard’s assailants repeatedly beat him with the butt of a .357 Magnum, fracturing his skull. Kreifels doesn’t talk about it.

"I don’t really want to go into details about that,” he said.
-The Denver Post

Aaron Kreifels:  I keep seeing that picture in my head when I found him…and it’s not pleasant whatsoever. I don’t want it to be there. I wanna like get it out. That’s the biggest part for me is seeing that picture in my head. And it’s kind of unbelievable to me, you know, that – I happened to be the person who found him – because the big question with me, like with my religion, is like, Why did God want ME to find him?
-The Laramie Project

[Edited a tad…]

Your sermon for Sunday, October 5, 2008…

Potential Saint, Cardinal John Henry Newman, was probably gay

”They were inseparable, they lived together for half a century, effectively like husband and wife. There were repeated allegations during [Newman’s] lifetime about his circle of homosexual friends. It is uncertain whether their relationship involved sex. It is quite likely that both men had a gay orientation but chose to abstain from sexual relations. But abstinence does not alter a person’s sexual orientation.”

Peter Tatchell, a British gay rights activist, remarking on the life of the late Cardinal John Henry Newman, an influential Catholic thinker, who may be granted full Sainthood by the Catholic Church despite the probability of a homo-relational life spent with his male companion, Ambrose Saint John.

At his own request, Newman was buried in the same grave as Ambrose St John. He had stated on three occasions his desire to be buried with his friend, including shortly before his death in 1890: "I wish, with all my heart, to be buried in Fr Ambrose St John’s grave – and I give this as my last, my imperative will", he wrote, later adding: "This I confirm and insist on."
–Wikipedia Entry on John Henry Newman

Was a Would-Be Saint Gay?

The long-running battle between gay rights activists and the Vatican has moved into the realm of the dead. With 19th century Anglican convert Cardinal John Henry Newman, arguably the greatest Catholic thinker from the English-speaking world, moving ever closer to sainthood, trouble is brewing over where his final resting place should be. The London-born historian and theologian died in 1890 and, following the instructions in his will, was buried beside his lifelong friend and fellow convert Ambrose St. John, who had died 15 years earlier. Newman’s deep expressions of grief after St. John’s death, along with other writings, have led some historians to ask whether the two men, who lived together for many years, lived much like common-law spouses.

Newman, whose ideas on conscience and faith have influenced Christian theology ever since, is expected to be beatified next year following the Vatican’s recent certification of a Newman miracle — when a Boston man’s cure from a crippling spinal disease could not be explained medically. The final step of canonization — full Sainthood — will require proof of an additional miracle achieved through the intercession of Newman’s spirit. The Vatican announced plans this month to move Newman’s remains from a small gravesite in the central English town of Rednal to a specially built sarcophagus in the Oratory Church of Birmingham, where, officials say, they will be more accessible for venerating faithful.

-Time Magazine

Although the passionate love between them was entirely chaste, the campaigners were seeking to claim — extravagantly — that Newman’s was a "same-sex relationship" which the Catholic Church was trying to suppress, an accusation Rome felt the need to scotch. But even those who did not believe Newman was a "closet homosexual" were still concerned that Newman’s body was going to be dismembered to extract relics. For such an English saint — the first non-martyr since the Reformation to be raised to the altars – it all seemed a little, well, Mediterranean.

(It has also been a running joke for religious correspondents, who have been proposing a "graveside webcam" to cover the disinternment, and speculating at the embarrassment that would follow from the discovery that the body of St John, not Newman’s, had been preserved.) 

–Austen Ivereigh, Writing For The National Catholic Weekly

No body in exhumed Newman’s grave

The grave of the 19th Century Cardinal John Henry Newman did not contain his body, the Catholic Church has revealed.

The plot, at the Oratory House, Rednal, near Birmingham, was excavated on Thursday at the Vatican’s instruction.

His remains were to have been moved to the Birmingham Oratory, in preparation for Newman’s anticipated beatification.

Newman’s body may have decomposed, as his coffin was not lead-lined. Its absence will not affect the progress of his cause in Rome, a spokesman said.

In a statement released on Saturday, Peter Jennings from the Fathers of the Birmingham Oratory, said: "Brass, wooden and cloth artefacts from Cardinal Newman’s coffin were found.

Newman was actually laid to rest, per his wishes, in St. John’s tomb.  That’s what makes the joke Ivereigh mentions of particular interest.   Regardless of whether their relationship ever became a physical one, Newman clearly and deeply loved St. John.  That’s why his body had to be removed from St. John’s tomb before he could be canonized.  The dehumanization of homosexual people proceeds not from a denial that sex between same sex lovers is natural, but from a denial that we love.  Homosexuals don’t love, they just have sex.  It isn’t the suggestion that Newman ever had sex with the man he loved that outrages the likes of Ratzinger.  It’s the fact that he loved another man, and was loved by him, and that their love was vital to both of them.  That is what simply cannot be.  Not that they had sex, but that they loved each other.  That is why Newman’s body had to be dug up, and separated from St. John’s.  In his jihad on gay people, Pope Ratzinger isn’t one to let mere death prevent him from separating same sex lovers.

But when the tomb was opened they found no remains.  Both men were gone.  No Newman, No St. John.  The tomb was empty.