“….Our nation’s laws should never be based solely on private religious beliefs. All religious bodies have a right to speak out on public issues, but elected officials must uphold the principles of the Constitution, not religious doctrine. Legislators represent people of many different faiths (and some who follow no spiritual path at all). Decisions about legislation should reflect the public interest, not personal beliefs about religion.”

Indeed, if there’s no valid LEGAL reason to keep marriage ILLEGAL for same-sex couples, it should  be legalized.  And I haven’t heard any “reason” that’s only legal/social that I don’t think is complete bullshit.  I’ve heard some “feelings”-based reasons, and that’s bullshit, too.  I FEEL like people who try to legislate religion should get kicked out of the country.  Where’s MY law?!

A Maryland legislator I saw on TV last week (forget her name, but she’s old and bottle-blonde and doesn’t look like a smart one, or sound like one) said that the teachings of Jesus don’t change — “the times” do.  Guess what, bitch?  Jesus doesn’t get a vote.

And, if he did, which Jesus gets a vote?  The Catholic one (gay people aren’t bad; they just can’t fuck)?  The Unitarian one (marriage for all!)?  The Evangelist one (gays are Satans and deserve to die)?

P.S. If we’re going to bring this to referendum, what the fuck do we have a legislature for?  If we’re going to do that, fire all those sumbitches, and have a public vote on everything.

P.S.S. Shit, nix the death penalty, and it will almost be like we live in a civilized state or something. Yankees almost!

(12.16.10)

It didn’t make a goddam difference because voting is the most that the majority of us do.

The Big Boys have us so lulled that we think that voting matters, and then we demonize people who don’t vote.  I know; I’ve done it, probably on this very blog.  Voting for one crook over another isn’t going to change one damned thing when a person doesn’t do anything else. Do we think laws are doing to save young men from lives in crime and sloth?  Or the Boy Scouts and other youth groups?  Is a piddly fine for driving with your cell phone going to stop people from the general assholery to which they are accustomed?  (Shit, I don’t know what will.)  Nothing the current government can do (much less anything they will do) is going to save any of us.  I can almost see where those teaparty nutjobs are coming from.  But, then again, morons from Alaska and Glenn Dickhead aren’t the only alternative to Washington inertia.  And, well, we all know where a lot of the teaparty rage comes from.  You know.

And we don’t even have a radical left anymore to fight the teaparty nuts.  “Everyone calm down.  Let’s work together!”  or, as Obama might put it, “I want social change, but I don’t wanna piss anyone off to get it!” The Civil War is what happens when there’s huge social change.  Lynching in the South.  Riots in the 1960s.  The obnoxious riots from the teaparty nuts are not a reaction to anything real or even threatening.  Not enough people are burning shit or really going nuts.  Yelling and signs don’t count.  This could mean that we’re all asleep (like the bumper sticker says).  But I think it’s more indicative that nothing is changing.  And I feel  like a fool for thinking, two years ago, that a lot was going to  happen.  In my (and countless others’) defense, after eight years of Bush, we were right to hope.  But we were wrong to channel our hope into campaign buttons and a vote and to stop there.  Obama told us that back then.  We sat around and waited for the magic new President to save us from the demons of the Republican party who are, you know, so different from the crooks in our own party, right?

Moderation happens when competing extremes can only work together through compromise.  It happens when neither side can win and when there’s no alternative.  When moderates and right-wing nuts fight, where would that compromise go?  A little right?  Or, since few so-called “liberals” really give a shit anyway, it might go largely right, no?

Watching people speed past kids, talking on their cell phones; learning about businesses screwing over my friends who work for them; experiencing first-hand what happens in an insurance state where no one wants to pay for you getting run over by a car; — In all this, I want more government, or, at least, more regulation.  I always say that it’s because people are assholes that we need laws.

But  our government doesn’t work.  Can any?  I thought anarchists were naive because they seemed to believe in some inherent goodness in people that I just don’t see.  But maybe they see an inherent evil in governments and power that I ignored?  Or, perhaps, I was a fool to see the lack of goodness in ordinary people left to rule themselves and also the terrible lack of goodness in people elected to and paid to lead us.

My wife chided me for voting for the Green Party candidate for governor.  She said that I threw my vote away. But did I throw it away more — or less — than someone who stepped in line behind their party (whichever it is) and hit D or R whenever asked?

See, they call people on the Gulf “small people” and refer to the Gulf itself is a big “ocean.”  Then people get really really upset about that.  Then BP apologizes, maybe makes fun of itself.  Then we forgive them.  And we forget about the other thing.

Because a little bad verbiage is much easier to apologize for and redeem oneself for than, you know, a massive oil spill.

Brilliant!

Human rights standards do not tolerate the inequities inevitably linked to a reliance on market competition to meet human needs. Yet this legislation also contains some important improvements to health care access for poor people.

More.

Wanna stop killing the planet from eating too much manufactured meat?

In recent years vegetarians and vegans have upped their attack on the consumption of animal flesh, pointing out not only that it’s disgusting (read Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book) but also a major cause of climate change. The numbers range from 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions to—in one recent study that was quickly discredited—51 percent. Whatever the exact figure, suffice it to say it’s high: there’s the carbon that comes from cutting down the forest to start the farm, and from the fertilizer and diesel fuel it takes to grow the corn, there’s the truck exhaust from shipping cows hither and yon, and most of all the methane that emanates from the cows themselves (95 percent of it from the front end, not the hind, and these millions of feedlot cows would prefer if you used the word eructate in place of belch).

More.

And, Mr. Obama decides that the Chesapeake Bay would be better with oil in it — because money is better than not destroying the planet — even to Mr. O.

Maryland’s senators and environmental activists are vowing to oppose President Barack Obama’s move to expand oil and gas exploration off the state’s Atlantic coast, warning that it could hurt tourism in Ocean City, threaten fish and wildlife along relatively unspoiled Assateague Island and foul the Chesapeake Bay.

More.

Under an agreement that is still being finalized, the National Security Agency would help Google analyze a major corporate espionage attack that the firm said originated in China and targeted its computer networks, according to cybersecurity experts familiar with the matter. The objective is to better defend Google — and its users — from future attack.

Google and the NSA declined to comment on the partnership. But sources with knowledge of the arrangement, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the alliance is being designed to allow the two organizations to share critical information without violating Google’s policies or laws that protect the privacy of Americans’ online communications. The sources said the deal does not mean the NSA will be viewing users’ searches or e-mail accounts or that Google will be sharing proprietary data.

The ACLU is urging its members and supporters to speak out:

The partnership is supposed to help protect Google’s networks, but the ramifications of companies like Google working with the NSA are frightening.

The NSA — a component of the Department of Defense — is an intelligence collection agency with few effective checks against abuse, and no public oversight of its activities. The NSA sucks up the equivalent of the contents of the Library of Congress every six to eight hours, every single day. In the last decade, the NSA’s dragnet, suspicionless surveillance has targeted everyday Americans, in violation of the law and the Constitution.

Google’s never won much praise from folks concerned about their privacy (do your own web searching on that if you’re interested), not that other search giants are exactly revolutionary in this area.  And maybe this  means nothing.  But it’s sure creepy, to me, too.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman’s support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.

The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal’s Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation’s most famous Roman Catholic family.

“The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion,” Kennedy told the paper in an interview conducted Friday.

Kennedy said the bishop had explained the penalty by telling him “that I am not a good practicing Catholic because of the positions that I’ve taken as a public official,” particularly on abortion. (More….)

What choice do you have? Be a bad Catholic or be a bad American? Last I checked, it was a sin to get an abortion, not a sin to NOT work to make them harder to get. And last I checked, Congress[wo]men were elected to be representatives of American citizens, not representatives of their churches. No matter what you think of Kennedy and no matter what you think of abortion rights, the Catholic Church and this particular bishop, you have to admit that Kennedy was not elected to be a Good Catholic Representative and to legislate his Catholic faith.  Not all of the citizens he represents are Catholic, right?

Am I calling politicians that put their faith over the office they were elected to bad Americans?

Via The New York Times:

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.

The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation.

“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says.

The manifesto, to be released on Friday at the National Press Club in Washington, is an effort to rejuvenate the political alliance of conservative Catholics and evangelicals that dominated the religious debate during the administration of President George W. Bush. The signers include nine Roman Catholic archbishops and the primate of the Orthodox Church in America.

They want to signal to the Obama administration and to Congress that they are still a formidable force that will not compromise on abortion, stem-cell research or gay marriage. They hope to influence current debates over health care reform, the same-sex marriage bill in Washington, D.C., and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. (More….)

Sure, I suppose you could be an intelligent homophobe.  I guess.  I don’t know.  Most of the truly homophobic people I’ve come into contact with are pretty stupid.  That’s been my experience.  I’m not making a universal declaration that all homophobes are stupid.  (So keep your hyperbolic hatemail to yourself.)

Why do we “liberals” get to determine the laws according to our own preferences?

One, the Constitution does not support what these people are doing. That’s why they want to change it. We do not have a State Religion. We should not. No, never. Do people who run around saying that “America is a Christian country, founded by Christians, so you heathens just shut up and let us pray in public schools” realize that theocracies can and often do result in hate and violence?  Heard of the Taliban?  If we let “Christians” legislate their religion, you know what will happen next (among other things).  People will realize that there is no such thing as “Christianity” and will war with each other over their own interpretations of the New Testament.  Faith versus Good Works.  Transubstantiation versus symbolism.  We’re dealing with petty, small-minded people here.  (I’m not saying that all Christians are small-minded; just the haters, and they’d not all Christians.)  Do you really think they’ll take over the country and just live and let live and not go after each other?  If they win, they’ll see, for instance, that Catholics and radical evangelicals don’t have enough in common to be grouped together, really.  And if you did group them, you’d have to be broad enough to include a lot of “non-Christian” religions, too.  Oh.  Shit.

Two, the hurt caused by treating gay people like, you know, everyone else, is that of the sensibilities of some people.  “Oh, shit, Uncle Jackroy is sad because gays get to marry, and he’s crying because they elected that n—–r to be President of these United States.”  Oh, shit, indeed.  Ignore the fact that I am probably not the only one who thinks these sensibilities are retrogressive and ignorant, i.e., that they don’t deserve consideration as much as other people’s rights and liberties do. It’s only people’s feelings here. Discrimination, on the other hand, destroys lives, livelihoods, creates a culture of fear and hate when it’s suggested that beating someone to death because of their sexual orientation is not a hate crime. Not discriminating makes some people uncomfortable. And, knowing more people like this than I care to admit, I don’t give a shit.

In fact, I like it. I love it!  I love love love it when racists in the U.S. have a black President. I love love love when homophobes get all uncomfortable around homosexuals. I love love love it when people’s hate hurts them. I’m mean, and I can’t help it.  People who are not particularly nice getting what they deserve doesn’t sound as bad as other people suffering for these haters’ hatefulness, right?  I mean, getting rid of the hate would be ideal.  But that’s easier said than done, and, and, AND — we don’t get the sense that these people want to give up their hate, now do we?  They’re marching on Washington!

But then I might fall into the “thought” of the haters, that some people are better than others and that the “lower” people don’t deserve equal social or legal consideration. But there’s a difference between being a gay-hating bigot and being born gay. It’s not discrimination to show disfavor to gay-haters. It’s a reaction to something they freely choose to do. We all have the right to feel how we want, to hate who we want. But when haters try to change the law and re-make The System that already fucks over some people based on facts about them that they didn’t chose (ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, economic circumstances, geographical location, etc.), that’s in infringement on the rights of these people and an affront to everyone else whom these weak scum-fucking-buckets might decide to push around in the future.

The Insane Right (not to be confused with regular conservatives who actually think and some of whom I know read this blog and who I like a great deal) is going after gay people and abortion rights today. Tomorrow, it might be people in inter-racial marriages, people with “too much” education, people who are better at them at sports or arts-and-crafts, people with green eyes, people who don’t go to church, people who ask too many questions.

It might be you and me.

“The Family” should not necessarily be decided by social consensus, as if stupidity in numbers makes something morally right or factually true.  We could all be wrong. Wasn’t long ago that we officially fucked over black people.  Now it’s all unofficial (but still systemic), but at least laws sorta protect black people, ideally, on paper at least, a little.  Shit, I couldn’t live in the neighborhood where I live now just 50 years ago — for being Catholic, too close to an immigrant and for my wife being black.  That’s not that long ago!  My Mom, who is only second-generation, could not live there when she was born.  This is all recent!  Wasn’t that long ago that a white man and a black woman were not legally a family because we couldn’t get married!  Not a family!

What, do we think we have our heads sufficiently out of our asses that we can collectively be persuaded to define “The Family” by a dick, balls and a vagina?

Wow, that’s crude!  But.  Still.  What about infertile couples?  They can’t have kids “naturally.”  They might have resentment over it and be “bad parents,” right? (I don’t think so at all.)  Not to mention the fact that I personally and closely know exactly (?) 27 people who should never ever ever have become parents, all of whom really like the penis-vagina thing and most of whom are gay-hating dinosaurs themselves.  Research doesn’t show that same-sex couples make bad parents at all.  And everyone knows there are more orphaned children on the planet than there are heterosexual couples willing to adopt them. And, I’m not a sociologist, but I never understood the insistence on “the family” anyway.  I know several people who would have been way way way better off without their “families” — but this is still a little alien to me, since I think I had some pretty damned good parents.

I do realize the irony of this post title and its content.  You know what?  Firstly, I’m not trying to change laws, only ranting.  Secondly, fuck you if something on a website you chose to read (and a long post at that) is breaking your heart.  Go to GodHatesFags.Com for some solace.  Or, you know what, instead of hating on haters who hate haters, go save some souls.  Feed the poor.  Volunteer your time.  LOVE SOMEBODY.

Now, as Harrison Price reports from the Washington Post, liberals are stepping down into the mire and using the same fear tactics, the same “with us or against us” tactics, the same logical fallacies employed by the Bush administration that run something like, “If you’re not with us, you think puppies are evil and should be fed to Nazis in the their soup!”

So, regardless on where you stand on healthcare reform, the situation is that the Right is holding rallies, and the Left wants to respond with rallies, all the while urging a civil conversation, or debate at best.

What do we do?

One could argue that our goal is healthcare reform, not to try to bridge the chasm between the parties.  That we should pull out all the stops like “they” do.  That, frankly, a lot of the people (certainly not all of them) at these rallies are acting on fear and anger and prejudice and a number of other factors that not reasoned thought.  That there’s no use in trying to talk to or reason with such people.  That we should harness their rage and turn it against our enemies.  That “they” started it.  That we can do a lot without stooping below “them”. (Not to mention some increasingly typical elitist liberal bullshit that makes me ashamed of my frequently Leftish leanings when I hear it.)

Would escalating the situation fix it?  Because, you know.  History shows us.  This.  When people are angry, if you make them more angry, the situation never gets worse, never explodes, always gets better.  Wait….

But would a rational conversation (insofar as anyone can have a rational conversation about healthcare anymore) work on anyone who is driven by fear and Limbaugh/Beck or by anger against the Left?  I mean, if you bracket moral/ethical concerns or even rhetorical devices like not stooping quite as lowly as your opponent does (yes, I think it can be a rhetorical device, and I’m guilty of using it), should the Left be more concerned with what works and what gets their position into minds and hearts and less about taking whatever moral highground they’re supposed to occupy if they’re civil?  I’ve chided Mr. Obama in private for being so danged concerned with not making enemies and getting everyone to agree that nothing is happening after eight months in office.  Is being civil worth it? When yelling and manipulation get the job done, should the Left do as the Right has occasionally done (and as the Left has occasionally done, too; make no mistake) and just go all out?

Or is being civil and rational and trying to get “both sides” to work together and probably not really getting anything done right away the way to go?  Sure, we might not pass any healthcare reform this year.  But if we stay civil, might we evolve a little and work together more and start getting at the fundamental problems with our government?  Besides, nothing’s exactly getting done in the currect agitated state of affairs, is it?

Here’s a question for the folks who are frequently on the same side as I am: Do ya’ll really think that fostering anger and fear just because the Right is doing it is going to fix the situation and not just make it a million times worse?

Pittsburgh Public Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt told KDKA Radio: “If the president wants to speak to the students of America and talk about the importance of academic achievement and working hard, that is a wonderful thing and ought not to be the subject of debate.” (Source.)

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not worshiping the guy. I wish he had gotten off his ass to so something in the gay rights arena by now (or a few months ago, really), and I’m saddened by the lack of cojones in “the party” on healthcare reform — which is probably more aptly called revision than reform with the way things are going.

Why the hell is the White House not responding more to this minority of crazy far-righties? Are we supposed to be above criticizing other people’s criticism (if you want to call these attacks criticism)? Screw the moral high road. We’re not using guns and bombs but words and legislation. Take the gloves off, man! Mr. Obama is intellectually and rhetorically capable of smashing these goons. I can understand the desire for composure and not becoming the monsters you fight. I do. But where did all the brash liberals go? Have they been they busy helping with Michael Moore’s new film?  (Kidding, kidding; they’re around.)

Me, I’m not brash. And, depending who you talk to, too leftist to be liberal or too middle to be liberal. I do have a lot of anarchist and socialist leanings (no, they are not the same thing).

Some of these folks, myself included, might be chided for being hypocrites. After all, how can we call for The Man to stay out of our personal issues and bodies and then tell Big Business (perhaps another offshoot of The Man) what it can and cannot do?

Well, so far as I understand it, people are granted freedom in this country because of the notion that there is dignity in being a human, that humans are inherently free, the way that God/nature/chance made us. And, so far as I can tell, business, health care, etc. are human creations, not endowed with anything divine or any special dignity (which is not to say there is necessary indignity per se in business).

I think that being accused of hypocrisy when one votes for freedom for individuals and regulation for business (or The Man, by The Man) is hogwash, or rather, the hog’s dirty bath water.

I honestly don’t understand business and economic theory, but I assume there are other reasons for a lack of regulation on The Man that escape me. Some are probably even pretty good; I wouldn’t know. But to base the “free market” in any way on human freedom is ludicrous. You might as well give total freedom to any human-created entity. I could create a robot that got everyone hooked on coffee. We’d be fools to let it run wild (or would we, hee hee hee). Hell, maybe even the person who set my creation free is morally and legally responsible for everything it might do, no?

But, like I said, maybe folks have good reasons for believing in a free market? If you do, you’d do a service to your position by not being a jerk and getting your comment deleted. (And remember: Bloggers don’t have to share your beliefs. Nor do they have to publish them in comments, when you’re uncivil. If you’re that passionate about something, go start a blog about it.)

“We aren’t headed for an era of socialism at all, since socialism is not a natural outgrowth of liberalism. Liberalism is a political philosophy that seeks to extend personal autonomy to as many people as possible, if necessary through positive government action; socialism, by contrast, seeks as much equality as possible, even if doing so curtails individual liberty. These are differences of kind, not degree– differences that have historically placed the two philosophies in direct competition. Today, socialism is on the decline, in large part because liberalism has lately been on the rise. And, if Barack Obama’s version of liberalism succeeds, socialism will be even less popular than it already is.”  (Read more.)

(Post your anti-liberal and/or anti-socialist and/or completely unrelated comments with the article on TNR or on your own site please, not here.  To the SPAM filter they go.   People using my freakin website to vent their issues in an unrelated way and not coming back is getting annoying.)

BEIJING – Chinese police aggressively deterred dissent on Thursday’s 20th anniversary of the crackdown on democracy activists in Tiananmen Square, ignoring calls from Hillary Rodham Clinton and even Taiwan’s China-friendly president for Beijing to face up to the 1989 violence…

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Clinton said in a statement Wednesday that China, as an emerging global power, ‘should examine openly the darker events of its past and provide a public accounting of those killed, detained or missing, both to learn and to heal.’
(Read more).

I can totally read China’s mind: “THE US? REALLY? Didn’t ya’ll destroy an indigenous people and crush your own people with your own military and police every chance you found? Aren’t labor strikes without Americans shooting other Americans kinda new over there?”

We do have a few Tiananmen Squares of our own, to be sure.  Read Zinn if you haven’t.  Or maybe you were even there.

Still though, damn. I’m glad to be over here today.