Historic!

Maryland's Question 6 will pass by a margin of about 51.5% to 48.5%
Maine Question 1 will pass by a margin of about 54% to 46%
Washington Referendum 74 will pass 52% to 48%
Minnesota Amendment 1 attempt to ban gay marriage constitutionally is tied at 49-49, but trailing ever so narrowly. [updated: 11/7/2012] The attempt to ban failed 50 something to 49 something.

This is fucking GREAT compared to 2008 when Prop 8 failed passed in California.

Bigotry is beginning to die on this issue, and no longer can bigots claim "not at the ballot."

So I like a pastor?

Obama is still a fucking weasel!

OK, it is 2012, about six years from when I predicted the inexorable move towards winning due rights for the LGBT community would start.

But as is right, some cannot wait. Or maybe they are working so that we can get over the hump in 2018. David Boies and Ted Olsen are about to argue in the SCOTUS that Prop 8 is unconstitutional, where, barring the discovery of a conscience in Justice Kennedy, it is going to be rejected.

But what does the alleged champion of gay rights, i.e., Barack Obama say on this matter?

Shit.

Nada.

Nothing.

"We are not a party to this litigation and would decline further comment.”

Yup, the weasel is still weaseling.

Whoa there FOX "News", easy on the tolerance!

Well, is FOX "News" softening, or is this a ruse?

Both. Shep Smith is likely gay, so we can see why he's going against the grain. Megyn Kelly someday wants to be seen as credible and different, so it is a ruse, and Judge Napolitano (is he a judge still?) is just trying to get on the politically correct libertarian bandwagon.

But the main reason this is happening is because the younger generation is put off by bigoted demagogues telling them that their friends are to be demonized.

And they form the coveted Demo crowd 18-49, with bigots rapidly exiting the top end.

This (fight for continuing bigotry against gays) will fall, just like every bigoted stance through the ages. When it does, I hope we never forget those who fought to preserve bigotry, those who supported them, and not forgive anyone on some lame principle of letting bygones be bygones.

Not until they make amends.

Self loathing gays

The gay wing of the homophobic party known as the GOP announced their endorsement for Romney. Clearly, they prefer the openly-hostile-to-their-cause Mitt, rather than the weasel Obama.

“President Obama and his friends on the left want this election to be about divisive social issues, because the President’s record on jobs and the economy is indefensible,” continued LaSalvia. “At this critical juncture, we need a President with the experience and expertise to turn this economy around. Someone who knows how the free markets work – former Governor Mitt Romney is that candidate.”

So you see, free markets are more important than fighting for gay rights. Well, get ready to be second class citizens.

Officially.

Of Turing and Bigotry

Those of you who use the popular search engine, Google, might have noticed their latest doodle for the Turing machine last week. A tribute to Alan Turing widely acknowledged as the father of modern computing. Before there were Jobs (or jobs in a discipline known as computer science), and Gates (or gates in silicon), or any of the other household names like that Facebook guy, or even the misplaced ridicule of Al Gore as the putative inventor of the Internet, there was Turing.

2012 is being celebrated as "The Turing Year", marking the hundred year anniversary of his birth. Born to parents of meager means, he and his brother spent Harry Potteresque lives in foster homes. Only, there was no Hogwarts. His father worked for the Indian Civil Service, which was a low paying if prestigious government job in British India.
A brilliant mind even as he entered his teens, he was recommended for specialized education by his school headmaster who figured that a public education was wasted on someone so gifted in the sciences.

Oh, he was also a homosexual, a born one.

Marsha Looper is a despicable bigot and suffers from cognitive dissonance

The bigot is on the right.  And on the left.

"I'm very, very disappointed," Marsha Looper moaned, after her campaign manager e-mailed El Paso County voters about her gay son. "I am disappointed that my campaign manager forwarded an e-mail that would include any member of my family in policy discussions. My opinions, financials and policies are appropriate discussions for the campaign, however my family members' personal lives are not a legitimate avenue for my campaign, or any other campaign to discuss."

Marsha obviously thinks nothing about other people's personal lives when she denigrates homosexuals, and canvasses to prevent family members from being a family. 

Really, there needs to be a Hell!

Weasel words

“At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me, personally, it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.”

Thus spake Obama, supposedly in favor of gay marriage.

Just read that.  Personally is the operative word.  As in "I personally have no issues if gay people want to marry, but for crying out loud, do not expect me to spend any political capital on it"

Fucking weasel!

So for the four years that Obama has evolved, he has gone from not supporting gay marriage to mouthing his support for it.  But that's about it.

This should be disappointing to even the most ardent of his supporters, but the Overton window has shifted so far to the right, that it seems like a major shift on his part.

So what's he going to do?

Well, nothing.  He is going to leave it to the states after stressing that it was only his personal opinion.

Had slavery been left to the states, would he be President today?

Fat bastard's weaseling

New Jersey's Democrat lawmakers want to do something right. Grant civil rights to homosexuals currently available only to heterosexuals. Yes, I am talking about gay marriage.

Sounds reasonable, heck, New York legalized gay marriage recently as well.

So what does Fat Bastard do?  He vows to veto it.  His rationale?  It is a social issue, and the legislature should instead concentrate on creating jobs. Never mind the sleight of hand that changes a civil rights issue into a social issue, here is a Republican governor tacitly admitting that the government can create jobs!

Back to the bigotry of denying homosexuals rights. Why would a seemingly moderate Republican vow to veto this? The answer is obvious, he plans to seek the nomination in the 2016, and as far batshit the GOP has gone with the tea baggers, he is positively spooked by how wingnutty you really have to be to gain the favor of the fundagelical hypocrites. But the country is leaning in favor of gay marriage as a whole, so he does not want to alienate the independent and moderate vote either, given that the slight incline could be a steep hill in another four years.

Assaulting gays for Jesus

Well, this one's giving a new meaning to the phrase bully pulpit. A pastor has been caught instructing his flock to beat up a gay couple in the parking lot of the church. And the flock o' Christians obediently did what they were told.

Why? Because Luke says Jesus said so:

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. - Luke 14:26

OK, what does this have to do with hating your parents or children?

Jerry Pittman Jr. is the son of the pastor Jerry Pittman. He was one of  'em gays.

One for the First Amendment

This feels good. At least for now.

http://missionviejo.patch.com/articles/in-jesus-glasses-case-court-rules-in-teachers-favor

Unfortunately, the current SCOTUS is likely to take this up and overturn it.

Making Water wet

Thanks to a surge in sensible public opinion (78% of those polled), DADT was repealed in December 2010. However, that did not mean homosexuals could start serving openly. Apparently the military needed time to placate the homophobes, and while the repeal bore fruit as law, the fruit may only be plucked when the military declares so. The optimistic estimates were around September of this year.

So what happened to the lawsuits, like the one by the log cabin Republicans, already in motion against the ban against homosexuals serving openly in the military? Aren't they as pointless as making water wet?

They continued. As they should. If civil rights are being violated, and the delay is in placating homophobes, fuck 'em!

And today, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the ban must be lifted immediately. Good for them!

Updating the judicial activism scorecard.

The judges

Alex Kozinski. Appointed by The Gipper.  Voted YEA
Kim McLane Wardlaw. Appointed by Slick Willie.  Voted YEA
Richard Anthony Paez. Appointed by Slick Willie. Voted YEA


OK, I give up. Which one(s) is/are the activist judge(s)?

Violence OK, Porn NOT OK

A California law that sought to prevent the sale of violent video games to children was struck down by the Supremes in Brown vs. Entertainment Merchants Association No. 08-1448.

Apparently that is free speech according to the majority, and the "conservative activist judge" Scalia, confirmed by a 98-0 vote in a Democratic Senate in 1986, wrote:

Like the protected books, plays and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas — and even social messages — through many familiar literary devices (such as characters, dialogue, plot and music) and through features distinctive to the medium (such as the player’s interaction with the virtual world). That suffices to confer First Amendment protection. [T]here was no tradition in this country of specially restricting children's access to depictions of violence. [G]rimm's Fairy Tales, for example, are grim indeed.

Way to go, Scalia!

In a rare moment of butt-buddy desertion, Clarence "Pubic Hair on a Coke can" Thomas disagreed. He said that California's law should be upheld because juveniles had no right to free speech.

Obviously, juveniles are not citizens of the US.  When will Obama deport these urchins back to where they came from?

What is notable in the above is that neither invoked States' rights as the trumping reason. Thomas in the past has insisted that at least part of the First Amendment does not apply to States, but just to Congress, because it clearly states "Congress shall make no ...".

Anyhoo, Californian kids can thank Scalia (and Ginsburg, et al.) for their inalienable right to play violent video games.

But what about kids from the gay-marriage-happy state of New York? Can they choose to be more cultured,  a bit more refined perhaps, shun the gratuitous violence, and instead opt for some, oh let's say, fuck films?

No fucking way!

There is a precedent you see; set only yesterday! Well 1968 really, but what's a decade or four?

So killing a fucking whore in a video game is OK. Watching the same fucking whore fuck on a DVD? 

No fucking way!

Scalia to the rescue again:

Because speech about violence is not obscene, it is of no consequence that California’s statute mimics the New York statute regulating obscenity-for-minors that we upheld in...

Thank you Cuomo and New York

Somewhere in the White House is a weasel cowering in the corner, about to try and steal the limelight.

Kudos to Republican Roy McDonald who voted for equality as he pronounced

You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn't black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing. You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don't care what you think. I'm trying to do the right thing.
I'm tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I'm trying to do the right thing, and that's where I'm going with this.

Obama the Opportunistic Weasel!

Marriage equality. It is the next civil right to be won in America. It will be won, and we will start an inexorable march toward equality without regard to sexual orientation. For far too long, homosexuals have been forced to live like second-class citizens, much like blacks were, and in some places, still are, but it will begin to end.

So what exactly are these homosexuals fighting for, when they want the right to marriage? Well, nothing more than what is offered to heterosexuals: the 1138 or so rights that are conferred automatically by the federal government.

When?

At one point I was optimistic it'd happen within my lifetime, but that changed after I saw a supposedly liberal California actually vote to deny homosexuals that. By a simple majority. In a state that requires a two-thirds majority to raise taxes or fees! The disappointing part of that was the way the blacks voted. Overwhelmingly against granting an oppressed minority the same rights as heterosexuals. That was unfathomable to me. Firstly, that we we were actually voting to deny or grant someone rights, and secondly, that a long oppressed minority who had gone through the trials and tribulations of their own were voting to deny that to
someone else!

And Obama? His position was as follows:

I’ve stated my opposition to this. I think Prop 8 is unnecessary. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.

Weasel!

If you favor liberty for all, but are opposed to Prop 8, that is like being in favor of equality for blacks but opposing the Civil Rights Act.

Then he became President. Had that two-faced Warren deliver the invocation. Yes, that homophobe.

So when? Not in my lifetime, I said, at that point.

Months passed, there were rumblings from the gay community about DOMA and DADT. Obama's team was unmoved, they had more pressing matters to even make a statement.

But something happened over that time. The fundagelicals were so focused on directing their bigotry against Obama, his birth certificate, his skin color, the ACA, the continuing economic malaise, Muslims, Alaska Palin, Minnesota Palin, Beck, guns, and already low taxes, that they forgot to hate the gays.

The polls changed, and a significant majority of the population voiced support for repealing DADT. And Obama jumped on the opportunity. Fresh from a stinging defeat at the polling booth, he "boldly" put the DADT repeal to a vote. Opportunistic politicians followed suit. DADT was repealed.

Wow! Congress and Obama did what only 80% of the people wanted. Gutsy!

OK, now when will marriage equality become real? I started thinking 2012. Obama's got this, and DOMA is to be history soon. Hey, he issued an edict stating that his DOJ will not be defending DOMA anymore. Even announced that his views are "evolving".

So where's the public statement that recanted his Prop 8 weaseldom? Rumors started circulating that he'll do so shortly. Perhaps this week.

Nope, didn't happen this week. At a LGBT rally in New York, where they are trying to pass a marriage equality bill, when confronted directly on the specific issue of marriage equality, the weasel offered:

And I believed that discrimination because of somebody’s sexual orientation or gender identity ran counter to who we are as a people. It’s a violation of the basic tenets on which this nation was founded. I believe that gay couples deserve the same human rights as every other couple in this country.

OK, what about marriage, you weasel?

Right now, I understand, there is a little debate going on here in New York, under the leadership of Governor Cuomo, with the support of Democrats and Republicans, New York is doing exactly what democracies are supposed to do. There is debate and deliberation about what it means here in New York to treat people fairly in the eyes of the law. That is the power of our democratic system. It is not always pretty there are setbacks there are frustrations. But in grappling with tough and at time emotional issues in the legislatures and the courts and the ballot box and, yes, around the dinner table and the office hallways -- sometimes even in the Oval Office -- slowly but surely we find a way forward. That is how we will achieve change that is lasting. Change that just a few years ago would have seemed impossible.

Spineless weasel!

With your help, if you keep up the fight, if you will devote your time and your energies to this campaign one more time, I promise you we will write another chapter in that story. We are going to lead a new generation to a brighter future, and I will be standing there right there with you.

Opportunistic weasel!  They'll work, fight, suffer, and he'll take the credit.

The polls on this are only slightly in favor: 53% approve. Not enough for the weasel to stake any political capital on it.

So when? I am guessing 2018 at the latest. The bigotry shall be made illegal. It may take a couple more generations after that to get to the point where homosexuals enjoy the same acceptance as blacks do today. If it doesn't, remember that Obama had it in his sights to dare to effect the change and he refrained.

When the discrimination ends, note that the real heroes would have been members of the LGBT community, who suffered, fought, and ended it.

Not Obama. He was just there for the cake. Yes, I get it, "He is better than Bush or even Clinton!" He is still a weasel who did little to help the LGBT community except and only when someone else made it politically favorable.

The DADT repeal will go down as one of his accomplishments, and I have credited him with that in the past. I now see that it was misplaced. The DADT repeal simply happened on his watch, he had little to do with it.

Gay marriage opponents, please reflect on this

1. If you really, really want to preserve the sanctity of marriage, should you not be clamoring for a proposition that bans divorce, since divorce is the leading cause of death of all marriages?

2. If you are married, then please describe in gruesome detail how your marriage absolutely lost all meaning when Jacqueline and Melissa got married. Who, you ask? Well, if you do not even know them, then was your marriage really affected? OK, to make it easier, how did your marriage lose all its meaning when Ellen Degeneres and Portia di Rossi tied the knot?

3. Please describe the basis of a traditional marriage. What, or who defines what a marriage constitutes? If you say it is tradition, explain why a tradition, specifically this one, needs to be unchanging since many traditions are not. It was, for example, a tradition that only men could participate in voting in an election.

4. If you feel that some religious body or belief defines marriage, can you find its position to have changed from allowing multiple wives to a single one? Can you find the tradition of divorce in the same body of belief? Do you not find any conflicts at all?

5. If the word 'marriage' is being hijacked, hasn't the word 'gay' been hijacked a lot earlier? Should we be clamoring for a ban on that usage?

Gay marriage and the discrimination

Marriage is primarily a religious concept which has been institutionalized by our government in a blatant violation of church and state.

I am married to a loving woman, but I despise the very notion of marriage since it is a religious institution. The main reason I chose to get married was for legal benefits, and because my disgust for the institution was not stronger at the time than my fear of being socially ostracized by our respective families.

The legal benefits are plentiful: taxes, estate planning, social security, disability, health-care in companies that provide such benefits, death and inheritance benefits, legal protection, etc.

Which is why not allowing these same benefits to individuals who are of the same sex, but nevertheless are as committed to each other as heterosexual ones, is discriminatory.

Plain and simple.

The people trying to prevent this simply want to force their religious viewpoints down the throats of everyone.

The proposal of civil unions, which is often offered as a compromise, either by explicit approval or by explicit denial of any opposition to the idea, by people who reject gay marriages, such as the current Presidential candidates (Obama and McCain), is only a sugar-coated example of this discrimination.

By separating civil unions from marriages, you'll legally recognize unions between homosexuals as second-class to marriage. Some rights will likely not be entailed by a civil union, or else the idea is a sham, since there will otherwise be no legal difference between a civil union and a marriage.

And what happens when heterosexuals demand that they be allowed to enter into civil unions, and not marriages?

"Gay marriage is destroying traditional marriage" is the oft-heard cry of the shrill.

How?

Traditional marriage is suffering, or in my estimation, enjoying a precipitous drop in longevity these days. Half of all marriages in the USA now end in divorce, doubled from about a generation ago.

You have to an imbecile to conclude that homosexuals are even remotely responsible for it!

So what's the solution?

Have the government out of the marriage business altogether. Instead institutionalize civil unions for everyone wanting to be in a union, and leave marriages to the religious institutions. It'll end the discrimination, and should make the religious folks happy too.

That is, if the real beef that religious folks had was keeping the religious notion of marriage intact.

Anybody has even a single rational argument against this proposal?