The hypocrites of homosexuality are, of course, already preparing to answer these statements by accusing me of homophobia, gay-bashing, bigotry, intolerance; but nothing that I have said here -- and nothing that has been said by any of the prophets or any of the Church leaders who have dealt with this issue -- can be construed as advocating, encouraging, or even allowing harsh personal treatment of individuals who are unable to resist the temptation to have sexual relations with persons of the same sex.
Not Card - He isn't homophobic... And he isn't advocating harsh treatment of them. Is he?
After blabbering on about how homosexuals must admit that they are sinning according to the rules of Card's personal lifestyle choice, his own personal religious views that he is trying to force on everyone else, he later goes on to discuss appropriate punishment for homosexuals:
This applies also to the polity, the citizens at large. Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
And he has the gall to title the piece "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality"... You see, this has and always been about equality. The loonies at FIC, NOM and other anti-marriage equality groups are truly radical wingnuts that advocate Christianist hate and for treating others as second class citizens.
The latest face they have added to their stable of hate at NOM proves that it is all about equality.
But these days they know that they have to hide that fact because their real views are about as radical and un-American as it gets.
When we're tempted to dismiss the anti-marriage equality crowd as a bunch of passe cranks who are losing their battle against civil rights and who will soon disappear to lick their wounds, we need to remind ourselves that their organizations harbor a lot of seriously deranged people. Family Institute of CT on a local level, and the National Organization for Marriage on the larger stage have the potential to be much more dangerous than they appear at first glance.
People for the American Way's Right Wing Watch has noted that the science fiction writer Orson Scott Card has joined the board of NOM. PFAW shares an interesting quote from Card, which appeared last July during the Prop 8 battle, in the Mormon Times:
How long before married people answer the dictators thus: Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn. [...] American government cannot fight against marriage and hope to endure. If the Constitution is defined in such a way as to destroy the privileged position of marriage, it is that insane Constitution, not marriage, that will die.
NOM has put a man who advocates overthrowing the American government on their Board of Directors. One can only assume that NOM and their followers either agree that the government is their "mortal enemy" and that the Constitution is "insane" or at least have no problem with people advocating that the government of the United States be destroyed and brought down.
But these people at NOM aren't the radicals.
We are. Because. we. preach. real. equality.
And they aren't homophobes preaching violence, either...
Since both the White House and Congress no longer consider prosecuting torture as a crime, it is safe to assume that we can begin to legally use these methods as legitimate tools to lobby our Congress and White House for the real changes we expect from our government. These methods that I document will be equally applicable to those who lobby against the interests of average American citizen on these issues.
Making them face their own inner demons that are, often times, based on a self loathing because of repressed feelings concerning their own confused sexuality might begin to arouse their interest in equality for all as founding documents clearly defines it.
Approval had been expected in the Senate, where the vote was 23 to 5.
But the outcome in the House of Representatives was not clear until the final moments of a long roll call, when Rep. Jeff Young, a Democrat who voted against the bill last week, reversed his position. In the end the vote was 100 to 49, just slightly more than the required two-thirds majority of members present.
[udate deux] The Iowa Senate Majority leader, Mike Gronstal, is effectively blocking efforts to undo the recent decision of the Iowa Supremes:
One of my daughters was in the workplace one day, and her particular workplace at that moment in time, there were a whole bunch of conservative, older men. And those guys were talking about gay marriage. They were talking about discussions going on across the country.
And my daughter Kate, after listening for about 20 minutes, said to them: You guys don't understand. You've already lost. My generation doesn't care.
I think I learned something from my daughter that day, when she said that. And I've talked with other people about it and that's what I see, Senator McKinley. I see a bunch of people that merely want to profess their love for each other, and want state law to recognize that.
Is that so wrong? I don't think thats so wrong. As a matter of fact, last Friday night, I hugged my wife. You know Ive been married for 37 years. I hugged my wife. I felt like our love was just a little more meaningful last Friday night because thousands of other Iowa citizens could hug each other and have the state recognize their love for each other.
No, Senator McKinley, I will not co-sponsor a leadership bill with you.
The video:
Good day for equal rights. Daughters and sons of miscegenation legal arguments past can cry me a river.
India, as a nation, adores Valentine's Day. Indians embrace it as a holiday that goes beyond just being nice to your partner. Everyone – from the coffee guy to the gym receptionist who tried to hand me a red rose – was full of non-lecherous cheer. So I was shocked the next day to find the news awash with stories about far-right Hindu activists – from Shri Ram Sena to Bajrang Dal – who had beaten up unmarried couples and blackened their faces as a mark of shame for celebrating Valentine's Day. Their justification was that the day is a western practice, and promotes "lust not love".
This year, the same groups are out again in force. However, while the Indian government has been slow to act against these self-styled moral police, there's a keen sense that the winds of change are turning against these groups.
For a start, although it is a serious issue, it is hard not to laugh at the blustering of Pramod Mutalik, leader of Shri Ram Sena. Mutalik insists that his men will roam Bangalore armed with video cameras, capturing any unmarried couples found celebrating Valentine's Day and then force them to get married. In response, the brilliantly titled Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women has started a campaign on Facebook – which now has a whopping 28,496 members and counting – that calls on people to send the Sri Ram Sena a pair of pink chaddis (meaning underwear in Hindi) on 14 February as a sign of protest.
But this is very clearly a story about violence and oppression of women, religion and freedom:
A group of reasonably outraged Indians has started a movement to send pink panties (known as chaddis) (and oh how I love that) to the fundie organization. They have a blog and a lovely Facebook group with panties images I'm destined to steal.
I also love that this horrible incident of violence against women can be met with direct action non-violence that gets lots of well-deserved attention. Fundies don't have a chance against activist women with a strong sense of self and humor.
Smart and funny women and men around the globe are coming together and the people who started this have garnered even more attention to this cause than the shocking and violent video ever would ever have.
As for myself? A great excuse to go out and raise a glass of beer (or tea, or fruit juice) is better than the simple reason that I will probably still go out and have that beer.
I am going to send a pink chaddi in to the addy they give at the movement's Blog(Don't expect me to wear them. lol). I figure I will be at Victoria Secrets tomorrow to get something "valentinish" for my wife anyways... A few bucks on panties and postage will be well worth it to show real support for freedom and against senseless violence for people everywhere around the world.
PS. Our good friend L says we should not colour-discriminate. So if you really, really can't send pink chaddis, send those in other colours.
PPS. Both Women and Men are invited to send in their chaddi's/ pictures of chaddi's.
Give the women of the world a very special Valentines gift this year. Give them freedom by lending your voice, and maybe a pair of panties or a picture, to this cause.
"The teenagers and college students who left their homes to march in the streets of Birmingham and Montgomery; the mothers who walked instead of taking the bus after a long day of doing somebody else's laundry and cleaning somebody else's kitchen -- they didn't brave fire hoses and Billy clubs so that their grandchildren and their great-grandchildren would still wonder at the beginning of the 21st century whether their vote would be counted; whether their civil rights would be protected by their government; whether justice would be equal and opportunity would be theirs.... We have more work to do."
-- Barack Obama, Speech at Howard University, September 28, 2007
President Barack Obama has spent much of his career fighting to strengthen civil rights as a civil rights attorney, community organizer, Illinois State Senator, U.S. Senator, and now as President. Whether promoting economic opportunity, working to improve our nation's education and health system, or protecting the right to vote, President Obama has been a powerful advocate for our civil rights.
Combat Employment Discrimination: President Obama and Vice President Biden will work to overturn the Supreme Court's recent ruling that curtails racial minorities' and women's ability to challenge pay discrimination. They will also pass the Fair Pay Act, to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work, and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: President Obama and Vice President Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section.
End Deceptive Voting Practices: President Obama will sign into law his legislation that establishes harsh penalties for those who have engaged in voter fraud and provides voters who have been misinformed with accurate and full information so they can vote.
End Racial Profiling: President Obama and Vice President Biden will ban racial profiling by federal law enforcement agencies and provide federal incentives to state and local police departments to prohibit the practice.
Reduce Crime Recidivism by Providing Ex-Offender Support: President Obama and Vice President Biden will provide job training, substance abuse and mental health counseling to ex-offenders, so that they are successfully re-integrated into society. Obama and Biden will also create a prison-to-work incentive program to improve ex-offender employment and job retention rates.
Eliminate Sentencing Disparities: President Obama and Vice President Biden believe the disparity between sentencing crack and powder-based cocaine is wrong and should be completely eliminated.
Expand Use of Drug Courts: President Obama and Vice President Biden will give first-time, non-violent offenders a chance to serve their sentence, where appropriate, in the type of drug rehabilitation programs that have proven to work better than a prison term in changing bad behavior.
Support for the LGBT Community
"While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect."
-- Barack Obama, June 1, 2007
Expand Hate Crimes Statutes: In 2004, crimes against LGBT Americans constituted the third-highest category of hate crime reported and made up more than 15 percent of such crimes. President Obama cosponsored legislation that would expand federal jurisdiction to include violent hate crimes perpetrated because of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, or physical disability. As a state senator, President Obama passed tough legislation that made hate crimes and conspiracy to commit them against the law.
Fight Workplace Discrimination: President Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees' domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. The President also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.
Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell: President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.
Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.
Promote AIDS Prevention: In the first year of his presidency, President Obama will develop and begin to implement a comprehensive national HIV/AIDS strategy that includes all federal agencies. The strategy will be designed to reduce HIV infections, increase access to care and reduce HIV-related health disparities. The President will support common sense approaches including age-appropriate sex education that includes information about contraception, combating infection within our prison population through education and contraception, and distributing contraceptives through our public health system. The President also supports lifting the federal ban on needle exchange, which could dramatically reduce rates of infection among drug users. President Obama has also been willing to confront the stigma -- too often tied to homophobia -- that continues to surround HIV/AIDS.
Empower Women to Prevent HIV/AIDS: In the United States, the percentage of women diagnosed with AIDS has quadrupled over the last 20 years. Today, women account for more than one quarter of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses. President Obama introduced the Microbicide Development Act, which will accelerate the development of products that empower women in the battle against AIDS. Microbicides are a class of products currently under development that women apply topically to prevent transmission of HIV and other infections.
Ms. Pascoe is Associate Professor and Beekman Chair of Northwest and Pacific History at the University of Oregon. She is completing a book on the significance of miscegenation law in United States history.
We are in the midst of an attempt to ground a category of discrimination in the fundamental social bedrock of marriage law. I would argue that it is virtually impossible to understand the current debate over same-sex marriage without first understanding the history of American miscegenation laws and the long legal fight against them, if only because both supporters and opponents of same-sex marriage come to this debate, knowing or unknowingly, wielding rhetorical tools forged during the history of miscegenation law. The arguments white supremacists used to justify for miscegenation laws--that interracial marriages were contrary to God's will or somehow unnatural--are echoed today by the most conservative opponents of same-sex marriage. And supporters of same-sex marriage base their cases on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, echoing the position the U.S. Supreme Court took when it declared miscegenation laws unconstitutional in the case of Loving v. Virginia. Both sides confront the structures of marriage law exclusion that were also forged during the history of miscegenation, including, as I show below, the legal maneuvering over the seemingly minor bureaucratic practice of issuing marriage licenses.
Yet, so many don't understand that rights in America are to be universal; guaranteed to every citizen under the law. Equal under the law is the other way it is expressed. Somewhere along our journey a percentage of Americans got confused, brainwashed, left-behind, whatever...And began to think of marriage as a religious doctrine not a civil construct. This misunderstanding of the nature of marriage is what has gotten us to this point.
Now, combine our need for salvation with our hate for things we don't' understand, and you have a straightforward American debate; rooted in puritanical history, conflated by individual moral superiority. This is a classic cycle we have played out over and over in our history. Whenever we are afraid of something or someone we don't understand we isolate them. Americans are not the fair-minded individuals they always claim to be. There is always some class of people unworthy of what the others have. We have lost our way, and that is why I speak on this so much.
Consider this: Marriage gets to party at the church. It gets a dress. It gets guests in pews. When the party is over, people will turn to God for guidance, but they turn to the state for a divorce!
To review; you come to the government to get married, and you go to the state to legally dissolve your marriage. You may go to church in between to help you nurture a loving relationship, but that is about as far as the relationship between faith and marriage goes.
For over seven minutes last night, Jon Stewart grilled former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on his oppositiontogay marriage. Huckabee is touring the country to promote his new book, “Do The Right Thing.” When Stewart compared gay marriage bans to interracial marriage bans, Huckabee restated his view that homosexuality is simply a behavior choice:
STEWART: Segregation used to be the law until the courts intervened.
HUCK: There’s a big difference between a person being black and a person practicing a lifestyle and engaging in a marital relationship.
STEWART: Okay, actually this is helpful because it gets to the crux of it. … And I’ll tell you this: Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality. And the protections that we have for religion — we protect religion. And talk about a lifestyle choice — that is absolutely a choice. Gay people don’t choose to be gay. At what age did you choose to not be gay?
Huckabee tried to insist that “60 percent of the American population” opposes gay marriage. Stewart interrupted him, calling it a “travesty” that gay Americans have to plead for their civil rights... (READ ON)
But they conveniently choose to skip the First Divine Institution in their bankrupt arguments.
Free Will - The one God supposedly gave everyone to choose their own destiny. Religion is quite simply and for certain nothing more than a lifestyle choice...
You aren't born that way. Even if you are a believer - God gave you the free will to choose to believe. In fact some of these religions make a big deal out of converting people into believers. Because. People. Were. Not. Born. That. Way.
They made a choice.
People choose their religions all the time. Often they change their choice of religion on a whim.
Today, the word miscegenation is avoided by many scholars, because the term suggests a distinct biological phenomenon, rather than a categorization imposed on certain relationships. The word is considered offensive by many and other terms such as "interracial," "interethnic" or "cross-cultural" are more common in contemporary usage. However, the term is still used by scholars when referring to past practices concerning multiraciality, such as anti-miscegenation laws that banned interracial marriages.
Christians and their ever changing views on traditional marriage...
I am pretty sure most of them have given up the bigoted views against interracial marriages.
A. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)
B. Marriage shall not impede a man's right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)
C. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)
D. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)
E. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)
F. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother's widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)
G. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)
Deuteronomy 22:28-29 NLT If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.
Just remember that these are precisely the views and lessons that have formed people like Mike Huckabee's "family values and morals" in the religious lifestyle choice they have made.
History will not be kind to you and yours, Huckster...
Time and time again these family values types have had to be forced to re-define their idea of traditional marriage because of what societies morals have defined as abhorrent practices. This time is no different than any of the other times. It truly sickens me that in a nation where all men are supposedly created equal... That we constantly have to sink down to these morally corrupt and repugnant people's level to argue for the most basic civil rights of other men and women. Their right to choose.
Those of you on the other side of these arguments - and I assure you, they are all the same arguments repeated over and over again - will be viewed in the history books as the bigots and haters that you are. But let's be clear on this...
That was your choice.
Not mine. My choice and belief would be that other people have no right to stick their noses in to the love lives, bedrooms and marriages of other adults. And I never had to ask for Mike Huckabee's or any one else, Gay, Lesbian, heterosexual, religious, atheist or other, for permission to get married - other than my wife-to-be at the time. All of you on the wrong side of this argument have been left with the freedom to choose your religion, your morals, your values and even your spouse.
The LGBT community deserves the same rights, the same freedoms guaranteed to them under the Constitution, to make all of these same choices without your 5000 years of traditionally misguided, immoral and bigoted input.
The truth is that you’re living in a world that no longer exists. I, along with millions of Americans, clearly see the world the way it as — and we embrace what it can be. You, on the other hand, seem incapable of looking for new ideas or moving beyond what worked in the past. […]
This is a movement of the people that you most fear. It’s a movement of progress — and your words on FOX News only show how truly desperate you are to maintain control of a world that is changing before your very eyes.
Today, Connecticut joins Massachusetts as the only states to allow same-sex couples to marry. This comes one week after California voters banned gay marriage. WNPR's Lucy Nalpathanchil spoke to two couples who've been waiting a long time for this day to come.
This morning town halls across the state will begin issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples. Barb and Robin Levine Ritterman will be at the front of the line at New Haven city hall. Last week, I met with them in Barb's office on Chapel Street to hear about their plans. She smiles at Robin, her partner of seventeen years, as she talks about planning for the big day.
Love Makes a Family and GLAD will be coordinating festivities at two locations in Connecticut--New Haven and West Hartford. Bring your cameras, balloons, bubbles and flowers to New Haven City Hall (we'll gather on the sidewalk at 165 Church Street) at 10am on Wednesday, November 12th to celebrate with the first same-sex couples getting their marriage licenses!
Then, at 2:30pm at West Hartford Town Hall (gather outside at 50 South Main Street), the celebration continues as plaintiff couple Beth Kerrigan and Jody Mock get their marriage license there. We expect both of these locations to be major media events--be part of the crowd that witneses history! You won't want to miss it--plan on taking the day off!
The State Supreme court decision on same-sex marriage becomes official Tuesday with its publication in the Connecticut Law Journal, and that means same-sex couples could be tying the knot in about two weeks.
[snip]
"It could be the 13th, but it will happen the week of November 10th," Ben Klein, of Gay/Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, said.
Not much time for them to get their wedding plans together... Good luck to any of you that take advantage of actually having EQUAL RIGHTS when it comes to your own personal pursuit of happiness.
Love Makes a Family is looking for donations to help defend this newly minted equality. You know there are wingnuts out there that are already plotting to force their misguided opinions into other peoples' marriages and happiness. Instead of fighting this decision they might do better to invest their political war chest in marriage counseling to figure out just what, exactly, is so wrong that makes their marriages success so dependent on somebody else's personal lives?
I don't know about any of you but my marriage hasn't changed one little bit, nor has it been diminished in any way, since the Supreme Court decision. Figure the odds?
Today at 11:30 the CT Supreme Court will release their decision on same-sex marriage.
Or will they be relegated to the status of second class human beings and citizens deprived of their rights to pursue their life, their liberty and their happiness? Update [2008-10-10 11:47:4 by Connecticut Man1]: According to mattw at MLN, there is a party in Hartford tonight celebrating Equal Rights:
Like these once prevalent views, our conventional understanding of marriage must yield to a more contemporary appreciation of the rights entitled to constitutional protection. Interpreting our state constitutional provisions in accordance with firmly established equal protection principles leads inevitably to the conclusion that gay persons are entitled to marry the otherwise qualified same sex partner of their choice. To decide otherwise would require us to apply one set of constitutional principles to gay persons and another to all others. The guarantee of equal protection under the law, and our obligation to uphold that command, forbids us from doing so. In accordance with these state constitutional requirements, same sex couples cannot be denied the freedom to marry.
Larry Craig and David Vitter — “two United States Senators implicated in extramarital sexual activity” — have named themselves as co-sponsors of S.J. Res. 43, the Marriage Protection Amendment. If passed, the bill would amend the Constitution to declare that marriage “shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman.”
He denounced the longstanding probes by the Statesman -- he called it a "witch hunt" -- for inspiring him to plead guilty to the offense even though he said he was actually innocent. He said he had been "viciously harassed" by the newspaper. "I am not gay," he said twice. "I love my wife."
...snip...
His full remarks on The Statesman read: "For eight months leading up to June, my family and I had been relentlessly and viciously harassed by the Idaho Statesman. If you’ve seen today’s paper, you know why. Let me be clear: I am not gay and never have been.
Sen. Larry Craig is a weird dude. I can't relate. But it's important to remember that Craig tried to weasel out his arrest.
After he was arrested, Craig, who is married, was taken to the Airport Police Operations Center to be interviewed about the lewd conduct incident, according to the police report. At one point during the interview, Craig handed the plainclothes sergeant who arrested him a business card that identified him as a U.S. Senator and said, "What do you think about that?" the report states.
Nice attempt to pull rank, dontcha think?
You can snigger about Craig's sexual proclivities and hypocrisy...he deserves it.
This story would not matter if Craig wasn't using his position to advance the Republican Party's officially homophobic agenda. In November, 2006, Craig flamboyantly endorsedIdaho's successful anti-gay constitutional amendment, HJR 2, which banned gay marriage, civil unions and domestic partnerships in his state. Pam Spaulding has more background on Craig's anti-gay voting record here. It's also worth recalling Craig's 1999 interview with Tim Russert in which he mocked Bill Clinton as a "naughty boy" for his affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Craig is up for re-election in 2008. Will his carnality in public restrooms put an end to his career in public life? Idaho conservatives may be willing to reward bigotry, but lying is another matter.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer has reported that Larry Craig has resigned his appointment as co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, and the campaign has accepted his resignation.
...snip...
Sen. Craig has issued a statement in response to this story: “At the time of the incident, I complained to the police that they were misconstruing my actions. I was not involved in any inappropriate conduct. I should have had the advice of counsel in resolving this matter. In hindsight, I should not have pled guilty. I was trying to handle this matter myself quickly and expeditiously.”
You remember a little while back we brought you the story of Florida McCain campaign co-chair, Rep. Bob Allen (R). Right on the heels of Giuliani Southern Regional Chairman David Vitter's exposure as a serial user of prostitutes, Allen got caught in a Titusville park restroom offering to pay an undercover police officer to allow him to perform oral sex on him.
Now it turns out that Allen revealed the true reason for the alleged park-john-offer in a tape recorded statement he made just after his arrest.
"This was a pretty stocky black guy, and there was nothing but other black guys around in the park," said Allen, according to this article in the Orlando Sentinel. Allen went on to say he was afraid of becoming a "statistic."
I guess this raises the question of whether if you thought you were about to get mugged by a group of stocky black guys, your first plan of escape would be to try to give one of them a blowjob. But I guess maybe you had to be there.
One day the politicians in the GOP may figure out that most people, even most black people, actually use restrooms to go to the bathroom. The fact that some in the GOP seem think it is only a sexual playground or a boxing ring may explain why they are so full of shit.
TPM Muckraker gives a few good gems in their round up on David Vitter's Family Values:
As for now, the race is on for who can pile up the most vividly hypocritical quote from the family values (or as he put it, "Louisiana values") conservative. In the running: Sen. Vitter maligning the "Hollywood left" for violating the "sanctity of marriage," and Vitter arguing that President Clinton should step down for his extramarital affair (Vitter, by the by, replaced Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) after the speaker was forced to step down because of an affair). There are, you can be sure, many more. Glenn Greenwald has a rundown here.
Update: The prevailing quote of the day seems to be this one:
In 2000, Vitter was included in a Newhouse News Service story about the strain of congressional careers on families.
His wife, Wendy, was asked by the Newhouse reporter: If her husband were as unfaithful as Livingston or former President Bill Clinton, would she be as forgiving as Hillary Rodham Clinton?
“I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary,” Wendy Vitter told Newhouse News. “If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”
“I think fear is a very good motivating factor in a marriage,” she added. “Don’t put fear down.
Continuing to carry the republican family values banner in fine form they just keep digging deeper and deeper on sex scandals, hypocritical voting records, prostitution and gay/bisexual trysts outside of their "traditional republican marriages".
As I noted when Bob Allen and Larry Craig got caught in their respective bathrooms:
Yesterday, by a 5-3 vote, the City Council of San Diego passed a resolution supporting marriage equality. Jerry Sanders, the Republican mayor-- who campaigned opposing marriage equality-- announced this morning that he had changed his mind and would sign the resolution instead of vetoing it. A former Chief of Police, Sanders, tearfully also announced that one of his daughters, Lisa, is gay and that he would lead with his heart. "The concept of a separate but equal institution is something that I cannot support," he explained, tearfully, with his wife standing at his [side]." Please watch the video; it is very powerful.
I would normally make a smart-ass joke here, but I can't bring myself to do so after watching the video. I'll just thank him for a taking this righteous stand on this issue.
“In the end, I couldn't look any of them in the face and tell them that their relationships, their very lives, were any less meaningful than the marriage I share with my wife, Rana,”
A Polk County judge on Thursday struck down Iowa’s law banning gay marriage.
The ruling by Judge Robert Hanson concluded that the state’s prohibition on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and he ordered Polk County Recorder Julie Haggerty to issue marriage licenses to several gay couples.
“It’s a moral victory for equal rights,” said Des Moines lawyer Dennis Johnson, who represented six gay couples who filed suit after they were denied marriage licenses.
Camilla Taylor, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a New York-based gay rights organization, said the ruling requires “full equality for all Iowans including gay and lesbian Iowans and their families.”
“The Iowa Constitution has lived up to its promises of equality for everyone,” she said.
Civil unions will provide needed rights and protections for couples and families in our state. But although this law is a step in the right direction, it must not remain the end product. The struggle for marriage equality has always been about more than rights and protections; it is also about dignity and respect and equal treatment under the law. Civil unions create a separate status for one class of people and as long as there remain two lines at the Town Hall—one for same-sex couples and one for everyone else—Love Makes a Family will continue to be here, working towards a day when the final discriminatory barriers to marriage are finally struck down.
State Rep. Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a local park after offering to perform a sex act on an undercover officer in exchange for $20, police said.
Allen, R-Merritt Island, was booked into the Brevard County jail in Sharpes on a charge of solicitation to commit prostitution, a second-degree misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in the county jail and a $500 fine.
snip
An undercover officer decided to go into one of the bathroom stalls, Hutchinson said. Moments later, Allen knocked on the stall door and offered to perform oral sex on the officer for $20, according to the police spokesman.
edited update: The original news story that broke on this apparently had it backwards. I am updating this with an explanation via TPM's Josh Marshall:
Okay, finally the definitive story. Last night we were bringing you the latest on the proxy fight between the Giuliani and McCain campaigns over who could have the most prominent or outrageous campaign official involved in a prostitution scandal. Where we left things was whether Florida state Rep. Bob Allen (R), Florida co-chair of the McCain campaign, had offered to pay a Titusville plain clothes police officer for oral sex or whether he had asked to be paid for oral sex. The price, in either case, you'll remember was to be $20.
Well, mystery solved. Courtesy of TPM Reader VS we were able to track down the arrest report. As officer Kavanaugh explains in the arrest report "Allen engaged me in a conversation in which it was agreed that he would pay me $20.00 in order to perform a 'blow job' on me."
So, advantage Rudy.
Too bad that the newspapers do not correct their mistakes so easily, or willingly... But I apologize for the misinformation and the use of a news paper that turned out to be a poor source. (End of edited update except for a minor tweak at the end.)
Now... I figured I would try and find out if this guy had any of those "Family values" issues out there to hang around his neck, much like Vitter, but I figure it has to be worse than that considering the Florida Rainbow Democratic Club rates him as a "Wicked Witch", the worst rating they give ("Reserved for the absolute worst of the worst") for candidates considering support of their issues on their "Friend or Foe" page:
State House District 32 Next election: Primary 2008
If anyone has any ideas on just what he did to get a rating that low from a gay and lesbian group in Florida please chime up, cause I am guessing it will probably be another example of just how hypocritical republicans always are. He must of pissed off them off to get that rating.
If you go to his Government homepage you can check out his bio:
TPM Muckraker gives a few good gems in their round up on David Vitter's Family Values:
As for now, the race is on for who can pile up the most vividly hypocritical quote from the family values (or as he put it, "Louisiana values") conservative. In the running: Sen. Vitter maligning the "Hollywood left" for violating the "sanctity of marriage," and Vitter arguing that President Clinton should step down for his extramarital affair (Vitter, by the by, replaced Rep. Bob Livingston (R-LA) after the speaker was forced to step down because of an affair). There are, you can be sure, many more. Glenn Greenwald has a rundown here.
Update: The prevailing quote of the day seems to be this one:
In 2000, Vitter was included in a Newhouse News Service story about the strain of congressional careers on families.
His wife, Wendy, was asked by the Newhouse reporter: If her husband were as unfaithful as Livingston or former President Bill Clinton, would she be as forgiving as Hillary Rodham Clinton?
“I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary,” Wendy Vitter told Newhouse News. “If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”
“I think fear is a very good motivating factor in a marriage,” she added. “Don’t put fear down.
But does "Her Excellency" Gov. Jodi Rell? Not so much.
I guess that with Rell's 8 hour per week schedule in the month of March, in honor of the "Holy Month of the Easter Bunny," she just doesn't have time for a certain "kind" of kids. You know? The kind that might not make her look so homophobic if she had taken a few minutes out of her busy schedule to meet them.
This is a bit about Equal Rights, Civil Rights and, more importantly, knowing your wingnut opposition, and who they chose to associate and share political tactics with. (Please bear with me if it seems to meander a little! CM1)
The debate over legalizing gay marriage is as raucous as the reaction to civil unions has been quiet. The recent Judiciary Committee hearing overflowed even the overflow room at the Legislative Office Building. Bloggers and protesters are loudly weighing in on the rights and wrongs of same-sex marriage.
Why push the question? Connecticut has lived with civil unions for a year and a half in utter peace and quiet. Many couples are happy and secure, with virtually all the rights of traditional marriage that the state can confer.
But not happy enough. Gay couples want the real thing. They deserve marriage and the full panoply of legal privileges that accompany it.."
If you want to see what CT politicians and concerned citizens had to say about all of this, ctblogger has a pretty complete look at the hearing they had last week.
Maggie Gallagher is actually notorious. Back in the 2005, her and Armstrong Williams (and others) were found to have received money from the Bush administration while claiming to be independent reporters.
It really doesn't matter what the issue is. The incompetent and lying bush administration has no problems with buying propaganda to slip into our News Media everywhere. Add to that, they couple this bought'n'paid-for media PROPAGANDA pressure with co-ordianted efforts at portraying "ground swell support" with front groups in local areas.
The biggest naysayer, bordering on gay bashing, concerning Equal Rights in Marriage in Connecticut is the small and little read FIC Blog, that is associated with the far right wingnut Heritage think tank, which is little more than a bush cheerleading squad, and where any criticism of bush and his policies is a firing offense:
Last month (ed note: First posted on August 7, 2006. CM1) the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, fired John Hulsman. Heritage refuses to say exactly why they let him go, but the New Republic reports the “reasons for Hulsman’s departure” are “perfectly evident”; he criticized the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Hulsman previously had kept his dissent to himself, but “years of insurgency, civil war, and general chaos” in Iraq led him to speak out.
In an essay last year for The National Interest, Hulsman took issue with Bush’s policy in Iraq:
[N]eoconservatives, through their policies of expending blood and treasure for problematic gains such as Iraq, are significantly retarding America’s ability to act against the true barbarians at the gate - Al-Qaeda and Islamist extremists.
And Hulsman criticized the Bush administration’s refusal to talk to regimes it dislikes, specifically Iran:
America, on the other hand, having determined the mullahs in Iran were evil, disdained to engage them. But we cannot only conduct diplomatic relations with Canada; I have always naively thought a major reason for diplomacy was talking to those one didn’t agree with, in an effort to modify their behavior to suit one’s own national interests.
These critiques may seem mild, but as Chris Preble of the Cato Institute explains: “At Heritage, anything that smacks of criticism of Bush will not be tolerated.”
Have a thought that is counterproductive to the neocon agenda and you lose your job at Heritage. That is some quality thinking that Brian and the FIC Blog choses to associate themselves with. Low quality thinking, and kool-aide drinking. The far right skewered Heritage Foundation lists Brian and the FIC as a resource for their far tight wingnut agenda on a couple of issues: Education (much like right wing fanatics across the country, FIC wants to kill the public education system in favor of privatization... See Iraq and Katrina for inevitable results of privatization of our school systems) and, of course, Marriage.
Some of FIC's funding seems to come from sources that finance Heritage and a littany of other far right wingnut organizations. (You can research that one on your own, just know that it is true and would likely take another whole post to dig.) I wonder what would happen to bush poodles like Brian if they actually turned on bush policies? Would the funding for FIC Blog dry up?
FIC's sitemeter proves that his Blog is not read very much by Connecticut residents, so I doubt they are paying his bills. And unless the CT's left Blogosphere links to him, which is why, likely, he tries to pick little arguments with us all the time, he gets little traffic from nutmeggers. (You can see his traffic at sitemeter, and we have already proven this point, much to Brian and the FIC's chagrin)
So... Whomelse is the FIC associated with? People like this:
Jeffrey Satinover:
In cooperation with the Heritage Foundation and under the auspices of the ICQA, Dr. Satinover is overseeing the development of a fully crooss-linked international database of medical, social science and legal citations with associated metanalyses and aggegrated data tables. The purpose of the database is assist concerned scholars, attorneys, social scientists, policy analysts and citizens worldwide in addressing the nearly-universal problem of the embedding in legal documents of gross distortions (or even wholesale inventions) of social science conclusions to make ideologically-driven alterations in public policy appear rationally based.
Kenneth Von Kohorn is the founder and president of Von Kohorn Research and Advisory, an investment advisory firm located in Westport. He is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. In addition to serving on the Yankee board, Kenneth also serves as chairman of the board of the Family Institute of Connecticut and as a board member of the Institute for American Values and of Toward Tradition.
Now, we all know pretty much about Focus on the Family, and we are also familiar with the Heritage Foundation's fanatacism, but it seems that FIC has a link to "Toward Tradition" as well as Heritage:
Toward Tradition is a non-profit (501.c.3), educational organization working to advance our nation toward the traditional Judeo-Christian values that defined America’s creation and became the blueprint for her greatness. We believe that only a new alliance of concerned citizens can re-identify and dramatically strengthen the core values necessary for America to maintain that greatness and moral leadership. These values are: faith-based American principles of constitutional and limited government; the rule of law; representative democracy; free markets; a strong military; and, a moral public culture.
Objectives: Using both classic and contemporary tools of persuasion, Toward Tradition promotes these positive traditional values while opposing the negative forces of “secular fundamentalism” and anti-religion bigotry. In his best-selling book of the same name, Rabbi Lapin labeled this mission “America’s Real War”
Concerned Jews share this objective with many evangelical and conservative Christians. Working together, they focus on our common cultural, moral, and political goals. The corollary benefit of this alliance is that the majority gentile culture sees that American Jews are not monolithically liberal, and that many of the “progressive” forces in this country are advocating positions that are in fact abhorrent to traditional Judaism.
Just another group hellbent on portraying bush policies as the rightous way and Liberalism as "abhorrent to traditional Judaism." Sounds like he is soft peddling the "anti-semite" label on us, doesn't it? And obviously, against Jews as well:
Why So Many Jews Are Liberal As a visible, politically conservative rabbi, whose conservatism flows inevitably and directly from his Judaism, I endure a never-ending barrage of attacks. I don’t much mind them as they remind me of my mission—standing astride America’s secular path to decline, decadence, and depravity, but I do feel sorry for the pain these assaults cause my family. Especially so since most of these attacks come from other Jews; indignant Jews outraged by a rabbi who does not subscribe to the principles of liberalism.
Yes... The Liberals, and especially the Jewish Liberals that attack you the most, the one's that are "standing astride America’s secular path to decline, decadence, and depravity" are the cause of all your problems and you are the victim, constantly being attacked by everyone.
Do any of you wingnuts ever stop to think that this barrage comes at you from everywhere because of the load of crap that you spew daily?
In the same way that the rabbi is couching "anti-semitism" (IMHO) in his soft peddling of radical views, the FIC is soft peddling their bigotry against gay and lesbians in their war against Equal Rights in Marriage and couching it in their extremist views of religion and politics. We aren't buying. None of us in CT are buying it.
In other words: If you don't want your FIC Blog to remain in the miniscule minority of the Connecticut Blogosphere Brian:
Stop being such fringe-thinking far right wingnuts. OK? And stop soft peddling a bigoted agenda against Marriage Equality.
