Okay, I admit it...

I am generally a very empathetic and  caring person,  so  I am  not given to bouts of  Schadenfreude.  (For those of you  whose German is a tad rusty...)

But you know what...?   Fine, I admit it,  I am  really really  enjoying the  epic meltdown that is  currently happening over on the Wing-nutty anti-gay political and religious Right  in the United States, in the wake of last week's historic  Supreme Court Rulings, striking down section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act, and  California's Proposition 8.

It's been more than fun,  frankly it's been a joy to watch.   Last Sunday on Meet the Press, American Taliban  spokesnuts Jim DeMint   and Ralph Reed, were  foolish enough to to think they could come on television and spew their   "think of the Children!!" nonsense.   Unfortunately for little Jimmy and Ralphie  there were grown ups on the panel ...  Cue Rachel with the epic smackdown.

Two interesting sound bytes there.  the first  being  DeMint's  flogging of the talking point that  giving LGBT Americans  equal rights is  somehow "demeaning" to bigots like him, who are angry they are no longer  allowed to  discriminate against Gays and Lesbians.   Oooh... Poor Baby!  

The second  interesting tid-bit  came right at the end of that clip where  Ralph Reed said  he couldn't "just let that go".  Which is one of the few truly honest things Reed has ever said on television.    He, and others like him have made their  considerable personal fortunes stoking fear and hatred of LGBT Americans and then turning that  homophobia in to cash.   Reed, and  his assorted ilk, are now  facing a new reality where  they are staring both unemployment and irrelevance in the face, and boy....  they are NOT happy about it.

You know what...?    GOOD!

The social-political Right Wing in the United States has spend decades demeaning,  demonizing  and attacking  Gays and Lesbians, driving  LGBT youth to suicide and then reveling in those deaths.  They have used the religious pulpit and the political podium to wage a war against an entire group of  Americans,  Men, Women and Children,  all for financial and political gain,  perverting the very religions they claim to profess in the process.

So  yeah,  I  am happy,  actually very happy that these merchants of bigotry and death are now facing  the end of their gravy train of hate.  I am overjoyed that  they feel  that  America has left them behind,  because in fact, it has.   Their day is over.

To be honest,  I am thoroughly  enjoying their pain. In fact,  I  so happy about it ... that I feel a song coming on....

Tony Perkins is REALLY not happy...

Everyone's  favorite oddly effeminate white supremacist   has not been having a good month.   Perkins is  head of the  "Family Research Council".  An organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center  has certified  as an extremist  hate group .

First  there was his recent  disastrous appearance on MSNBC's  Hardball with  Chris Mathews.  Where after numerous past guest spots where he was faced with nothing more than softball questions.   Mathews apparently  noticed  he had been giving  free network airtime to hate mongering  nutjob, and decided  to do an actual interview based on real facts.   Perkins, came on the Mathews' show to vent his standard faux-Christian  outrage over  President Obama's statements  in support of  Marriage Equality.  Instead, he got his anti gay talking points served back to him with a big side order  reality.  The result was not pretty.

Then today, a double whammy.   First  the U.S. Government  released a new  international television ad to  encourage  tourism to the United States.  The Ad shows  a diverse range of people and sights from all over the  USA.

What  could  Perkins possibly find offensive about that ad?   Well if you look carefully at the  0:34 mark,  for less than a fraction of second,  the  ad shows  (gasp!)  a  GAY COUPLE!!!  Aiiiiirrgghhh!   The horror!  The Gays are going to come to America and spend their filthy pink money!   The website  Right Wing Watch  has Perkins'  hyperventilating in all its wing nut glory.

In 236 years, America's never had an international tourism ad. So when Congress passed the Travel Promotion Act, people thought it'd be a great chance to highlight American attractions. What they didn't know is that it would highlight same-sex attractions. That's right. The commercial invites people to America-not to see the Grand Canyon, but to celebrate homosexuality. In one scene, a gay man is sleeping on his partner's shoulder in a trolley. 

Really??

Then if that wasn't enough,   the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court ruling that declared Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act -- the federal definition of "marriage" and "spouse" -- as unconstitutional. (Hat tip to Metro Weekly)

Writing that "Supreme Court review of DOMA is highly likely," the appeals court has stayed, or put on hold, the implementation of its decision pending any appeal.

Judge Michael Boudin, appointed to the bench by President George H.W. Bush, wrote for the court: "[M]any Americans believe that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, and most Americans live in states where that is the law today. One virtue of federalism is that it permits this diversity of governance based on local choice, but this applies as well to the states that have chosen to legalize same-sex marriage. Under current Supreme Court authority, Congress' denial of federal benefits to same-sex couples lawfully married in Massachusetts has not been adequately supported by any permissible federal interest."

I have blogged regularly and extensively about Tony Perkins and his hate group the FRC. So there really isn't much more I can add to everything I have already said. I know I should not be surprised by Perkins' hysterical rantings in light of today's events. But I find his whining about a split second image of a gay couple in a thirty second television ad , to be over the top, even for him. Yet it's in that I find a refreshing honesty for a change.

Perkins' whole shtick is to go on television and pretend to be this reasonable guy who doesn't "hate" gay people, he just doesn't want them to have any rights.... at all. Now we see that it's not just rights for Gays and Lesbians that sticks in Tony's craw, it's the idea that Gays and Lesbians are visible in anyway that bothers him. He doesn't just think LGBT Americans don't deserve equal rights, he honestly believes Gays and Lesbians don't deserve existence. The idea that Gays and Lesbians should be visible like any other group of Americans really bothers him.

Whether by chance, or by design, the issues of LGBT Rights has been put center stage in the 2012 Presidential race. With Mitt Romney desperate to show the American Talibangelicals like Perkins, just how much he hates the gays. 

All the while desperately hoping people won't remember things like, then Gubernatorial candidate Mitt Romney promising the people of Massachusetts that he'd be more pro-Gay Rights than the late, great Senator Edward Kennedy.

So once again we will see the idea that all Americans should be treated equally under the law portrayed by Tony Perkins and his assorted ilk, as the greatest threat to the country, and to American Families. Desperate to find something they can get scared, angry racists teabaggers to vote against, the GOP will jump on the "Be afraid! The Gays are gonna get you! Aiiiiighh!" bandwagon and try to ride it to a 50.1 % electoral victory this November. 

The bad news for Tony, Mitt, and all the other bigots is the arc of history is clearly bending in the other direction. The trend in  Gallup polling on the issue is not going to make Tony Perkins feel any better .

The ridiculously mis-named  "Defense of Marriage Act", is going to end up in front of the United States Supreme Court.  Maybe not this year,  But certainly  next year.  As the  legal issues  are not different from those in the case of  Lawrence v. Texas,  it would be unusual for the  court to violate its own precedent.   Combine that  with  the likelihood that  President Obama will  more than probably  win  re-election  and  2012 is shaping to be Tony Perkins' own annus horribilis.

Generally, I take no delight from the misfortunes of others, but in Tony Perkins' case, I am more than happy to make an exception.

Today's 9th Circuit Court Decision on CA Prop 8.

Here is the full court decision upholding the original decision that ruled  California's  Proposition 8, (the ban of same sex marriage) to be unconstitutional

Ninth Circuit Prop. 8 decision

So what does this mean exactly?  Is same sex marriage now legal (again...) in  California?   Well, no.  Or more accurately , not yet.   There is still a Stay of the ruling in place  pending an appeal by  the proponents of Prop 8.  That means same sex marriages  cannot yet  resume in California.   This decision also, only applies to  Proposition 8 in California, and has no effect on laws in any other state or on any federal laws  (i.e. the Defense of Marriage Act).

So yes,  today's court ruling is  good news. But  nothing has actually changed  yet as a result of it.

There is a lot to take in when you read the actual text of the  2-1 court ruling but  here is  a passage that stands out:

"Although the Constitution permits communities to enact most laws they believe to be desirable, it requires that there be at least a legitimate reason for the passage of a law that treats different classes of people differently. There was no such reason that Proposition 8 could have been enacted."

So just  to be clear,   the 9th Circuit Appeals Court today ruled that Prop 8 served no other purpose than to discriminate against Gays and Lesbians. This is significant,  in so much that it highlights the weakness of the one dissenting opinion in the 2-1 ruling.   The voice of dissent belongs to Judge N. Randy Smith.  Smith is a former head of the Idaho Republican Party, and was the lone vote in favor to uphold Prop 8.

Smith,  in his dissenting opinion could only raise the completely unrelated issue of parenting. Suggesting that if Gays and Lesbians can get married,  it somehow would mean fewer children would have Parents.. uh... huh?   How does that work exactly? (Smith didn't offer any explanation.)   It is also interesting to note that  Smith is also a Mormon.

Why is that relevant?  The opponents of Marriage Equality claimed that  the original 2009 ruling by   Judge Vaughn R. Walker  was invalid because Walker was Gay.   It is interesting to note  the plaintiffs in this case made no such similar  accusations against Smith, even though  The  Mormon Church was the single largest backer of Proposition 8.

So what happens next? That's a good question. The proponents of Prop 8 will undoubtedly appeal, so  they could go one of two ways. They could make a motion for rehearing in front of the broader Ninth Circuit (11 judges). If a majority of the circuit judges agree to rehear the case, the case would stay at this appellate level and go through  same process all over again in front of a larger panel. Or the Proponents could skip that step and decide to appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the meantime we can all enjoy the reaction on the  WingNut Bigoted Right as the American Taliban has pretty much lost their minds over today's ruling.  Shrieking hysterically about  "Activist Judges".  Everyone's favorite white supremacist nutcase,  Tony Perkins.  Head of the ridiculously  mis-named hate group  the "Family Research Council" pretty much soiled his adult diaper riding the  Waaaa-mbulance with rage after today's decision.

"This ruling substitutes judicial tyranny for the will of the people, who in the majority of states have amended their constitutions, as California did, to preserve marriage as the union of one man and one woman. However, we remain confident that in the end, the Supreme Court will reject the absurd argument that the authors of our Constitution created or even implied a 'right' to homosexual 'marriage,' and will instead uphold the right of the people to govern themselves.   


Yeah, because we have always allowed people to vote on the civil rights of other Americans.... right?




If the United States Supreme Court were to uphold the original Walker ruling, then like in the case of  Lawrence v. Texas,  suddenly ALL bans on same sex marriage across the United States would be unconstitutional.   This would also overturn the Defence of Marriage Act. (DOMA).  The  federal law banning recognition of same sex marriages.

That my friends,  is the endgame.    So while today's ruling is nice,  it is still only one more step on a very long road.  Albeit, a step in the right direction.

The American Taliban Picks Their "Anti-Romney"

The  wingnuts of the  America Taliban.  (the ultra religious conservatives who form the power brokerage of the base of the  Republican Party.  The folks who want to take their religious beliefs and  turn them into civil law and inflict them on the rest of us.).  Apparently these people can't bear the idea that  a Mormon who once supported mild, timid steps towards  equal rights for  Gays and Lesbians might end up as  the 2012 Republican Presidential nominee .

So  the nuttiest of the nutty  all gathered in Texas this past week  to  anoint their preferred uber-evangelical  alternative to  former  Massachusetts  Governor Mitt Romney.


So  more than 150 ultra religious conservatives met at a Texas ranch this past Friday and Saturday. Among the bigger names: Tony Perkins of Family Research Council; Gary Bauer, a former presidential candidate; James Dobson, who used to head Focus on the Family; and Don Wildmon, who once ran American Family Association.

The mission of this "emergency meeting" was to unite behind someone who  they feel is a  true-blue religious conservative for the Republican nomination. This group is  desperate to defeat President Obama, but  they distrust Romney on key issues such as their desire  to ban reproductive rights and  marriage equality.  In addition,  many of them feel Mormonism is not a true Christian religion, and  as a result, Romney isn't  "one of them".

Add to this  the problem that despite his  best efforts to  run from  his  pro-gay rights past,  Romney's  past statements  in favor of basic civil equality  for  Gays and Lesbians,  are regularly coming back to haunt him as he has sought to  woo social  conservatives.

One of the problems of living in a digital age, if you happen to be Mitt Romney, is that  his  pro-gay rights past  keeps cropping up in archived footage and  flyers.   Which makes it  kinda awkward when you are trying to show the American Taliban base of the GOP   that you  hate Gay Americans, and love Jeebus  as much as they do.  (Cue Rachel Maddow with the details...)

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Tony Perkins,  the  head of  the ridiculously misnamed  Family Research Council.  (A group the  Southern Poverty Law Center  has certified as a Hate Group),  tried to lower expectations  going in to the meeting down in Texas this past week.  Perkins  claimed that  the meeting was not "anti-Romney" but rather  pro-issues that mattered to social conservatives.

Yet earlier today  Perkins triumphantly  tweeted the  Texas  bigotfest  has crowned  former Pennsylvania Senator and gay sex obsessed nut job Rick Santorum as their preferred  choice  for replacing President Obama and thus bring their brand of  Sharia law to the country starting on January 20,  2013.

Which is actually  pretty funny given  what  Rick Santorum's  name is a euphemism  for.

For those of you who are not aware of the definition of word "Santorum", you can google it. It stems from the former Senators personal obsession, (and yes that is the right word,) with gay sex. Rick Santorum is consumed by thoughts about gay sex. It is what he talks most about. 

Jobs? National Security? The environment? Nope, none of those issues even come close to being what turns Rick Santorum's crank the fastest. Seattle advice columnist and activist Dan Savage is responsible for  the former Senator's name taking on a new meaning...

So now we have Senator Frothy Mix  as the  official "not Romney"  candidate of the  American Taliban.   What is  most interesting about all of this,  is not  the crazy stuff  Santorum regularly  says, or even the entertaining spectacle of  Mitt Romney  desperately trying to run from every  position he ever held prior to 2004.

The real story here is  how at least on the front end of the GOP primary process,  the 2012  Presidential race is largely a bizarre  repeat of what happened  at this point in 2008.  (cue Rachel).

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The Republican Party faces a tough choice.  Go with  Romney  and  face a  campaign that from an electoral standpoint would be a replay of  2008, and  risk alienating  the only  real core  constituency they have left.  Or,  go with  Santorum and  be saddled with a candidate and a campaign that  is  completely  removed  from  the issues  the vast majority  of  Americans  actually do care about.  Namely, jobs and the economy, which would  take a far back seat to  Santorum's preferred  crusade to ban birth control and  forcibly  divorce  thousands  of American couples currently  married under state laws in places like New York, Iowa and  Connecticut.

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I say the GOP should follow their hearts, embrace the bigotry and start uh.... spreading the Santorum message!

 I have made no secret of my disappointment with President Obama. I have found him to be an ineffective centrist corporate apologist, rather than a bold progressive leader. But what is now crystal clear, is that while President Obama may be largely ineffectual, he is not, like ALL of his potential Republican challengers, completely insane.

Remembering Matthew Shepard.

Wednesday October 7th, 1998 was a fairly ordinary day in Chicago. I was working for a small consulting firm in the near West suburb of Oak Park, and had spent the day in a series of fairly productive meetings. So I felt pretty good when I got home from work. I was puttering around my apartment making dinner when I picked up the remote control for the TV and turned on CNN. The lead story was a brutal attack of a young man in Laramie Wyoming named Matthew Shepard. Shepard, age 21, had been beaten into a coma and left tied to fence along a rural highway outside the city. The news report noted that the victim was a young gay man and was not expected to survive.

I remember walking down into “boystown” (the north Halstead area of Chicago, and the center of the city’s Gay community). There were lots of people standing around outside the bars, and restaurants along Halsted Street, talking about what had happened in Wyoming. A makeshift memorial had been set up on the corner of Halsted and Roscoe.

I walked into the 7-11 there on the corner and bought a small votive candle, lit it and placed it with the growing number of candles, handwritten notes and flowers that were being placed around a picture of Matthew that someone had printed off the internet. I stayed for a little while talking to people who were gathered there. Some people were angry, others sad, but we all knew that something in our own community had changed as a result of what had happened,  hundreds of miles away in field outside Laramie.

In 1998 I had just moved to Chicago after being overseas in South Korea. I was in the middle of my own “coming out” process,  and was gathering up my courage to have “the talk” with my parents when I went home for Thanksgiving in a few weeks time. I will admit the news of Matthew Shepard’s brutal murder shook me up. Suddenly the decisions I was making to live openly and honestly as who I was, had potentially fatal consequences.

On an intellectual level you always knew that there were “gay bashers” out there. People who were so conflicted about their own sexuality that they felt the way to “cure” themselves was to attack others for what they feared most about themselves. Yet now those hypothetical risks, were not so hypothetical.  What's more, those cosequences now  had a face, and a name.

As I walked home, my thoughts turned to Matthew Shepard’s parents. What must they be thinking and feeling? Had they known Matt was gay? Did it really matter? Years later I would have the great honor of meeting Judy Shepard,  and hear her tell her own powerful story .

Thirteen years later, I marvel at how my own life has changed. I am married to an amazing man, we have incredible friends and loving families who remind us every day,  that the world is not as bleak and dark a place as it seemed,  on that October night in 1998.

Yet I am still saddened and angry that there are many people in America who honestly feel that Matthew Shepard got what “he had coming to him”. That demonizing , discriminating against, and even murdering Gays and Lesbians is somehow “doing God’s work”.

People with a vested interest in keeping LGBT people as the one group it is still safe to hate. People who seek to profit, personally, politically and even economically from fomenting deadly hatred and fear of others. Bigots whose actions and beliefs are the farthest thing from being Christian, yet claim to have a monopoly on what they claim God thinks and who they claim "God hates".

I really don’t have a point to make here, other than to say it’s important to remember Matthew and so many others like him who have died as a result of hatred and bigotry. If you want to get involved, here are a few great places to start...

The Matthew Shepard Foundation: http://www.matthewshepard.org/

The Trevor Project: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

The Ben Cohen Stand Up Foundation: http://www.standupfoundation.com/

The We Give a Damn Campaign: http://www.wegiveadamn.org/


Thanks,

Dave

The Illustrious Jabba The Huckabee will now Accept your Donations...

(hat tip to  JoeMyGod for this latest bit of American Taliban ass-hattery)
Speaking to his faithful minions at the Shereton in West Des Moines, GOP Presidential hopeful, Rev. Mike Huckabee, ranted how the threat of Gay Marriage will destroy America, and that stopping it might even cost you your Job!
.

Wow... There is just way too much Crazy here to even begin  to  pick apart.   If you are going to argue about  who God gave land to, you might want to check with the  Native Americans,  who I imagine would take issue with Mike's claim of  divine ownership.

The singularly  Caucasian  audience was almost roused from their rubber-chicken induced stupor by Huckabee's  dire exhortations of a battle of Good vs Evil,  and his fierce stand against those who would "enslave us".   (Mike better be careful,  Wall Street  might take those references  personally....)

Also you can't help but wonder,  how thrice-married serial adulterer Newt Gingrich  will deal with  Huckabee's  assertions that only a monogamous marriage is "true".

Let the glorious circular political firing squad that is  GOP Presidential Primary politics, begin!