DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT ruled unconstitutional by SCOTUS

As we say here in Carolina, HAIL YEAH!!!


From NBC NEWS:

Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act, paves way for gay marriage to resume in California
By Pete Williams and Erin McClam, NBC News

In a landmark ruling for gay rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law blocking federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

The decision was 5-4, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. It said that the law amounted to the “deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.” In a separate case, the court ruled that it could not take up a challenge to Proposition 8, the California law that banned gay marriage in that state. That decision means that gay marriage will once again be legal in California.

That decision was also 5-4, written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act means that the federal government must recognize the gay marriages deemed legal by the states — 12 plus the District of Columbia, before the California case was decided. The law helps determine who is covered by more than 1,100 federal laws, programs and benefits, including Social Security survivor benefits, immigration rights and family leave.

“DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others,” the ruling said. It added that the law was invalid because there was no legitimate purpose for disparaging those whom states “sought to protect in personhood and dignity.”

President Barack Obama, in a post on Twitter, said that the ruling was a “historic step forward for #MarriageEquality.”

Kennedy was joined in the majority by the four members of the court’s liberal wing, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Dissenting were Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Scalia, in his dissent, wrote: “We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.”

Cheers went up outside the Supreme Court, where supporters of gay marriage waved signs, rainbow banners and flags with equality symbols.
The ruling comes as states are authorizing gay marriage with increasing speed and with public opinion having turned narrowly in favor of gay marriage. Under the law, gay couples who are legally married in their states were not considered married in the eyes of the federal government, and were ineligible for the federal benefits that come with marriage.

The case before the Supreme Court, U.S. v. Windsor, concerned Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, a lesbian couple who lived together in New York for 44 years and married in Canada in 2007. When Spyer died in 2009, Windsor was hit with $363,000 in federal estate taxes. Had the couple been considered by the federal government to be married, Windsor would not have incurred those taxes. Kennedy, in the ruling, said that New York’s decision to authorize gay marriage was a proper exercise of its authority, and reflected “the community’s considered perspective on the historical roots of the institution of marriage and its evolving understanding of the meaning of equality.”

President Bill Clinton signed the act into law in September 1996. A court ruling in Hawaii had raised the prospect that that state might become the first to authorize gay marriage.

At the time, some members of Congress believed that the Defense of Marriage Act might be a compromise that would take the air out of a movement to amend the Constitution to block gay marriage.

LOLGOP just Tweeted: "Life would be so much better if Antonin Scalia just had a blog."

Ain't it the truth. Today, however, he just has to stand aside and DEAL WITH IT. Let the preachers all go cover themselves in ashes and sackcloth and REPENT--because their grandchildren will be as ashamed of them as southern white kids are now ashamed of their racist segregationist grandparents.

We will be covering this on our radio show today, so stay tuned.

Greenville Candlelight Vigil for Marriage Equality

... tonight at the Unitarian Universalist church.

Candlelight vigils and supportive demonstrations are taking place throughout the nation tonight, and all week long. Legal arguments before the Supreme Court will begin tomorrow, for and against the constitutionality of gay marriage. From NBC:

The U.S. Supreme Court this week takes its first serious look ever at the issue of same-sex marriage, considering two cases that raise a fundamental issue: does the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection allow legal distinctions between same-sex couples and those of the opposite sex?

The greatest potential for a ruling with nationwide implications comes in a case from California, to be argued Tuesday, brought by proponents of Proposition 8. The following day, the court will hear a separate case challenging the Defense of Marriage Act, which prevents the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages in states where they are legal.

Approved by 52 percent of California voters in 2008, Prop 8 amended the state constitution to ban same-sex marriages. It was placed on the ballot after 18,000 couples had been legally wed there.

A federal judge in San Francisco declared the ban unconstitutional, and the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the ruling. Once a state grants a fundamental right like marriage, the appeals court said, it cannot later take it away, even by voter initiative.

Photos of our vigil below, and you can click to enlarge all photos.

I hope you will also take part in one locally. Like the signs say, "Equality means everyone."

Scientology Examined by the New Yorker

"When we need somebody haunted we investigate. When we investigate we do so noisily always." - L. Ron Hubbard, MANUAL OF JUSTICE, 1959



I first met Scientologists when they showed up (uninvited) at various and sundry Yippie events, particularly Smoke-Ins, throughout the 70s. They seemed to think they could convert pot-smokers. This is possibly because the only time their theology makes any real sense is when you are stoned out of your mind. We regarded them as just another kooky 70s cult, like the Moonies, who would usually show up wherever and whenever the Church of Scientology did. It's like they were competing for the same members.

The Scientologists used to set up shop in a little booth (always smiling smiling smiling in a spooky, eager-beaver fashion), with those little tin-can things for "auditing"--called an E-meter. You see the E-meter, you know who it is.

A band of Yippies trooped up to them at one such local event, rudely pawing the sacred E-meter and peppering them with dumb questions. Finally, one Yippie put one tin can to his ear as the second Yippie started bellowing into it: "What?! What?! Play some BLACK SABBATH!"... causing onlookers to guffaw appreciatively. Rather than becoming merely grim and humorless (as Christians might) or rolling their eyes and telling us all to GROW UP (as right-wingers would), the Scientologists suddenly appeared completely furious and could barely contain their anger. One became red-faced and livid: "Back off!" he hissed at the Black Sabbath fan, who seemed shocked and put the tin can down, appropriately backing off. "Those people are crazy," he whispered to me later. "You can feel the insanity vibe, just radiating off them," he said. Wow, really?

Some years later, I would walk by the same E-meter audit-set-up in downtown Columbus, Ohio (in front of the State House, no less), accompanied by some bright yellow balloons. My daughter, about three years old at the time, pointed at the gaily-colored balloons and wanted one. Pointing at the auditing cans (flanked by numerous copies of the tell-tale book Dianetics), I replied, "You don't want those balloons, hon, those are Scientologist Balloons!" --chortling at my own wit. Then I saw a business-suited-woman standing near the booth, and felt embarrassed she had heard me. I felt sheepish and giggled (exactly as I might act in front of a nun), but the Scientologist (auditing-Thetan, in this case) wasn't amused. She gave me the most hateful, evil look I have ever witnessed--and this includes nasty looks from right-wing maniacs and Reaganoids I have protested against over the decades. It was a glowering, focused, scary look. Damn, these people mean business, I thought. And from that point onward, I was very interested in the Church of Scientology. Rather like The Visitors who come in peace... well, sure they do.

Scientology-founder L. Ron Hubbard once wrote an amazing horror novel titled FEAR, which can scare the beJesus right out of you. After reading it and having a few nightmares, I realized that a man who could write like this could easily get to the bottom of an unruly or confused psyche and turn it upside down in record time. (I could not even bear to put the novel down, and I knew it was by L. Ron Hubbard.) FEAR's level of restrained paranoia/freak-out is incredible; the dramatic tension is not fully resolved until the last pages. Any religion started by this guy is going to be BLOODY HEAVY indeed, I thought.

And now, we have a famous Scientology-defector they can't eliminate, drive crazy or simply ignore: movie director Paul Haggis, who has gone public. He reached the second-highest level in the Church, Operating Thetan VII.

I have seen the New Yorker article titled The Apostate: Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology posted in about a half-dozen places already, so let me add my link.

It's long, but contains some real doozies. Brother and sister scandalmongers, you must read it:

Many Hollywood actors were drawn into the church by a friend or by reading “Dianetics”; a surprising number of them, though, came through the Beverly Hills Playhouse. For decades, the resident acting coach there was Milton Katselas, and he taught hundreds of future stars, including Ted Danson, Michelle Pfeiffer, and George Clooney. “Most of Hollywood went through that class,” Anne Archer told me.

...

Jim Gordon, a veteran police officer in Los Angeles, and also an aspiring actor, spent ten years at the Playhouse, starting in 1990. He told me that Scientology “recruited a ton of kids out of that school.” Like Scientology, the Playhouse presented a strict hierarchy of study; under Katselas’s tutelage, students graduated from one level to the next. As Gordon advanced within the Playhouse, he began recognizing many students from the roles they were getting in Hollywood. “You see a lot of people you know from TV,” Gordon says. He began feeling the pull of the church. “When you started off, they weren’t really pushing it, but as you progressed through the Playhouse’s levels Scientology became more of a focus,” he told me. After a few years, he joined. Like the courses at the Playhouse, Scientology offered actors a method that they could apply to both their lives and their careers.

Finally, an explanation for why so many actors are Scientologists; they actually targeted the industry from the inside. I had mistakenly believed they zeroed in on celebrities from the outside, you know, like they did the pot-smokers. Nope, they get them while they are studying for something else entirely. Interesting.

Katselas received a ten-per-cent commission from the church on the money contributed by his students.

Katselas died in 2008, and Scientology no longer has a connection with the Beverly Hills Playhouse. Anne Archer told me that the reputation of Katselas’s class as, in Gordon’s words, a “Scientology clearinghouse” is overblown. “His classes averaged about fifty or sixty people, and there would be maybe seven to ten people in it who would be Scientologists,” she says. But the list of Scientologists who have studied at the Playhouse is long—it includes Jenna Elfman, Giovanni Ribisi, and Jason Lee—and the many protégés Katselas left behind helped cement the relationship between Hollywood and the church.

More goodies from the article, which you should read and pass around:

David S. Touretzky, a computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, has done extensive research on Scientology. (He is not a defector.) He estimates that the coursework alone now costs nearly three hundred thousand dollars, and, with the additional auditing and contributions expected of upper-level members, the cumulative cost of the coursework may exceed half a million dollars. (The church says that there are no fixed fees, adding, “Donations requested for ‘courses’ at Church of Scientology begin at $50 and could never possibly reach the amount suggested.”)

That pesky inflation!

And by the way, although the church doesn't like it when you refer to the E-meter as "tin cans"--according to this article, it STARTED as mere SOUP CANS, seriously:

During auditing, Haggis grasped a cylindrical electrode in each hand; when he first joined Scientology, the electrodes were empty soup cans. An imperceptible electrical charge ran from the meter through his body. The auditor asked systematic questions aimed at detecting sources of “spiritual distress.” Whenever Haggis gave an answer that prompted the E-Meter’s needle to jump, that subject became an area of concentration until the auditor was satisfied that Haggis was free of the emotional consequences of the troubling experience.

And finally... yes, at long last, we're getting to Xenu! You knew he was coming!

Only a really great horror/sci-fi mind could have hatched Xenu:

The church, which considers it sacrilegious for the uninitiated to read its confidential scriptures, got a restraining order, but the Los Angeles Times obtained a copy of the [Thetan] material and printed a summary. Suddenly, the secrets that had stunned Paul Haggis in a locked room were public knowledge.

“A major cause of mankind’s problems began 75 million years ago,” the Times wrote, when the planet Earth, then called Teegeeack, was part of a confederation of ninety planets under the leadership of a despotic ruler named Xenu. “Then, as now, the materials state, the chief problem was overpopulation.” Xenu decided “to take radical measures.” The documents explained that surplus beings were transported to volcanoes on Earth. “The documents state that H-bombs far more powerful than any in existence today were dropped on these volcanoes, destroying the people but freeing their spirits—called thetans—which attached themselves to one another in clusters.” Those spirits were “trapped in a compound of frozen alcohol and glycol,” then “implanted” with “the seed of aberrant behavior.” The Times account concluded, “When people die, these clusters attach to other humans and keep perpetuating themselves.”

As that wise old shopkeeper on the old Friday the 13th TV show was always saying: It all makes a terrible sense.

And you wondered when Tom would show up.

In 2004, Cruise received a special Scientology award: the Freedom Medal of Valor. In a ceremony held in England, Miscavige called Cruise “the most dedicated Scientologist I know.” The ceremony was accompanied by a video interview with the star. Wearing a black turtleneck, and with the theme music from “Mission: Impossible” playing in the background, Cruise said, “Being a Scientologist, you look at someone and you know absolutely that you can help them. So, for me, it really is K.S.W.”—initials that stand for “Keeping Scientology Working.” He went on, “That policy to me has really gone—phist!” He made a vigorous gesture with his hand. “Boy! There’s a time I went through and I said, ‘You know what? When I read it, you know, I just went poo! This is it!’ ” Later, when the video was posted on YouTube and viewed by millions who had no idea what he was talking about, Cruise came across as unhinged.

Ya think?

(More fun with Tom below. Could not resist!)

As the father of two gay daughters, Haggis finally broke with the church over their funding of anti-gay Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California. And then he studied and found out more...

As they say, read it all.

~*~



[NOTE: The only other time I have written about Scientology at DEAD AIR, was about the death of Jett Travolta, which was predictably covered up.]

Edit: The last few seconds of the video cautions that all copies are quickly removed by the church of Scientology, so you should download it yourself and upload it to YouTube after this copy is removed. Create a different account for this purpose, since they go after that, too.

Gonna rock it up, roll it up, do it all, have a ball...

Stealie flag is from Disc-O-Pizza.



Assorted quick notes on this busy and beautiful Saturday morning
--

Our sordid South Carolina stimulus situation never goes away. State Attorney General Henry McMaster filed a motion Friday to return a stimulus case brought by two students to the South Carolina Supreme Court, arguing the issue cannot be tried in federal court.

And so, the endless, interminable legal wrangling over Governor Sanford's determined blockage of the economic stimulus funds maddeningly continues. Funny how he calls himself an economic conservative and yet is spending bushels more in his attempts to BLOCK it, than if he simply took the money, the swine.

At Fetch Me My Axe, two Proposition 8 videos that you simply MUST WATCH.

Phil Spector is sentenced to 19 years-to-life. And it's still too good for him, IMHO:

Phil Spector stared straight ahead. It was the appointed hour for the legendary music producer's six-year murder case to come to a close and the courtroom was packed with reporters, fans and detractors eager to hear his sentence. But he did not look at the judge, take notes or whisper to his lawyer.

For Spector, it seemed, it wasn't worth it. A life sentence is mandatory for second-degree murder and the only decision before the judge Friday was whether Spector, 69, should have his first parole hearing in 2027, 2028 or 2034.

After listening to arguments, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler chose 2028. As the judge told Spector that he would have to serve at least 19 years in prison -- at which time he would be 88 -- he remained stoic.

Spector declined an opportunity to address the court and moments later, surrounded by court officers, he shuffled out a side door.

It was a quiet end to a legal proceeding that has intrigued the public since Feb. 3, 2003, when actress Lana Clarkson was shot to death in the foyer of Spector's Alhambra mansion.

A jury convicted him of Clarkson's murder last month, a year and a half after another panel had deadlocked.

The New York Times reports that texting may be "taking a toll on teenagers":

The rise in texting is too recent to have produced any conclusive data on health effects. But Sherry Turkle, a psychologist who is director of the Initiative on Technology and Self at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and who has studied texting among teenagers in the Boston area for three years, said it might be causing a shift in the way adolescents develop.

“Among the jobs of adolescence are to separate from your parents, and to find the peace and quiet to become the person you decide you want to be,” she said. “Texting hits directly at both those jobs.”

Psychologists expect to see teenagers break free from their parents as they grow into autonomous adults, Professor Turkle went on, “but if technology makes something like staying in touch very, very easy, that’s harder to do; now you have adolescents who are texting their mothers 15 times a day, asking things like, ‘Should I get the red shoes or the blue shoes?’ ”

As for peace and quiet, she said, “if something next to you is vibrating every couple of minutes, it makes it very difficult to be in that state of mind.

“If you’re being deluged by constant communication, the pressure to answer immediately is quite high,” she added. “So if you’re in the middle of a thought, forget it.”

Michael Hausauer, a psychotherapist in Oakland, Calif., said teenagers had a “terrific interest in knowing what’s going on in the lives of their peers, coupled with a terrific anxiety about being out of the loop.” For that reason, he said, the rapid rise in texting has potential for great benefit and great harm.

“Texting can be an enormous tool,” he said. “It offers companionship and the promise of connectedness. At the same time, texting can make a youngster feel frightened and overly exposed.”

I am more concerned about the fact that the world is going by, and these kids are too busy texting to notice and interact with it.

(OTOH, I often feel this way about adults who can't put the phone down, not just the kids.)

And finally, for your dose of DEAD FROM CUTENESS, Yellowdog Granny provides us with 25 seconds of the most adorable baby-jabber anywhere on Planet Internetz. Be careful! You WILL die from the cute!

~*~

Before you trash the following teenybopper anthem, just remember, it influenced the Ramones. So HAH!

(Decades later, vindicated at last!)

Check out the fascinating disembodied eyeball on the set, above/behind the band. (The 70s were decidedly weird, people.)

S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y NIGHT - Bay City Rollers



Have a great Saturday, yall!

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more

At left: Maggie Gallagher spreads her poison at Harvard. (Photo stolen from a right-wing website I will not give hits to!)




Whilst skimming an article last evening, I got pissed off and imagined myself ranting and raving on Bill O'Reilly, wherein he eventually cuts my mike. (This is actually a frequent, favorite fantasy of mine.)

Who got me all stirred up? Maggie Gallagher, former single mother.

Question: Why is Maggie allowed to have a nontraditional family, but nobody else is? OHHH of course, she is heterosexual. That's IT! That's the WHOLE REASON!

I can't remember which conservative essay I once read by Gallagher, some time in the 90s, in which she painted a familiar portrait of harried single motherhood, in predictably exhausted terms. (Biographical note: Your humble narrator was briefly a single mother also, an experience totally worthy of a nervous breakdown, or several.) She described her son crying for his father, a well-written and evocative passage, and I made personal note of it.

And now, she is preaching to other people about what constitutes a "real" family.

Women like Gallagher (and Sarah Palin) make me livid. It was not traditional motherhood, but feminism that made it possible for Gallagher to attend the once all-male Yale and hang with the guys from the once all-male National Review. They did not voluntarily allow her in. Nonetheless, she launched a full-frontal attack on feminism (pausing to write an interesting obit for anti-porn feminist crusader Andrea Dworkin) titled Enemies of Eros: How the Sexual Revolution Is Killing Family, Marriage, and Sex and What We Can Do About It--which defended the basic Schalflyesque, right-wing view of relations between the sexes. Apparently, Maggie forgot that once upon a time, single women who gave birth were regarded as sluts and whores by this very same right wing. She seems to think none of that really applies to her. In fact, Newt Gingrich was ranting and raving as late as 1994, that children in single-parent homes might be better off in orphanages. (Did Maggie agree with that, or would she receive some special motherhood-dispensation as a contributor to the National Review?)

It is pertinent that Maggie wrote a book titled The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially. You should read that as nyah-nyah-nyah, neener-neener, we are allowed to get married and YOU PEOPLE aren't. She wants to zealously, deliberately deny these benefits to gay people, and has all kinds of bullshit reasons for doing so.

But you should not call her a bigot--because that's mean.

I was reading Politico's article about the various conservative and evangelical objections to Newsweek's religion vs gay marriage cover story, when I came across this:

In an e-mail to Politico, Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, took a similar line, calling marriage “the one necessary adult relation in society – the way we bring together male and female to bring the next generation to life in a way that connects those children in love to their own mother and father.”

What?!?

What about her own son?

Why does Maggie Gallagher get a fucking pass? Why is she allowed to be the president of this "pro-marriage" organization*, but clearly started breeding before she had any such need for marriage? How "pro-marriage" is that? Back in the old days, a big scarlet A. These days, they actually listen to her say things like this (from Maggie's Wikipedia entry):

Marriage as a universal social institution is grounded in certain universal features of human nature. When men and women have sex, they make babies. Reproduction may be optional for individuals, but it is not optional for societies. Societies that fail to have “enough” babies fail to survive. And babies are most likely to grow to functioning adulthood when they have the care and attention of both their mother and their father

Apparently, Maggie didn't get the memo that gay people have children too. Some of these children even have visitation with their natural parents (as other children of divorced parents do), and all the rest of it.

Does Maggie's son see his father regularly? (If so, why was he crying about having "no father" in the essay I read?) Does Maggie hold her own family to this same standard? Does she regard a marriage as "traditional" in which a child was first conceived from sex with another man, other than the one she is currently married to? BECAUSE IT ISN'T. THAT IS NOT TRADITIONAL. That used to be ANATHEMA.

And why doesn't she see that?

In short, that old song: decent treatment for ME, but not for THEE.

Maggie also warns:

Gay marriage is not primarily about marriage.... It is about inserting into the law the principle ... that sexual orientation should be treated exactly the same way we treat race in law and culture.... The next step will be to use the law to stigmatize, marginalize, and repress those who disagree with the government’s new views on marriage and sexual orientation.

To those of you who thought gay marriage was about, you know, MARRIAGE, well, just shows what YOU know. It's actually a nefarious plot to force "gay values" on everyone.

But you know, I hope Maggie is right in that last quote...if it means bigots like her get shamed, stigmatized and marginalized, I'm all for it. They deserve it. Maggie sez, in short, I have the right to break the old rules about marriage and child-rearing, and then pretend I have a traditional family, but you people can't.

And what about the CHILDREN?! More from Maggie:

Same-sex marriage advocates are saying there is no difference between two men being intimate and a husband and wife, even when it comes to raising children. They are saying that the opposite idea, that mothers and fathers both matter, is a form of hate, ignorance, animus, bias. That's why they claim that the normal definition of marriage is discrimination.

Again, I ask... what about her own son? Is she exempt from this rule?

Why did she have a child out of wedlock, not instantly given up for adoption to a proper, two-parent family?

I want to emphasize this point, again and again, because it really puzzles me as much as it interests me. I want to highlight the contradiction here. Because you know, Maggie ain't the only one. How many of California's Prop 8 voters were divorced and/or single parents? How many share this same prejudice, excusing their own nontraditional family-oriented behavior, but criticizing gay people? What causes this weird dislocation?

I have long been fascinated by the juxtaposition of what many conservatives SAY, and their actual behavior. William Bennett, author of the moralistic Book of Virtues, for example, later referred to as The Bookie of Virtue, as his gambling habits were made public. The aforementioned Newt Gingrich, preaching about the sanctity of the family, but serving divorce papers on his wife as she recovered from cancer surgery. And of course, Larry Craig, Ted Haggard and the whole Hee Haw gang.

The ongoing hypocrisy stuns, and is unbelievable.

*Gallagher is also the president of The Institute for Marriage and Public Policy.

Keeping the gays from getting married has proven to be a pretty lucrative gig!

Odds and Sods: One damn thing after another edition

My health has taken an unexpected dive, and I find I do not want to blog about this, for a bloody change. This is partly a desire for privacy, and partly a fear that my (seemingly endless) aging problems are just getting boring. (I mean, you know, they bore ME after awhile too.) And chronic illnesses/injuries are part of aging, most assuredly.

As Harry Truman famously said, "The problem with history is that it's just one damn thing after another." Ohhhh, how true that is. And aging is part of history, or IS the process of history, as manifested in each individual.

I am home from work, drinking Kombucha to boost my immune system, wasting time arguing on Feminist Critics, in which I unexpectedly had to defend The Holy Trinity (who'd a thunk it?), downloading purty photos, such as the one above (since I have lots of Flickr space left!), and watching my new fave-rave NeNe on The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

The REAL HOUSEWIVES are exactly the women some of the Feminist Critics posters really HATE: unemployed, fluttering about, spending money, madly lunching before storming every boutique in Buckhead, all while chattering entertainingly for the rest of us. I regard them as an exclusive subculture out of a Jacqueline Susann novel, certainly nothing like the majority of housewives in any locality. Which is why people watch the show, after all. But several of the FC crowd seem to believe this type of rich, spoiled, bon-bon eating housewife represents the majority of American wives.

Not hardly. If so, we wouldn't be watching them as if they are an exotic species, would we?

***

My heart's on fire, for Elvira. Also my new profile pic, for now!

(Note: I simply could not start a story about Emmy without a kitty picture. This was just not possible to do.)

I realized after writing my Proposition 8 piece yesterday, that I had not been specific enough about why I think gay marriage is a crucial civil right, but simply took that knowledge for granted on the part of the reader. And then, I came upon Zan's entry, below, which brings the issue into sharp relief in a very up-close-and-personal way. At her blog, Butterfly Cauldron, Zan misses her partner, Emmy, and wishes she could stay in the country longer:

If our immigration laws were decent, if they let citizens sponsor same-sex partners, if we had a visa for people who were looking for work and had willing sponsors, if if if. But we don't. There's no way for people in same-sex relationships to bring their partners into the country legally. And, when Emmy finds work here and gets a work visa, she'll only be able to stay in the country legally as long as her job lasts.

There is a chance, because she is trans and still legally male, that we can get her here on a fiance visa. A chance. But when it comes out that she is trans, it's likely that the visa would be denied. We could just get married and hope for the best, but it's the same situation. The visa would likely be denied, because it is the policy of the US Government to deny transgendered people the right to immigrate on a spousal visa. So, even if we got married legally (which we could in Louisiana, because Louisiana does not legally recognize transgendered people as their true gender until SSR has been preformed), we would still not be allowed to live together full-time in this country.

How is this fair? How is this even the slightest bit right? And it's so very easy to remedy. Legalize same-sex marriage at the federal level. Extend to all couples, regardless of gender, the legal right to marry. Immigration rights, insurance rights, visitation rights, adoption rights, full and complete equality under the law. If the genders of the people marry did not marry, Emmy and I could apply for a fiance visa and be certain it would be granted. We could know that our separation was not only temporary, it had a definate end date. It wouldn't keep me from crying, but it would help me to know when I could hold her again.

(((weeepsss like old hippie grandma)))))

This is the reason for marriage, people. Love made possible and given a chance, not impeded and made explicitly difficult at every turn. Souls brought together, not kept apart.

Love is patient, love is kind.
Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Fluor Field at the West End, baseball stadium sign, home of Greenville (SC) Drive baseball team.


~*~


Does anyone know why YouTube sometimes says "embedding disabled by request"? Must be a pretty important person's request, I figure.

Also, why does it sometimes say "I'm sorry, this video no longer available" when you try to play certain previously-embedded videos? Obviously they don't care about the bloggers and the highfalutin social commentary we are providing to go with the videos, illuminating the far-out corners of Western Civ. Who is going to look up old 70s hit songs and explain the Freudian meanings, if not your humble bloggers? Harumph.

Anyway... the following video has gone through these permutations... I'd save it for a few days, then poof, it wouldn't play and would have vanished from the YouTube archives as well. It's been very hard to find the song, so I was thrilled to find it today. (I wish I'd had it at Halloween, so I could play it alongside HUMAN FLY.)

This is from waaaay back (1971) when songs were forced by radio censors to use oodles of euphemism. Virtually every line of this song has double, even triple meanings, and you just wonder how they got away with a line like "Evil grows in cracks and holes" without the record getting banned. No doubt, it's because of the presentation, which at first listen, sounds very bubblegum. Gotcha! Critic Kim Cooper writes: "The Partridge Family + The Manson Family = The Poppy Family"... even the name of the band wasn't what it seemed at first. They looked hippie-wholesome as the very dickens... yes, the same wholesome kids who took various strange acidhead detours in the late 60s/early 70s... wholesome, Canadian, fun-and-funky kids gone... well, if not exactly WRONG... then, you know, off. Yes, just off.

Some time later, the author of this song recorded one of the worst pop songs of all time, truly the fate of the damned. (Terry Jacks: Seasons in the Sun) But you know, we don't remember all of those bad Partridge Family songs they tortured us with, do we? No, we remember SEASONS IN THE SUN, it's badness is of a truly legendary nature. It's that touch of Manson that makes it morbid and weird.

And without further ado, WHERE EVIL GROWS - the Poppy Family

On Proposition 8, the Mormons, and more...

The Mormons were successfully forced into accepting the government's domestic rules for their religion. I have always thought this was wrong. If they wanted polygamy, that was their business. I find it shameful that a government founded on the separation of Church and State, would actively interfere with the establishment of (any) church belief.

Isn't it ironic that a US president who was himself likely gay, James Buchanan, is the one who sent the army into the Utah Territory (known to Mormons as "the State of Deseret") in 1857. At this time in history, polygamy was an important matter of doctrine in the Church of Latter Day Saints:

The doctrine of the church basically believed that there were countless number of souls waiting to begin an earthly life. The human soul was united with the body at birth which grew and matured, and eventually created new families which led to more births and more souls beginning an earthly existence. Procreation was therefore a very important part of the Mormon religious doctrine because spiritual souls could be granted earthly bodies. Polygamy or the system of “plural marriages” first appeared in the church in 1841 and by 1870 there were an increasing number of plural marriage families in the Utah Territory.

And after federal intervention, Utah was under the heel of Uncle Sam, much like the Native Americans in that same area of the country. By 1890, the Mormons got with the program and renounced polygamy as LDS doctrine. (Of course, as we know, some people never did.)

Thus, the Mormons have now morphed into the oppressor, and seek to bring the power of the government into other people's domestic choices. Apparently, they were the primary financial sponsors behind California's PROPOSITION 8, which passed.

They didn't learn. (((sigh)))

Actually, some did.

Prop 8: California gay marriage fight divides LDS faithful

The church's effort against gay marriage is its most vigorous since 1970s
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
10/26/08

The thought of going to church in her southern California LDS ward makes Carol Oldham cry. She can't face one more sermon against same-sex marriage. She can't tolerate the glares at the rainbow pin on her lapel.

Oldham, a lifelong Mormon, is troubled by her church's zeal in supporting a California ballot initiative that would define marriage as between one man and one woman. She feels the church is bringing politics into her sanctuary.

It has tainted everything for me," Oldham said, choking up during a telephone interview. "I am afraid to go there and hear people say mean things about gay people. I am in mourning. I don't know how long I can last."

The LDS Church's campaign to pass Proposition 8 represents its most vigorous and widespread political involvement since the late 1970s, when it helped defeat the Equal Rights Amendment. It even departs from earlier efforts on behalf of traditional marriage, in which members felt more free to decide their level of involvement.

This time, LDS leaders have tapped every resource, including the church's built-in phone trees, e-mail lists and members' willingness to volunteer and donate money. Many California members consider it a directive from God and have pressured others to participate. Some leaders and members see it as a test of faith and loyalty.

Those who disagree with the campaign say they feel unwelcome in wards that have divided along political lines. Some are avoiding services until after the election; others have reluctantly resigned. Even some who favor the ballot measure are troubled by their church's zeal in the matter.

"I do expect the church to face a high cost - both externally and internally - for its prominent part in the campaign," said LDS sociologist and Proposition 8 supporter Armand Mauss of Irvine, Calif. He believes church leaders feel a "prophetic imperative" to speak out against gay marriage.

"The internal cost will consist of ruptured relationships between and among LDS members of opposing positions, sometimes by friends of long standing and equally strong records of church activity," Mauss said. "In some cases, it will result in disaffection and disaffiliation from the church because of the ways in which their dissent has been handled by local leaders."

Robert Rees, a former LDS bishop in California, says he has not witnessed this much divisiveness in the church over a political issue in the last 50 years.

Whatever the vote's outcome, Rees says, "it will take considerable humility, charity and forgiveness to heal the wounds caused by this initiative."

Talk about prophecy! Now that the Proposition has passed, outlawing gay marriage, the heat is ON.

Prop. 8 Protests Head To Salt Lake City
Demonstrations Planned At Mormon Headquarters Over Church's Funding Of Gay Marriage Ban

(CBS/ AP) A group of protesters plans to rally in front of the headquarters of the Mormon church over the faith's support for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in California.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encouraged its members to work to pass Proposition 8 by volunteering their time and money for the campaign. California voters approved the measure Tuesday.

The Friday evening protest comes a day after people demonstrated outside a Mormon temple in Los Angeles. About 1,000 gay-marriage supporters waved signs and brought afternoon traffic to a halt.

On Thursday, outside the gates of a Mormon temple his father helped build, Kai Cross joined more than 2,000 gay-rights advocates in a chorus of criticism of the church's role in the likely passage of a statewide ban on same-sex marriage.

Once a devout Mormon who graduated from Brigham Young University, the 41-year-old Cross was disowned by his family and his church after he was outed as a gay man in 2001.

"They are on the losing side of history," Cross said Thursday of the church's opposition to gay marriage. Cross and other protesters blame leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for encouraging Mormons to funnel millions of dollars into television ads and mailings in favor of Proposition 8.

The ballot measure was sponsored by a coalition of religious and social conservative groups, would amend the California Constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual act. It would override a state Supreme Court ruling that briefly gave same-sex couples the right to wed.

According to the CBS News Election and Survey unit’s analysis, black voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of Prop. 8 - by a 70 percent to 30 percent margin. Hispanic voters overall favored the measure as well but only by a 53 percent to 47 percent margin. White voters were slightly on the side of approving it, 51 percent to 49 percent.

There is disappointment that the African-American community, which just saw the election of the first black president, voted overwhelmingly against same-sex marriage, reports CBS Early Show correspondent Hattie Kauffman.

The protest came amid questions about whether attempts to overturn the prohibition can succeed and whether the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California over the past four months are in any danger.

For Cody Krebs, 27, four months was not enough time to fulfill his "intense hope" to marry one day; he and his boyfriend have been together for little more than a year, so they aren't ready to wed.

On Thursday, Krebs dodged eggs hurled at protesters from an apartment building. He said he'd seen worse growing up in Salt Lake City.

"It's important to come out like this because it gets the gay community into the public eye," Krebs said. "I feel like this has started a lot of conversations that had to get started."

The demonstration began outside the temple in the Westwood section of Los Angeles and noisily spilled through the western side of the city, with chants of "Separate church and state" and "What do we want? Equal rights." Some protesters waved signs saying "No on H8" or "I didn't vote against your marriage," and many equated the issue with the civil rights struggle.

Two people were arrested after a confrontation between the crowd and an occupant of a pickup truck that had a banner supporting Proposition 8. One demonstrator ended up with a bloody nose in the fracas. Seven arrests occurred during Los Angeles-area street marches late Wednesday.

The temple protest was organized by the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center. Its chief executive, Lorri Jean, announced a Web-based effort dubbed InvalidateProp8.org to raise money to fight the constitutional amendment.

Gay-marriage proponents filed three court challenges Wednesday against the ban. The lawsuits raise a rare legal argument: that the ballot measure was actually a dramatic revision of the California Constitution rather than a simple amendment. A constitutional revision must first pass the Legislature before going to the voters.

Andrew Pugno, attorney for the groups that sponsored the amendment, called the lawsuits "frivolous and regrettable."

"It is time that the opponents of traditional marriage respect the voters' decision," he said.

The high court has not said when it will act. State officials said the ban on gay marriage took effect the morning after the election.

"We don't consider it a `Hail Mary' at all," said Kate Kendell, executive director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. "You simply can't so something like this - take away a fundamental right at the ballot."

With many gay newlyweds worried about what the amendment does to their vows, California Attorney General Jerry Brown said he believes those marriages are still valid. But he is also preparing to defend that position in court.

The amendment does not explicitly say whether it applies to those already married. Legal experts said unless there is explicit language, laws are not normally applied retroactively.

"Otherwise a Pandora's Box of chaos is opened," said Stanford University law school professor Jane Schacter. Still, Schacter cautioned that the question of retroactivity "is not a slam dunk."

An employer, for instance, could deny medical benefits to an employee's same-sex spouse. The worker could then sue the employer, giving rise to a case that could determine the validity of the 18,000 marriages.

Supporters of the ban said they will not seek to invalidate the marriages already performed and will leave any legal challenges to others.

A 2003 California law already gives gays registered as domestic partners nearly all the state rights and responsibilities of married couples when it comes to such things as taxes, estate planning and medical decisions. That law is still in effect.

Regarding the statement that "a majority of blacks voted for Prop 8"--that particular proclamation isn't going over too well in various parts of Blogdonia.

For more on that, and other excellent fulminating on the topic, please check out:

Prop 8: The Rush to blame the Brown People (excellent collection of links at Alas, a blog)

Mark Oshiro: Protesting Proposition 8, Now You Need Your Allies (Womanist Musings)

Okay, the "Black people cost gay people the right to marry in CA ZOMG" meme needs to stop, NOW. (Fetch Me My Axe)

And Rick Warren is being singled out for ire, at long last! Yes, demonstrations in front of Saddleback Church! (CBS News account)

And on the subject of generalized sexual hysteria and Victorian bullshit, Proposition K in San Francisco also failed. Lea Brown described the measure in the SF Bay Guardian:

Prop. K would allow sex workers to organize for their rights and safety. It would enable them to report abuse in the industry without fear of prosecution. It would improve their chances of maintaining their health by lessening the stigma that prevents many from seeking the health care services they need. And it would do all this while still allowing law enforcement officials to investigate and prosecute human traffickers.

My favorite sex-worker blogger, Renegade Evolution, shares her strong feelings about Prop K's failure. (And as usual, a very lively comments section!)

And along these lines, don't forget to have a peep at the 11th Feminist Carnival for Sexual Freedom and Autonomy!

EDITED TO ADD: Join the Impact - Protest Prop 8 on November 15th. Thanks to The Jaded Hippy for the link.