I love This One

Quite a few good stories this week -- Iowans losing interest in repealing same-sex marriage, Alan Chambers of Exodus admitting that "reparative therapy" doesn't actually "cure" homosexuality -- and actually being noticed (finally -- and I think it's instructive of the mindset that he's being accused of "heresy" by his one-time fellow travelers), and the Obama administration moving directly into the DOMA fight.

But this is the one that won my heart:

A member of the Louisiana House of Representatives who eagerly supported Gov. Bobby Jindal’s plan to fund private schools has had an epiphany: Muslim schools might start getting taxpayer money!

Rep. Valarie Hodges, a Republican who represents East Baton Rouge and Livingston, now says she wishes she hadn’t voted for the Jindal voucher bill.

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” Hodges told the Livingston Parish News.

“I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school,” Hodges added.

The newspaper reported that she “mistakenly assumed that ‘religious’ meant ‘Christian.’”

Now, I don't find it so remarkable that there is someone who is not only ignorant, but demonstrably stupid in public office -- I mean, on the national scene we have such luminaries as Louie Gomert of Texas and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, not to mention two generations of Pauls. (And how can we forget the distinguished Senate career of Rick Santorum?) But the revelation of the mindset is delicious -- I mean, "religious" means "Christian"? The religion of the Founding Fathers was Christianity? Has the woman ever read a history book, aside from the Old Testament? Not to mention the idea that the government can fund Christian schools and not Muslim or Jewish schools -- or Buddhist schools, or Hindu schools, or whatever -- I mean, has the woman ever heard of the First Amendment? Does she understand the Establishment Clause at all?

The frightening part is not that someone as fundamentally ignorant and as blatantly prejudiced as Valarie Hodges is a state representative, but that people actually voted for her.

Mars

Thanks to Anel Viz and the Mars Lander.

I'm not so sure about this one -- seems like we may not be entirely welcome.

Maybe if we demonstrate that we can take care of our own world. . . .

And in Argentina

The Argentine congress passed a new law allowing trans persons to change their sex on their ID cards without having to prove they've undergone sex reassignment surgery. This is huge.

Argentinean president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner celebrated passage of the world's most progressive gender identity law by inviting a number of transgender leaders and personally handing them their new identity cards. The law was adopted by the Argentinean congress in May by a vote of 55-0 and became law last month after getting the president's signature. It allows transgender individuals to change their name and gender on government documents without having to prove that they have undergone gender reassignment surgery or need for court approval as had been the case before. It also grants government health coverage for transgender individuals who want to undergo a gender reassignment surgery.

It seems such a simple thing, to let people be who they are. I honestly don't understand why our government doesn't get it. (Well, I know why, but I don't understand it.)

It's the Fourth of July

Reading the news this morning, I'm not sure what I think about that.

But, just to undercut any thoughts you might have about my cynicism/pessimism, here's a nice image for the day:

Given the way things have been going on the civil rights front the past year or so, it seems apt.

"Neutrality," and a Comment on Codes

NOM, in light of the dismal failure of its "Dump Starbucks" campaign (something like 60,000 supporters world-wide, last time I looked), has a new friend: Jitters and Bliss Coffee, which NOM is touting as an alternative to Starbucks. It's coming down around J&B's ears, apparently:

Jitters & Bliss has shown just what a scam NOM is trying to pull under the guise of this “neutrality” through the astounding mismanagement of its Facebook page today. Earlier today, J&B was censoring pro-equality comments, blocking posters who added such comments, and ultimately shut down its page for a period of time. The page rebooted this afternoon with the following message and comment, which have also since been deleted:

In light of Jitters & Bliss Coffee paid advertising on NOM website, our position has not changed. Like many companies we are NEUTRAL on the gay marriage issue. We respect our customers’ diverse views on it as with the many other issues facing our nation today. Yes, we are paying advertising on NOM, and would do so on gay sites too (with a NEUTRAL, inclusive position). Our nation is diverse as is our customer base. “God Bless you, and the USA!”

Please, no posts!

Jeremy Hooper has a couple of comments on this whole thing, here and here. (If you follow Hooper's blog at all, Good-As-You, you know he's about the most inoffensive person alive.)

Timothy Kincaid has a good take on the viability of J&B as an alternative to Starbuck's:

Now when you feel an urge for a caramel macchiato, instead of dropping in to a Starbuck you can instead go online and order a tin of coffee (comparably priced to Starbucks), wait for it to be delivered (shipping free with $50 purchase), brew it up, and enjoy a delicious cup of coffee free from the guilt of supporting the homosexual agenda.

As for Jitters & Bliss' "neutrality" -- get this (click to embiggen):

Via HRC/NOM Exposed.

Most of the coffee purveyors I've checked out emphasizes their "free trade" operations. J&B apparently does work on a free trade basis, but it emphasizes its "Christian" mission. Draw your own conclusions.

So, "neutrality" is code for acquiescence to the status quo -- that is, discrimination. It's instructive that the right feels the need to express itself in codes -- we hear code words and phrases for all those people and ideas that the right doesn't like (which is just about all of them). My own thought on that is, if what you're saying is likely to be acceptable to the public at large, you don't need to use codes.

The Other Shoe

OK, so Anderson Cooper "came out." There's a lot of commentary on the fact that he's been living in a glass closet, but the thing about glass closets is that everyone can see you, but you can't breathe.

He gets kudos for his coming out statement, in an e-mail to Andrew Sullivan. If you surf the Web at all, you've seen the "The fact is, I'm gay. . . ." quote, but this struck me as much more important:

Recently, however, I’ve begun to consider whether the unintended outcomes of maintaining my privacy outweigh personal and professional principle. It’s become clear to me that by remaining silent on certain aspects of my personal life for so long, I have given some the mistaken impression that I am trying to hide something - something that makes me uncomfortable, ashamed or even afraid. This is distressing because it is simply not true.

I’ve also been reminded recently that while as a society we are moving toward greater inclusion and equality for all people, the tide of history only advances when people make themselves fully visible. There continue to be far too many incidences of bullying of young people, as well as discrimination and violence against people of all ages, based on their sexual orientation, and I believe there is value in making clear where I stand.

Click through on the link and read the whole thing -- it's superb.

And on the other hand, the kind of crap you might expect:

And Peter LaBarbera, leader of a recognized anti-gay hate group, should do the same, since he's proved himself to be an anti-gay activist. (Although frankly, I sort of enjoy having someone that incompetent as an anti-gay icon.)

The Leftist Backlash

I ran across a couple of posts the other morning that brought me back to an issue that, in my humble opinion, is significant for the progress of acceptance of gay people by the larger society. Both reek of the New Left of the 80s.

This one, an opinion piece by someone named Topher Gen at Pink News, I have trouble taking seriously.

And that’s what Pride does; it fuels the flames of hate. Today, Pride is little more than a giant excuse for corporate marketing and a bit of drunken fun. The march claims to ‘celebrate’ its participants’ sexuality, but it’s to its community’s own detriment.

Click through and read the whole thing, if you like -- unfortunately, it doesn't get any more coherent, and Topher Gen seems to be one of those wild-eyed zealots who is going to show us The Way -- his way, which is the only way.

This one is pernicious. This is where the old New Left (your struggle is everyone's struggle, but everyone else comes first) has wound up. The whole cast of this one is negative, marked by a determination to take every aspect of Pride in the worst possible light.

Pride initially represented the cry, “We exist!” shouted from an ignored and stigmatized community to the larger population of the country. It was a celebration of the margins. While this is still the case in some ways, the LGBTQ community has now found itself underwritten by the most oppressive elements of American society—banks, politicians, and corporations, the ultimate ostracizers—and it has largely accepted this. It is a shift almost as dizzying in scope as the shift in mainstream consciousness towards LGBTQ rights. Decades ago, from the margins came a movement, one which has now, years later, unfortunately and almost unblinkingly accepted the subsidy of organizations and individuals that actively enable the perpetual, repressive “othering” of the powerless.

I think we can rather take this funding by major corporations as an indication of how far we've come in gaining acceptance in society at large. To be realistic about it, they're doing it because it's good business. Think about the implications of that for a minute or two. There's also the fact that Pride is not about the 99%. That's not the point. (You're going to see this point made again and again here.)

Speaking of imperialism, even while some supporters cheer Obama for his support of marriage equality in North Carolina—“a day after it could have done some good,” Occupy Chicago organizer James Cox reminded me—I think of the words of Mike Knish: “For every one of us cheering Obama’s entry into the 21st century, there is a pile of dead Afghani kids who don’t give a shit”

WTF? "Speaking of imperialism"? Well, of course he was speaking about imperialism -- why, Gay Pride is all about the fight against imperialism. Just ask any leftist with a high score on the purity index. This reminds me so much of the political speeches after Pride parades in the 80s by the likes of Urvashi Vaid that I'm really wondering if this guy is in a time warp of some sort.

No, Gay Pride is not about Afghanistan.

And what about [Bradley] Manning? The now-famous (increasingly so) whistleblower who allegedly disclosed evidence of US war crimes was honored in the parade with a float from Chicago activist Andy Thayer’s Gay Liberation Network (GLN), which featured a healthy Occupy Chicago contingent among a group of roughly 35. Tunes from a previous anti-war movement—Edwin Starr, John Lennon, and Marvin Gaye—backed the group, which sought to bring political consciousness to an event that seemed, as Cox noted, “more about having fun than trying to achieve any right.” This is to be praised. The problem comes, then, in the GLN’s full and unqualified acceptance of Private Manning as a gay man and not, as is definitely possible, a transgender woman.

OK -- Bradley Manning was honored with a float, but it's a bad thing because it didn't identify Manning as a transgender woman, because he might be.

Do I really have to comment on that?

That's the bulk of it. There are actually comments thanking this idiot for this post, on the order of "the fight for gay rights is the fight for everyone's rights" -- notable because the point is not that everyone should be fighting for our rights, but that we're supposed to be fighting for everyone else's. To be fair, there are also comments pointing out other of the huge flaws in the author's reasoning, and the poster under whose auspices this went up, Kit O'Connell, left a comment that does display the sense of proportion that I find so lacking in the post itself.

The point of this is that these commentaries display the lack of a sense of proportion that I find as endemic on the left as on the right. They are talking about a specific event, and in effect trying to dictate to the rest of us what our celebration is supposed to be, starting with the baseline, which is that all the elements of their agendas must be included. If you follow this blog at all, you know I don't respond well to authority, particularly if that authority is self-bestowed.

Maybe next year I'll write my own post on Gay Pride -- on what it is, not what I think it should be.

Ah, Yes, the Messaging

Paul Ryan (who I begin to suspect has major investments in cat food companies) says this:

But Ryan rejected Kennedy’s assertion and promised to completely undo the law.

“We’re going to repeal the entire law and then we’re going to advance patient-centered reforms that address these kinds of issues,” the Wisconsin Republican said.

.

But then, Mitch McConnell says this:

WALLACE: I just want to ask, what specifically are you going to do to provide universal coverage to the 30 million people who are uninsured?

MCCONNELL: That is not the issue. The question is, how can you go step by step to improve the American health care system. … We’re not going to turn the American health care system into a Western European system.

Do you somehow get the idea the the "replace" part of "repeal and replace" is not going to happen? And how happy to you think the insurance industry is going to be about losing all those customers who have to buy insurance under the ACA? (Which actually makes me wonder if the "repeal" part will happen.)

Connect the Dots

around the edges of Mark Regenerus' "study" of gay parenting (although it's not really about gay parenting -- just ask him) and you find yourself coming full circle.

A group of eighteen social scientists have published a letter under the auspices of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion defending the study. However, as Scott Rose points out:

Although the 18 signers rely on their academic credentials to attempt to give authority to their letter, they do not actually address any of the substantive criticisms made of Regnerus’s study. They instead appear to seek further to deceive the public, by repeating points that have already been thoroughly discredited and debunked. Of particular concern is that the signers trumpeted Regnerus’s sampling method as the best available, when in fact, address based sampling would have been superior, though more costly and time consuming. Another concern is that whereas the signers cite Paul Amato’s commentary on the Regnerus study as evidence of the study’s alleged integrity, they do so without disclosing that Amato was a paid adviser for the study.

Equality Matters did some digging on these "social scientists," which they've rendered into a handy table (click for larger view):

(Via)

And now, 200 social scientists and therapists have written a letter to Social Science Research, the journal in which Regnerus' study was published.

As researchers and scholars, many of whom with extensive experience in quantitative and qualitative research in family structures and child outcomes, we write to raise serious concerns about the most recent issue of Social Science Research and the set of papers focused on parenting by lesbians and gay men. In this regard, we have particular concern about Mark Regnerus’ paper entitled “How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.”

LGBT parenting is a highly politicized topic. While the presence of a vibrant and controversial public debate should in no way censor scholarship, it should compel the academy to hold scholarship around that topic to our most rigorous standards. We are very concerned that these standards were not upheld in this issue or with this paper, given the apparently expedited process of publication and the decision to publish commentaries on the paper by scholars who were directly involved with the study and have limited experience in LGBT parenting research. We also have serious concerns about the scholarly merit of this paper.

Read it -- it gets better (or worse, I guess, depending on your point of view).

The University of Texas is beginning in inquiry into the circumstances and methods of the study.

Some days, it just doesn't pay to be anti-gay.

Keep Your Government Hands Off My Medicare!

The Tea Party lives: Reactions to the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare.

How much you want to bet they all watch Fox News?

You Get What You Pay For

Ah, Schadenfreude:

Since 2010, the Republicans have cut the federal firefighting budget by more than $200 million.

The resources for fighting fires in Colorado are so bad that a delegation was formed by U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton (R -3d CD), Rep. Cory Gardner (R-4th CD), and Rep, Mike Coffman (R-6th CD) demanding the federal government provide more funds and equipment to help fight the expanding fires.

It's unfortunate that all three of these U.S. Representatives demanding help for their home state also voted for the Paul Ryan budget cuts which would drastically reduce the funding for the federal firefighting program. Rep. Paul Ryan claims he can meet the country’s needs by cutting back on “imprudent, irresponsible, and downright wasteful spending.” Powerfulstorms.com wonders which category firefighting fall into: Imprudent, Irresponsible or Wasteful?

Why Schadenfreude, you ask? Well, it seems that one of those screaming loudest is Michelle Malkin, who loves all things Right,* who happens to live -- well, right in the path of the fire.

* Actually, on reflection, I'm not sure that I can justifiably say Malkin loves anything. Given her usual commentaries, it's probably more accurate to say that she hates all things Left -- like the National Forest Service.


Via.

The Disaster of Obamacare

This comment, left at this post by Ed Kilgore:

Ed, Watertown MA on June 29, 2012 10:57 AM:

To all the handwringing, all I can say is look to Massachusetts. We already have a working model of how this will play out.

1). After initial griping, and a few longer doctor's waiting room delays as previously uninsured people hookup with their new Primary Care Physician, both patients and Doctors will become supporters.

2). Less than 2% of people will decide that they would rather pay additional taxes than get covered by health insurance.

3). Insurers will come up with a variety of different and innovative insurance plans that they will offer through the exchanges. Almost everyone will find something that they can afford that will allow them to get at least a minimum level of coverage and avoid being forced into bankruptcy by a medical emergency.

4). After the first few years, savings will start to appear as people go to their Primary Care Physician for preventative care as opposed to going to Emergency rooms, forcing the taxpayers to pay for the most expensive type of medical care.

5). Those of us working as Independent Contractors and Entrepeneurs will finally be able to find affordable coverage on the exchanges. People will no longer feel forced to stay at a job they hate just to keep health coverage. Now they can take a chance on starting new businesses without fear that they are putting their family at risk. New startups in Massachusetts are among the highest in the nation.

6). I don't know if it will translate across the country, but Massachusetts since instituting "RomneyCare" has been growing faster than almost all other states. As of May, we are now down to 6% unemployment. Much better than the national average of 8.2%: http://lmi2.detma.org/Lmi/News_release_state.asp

7). Paying for all this has increased the state budget by only 1% which has since been more than offset by the increased tax revenues from more employed workers.

So my final word? Chill out and stop listening to the people with the dire predictions. They have an alternative agenda. They are not trying to do the right thing for America. They just want to win the next election no matter how much damage they do.

There's not really a lot to say past that -- it's going to work, which is the part the right wing hates most of all. I still think Roberts voted to uphold the mandate because it means more customers for insurance companies -- business was largely silent on this one, except for a few who supported the mandate. No corporate interests seem to have been opposed. I think that explains Roberts' vote well enough.

Correction du Jour

The best -- from HuffPo:

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly referred to the large hadron collider as a large "hardon" collider. Unfortunately, that's not what it is.

Thanks to Ed Brayton.

Disgusting Person du Jour

Tyler Cowen, on what the right should be looking for in health care policy:

2. A rejection of health care egalitarianism, namely a recognition that the wealthy will purchase more and better health care than the poor. Trying to equalize health care consumption hurts the poor, since most feasible policies to do this take away cash from the poor, either directly or through the operation of tax incidence. We need to accept the principle that sometimes poor people will die just because they are poor. Some of you don’t like the sound of that, but we already let the wealthy enjoy all sorts of other goods — most importantly status — which lengthen their lives and which the poor enjoy to a much lesser degree. We shouldn’t screw up our health care institutions by being determined to fight inegalitarian principles for one very select set of factors which determine health care outcomes.

Read the whole thing -- it's by turns appalling and head-in-the-clouds (as only a libertarian can do it -- remember the free market doing away with segregation?).

This summed it up for me:

You can think of this post as an “ideal type” analysis which may or may not apply to many actual people.

Fortunately,

I'm very fond of Oreos.

And of course, the usual suspects are screaming for a boycott of Kraft. I guess they haven't stopped to think (do they ever?) about what they're going to eat:

David Blankenhorn has "Evolved"

He's now coming out in support of "gay marriage" in an OpEd in NYT. First, some background:

I opposed gay marriage believing that children have the right, insofar as society makes it possible, to know and to be cared for by the two parents who brought them into this world. I didn’t just dream up this notion: the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which came into force in 1990, guarantees children this right.

The link used for the Convention goes to Unicef's summary/explanation. Here is a link to the actual treaty. If you look at Article 7 and Article 9, that guarantee has one very important qualification:

Article 7

1. The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and. as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.

. . .

Article 9

1. States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities subject to judicial review determine, in accordance with applicable law and procedures, that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child. Such determination may be necessary in a particular case such as one involving abuse or neglect of the child by the parents, or one where the parents are living separately and a decision must be made as to the child's place of residence.

(Emphasis added.)

It's not a blanket declaration and takes full cognizance of the fact that it may be better for the child to be raised by adoptive parents or legal guardians.

This, I think, is where Blankenhorn begins to display his faulty understanding of marriage:

Marriage is how society recognizes and protects this right. Marriage is the planet’s only institution whose core purpose is to unite the biological, social and legal components of parenthood into one lasting bond. Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. In this sense, marriage is a gift that society bestows on its children.

This is where Blankenhorn has wandered off into fantasy in the past: marriage has never been primarily about children. They have been a normal and expected part of heterosexual relationships, but "marriage" as an institution is not and never has been solely or even primarily about children. It has been mostly about property.

It gets worse:

At the level of first principles, gay marriage effaces that gift. No same-sex couple, married or not, can ever under any circumstances combine biological, social and legal parenthood into one bond. For this and other reasons, gay marriage has become a significant contributor to marriage’s continuing deinstitutionalization, by which I mean marriage’s steady transformation in both law and custom from a structured institution with clear public purposes to the state’s licensing of private relationships that are privately defined.

This is simply not true, on any level. First off, to assign "clear public purposes" after the fact to an institution that has grown organically throughout human history (and even before) is, at best, self-serving, particularly in the context of having defined those "purposes" to suit one's own ideology. It's like assigning "purpose" to human evolution: it's not there. The universe doesn't really care about our "purposes." Blankenhorn has said in other contexts that he has studied marriage from, among other standpoints, anthropology. If he did, he learned nothing. (An interesting note on this, from the decision in Goodridge vs. Department of Public Health:

Without question, civil marriage enhances the "welfare of the community." It is a "social institution of the highest importance." French v. McAnarney, supra. Civil marriage anchors an ordered society by encouraging stable relationships over transient ones. It is central to the way the Commonwealth identifies individuals, provides for the orderly distribution of property, ensures that children and adults are cared for and supported whenever possible from private rather than public funds, and tracks important epidemiological and demographic data.

Marriage also bestows enormous private and social advantages on those who choose to marry. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. "It is an association that promotes a way of life, not causes; a harmony in living, not political faiths; a bilateral loyalty, not commercial or social projects." Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 486 (1965). Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution, and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life's momentous acts of self-definition.)

Let me explicate something I've stated before, and that the majority recognized in Goodridge: marriage, in its essence as a social institution is a life-stage marker, a recognition by the community of a change in status for the married couple. Long before there were governments, a couple would announce to their community that they intended to marry, i.e., to establish a new household. It was the community's recognition of this new household that established the couple as married. (If I had time to search through six or seven books by Joseph W. Campbell, I'd come up with a quote -- he stated the definition of marriage both elegantly and concisely, as was his habit.) To claim the "de-institutionalization of marriage" against that background completely misses the point. Marriage is not being transformed into a "private relationship" licensed by the state in any way that's discernible. Again, from Goodridge:

In a real sense, there are three partners to every civil marriage: two willing spouses and an approving State. See DeMatteo v. DeMatteo, 436 Mass. 18 , 31 (2002) ("Marriage is not a mere contract between two parties but a legal status from which certain rights and obligations arise"); Smith v. Smith, 171 Mass. 404 , 409 (1898) (on marriage, the parties "assume[] new relations to each other and to the State"). See also French v. McAnarney, 290 Mass. 544 , 546 (1935). While only the parties can mutually assent to marriage, the terms of the marriage - who may marry and what obligations, benefits, and liabilities attach to civil marriage - are set by the Commonwealth. Conversely, while only the parties can agree to end the marriage (absent the death of one of them or a marriage void ab initio), the Commonwealth defines the exit terms. See G. L. c. 208.

Why does Blankenhorn think that "marriage" as a label is so important? The majority of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court responded to an inquiry from the Legislature about the acceptability of "civil unions" thusly: "The dissimilitude between the terms 'civil marriage' and 'civil union' is not innocuous; it is a considered choice of language that reflects a demonstrable assigning of same-sex, largely homosexual, couples to second-class status."

Blankenhorn comes back to the erroneous idea of "private partnerships" in his rationale for -- finally -- supporting "gay marriage":

Perhaps some of this can be attributed to the reconceptualization of marriage as a private ordering that is so central to the idea of gay marriage.

There, I think, is the central flaw in his arguments, and one that he doesn't seem to be prepared to let go: I can't see that marriage is being reconceptualized, except insofar as any institution changes over time. It's certainly not being recast into a state license for private behavior. In fact, there are a number of court decisions, starting with Griswold and running through Lawrence, that state specifically that the government has no business licensing private behavior.

I suppose it's to the good that one of marriage equality's most prominent opponents has come out in favor, after all this time, even if it's obvious he doesn't know what marriage is. At least it gave me an opportunity to post my own summation of the question.

(For more on the anthropological understanding of marriage, note this post at Box Turtle Bulletin, with links to further exchanges between Glenn T. Stanton and Patrick Chapman.)

Marriage in Illinois

May happen quicker than I thought. It seems that, while the legislature is busily trying to avoid the issue, the citizens have taken matters into their own hands.

Two recent lawsuits against Cook County Clerk David Orr claim that not issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Illinois Constitution.

The state’s attorney’s response, filed today, agrees with that claim.

“We believe the plaintiffs are correct in their assertion that the Illinois Constitution upholds marriage equality for same sex couples just as it does for opposite sex couples,” spokeswoman Sally Daly said in an email.

It gets better:

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan (D) will be joining Lambda Legal and the ACLU in arguing that Illinois's civil unions law does not meet the state's constitutional guarantees of equal protection, raising the question of what the Cook County clerk of courts -- the named defendant -- will do in its response to the lawsuits.

The Cook County Clerk -- David Orr -- has already made his support of marriage equality well-known, and as you can see from the first quote above, the County is not going to contest the suit. (Governor Pat Quinn is also in support of marriage equality.)

But never fear, oh ye stalwarts of discrimination: there's always some bigot ready to ride to the rescue:

Peter Breen, executive director of the Thomas More Society, a private bar association that represents the Catholic Church, said the group "will be seeking relief from the court," though he didn't say exactly what that would be. Some experts have suggested the society could seek the right to defend the ban, though that's considered a long shot.

"You can't just say you feel it's unconstitutional," said Breen. "This ... puts people of the state of Illinois in a difficult place because their elected representatives are not defending their interests. If there is no argument or disagreement, then you'd really have a hollow judgment."

For starters, he's going to have a hell of a time establishing standing. And if he manages to come up with someone to represent -- and I'd love to see how he pulls that off, since the defendant, Orr, has no intention of contesting the suit -- what's he going to use for an argument?

As for Breen's comment -- well, I would say that our elected representatives -- the AG and State's Attorney -- are certainly representing our interests. Oh, and Mr. Breen? When you have no argument or disagreement, that's generally known as "consensus."

Good luck.

Leadership

Digby has a trenchant comment that I thought worth noting:

It's hard to believe sometimes, but when leaders lead on issues it often forces people to "sit down and think about it". Certainly not the haters or the hardcore ideological opponents who will never vote for them anyway. But others, the people who aren't quite sure, often find leadership to be a helpful guide.

It's a simple formula that goes back a long way. I'm surprised more politicians don't use it.

Maybe Obama should have figured this out three years ago?

It all comes together

You've probably noticed that I've been focusing a lot on gay superheroes in comics lately, and marriage is a long-term issue here. So of course, I love this story:

Midtown Comics, a hub for New York City comic book fans, has been the site of many news conferences, book signings and midnight sales.

On Wednesday, the store will have its first wedding.

In honor of the release of “Astonishing X-Men No. 51,” in which the mutant superhero Northstar marries his boyfriend Kyle, Midtown Comics will present the wedding of Scott Everhart, 39, and Jason Welker, 33, a couple from Columbus, Ohio, who were selected from more than 50 applicants.

Which reminds me -- I have to get to the comics store.

DOMA on the run

If you've lost track of the various lawsuits against the government because of DOMA, Chris Geidner has an intelligible and useful summary: the government (which is to say, Congressional Republicans) is losing on all fronts.

Of course, given the make-up and record of the Supreme Court, it's anyone guess what will happen once one or more of these suits gets there -- and they will. Scalia, who specializes in answering the wrong questions, will find that nothing in the Constitution guarantees a right to "homosexual marriage." (This is no stretch -- he's already said so.) Of course, nothing in the Constitution guarantees a right to marriage at all, but that's not going to bother him. Thomas will not say anything and will vote with the Republican platform.

Given the level of corporate support for equality in the U.S., Alito and Thomas may very well vote in our favor.

I'm not really sure whether I'm willing to count on Kagan and Breyer to vote in our favor on this one. I'm more sure of Ginsberg and Sotomayor.

The general consensus, though, is that it will all come down to Kennedy. He's been supportive of Constitutional rights in the past, at least for gays and lesbians, but marriage may be a bit of a stretch. It's going to depend on the case.

Anyway, take a l ook at Geidner's post to bring yourself up to date.

Update on the latest anti-gay junk science

The Heritage Foundation is apparently nonplussed at the criticism of its latest pet pseudoscientific study. This is telling:

The author of a new study showing some negative outcomes for young adults whose parents had same-sex relationships is under attack because his findings conflict with what, in some corners, has become conventional wisdom.

Apparently, the idea that there is “no difference” between children of same-sex parents and their peers raised in traditional married mother-and-father households has become so entrenched among some advocates that new research presenting a contrasting picture is unwelcome—to put it mildly.

University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus’s New Family Structures Study (NFSS) is a large, nationally representative random sample of 3,000 young adults ages 18–39. It found better outcomes for those raised in intact biological families when compared to peers in seven other family structures.

The article is so badly thought out that the author, Jennifer Marshall, apparently doesn't even realize that this last paragraph contradicts the one before. Or she hopes her readers don't notice.

Zinnia Jones does a good take-down.

The homophobic right-wing seems genuinely taken aback at how poorly received theirprecious Regnerus study has been. Clearly, being widely and loudly called out on shoddy science with a hateful agenda isn’t something they’re used to. And in another decade, these results might have been accepted at face value despite the study’s many flaws, simply because it aligned with the conventional wisdom of the time that gay people must be bad for children, society, and everything. This is no longer the case – these traditional assumptions aren’t assumed anymore, and the anti-gay movement have found themselves out of their element.

It's also instructive that the majority of the comments take the author to task for not addressing the real objections to the study.

Apparently Marshall's readers are smarter than she had hoped.

Idiot du Jour

Of course, with Rick Santorum, it's hard to know if he's stupid or just completely out of contact with reality. This sort of jumped out at me this morning. It's one thing to question the president's power to institute a sort of mini-Dream Act (although at least one conservative Republican thinks he's on firm ground), but here Santorum goes off the deep end (and you know he had to get DOMA into the conversation -- it's what he does):

"You need to hammer the president on this now habitual abuse of power, saying that he's not going to defend the Defense of Marriage Act [DOMA]," the former candidate explained. "You know, 'I'm not even going to go to the Supreme Court and stand up for the law that, you know, I'm charged as the chief executive to do.' So you're seeing a pattern where the president says, 'I'm going to pick and choose what laws I'm going to enforce, what laws I'm going to stand up and fight for in court.' That is not the job of the president."

"There's a difference between saying, 'I don't like the law, I wish the law were different, but I'm the president. My job is to faithfully execute.' And he has not faithfully executed," Santorum added.

The president is not required to defend a law in court. He's required to enforce it, which he has been doing, which is why there are so many lawsuits now. The fact that the law is unconstitutional -- at least in the eyes of three or four federal courts at this point -- puts some foundation under Obama's position on DOMA, but that doesn't bother Santorum at all.

Actually, reading over Santorum's comments again, I'm going to vote for "liar."

Real Science

Via Huffpost:

While female sexuality appears to be more fluid, research suggests that male gayness is an inborn, unalterable, strongly genetically influenced trait. But considering that the trait discourages the type of sex that leads to procreation — that is, sex with women — and would therefore seem to thwart its own chances of being genetically passed on to the next generation, why are there gay men at all?

Put differently, why haven't gay man genes driven themselves extinct?

This longstanding question is finally being answered by new and ongoing research. For several years, studies led by Andrea Camperio Ciani at the University of Padova in Italy and others have found that mothers and maternal aunts of gay men tend to have significantly more offspring than the maternal relatives of straight men. The results show strong support for the "balancing selection hypothesis," which is fast becoming the accepted theory of the genetic basis of male homosexuality.

The theory holds that the same genetic factors that induce gayness in males also promote fecundity (high reproductive success) in those males' female maternal relatives.

So much for the "It's a choice!" argument. Not that actual facts are going to have any effect on those idiots.

"Science"

In the service of ideology. I'm sure you've heard by now about the latest study of children of gay parents, which isn't actually a study of the children of gay parents. It's by Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, and . . . well, here's Jim Burroway's first analysis. Burroway somehow got hold of an advance copy (it's slated for publication in July, I believe). His initial comment is revealing:

This study finds “numerous, consistent differences, especially between children of women who have had a lesbian relationship and those with still-married (heterosexual) biological parents.” The results of this study would up-end some thirty years of established scientific research which showed that gay and lesbian parents are, on the whole, just as good as their straight counterparts. It would, at least, if the study’s methodology were designed to prove that point. But as is the case with all studies, the conclusions drawn by this study are only as good as the methodologies used to inform them.

It's the methodology that's fatally flawed, in my opinion. Essentially, according to Burroway's analysis -- and Regnerus' own comments -- what the study does it compare the children of heterosexual parents who have been married for at least eighteen years to the children of everyone else -- single parents, broken homes, foster children, you name it -- as long as at least one parent has had, at some point or another, a same-sex relationship. Sorry, that's not the same as being raised by gay parents. The attempted end-run in this case is apparent from the title of the study: “How Different are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study.” Ostensibly it's about family structures; however, the conclusion doesn't confine itself to family structures. (Burroway did a follow-up on some of the critiques, which are instructive.) John Corvino pointed out the major flaw:

Regnerus’s analysis purports to debunk the claim that children from same-sex families display no notable disadvantages when compared to children from other family forms, including intact, biological, two-parent families—what Regnerus calls the “no differences” paradigm. Had the study actually focused on “same-sex families,” it might have shed some light on the issue.

Instead, Regnerus—a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin—asked respondents whether their mothers or fathers had ever had a same-sex relationship, regardless of the duration of the relationship and “regardless of any other household transitions.” He then allowed those answers to trump others in order to increase the “Lesbian Mother” and “Gay Father” sample size and treated all of the family-form categories as mutually exclusive, even though they are not. (To use the Haggard example: although he is still technically in an “intact biological family,” he would be counted among the “Gay Father” families in this study.)

Rob Tisinai noted that very flaw in a blog post titled, aptly enough, "Regeerus Admits He Lack the Data to Critique Same-Sex Parenting (*so why is he doing it?)" And Timothy Kincaid has some pertinent comments on what he calls the failure of Regnerus's study:

Regnerus did not set out to say anything about orientation, he simply set out to prove that a certain family structure is superior. And that’s where he failed.

When discussing heterosexual parents, he did compare family structures. The distinctions and differences between the groups were determined by marital status, divorce, step-parentage and the like, all of which address the structure of the families. However when it came time to discuss children of parents in which one was same-sex attracted, Regnerus played a sleight of hand. He redefined his terms such that ‘having a gay parent’ became in and of itself a family structure.

BTB commenter Straight Grandmother contacted Regnerus with some of these questions; the e-mail exchange was published in the blog, with what has become, quite frankly, the expected result:

Your accusations are getting more heated, and I’m afraid unless we can correspond civilly, I may have to call a conclusion to this.

You can read the exchange yourself to see if Straight Grandmother's "accusations" were heated. It turns out the flaws she's pointing out are resonating among social scientists in general. To give you some idea of the credibility this study has among psychologists, check out the American Psychological Association's statement.

Now, in an ideal world, I'd be with Tisinai in saying that the study should stand on its own merits, without regard to political leanings of its author or his funding sources. But Tisinai makes one key point:

You only find this out through dialog, through analysis, through holding responsible for what they’ve said and done. The other side wants to side-step all that. Too many of them positively thrive on shadowy innuendo about hidden agendas driven by secret motives. Don’t take the conversation to that world.

The average undecided person isn’t going to remember who financed which study. The average undecided person is going to remember their reaction on hearing the stupid crap the researchers tried to pull off. That feeling of disgusted wonderment will stick with them, even if the details do not.

By the way, the study was financed by two right-wing foundations, and first given notice in the Deseret News, which some take as the quasi-official organ of the LDS Church. What to they all have in common? Robert P. George, who also happens to be a founder and chairman emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage. Do you see where this is going?

Speaking of hidden agendas -- or maybe not so well hidden, Timothy Kincaid has put together a very interesting timeline on the actual process of publication, which is at sharp odds with the length of time normally taken to ready a scientific paper.

And there's a very instructive comment from Regnerus that starts to cast the whole thing in a new light, as noted by David Link:

In describing the methodology of his research, Regnerus says, “I realize that one same-sex relationship does not a lesbian make, necessarily. But our research team was less concerned with the complicated politics of sexual identity than with same-sex behavior.”

I can’t think of a statement that more clearly reveals the chasm between the way the extreme right views sexual orientation and the way most everyone else does today. Not knowing much about Regnerus, I have no idea what his political proclivities might be; all I can say is that his statement incorporates a view of homosexuality that is widely accepted only among the political and religious right today.

Scott Rose has some history on Regnerus and his attitudes toward gays. He's not what I would call unprejudiced. (Note: Rose has a tendency to be a little shrill -- try to get past that. The substance seems to be accurate.)

Ed Brayton calls it like it is: "Bogus".

Am I saying there's a political agenda here that coloring the science? Given the author's past history, the sources of his funding, and the audience that received advance copies, the integrity of this study starts to look questionable. Let me point out a couple of things: DOMA is under challenge in a number of court cases, and is losing badly. And, it's an election year in which voters will vote on marriage in Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington State. And what has always been the anti-gay right's trump card? "Save the Children!"

Draw your own conclusions.

And now for some good news

Cougars, it says here, are recolonizing the midwestern U.S.

Cougars are recolonising the mid-western United States, according to scientists, reversing 100 years of decline. The population of big cats, also known as American mountain lions, has rocketed in these states, from less than a hundred in 1990 to about 30,000 today.

Michelle LaRue from the University of Minnesota said that the midwest population of cougars had been "effectively zero" two decades ago. "That's why this is so exciting," she said. "We have hard evidence that the western population has spread."

The cougars are one of my must-sees everytime I visit the Zoo, simply because they are so beautiful.

I thought we needed something happy-making today.

I Don't Do Facebook

And here's one reason why:

Max Schrem is a 24-year-old Austrian law student and the leader of Europe vs. Facebook, an organization trying to compel Facebook to become more responsible about its users' privacy.

He founded the organization when, after 22 emails, Facebook finally sent him its data on him — a pdf file which ran to 1,222 pages — including much information he thought he had deleted.

I'm not always as careful as I should be about online privacy, but here are limits.

Earth 2: Green Lantern

I did pick up Earth 2, issue #2. (Backstory here.)

Alan Scott doesn't actually come out. He gets off a plane and his boyfriend is waiting for him.

I've ordered issue #1, since I hate starting a story in the middle. This one looks good, if a little disjointed right now. Probably worth following -- besides, Nicola Scott did the pencils.

I Never Do This

I'm in love. With this guy, who is the cutest thing I've seen in about forever. He's from a clothing ad that keeps popping up on just about every site I visit.

And he's a lot easier to deal with than the news.

It's D Day

Why do I want to attack somebody?

Gay Superheroes

Well, it's official: Alan Scott, the original Green Lantern, is coming out of the closet.

Here's a bit more of a preview.

Needless to say, the clueless right is up in arms. The notorious OneMillion(minus 960,000)Moms posted a warning on their Facebook page -- which they promptly took down when the comments were flooded with congratulations to DC. David Badash has a screen-cap here. Given their success with the boycott of Toys R Us and Archie Comics after Kevin Keller's wedding, I suppose it's no surprise that the OMM decided to duck and run.

What strikes me is that they seem to have no clue that gay superheroes have been around since at least the early 1990s. That would be Northstar, originally with Alpha Flight and now in the Astonishing X-Men series, where he is scheduled to marry his boyfriend next month. (And to add to the insult to the guardians of all that is decent, it's another interracial same-sex marriage.) And don't forget Wiccan and Hulkling from Young Avengers (who I discussed here), and Rictor and Shatterstar in X-Factor. (I reviewed the first collection of that series here.) They got together in X-Factor #45, say 2008?

And gods help us if OMM ever figure out that there's a manga genre (very popular among teenage girls -- and I'm sure a certain number of teenage boys) devoted to male-male romances, some examples of which are much steamier than anything you're going to find in American superhero comics.

I just find it highly amusing that these arbiters of what's proper in our culture have no clue as to what's actually going on.

They Tried That Once

I know I've been away for quite a while, but it's been a topsy-turvy few weeks. This story, however, deserves a comment, although there's not much I really have to say about it.

As I wrote about earlier this month, there were protests planned for anti-gay zealot and bigot Pastor Charles Worley after he was recorded preaching this sort of hatred towards lesbians and gay people from the pulpit in his Baptist church in North Carolina: NC Pastor: Put an Electric Fence Around Gays and Lesbians to Make Sure They "Die Out."

Here's some background from Pam Spaulding.

I'm sure you've seen the story, as well as Anderson Cooper's interview with one of this bastard's parishioners, who obviously can't walk and breathe at the same time without close supervision. And here's some choice bits from Spaulding again on the parishioners and their warped idea of "Christian love."

Geneva Sims said she’s been listening to Worley preach the Gospel since the 1970s. She wasn’t surprised by the 71-year-old pastor’s now infamous sermon. In fact, she supports him and his message.

“He had every right to say what he said about putting them in a pen and giving them food,” said Sims. “The Bible says they are worthy of death. He is preaching God’s word.”

Providence Road Baptist Church member Stacey Pritchard agreed.

“Sometimes you’ve got to be scared straight,” she explained. “He is trying to save those people from Hell.”

Pritchard said Worley’s message isn’t one of hate. Instead, she interpreted it as tough love guided by Good Book.

Alvin McEwen pointed out something that hadn't occurred to me, strangely enough: this has been done before. It happened in Germany in the 1930s and '40s. This sort of arrangement is generally known as "concentration camps."

Christian love.

Do I need to say more?

How Bizarre

The fallout from JP Morgan Chase's $2 billion loss begins.

Ina Drew, a 55-year-old banker who has worked at the company for three decades and is the chief investment officer, has offered to resign and will step aside Monday, said several bank executives who would not speak publicly because the resignations had not been completed.

My guess is that these three are a token sacrifice (two other traders are resigning) and that will be that. Forget any changes in operations.

What's bizarre about it? She didn't get a bonus. (Although I'd love to see the terms of her severance package -- can you say "new yacht"?)

For Mother's Day, From Pogo

It's his mother's voice and images of plants from her garden.

Brilliant.

Gods! Was I tired!

I slept. And slept. And slept.

It's been a hell of a week, but today I feel normal. I may even get around to writing some of the posts I've been saving up. But, as usual, I'm behind.

Later.

OK, so he said it.

Here's the NYT story.

I have no comment (yet), except to note that the Family Research Council was using the dog-whistle overtime in its statement:

For once, the President is bringing his words in sync with his actions. From opposing state marriage amendments to refusing to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to giving taxpayer funded marriage benefits to same-sex couples, the President has undermined the spirit and the letter of the law. As demonstrated by yesterday's overwhelming vote for Amendment 1, redefining marriage remains outside the mainstream of American politics, especially in the critical battleground states and among minority voters. In North Carolina, the amendment received more than 60 percent of the vote in majority-black counties. If anything, today's announcement almost ensures that marriage will again be a major issue in the presidential election.

Tony Perkins makes me want to hurl. And I see he's adopted NOM's race-war tactics.

Gods, do I hate the new Blogger format

Posting has become completely counter-intuitive. I've already written to tell them it sucks.

It's sort of like my eye doctor telling me I have to adjust the way I read to accommodate my new glasses. WTF?

In other news, it's sort of weird to realize that I have to go to the gay blogs to get any positive news stories.

Yes, I know I haven't been here much lately -- it's partly the new posting set-up, partly the blahs, and mostly the news. I really do get tired of repeating myself, and the news is -- well, it's not new. Same old crap.

Maybe I'll come up with something. One thought for today: It's the 42nd anniversary of the Kent State killings, when the National Guard opened fire on unarmed student protesters. Has anything changed?

Strong and Sweet

I always get sniffly when I see stuff like this. I'd like to see more of it in the States. This one's from Britain.

Change of Scene

I'm in Florida for the week, visiting family. It's a little unreal -- I'm not sure I believe the palm trees. (Which means that I've gotten way too used to my routines.)

And scanning through the news, it's all depressingly the same, which is actually the main reason that I haven't been posting much lately. I do want to point out one thing, from Pam's House Blend, though, about the effectiveness of grassroots campaigns (and yes, sadly, astroturf campaigns, as we can see from the disastrous Congress that was in stalled after the 2010 election). Key point: "Why letters to the editor? It’s simple. Advertising costs a fortune, but LTEs are free."

I think letters to the editor are also more real to most people -- ads and commercials always have a sense of fantasy to them (deliberately, I'm sure) that might influence people, but aren't reality, and we all know it. Letters to the editor are reality.

Today's Not Politics News

It seems that polar bears are not descended from brown bears after all:

Polar bears, long thought to have branched off relatively recently from brown bears, developing their white coats, webbed paws and other adaptations over the last 150,000 years or so to cope with life on Arctic Sea ice, are not descended from brown bears, scientists report. Instead, according to a research team that looked at DNA samples from the two species and from black bears, the brown bear and polar bear ancestral lines have a common ancestor and split about 600,000 years ago.

It gets even more complicated than that.

The findings challenge the idea that the bears adapted very quickly, but confirm that they have made it through warming periods and loss of sea ice before. It may have been touch and go for the bears, however, because the authors find evidence of evolutionary bottlenecks, probably during warm periods, when only small populations survived, even though warming was occurring much more slowly than it is now.

Food for thought.

Another Profile in Courage

Joe Sudbay has an excellent post over at AmericaBlog on Obama's refusal to sign an executive order mandating workplace protections for LGBT employees of federal contractors. I can't really add anything to it -- he's covered all the bases.

Rosen vs. Romney

I have to say, the Democrats sure know how to cave. Here's an excellent recap/commentary on the whole Hilary Rosen "Ann Romney never worked a day in her life" brouhaha, starting with what Rosen actually said:

“What you have,” she told Anderson Cooper on Wednesday night, “is Mitt Romney running around the country saying: ‘Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing.’

“Guess what?” Rosen observed. “His wife has actually never worked a day in her life.”

Of course, Ann Romney shot back with the "I raised five boys, and that's hard work" mantra.

Please. I'm sure Ann Romney was able to spend quality time with her sons and be a nurturing, caring mother, while her staff took care of washing diapers and her husband clipped coupons -- when he wasn't throwing mothers who had to work outside the home out of jobs.

And almost before the first howls of faux outrage from the right had died down, President Obama, displaying that steel spine and steadfast courage for which he is known, came to Romney's defense.

“There is no tougher job than being a mom,” President Obama told a Cedar Rapids television station, mentioning his own wife and mother. He added, “I don’t have a lot of patience for commentary about the spouses of political candidates. My general view is those of us who are in the public life, we’re fair game. Our families are civilians.”

Did anyone mention to Obama that Mittens is the one who inserted his wife into the discussion? If Obama spent half the time laying into Republicans that he does trashing Democrats, the political landscape would be a lot different right now. (And that, boys and girls, is why I'm voting third party in the presidential election this year.)

And Rosen never should have apologized for her "poor phrasing." Her comment wasn't poorly phrased, but it was much worse, from the Republican view: it was true.

Read Hirschman's piece. It's a good recap of the "controversy" and a solid analysis of the reality of working mothers.

Comfort Food

It's National Grilled Cheese Day.

Chow down.

Bullying

National problem that has to be dealt with at the local level. Here's a a creative -- and apparently very effective approach.

Johnson High School football players this school year have been guarding something other than the ball. At the urging of a school counselor, three of them came to the aid of a freshman who was being bullied.

Could be interesting, though, if jocks are the bullies.

They're Failing

The "will bash for cash" crowd, that is. I just had a flash on one reason for their failure this morning. (Aside from the fact that their message goes against the grain for most Americans, who are basically decent people willing to live and let live.)

Superheroes.

Let me explain. I've dived back into comics after an absence of many years, and am finding some surprising things. For example, there are several series I've started following, including Secret Six, Young Avengers, Astonishing X-Men, and X-Factor, all of which include prominent gay characters. In fact, Northstar, who somewhere along the line joined the X-Men when I wasn't looking, is due to marry his boyfriend in June. This is not including the Authority, which spun off a series focusing on its gay character, Midnighter. (Not a nice person at all, but he's completely different when he's with his husband, Apollo.)

So where are the OneMillion(minus 960,000)Moms while all this has been going on? Well, aside from the fact that their organization was formed last week, while gay characters have been in superhero comics at least since the late '80s, they've been wasting their time hating on Archie, who is sort of impervious to anything they can do at this point. Do they think that anyone who runs around in Spandex must be straight?

And I'm not going to go into detail about the small but devoted fan base for boys' love manga in this country. Think about boy on boy romances written for teenage girls who, in all probability, just figuring the percentages, are going to be dating boys. Think about the ripple effect on attitudes toward gays.

Because you see, in both the BL manga and the superhero comics, the same-sex relationships are viewed very matter-of-factly and positively. (In fact, one of the most humorous scenes in Young Avengers is when Billy Kaplan (Wiccan) decides to come out to his family as a teenage superhero. His boyfriend, Teddy Altman (Hulkling) comes by and they decide it's time. Before Billy can get the words out of his mouth, however, his parents are welcoming Teddy to the family, figuring that must be what he wants to tell them that's so serious.)

Now think about a universe in which being gay is fine, being a superhero, not so much.

This is what the AFA, FRC, AFTAH, NOM, and all the other anti-gay hate groups and hate-group wannabes are fighting.

Is it any wonder that they're losing? After all, the only bigots in superhero comics are the bad guys.

(And it occurs to me that comics have been, for quite some time, very heavy on social commentary, and as far as I know, the message has been overwhelmingly toward tolerance, respect for others, and acceptance of others' differences -- none of which are in the anti-gay repertoire.)

Review in Brief: X-Factor: The Longest Night

I haven't done one of these in a while. Partly it's because I haven't had much crossing my desk that has generated a lot of enthusiasm, but mostly it's because writing has been really hard for me this winter. A little bit of burn-out, I think. But I've started a new comic series that looks interesting -- X-Factor.

The Darkest Night in the first compilation of Volume 3 of X-Factor, so the introductions are somewhat rudimentary. The basic set-up is that the team, which includes James Madrox, the Multiple Man; Guido, the Strong Guy; Wolfsbane, a shape-shifter with a religious bent; Siryn, whose voice can shatter just about anything; Rictor, a "living earthquake"; and Monet, who seems to be a multi-purpose witch, forms a detective agency, for lack of a better word. There's also something of a wild card included, Layla Miller, who "knows things" -- but no one knows what her allegiance is. This is post-Decimation, an event in which most of the world's mutants were stripped of their powers. Basically, the group works in Mutantown with what remains of the mutants, both with and without powers. And of course, someone is out to get them.

I had some reservations about this, because it was scripted by Peter David, and my previous run-ins with his work have been less than positive. As it happens, it's a good script -- he's not trying to be funny. It's sharp and tight, good dialogue, and good character development.

The art is kind of variable, although the volume doesn't really give you specifics on who did which chapters. Ryan Sook's drawing is appealing, sort of in the Jim Cheung/John Cassaday vein, but not as detailed. There are a couple of chapters that go very high-contrast that makes the images sometimes hard to read.

The main reason I started this series is that, eventually, Rictor and Shatterstar develop a relationship (which actually doesn't happen until volumes 7 and 8, which are on their way -- Shatterstar hasn't joined the team yet. There is, however, a very revealing frame in Avengers: The Chidren's Crusade, that establishes that they are a couple. I may review that one next.). It'll be interesting to see how David handles that one.

Catch-Up

I haven't had much to say this week -- it's been abnormal and unsettled. I'm starting to wonder if my life will ever be "normal" again -- or if I just have to find a new normal.

At any rate, this post is as much a link dump as anything else, highlighting some of the more disgusting people in the news.

First off, the Catholic bishops are maintaining their lead easily. Now if you have a relationship with a group that has a relationship with a group that is working for equal rights for GLBTs, you'll lose your funding.

For three years now, Compañeros, a small nonprofit organization in rural southwestern Colorado, has received thousands of dollars from the Roman Catholic Church to help poor Hispanic immigrants with basic needs including access to health care and guidance on local laws.

But in February, the group was informed by a representative from the Diocese of Pueblo that its financing from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, an arm of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops devoted to ending poverty, was in danger.

The problem, the diocesan liaison explained, was Compañeros’s membership in an immigrant rights coalition that had joined forces with a statewide gay and lesbian advocacy group, recounted Nicole Mosher, Compañeros’s executive director.

How Christian of them.

And in Seattle, the Church is in the middle of politics:

The two bishops of the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle, in a letter to the faithful, say they will deploy parishes to collect signatures for Referendum 74, a measure for the November ballot designed to roll back same-sex marriage in Washington.

While asking that signatures not be collected on Easter Sunday, the bishops described the issue as “critically important” and said information on the signature drive is being sent to pastors throughout the Western Washington diocese.

I guess even Catholic bishops have some sense of shame, since they don't want to collect signatures to deny civil rights to gays on Easter Sunday. It's unconscionable, though, that they're still trying to tailor civil law to their own primitive "morality". But it gets better:

In their letter, the bishops specifically deny that refusing marriage to same-sex couples equates to discrimination — an argument made by Gov. Christine Gregoire, a Catholic, in arguing for marriage equality.

“Treating different things differently is not unjust discrimination,” the bishops claim. “Marriage can only be between a man and a woman because of its unique ends, purpose and place in society. The word ‘marriage’ isn’t simply a label that can be attached to different types of relationships.

Arrogance and shallowness all wrapped up in one delicious quote. Since when to a couple of (theoretically) celibate men get to decide what marriage is?

I'm not even going to bother quoting Senator Reverend Ruben Diaz -- you already know what he's like.

The Catholic hierarchy seems to be taking most of the honors this week -- sort of odd that Rick Santorum managed to keep his mouth shut. This one is nice, however -- the bigots got some push-back.

A Catholic priest who hosted a mandatory assembly told seniors at Minneapolis’ DeLaSalle high school that single parents and children who are adopted are not normal, preached against same-sex marriage, and a Catholic couple who presented with the priest told the students gay marriage was akin to bestiality, all apparently in an effort to influence the seniors — soon to be of legal voting age — to vote for the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment facing Minnesota, according to a report.

The priest, by the way, did nothing to correct the volunteer couple.

And the pushback? Well, according to the archdiocese, the presentation "upset" some of the students:

Jim Accurso, spokesman for the archdiocese, said most of the presentation went fine. But during a question-and-answer session, a presenter used “an unfortunate example” to answer the question and made students upset.

The students had a different take:

“It was a really awful ending,” said Bliss. “It was anger, anger, anger, and then we were done and they left. This is really a bad idea.”

It's not all Catholics, however. John Derbyshire has finally stepped over the line. I'm not going to try to excerpt this -- Charles Johnson has done a good job of it, if you follow the link. And if you want some evidence that Derbyshire is an unregenerate pig, read David Badash's article.

Scott Walker, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Enterprises, who one hopes will soon the be former governor of Wisconsin, outdid himself this week. From AFL-CIO:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is facing a recall election, quietly repealed a state law making it easier for pay discrimination victims to seek justice. Amanda Terkel reports in The Huffington Post that Walker signed into law a bill passed in party-line votes by Republicans in the state legislature that rolls back the 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act. The act had allowed workers to challenge pay discrimination in state rather than just federal courts.

That's just the latest. Check out this post at C&L to see what else he's been up to.

And finally, our own Supreme Court of the United States.

The US supreme court ruled on Monday that jails do not violate privacy rights by routinely strip-searching everyone, even those arrested on minor traffic offenses.

By a 5-4 vote and splitting along conservative-liberal ideological lines, the high court ruled that privacy rights involving the searches were outweighed by security concerns by jails about a suspect hiding drugs, weapons or other contraband.

Writing the opinion for the court's conservative majority, justice Anthony Kennedy concluded the jail search procedures struck a reasonable balance between inmate privacy and the needs of the institution.

The kicker on this one is that in the case presented, the plaintiff had been arrested for a traffic fine that he had paid. Isn't it nice to know you live in a country where any asshole with a badge can make you take your clothes off because he feels like it? If he doesn't decide to shoot you first. (I'm not going to comment on the Trayvon Martin murder, except to say that Zimmerman's "self-defense" defense is so full of holes you could use it to strain pasta.)

I'm going to spend the rest of the day reading comics, I think. They're much less surreal.