Quote of the Day

A little something for the captains of industry (and a couple of presidential candidates) to ponder:

But Shelly Krebs, an attorney in Vancouver, Wash., who did Isabel and Logan’s adoptions, made the Hams an offer. She would handle the adoptions of the 10 other kids for about the cost of one.

Reached by phone last week, Krebs brushed aside what she had done as her work: “I basically made happen what could happen under the law.”

She helps place children with no families into stable homes where they will be cared for by parents who love them — in this case, both parents.

“As a businessperson, it’s a little more paperwork, and it’s a little more time for me,” Krebs says, and pauses. “The world is not always about time and money.”

Read the article.

A Little Slow on the Uptake, There

Rmember the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, and the mess they managed to make when they decided to stop funding Planned Parenthood? Well, it looks like they finally figured out the consequences.

On Wednesday, the Dallas-based breast-cancer charity announced that its president, Elizabeth Thompson, was resigning. Founder and chief executive Nancy Brinker said she would relinquish her post after a replacement is found, and two Komen board members also said they are leaving.

Brinker expects us to believe that she, the foundation’s president and two board members just happen to decide to move on at the same time? That’s what Komen told its affiliates Wednesday, in a perfect example of the kind of forethought that got them into this mess.

I wouldn't call it "forethought" so much as a complete lack of thought.

You might remember that Brinker is very wealthy and very Republican -- a prime example of the 1%.

Does that tell you anything about the way this was handled?

At Random

Just a few things that caught my eye this morning.

First, from Dave Dayen, the skinny on health-care cost increases vis-a-vis Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurance -- the short form:

The New England Journal of Medicine reports that Medicare and Medicaid spending has decelerated in recent years, and not just because of the Great Recession. The public programs have seen their cost growth slow significantly compared to private health insurance. And this is expected to continue for the coming decade.

This is so important because, as Paul van de Water of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities explains, the public debate has focused on transforming Medicare and Medicaid in the coming years, constraining cost in the very programs that are the most cost-efficient. If anything, the opposite should be true, and more and more of the system should be converted into public programs to increase the risk pool, allow for greater bargaining leverage on prices, and provide stability.

From a couple of days ago, Equality Illinois has gone to the fair:

There is nothing so quintessentially all-American than the State Fair. Moms and Pops with kiddies in tow are treated to award winning sheep and cantaloupes, midway carnival rides, and food booths full of kettle corn, Belgian waffles, and deep fried artery-clogging delight.

And this year, along with listening to the sweet sounds of the Steve Miller Band or Blue Oyster Cult, watching the Twilight Parade, and betting on your favorite pony in the horse races, you can also stop by the Equality Illinois/Lambda Legal booth and pick up an “I Do” sticker to show your support for marriage equality.

You'll inevitably hear cries from the radical left about how gays are allowing themselves to be "mainstreamed," as though there were something wrong with being an integral part of the culture. That's the whole point, and it's been the whole point from Stonewall on. I think it's a brilliant move on the part of Equality Illinois.

The Perseids. Damn! I miss them every year. If you're someplace you can actually see the night sky, check this out. Chicago has too much ambient light, unless I want to hike over to the lake. (I actually did that one year, only to discover that the sky over the lake was completely overcast.)

And more science. If you thought your parrot was smart, you were right. From Smithsonian:

When we think about the smartest animals, chimpanzees are usually the first to come to mind. Experiments show that they can memorize sequences of numbers, learn the meaning of words and associate particular voices with specific faces. Crucially, previous studies have found that chimps and other apes are the only non-human animals capable of making abstract logical inferences based on cues from their environment.

A new experiment, though, might make us recognize that an entirely different species belongs in this exclusive group: the African grey parrot.

I don't do enough entries on science here. Have to fix that.

And finally, manga/amime. Jan Suzukawa has a good heads-up on the release of the new Ai no Kusabi. It's a solid, very informative post on the series. That's one that I've always meant to get to and never quite managed to -- it's not easy to find online, and I do like to check them out before I buy them.

Speaking of which, I really need to get back to my adaptations of the German editions -- Ze 7 arrived, and I'm still in the middle of Der Beste Liebhaber.

Connecting the Dots (Update)

Interesting array of stories this morning.

First, Romney is set to announce his VP choice this morning. It's been leaked that it's going to be Paul Ryan (R-Purina), a/k/a "The Republican Death Wish." (Not my line -- I've seen it at least two other places this morning.)

If it is Ryan, the Ryan Budget just became the central campaign issue.

"Death wish" seems an understatement.

(PS -- Paul Ryan is a good match for Romney on gay rights -- he has a 0% score from HRC, 90% from FRC, a recognized anti-gay hate group.)

I get the feeling that Romney is still running a primary campaign.

Next was this story, about some guerrilla billboards in Las Vegas:

Note how the Fox News commentators are very carefully calling these signs "vandalism." How is this related to Romney and Ryan? Think "vulture capitalist." Think slashing programs that support the poor and middle class (which are rapidly becoming indistinguishable). Think the ticket for the 1%. And lest you think this is purely an anti-Romney post, get a load of this article at C&L:

After a yearlong investigation, the Justice Department said Thursday that it won't bring charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. or any of its employees for financial fraud related to the mortgage crisis.

 In a statement, the Justice Department said "the burden of proof" couldn't be met to prosecute Goldman criminally based on claims made in an extensive report prepared by a U.S. Senate panel that investigated the financial crisis.

"Based on the law and evidence as they exist at this time, there is not a viable basis to bring a criminal prosecution with respect to Goldman Sachs or its employees in regard to the allegations set forth in the report," the statement read.

The Justice Department reserved the right to bring charges in the future if new evidence emerges.

In a statement Thursday, Goldman said: "We are pleased that this matter is behind us."

In April 2011, the U.S. Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations published a scathing report on the financial crisis, highlighting Goldman as a culprit. Lawmakers accused the firm of breeding a greedy culture and running conflict-ridden businesses, and they said Goldman put its own interest ahead of clients.

Sen. Carl Levin, D., Mich., chairman of the Senate's subcommittee, said Goldman executives lied to Congress about the firm's bets against the housing market. The accusation triggered a Justice Department probe of possible perjury.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Levin's office didn't respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The report concluded that even as securities firms flooded the market with securitized mortgages and advised clients to buy them, firms privately used words like "crap" and "flying pig" to describe the financial instruments. The department's probe was launched when Goldman's reputation already had been battered by civil-fraud charges filed against the New York company by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC accused Goldman of fraud related to a mortgage-bond deal called Abacus 2007-AC1.

Goldman was accused of failing to inform investors that hedge-fund firm Paulson & Co. had helped choose underlying securities in the deal and was betting against it.

Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to end the SEC's civil-fraud suit. The company said marketing materials for the Abacus deal contained "incomplete information."

For a change, the talking heads are right -- both sides do it. Update: It's Ryan, and the left-wing blogs -- even some of the not-so-left-wing blogs -- are creaming in their pants. Watch Obama's people fumble it.

Through the Looking Glass

Another TGL Award, this time to the leader of the Presbyterian Church in Australia. From Pink News:

As Australia prepares to propose marriage equality, the Reverend David Jones told Melbourne’s Herald Sun:

“We continually are told that the legalisation of same-sex marriage would end perceived discrimination against same-sex couples who are currently not able to marry under federal government law.

“But at least from the church perspective, opposition to such legalisation has nothing to do with discrimination. Plain and simply, Christians oppose same-sex marriage because the Bible, the word of the God who created male and female and also created marriage, clearly and distinctly says that marriage is between one man and one woman – which means not between two men or two women.”

I'm beginning to think that the American and Australian versions of English are mutually incomprehensible. Dictionary.com defines discrimination thus:

[T]treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.

That's pretty much what I've always thought it meant, but apparently there's a different meaning in Australia that's completely the opposite of what the word means in America. Or maybe it's like the idea that American "Christians" have about being called bigots See, in their minds, it's apparently OK to be bigoted if the Bible says it's OK.

In short, all I can say to Reverend David Jones is "Fine, your Bible says it's OK to discriminate. You're still discriminating."

I'll be generous and just suggest that the Reverend doesn't get it.

(Via)

The Battle Continues

Now fifteen states have joined the fight to bring marriage equality to the Supreme Court. From HuffPo:

Referring to the First Circuit's holding that Section 3 of DOMA has no demonstrated link to its purported goals of strengthening heterosexual marriage as a "startling conclusion," the brief says the First Circuit "answered the wrong questions" to reach its decision, because in the states' view, "the panel below simply needed to ask why Congress sought to incentivize traditional marriages and whether that rationale extends to same-sex couples." In their view, the case turns on whether there are important differences between same-sex and opposite-sex couples, and they offer the ability to procreate as one important distinction. To the states the definition of marriage is "based on an understanding that civil marriage recognition arises from the need to encourage biological parents to remain together for the sake of their children." The 15 states argue that there is no government interest in promoting marriage just for the sake of it, without reference to procreative purposes. And they suggest that because same-sex couples can't procreate, it's reasonable to leave the distinction of being "married" solely to opposite-sex couples.

There are so many holes in this I don't know where to begin.

First of all, the "procreation" argument just simply doesn't pertain. Look at the out-of-wedlock births statistics for, say, Texas, and tell me that people need a license to make babies. As for providing a safe, nurturing environment for raising children, same-sex couples are just as capable of that as opposite-sex couples, Mark Regnerus' hit job notwithstanding. And, as I may have pointed out before, gay men and lesbians are perfectly able to procreate, and there are at this point hundreds, if not thousands, of couples raising children conceived either through IVF or surrogacy. (Or, for that matter, the old-fashioned way.)

The idea that the definition of marriage as an opposite-sex only institution is based on a need to encourage biological parents to remain together is simply nonsensical -- DOMA does nothing on that score, and there's no indication that recognition of same-sex marriages will somehow discourage opposite-sex couples from getting married -- for whatever reasons they may have.

I picked this up from the brief:

Review is justified not only because the decision below invalidated a federal statute, but also because it denies any relationship between DOMA and responsible procreation, and thereby casts doubt on all traditional marriage laws.

(Emphasis added.)

As far as anyone has been able to determine, there is no relationship between DOMA and responsible procreation.

Be interesting to see how this turns out -- and with this Court, who knows?

Here's the brief:

12-13 Fifteen States

In Science News

This, from The Independent:

The history of human evolution is more complex than previously supposed, according to fossils showing that several species of early man once lived cheek by jowl in the same region of East Africa.

Scientists have excavated three new fossils – a face and two jawbone fragments – indicating that at least two other species of human lived between 1.78m and 1.95m years ago at the same time as our direct ancestors. The discovery emphasises the complicated nature of human evolution, which has been likened to an intricate family tree of related species rather than a simple sequential line of direct descent.

The articles a little dumbed down, but the news is sort of exciting. The comments are a scream.

Silly or Profound?

Found this at AmericaBlog, and I just love it:

The Mat Staver Award

Given to the person who exhibits the most blatant psychological projection. Named after Mat Staver because of this (via Pam Spaulding):

Both Barber and Staver asserted that supporters of marriage equality refuse to engage in any sort of debate on this topic because, as Staver said, “they can’t dialogue on it from a logical perspective and so they want to shout you down and shut you up and push you out of business so that you can’t even practice your profession, pursue your calling, operate your business, or do you daily life”

Sounds very much like Mat Staver, to me.

Through the Looking Glass Award

Remember that one? I thought I'd revive it. And we have two winners this morning.

First, from NOM's Jonathan Baker (via Zack Ford at The New Civil Rights Movement), this shining example of scary predictions:

The General Mills blog gives additional information that should give us pause: in addition to things like recipes, healthy eating, fitness and diet and nutrition—things you would expect a food company to cover—the site will cover mind and body issues and relationships. Look for these lifestyle, mind and body, and relationship articles to start off in a very benign manner (who thinks we don’t need a little more exercise?), but expect before long a transition into a renewed effort pushing for the redefinition of marriage and family in subtle and not so subtle ways.

Yep. In NOM land, everything that might benefit people is a dark plot to not only push for marriage equality, but to recognize that gay people exist and are just as human as you and I. What a dastardly, underhanded move by General Mills.

And tied for first place is this gem from the Media Research Center, Brent Bozell's "watchdog" group devoted to making sure that the media only give us pure thoughts. Again, via Zack Ford:

On Thursday morning, the networks continued their smear campaign against Cathy as an anti-gay bigot and Chick-fil-A’s Christian principals as hate speech. CBS This Morning’s anchor Charlie Rose vilified patrons as anti-gay, stating that “thousands went there to eat and to make a statement – a statement against same sex marriage.” On Friday morning, Good Morning America’s Steve Osunsami similarly slandered Chick-fil-A and its leadership, mischaracterizing Chick-fil-A’s pro-traditional marriage stance as a “fight against gay Americans and gay marriage.”

Well, Dan Cathy is an anti-gay bigot -- he's quite proud of it, in fact. And Chick-fil-A's charitable arm, the WinShape Foundation, donates quite heavily to anti-gay groups, including recognized hate groups. No bigotry there, no sirree!

Apparently Bozell is taking a leaf from Newt Gingrich's book -- the page that says "If you quote me, that's hate speech." And as for the patrons, as Ford points out:

In almost every media interview with participants in “Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day,” they expressed that they opposed the freedom to marry, and that that was exactly why they felt the need to support Chick-fil-A.

Here's a brief bit on customer statements:

Gay and lesbian employees of Chick-fil-A had perhaps the most disheartening reaction to the day. An Alabama gay staffer named Andrew described the day as “hater appreciation day,” calling it “very, very depressing.” A gay employee at the company’s headquarters in Atlanta heard a customer say, “I’m so glad you don’t support the queers, I can eat in peace.” Another in Colorado had customers telling him, “I support your company, because your company hates the gays.” Many report experiencing homophobia not just from customers, but from fellow employees as well.

Bozell must be getting dizzy from his own spin.

Another Ant-Gay Protest (Snicker)

I was thinking about titling this one "The Competence of the Right."



Do I really need to say anything?

The Race Is On

Suddenly, same-sex marriage is in the offing for a whole slew of countries.

France:

France’s prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told parliament today that gay couples will be permitted to marry and adopt children in 2013.

Mr Ayrault was making a keynote speech setting out the socialist government’s five-year political and social agenda.

“In the first half of 2013, the right to marriage and adoption will be open to all couples, without discrimination,” he said.

“Our society is evolving, lifestyles and mentalities are changing. The government will respond to that.”

Scotland:

The government will bring forward legislation that would allow gay couples to marry in civil ceremonies and religious ceremonies where faiths choose to permit it. The majority of MSPs have pledged to support such a change in the law.

The law would make Scotland the first part of the UK to allow gay couples to wed and would remove the need for trans people to divorce and form civil partnerships if they transition while married.

Australia (or at least, Tasmania):

“We will be leading the way for the rest of Australia to follow,” [Premier Lara] Giddings, 39, told a ruling state Labor Party conference in Hobart on Aug. 4, vowing to make the change this term. “There are nations across the world who have already taken this step, some of whom that you would not believe would have done this in advance of a nation like our own.”

Uruguay:

Uruguay is expected to debate legislation which would legalize gay marriage before the end of the year.

Paul Maqueira of the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) told El Pais that an initial draft of the measure had already been prepared.

“The idea is to promote a marriage equality project so that gay couples have equal access to marriage as heterosexuals,” he said.

Maqueira declined to say when the proposal might reach lawmakers but said he felt this would happen “before the end of the year.”

The move comes a week after a court in Uruguay for the first time recognized the legal marriage of a gay couple.

And -- Vietnam?

Communist Vietnam is considering legalising same-sex marriage, which would catapult it to the fore of gay rights in Asia, where traditional values dominate many societies and sodomy is illegal in some.

While homosexuality was once viewed as a "social evil" in the authoritarian nation, it is slowly shedding its taboo status.

In the most visible sign yet of change, about 100 cyclists waving rainbow flags pedalled through Hanoi on Sunday for Vietnam's first ever gay pride parade, shouting: "We support same-sex marriage".

Next year, lawmakers in the one-party state are set to amend the country's marriage legislation and the justice minister said recently they would consider including same-sex couples in the law for the first time.

Granted, Vietnam is kind of iffy, because Asia in general is very conservative on gay rights, but still -- puts it way ahead of Texas.

Here's the list to date, in chronological order:

Netherlands (2001)
Belgium (2003)
Spain (2005)
Canada (2005)
South Africa (2006)
Norway (2009)
Sweden (2009)
Portugal (2010)
Iceland (2010)
Argentina (2010)
Denmark (2012)
Mexico (recognized nation-wide, only performed in Mexico City)
Nepal (ordered by the courts, but not yet in law)
Japan (recognizes marriages of citizens performed in other countries, no marriages performed in Japan)

OK -- Did I miss anyone?

A$$holes du Jour

Fox News, of course.

A Fox News anchor hosted a segment with a Tea Party leader and claimed U.S. Olympic gold medal winner Gabby Douglas and others aren’t showing enough patriotism because their uniforms aren’t covered in stars and stripes.

And of course, we all know that Olympic competitors all design their own uniforms. Always.

This puts me in mind of a post from Pam Spaulding a couple of days ago.

Poor Gabby Douglas. She is rightfully celebrating the fact that she set a historical precedent of Olympic athletic achievement as a woman of color — the first black woman to take the all-around individual title in gymnastics. But in the wake of her win, she is mocked by members of her own community on social media about her hairstyle and its upkeep. So unreal. And not surprising. As I’ve blogged before, kinky natural hair is political.

So we've got racism on the right (no surprise there) and authoritarian identity politics on the left (no surprise there, either).

So here we have a sixteen-year-old girl who has just set a historical precedent as the first black woman to take an all-around gold medal in gymnastics, and all these losers can do, when they should be celebrating, is carp over bullshit details.

These should all be today's "Disgusting People,", but somehow that title seemed more appropriate.

Nothing New Here

It seems that the Catholic hierarchy of Scotland is just as bereft of honesty as the Catholic hierarchy of the U.S. This, from the Catholic Bishop of Aberdeen:

Hugh Gilbert, the Catholic Bishop of Aberdeen who said he ‘loved’ gay people told the Scottish Catholic Observer: “Why is it alright for a man to marry another man, but not alright for him to marry two women? If we really want equality, why does that equality not extend to nieces who genuinely, truly love their uncles?”

Another slippery slope. This is the kind of argument we've heard too much of here (and isn't it interesting that the ones who are talking about legalizing polygamy and incest are all "Christians"?), and it's just as dishonest and disingenuous in Scotland as it is in New York.

First off, no one is pushing to legalize polygamy or incest. We can talk about that when it happens.

Second, societies define marriage to suit their needs. They always have. And in response to those who claim that "marriage is defined by God" -- um, no. Sorry, but if you to the least little bit of reading on the subject, it becomes quite clear that marriage is a purely human institution that existed in some form long before there was an established church. And what people have defined, they can redefine whenever they damned well please. (And in fact, if marriage is defined by God, why did it take the Christian church 1300 years to recognize it as a sacrament?)

As for the Catholic hierarchy in Scotland, it's the same old story -- they're faced with a loss of power and influence, and they're getting, as the Germans say, all ausgeflipt about it. So, like the American bishops and the American evangelical "Christians," they're searching for some way to scare people.

Tacky. That's really tacky. Especially coming from an institution as morally bankrupt as the Catholic Church.

Quote of the Day

“If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.”
— Alice Roosevelt Longworth

With thanks to Kathleen Geier at Washington Monthly.

Chik-fil-A (Update)

I am really sick of this. It's another non-event blown completely out of proportion -- a media circus in which both the right and the left get to smile pretty for the camera. And the media, since it has nothing better to do, is lapping it up.

Let me summarize:

CFA CEO Dan Cathy stated quite bluntly his anti-gay beliefs. OK, fine -- he's allowed to say what he wants. He's allowed to believe what he wants. (And let me point out something here: religious belief is a choice.)

The left is up in arms. Well, that's only to be expected. If the left were more effective, someone might actually pay attention -- besides the aforementioned media.

The right is screaming "Free speech!" and "Freedom of religion!" Well, sure -- Dan Cathy's allowed to say what he wants. He's not insulated from the consequences. As for his beliefs, as disgusting as they are, he's allowed those, too -- and no one on the left has said he's not. The right is once again madly whipping together a nice dish of red herring. (I wonder if that comes with waffle fries.) Update: Here's a good commentary from David Neiwert on the whole "free speech" nonsense.

(It's worth noting that those civic leaders who have made threats against CFA opening outlets in their cities have backed off of those threats pretty rapidly. They know they're out of line, but it does make some nice headlines, now, doesn't it?)

The argument has been made that Chik-fil-A outlets are franchises, independently operated. (Note, though, that they are not independently owned.) However, there's some question as to how "independent" they are: it seems that potential franchisees are rather heavily vetted to make sure they conform to the corporate "family" values -- ideally, they are bigoted in the same ways that Dan Cathy is. Ditto for employees. (Like the woman in Georgia who was fired so she would be a stay-at-home mom. Wonder if that fool boss of hers ever asked himself what her family was going to live on -- although that may come too close to dealing with objective reality for him to manage.) And, as for the lame attempt at damage control -- "we are committed to giving the best service to all of our customers without discrimination" -- there's no evidence to support it. Quite the opposite.

And there's also the fact that the Chik-fil-A "charitable" arm, the Win-Shape Foundation, has donated over $5 million to anti-gay causes, including recognized hate groups.

So there are "kiss-in" scheduled for today at Chik-fil-A outlets. Gods! You want an effective protest? Hand out leaflets detailing the groups that Chik-fil-A funds, detailing the lawsuits against them for violation of discrimination laws, detailing their employment practices, and the like. Perhaps I have too much faith in humanity, but it seems to me that most people, unlike fundamentalists, will take facts into account.

Anything else is just posturing.

This By You Is Journalism?

Granted, it's an "opinion" piece, but once upon a time even opinion pieces had to have some grounding in reality. This piece by Dennis Byrne for the Chicago Tribune is notable not only for its blatant one-sidedness, but for the inflammatory language Byrne uses.

First, a gross exaggeration of the study's substance:

This is a debate-changing study, especially because it challenges more recent court findings in which judges cite the "no difference evidence" as a reason for overturning laws that define marriage as between a man and a woman.

No, it's not that at all. One key factor that Byrne conveniently forgets to mention is that the internal audit by Social Science Research, the journal that published the study, found that the peer-review process was badly flawed, marked by numerous conflicts of interest, and that the study itself is so bereft of scientific integrity that it never should have been published.

[Daniel E.] Sherkat was given access to all the reviews and correspondence connected with the paper, and was told the identities of the reviewers. According to Sherkat, Regnerus’s paper should never have been published. His assessment of it, in an interview, was concise: “It’s bullshit,” he said.

I find it hard to believe that Byrne was unaware of this, since it's been widely publicized -- but judging from his post, he limits his reading to The Weekly Standard and NOM's blog.

As for the rest of his post, it's pretty bad -- playing the victim card on Regnerus' behalf, lambasting those who have quite legitimate concerns about the closed circle of funders, consultants, and advocates (one notable link is Prof. Robert E. George, a major opponent of marriage equality and a co-founder of NOM), not to mention Regnerus' own statements that his religious beliefs "inform" his research, and dismissing the challenges to Regenerus' methodology, which are quite germane.

Another reason why I seldom read the Trib.

Announcing the Tony Perkins Award

No, not the tall, sexy actor, but the head of the recognized hate group with the blow-job ears. Everyone else has awards, so I thought I might as well jump in. The Perkins will be awarded to the most egregious liar to come to my attention whose fact-free diatribes are geared toward smearing the gay community. (This may very well become a weekly feature. Given the fundamental mendacity of the anti-gay right, it could be daily.)

This week's winner is, hands-down, "Pastor" Robert Jeffress, for this screed:

"Amazingly, some gay activists don’t even try to hide the link between homosexuality and pedophilia. There are some who are right now are actively involved in trying to legalize sex between adults and children by lowering the age of consent or removing it altogether. In all fairness, it would be wrong to suggest that all homosexuals to pedophiles, it would be wrong to even suggest that a majority of homosexuals are pedophiles, but the truth nevertheless is there. There are a disproportionate amount of assaults against children by homosexuals than by heterosexuals, you can’t deny that, and the reason is very clear: homosexuality is perverse, it represents a degradation of a person’s mind and if a person will sink that low and there are no restraints from God’s law, then there is no telling to whatever sins he will commit as well."

In point of fact, which "Pastor" Jeffress would know if he bothered to look beyond the "research" of Paul Cameron, gay men are less likely to molest children than straight men. According to all reliable studies done by legitimate researchers, and the figures from the FBI, less than 2% of known child molesters identify as gay. If you figure that gay men number between 3 and 6% of the general population, it's quite obvious that we are under-represented among pedophiles.

If you don't believe me, check out Jim Burroway's very thorough study and analysis at Box Turtle Bulletin, "Testing the Premise: Are Gays a Threat to Our Children?"

Thanks to Joe.My.God.

Disgusting People

Some days, it's hard to limit the category. This is one of those.

First off, this story from AmericaBlog:

There's a viral YouTube video going around about a young gay man and how his parents reportedly mistreated him and his partner after they found out he was gay. Things only got worse when he died at the age of 29. The surviving partner made the video, and it's heartbreaking.

Here's a blog post from a friend of Tom and his partner Shane:

Last year Shane lost Tom in an accident. Tom’s mother, Martha Bridegroom, came to California from Knox, Indiana to retrieve Tom’s body. While Shane was at home resting, she left with Tom for Indiana without allowing Shane to say goodbye. Tom’s father, Norman Bridegroom, then threatened violence against Shane if he were to attend the funeral Indiana. Shane was shut out.

Shane says that Tom's mom promised to stay in touch, let him know about the funeral, etc. She never reached out to him again.

Shane says that Tom's parents did, however, get word to him that if he showed up at the funeral he would be "attacked" by Tom's father and uncle.

The parents are Martha and Norman Bridegroom of Knox, Indiana, and this is for them: Way to let the world know that your son's life counted for nothing in your eyes. (Here's something to make your blood run cold: she's a teacher.)

I don't have names for these disgusting people, but the story speaks for itself. (One wonders how much the Man Who Would Be King -- er, President -- has stashed away offshore.)

This one's sort of half disgusting and half moron.

Tea party-backed Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) says that the right to own high-capacity ammunitions magazines like the 100-round drum that was used to kill at least a dozen people in Colorado last week is a “basic freedom” that is protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday asked Johnson why people needed military-grade weapons like the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and large ammunition clips used by the shooter in Aurora, Colorado where at least 12 were killed and 58 were wounded.

“The left always uses the term ‘assault rifle,’ and they’re really talking about semi-automatic weapons that are used in hunting,” Johnson explained. “That’s what happens in Wisconsin. These are rifles that are used in hunting. Just the fact of the matter is this is really not an issue of guns. This is about sick people doing things you simply can’t prevent. It’s really an issue of freedom.”

Anyone who needs an assault rifle for hunting is a pretty shitty hunter. Maybe he (or she) should learn to shoot first. And sorry, Senator, but it really is an issue of guns. And I'd love to know how much the NRA contributed to your campaign. (This guy really gives a whole new meaning to the word "cheesehead.")

And as long as we're on right-wing gun loonies, here's Mr. Show Us Your Papers (Click to embiggen):

See? If you get shot, it's your fault for not being John Wayne, or something.

Aurora

Seems as though we can't go for any length of time in this country without a massacre of some sort. Here's a summary of the shooting from HuffPo.

The weapons were all purchased legally.

There's a lot of "analysis" going on about this, but I think E. J. Dionne has hit the nail on the head:

For all the dysfunction in our political system, a healthy pattern usually takes hold when a terrible tragedy seizes the nation’s attention.

Normally, we engage in a searching conversation over what rational steps can be taken by individuals, communities and various levels of government to make the recurrence of a comparable tragedy less likely. Sometimes we act, sometimes we don’t, but at least we explore sensible solutions.

Unless the tragedy involves guns. Then our whole public reasoning process goes haywire. Anyone who dares to say that an event such as the massacre at a Colorado movie theater early Friday morning demands that we rethink our approach to the regulation of firearms is accused of “exploiting” the deaths of innocent people.

OK -- you want to see exploitation? I'll show you exploitation -- and it's all coming from the right. Here's Louie Gohmert, Republican of Texas and arguably one of the two or three stupidest members of Congress:

"People say ... where was God in all of this?" Gohmert said. "We've threatened high school graduation participations, if they use God's name, they're going to be jailed ... I mean that kind of stuff. Where was God? What have we done with God? We don't want him around. I kind of like his protective hand being present."

Gohmert also said the tragedy could have been lessened if someone else in the movie theater had been carrying a gun and took down the lone shooter. Istook noted that Colorado laws allow people to carry concealed guns.

"It does make me wonder, with all those people in the theater, was there nobody that was carrying a gun that could have stopped this guy more quickly?" he asked.

The thought of people in a crowded theater full of smoke and gunfire hauling out their own guns to shoot back at -- well, at what? How are they supposed to know what to aim at?

The AFA is not far behind, and they've even managed to tie The Gays into it:

I think the sources of this is [sic] multifaceted but you can put it all I think under the heading of rebellion to God, a rejection of the God of the Bible. I think along with an education system that has produced our lawyers, our politicians, more teachers, more professors, all of that sort of thing, is our churches, mainline churches. We’ve been dealing Teddy and I know the AFA Journal has been dealing with denominations that no longer believe in the God of the Bible, they no longer believe that Jesus is the only way of salvation, they teach that God is OK with homosexuality, this is just increasing more and more. It is mankind shaking its fist at the authority of God.

And Bryan Fischer, also of the AFA, is not far behind. (It's all the fault of the ACLU and the Supreme Court, for some reason, but don't try to figure it out -- this is Bryan Fischer, after all.)

There's a lot more where that came from, and I'm not going to waste space on it. Bottom line is that the exploitation is actually coming from those who are ideologically aligned with the NRA -- the crowd that wants the Second Amendment to be the only part of the Bill of Rights that we have left. And there's a heavy preponderance of recognized hate groups in that mix. You figure it out.

Back to Dionne's comment, however. Here's a summary of the reactions from state and a few national politicians on the shooting. And here's a statement from the President. Note that no one of them says anything about guns and how easy they are to obtain, or how wide-open this country is to violence. The NRA has got them all thoroughly cowed. The only one who seems prepared to do anything substantive is Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who is re-introducing legislation to ban high-capacity magazines. And Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York is at least making the attempt to hold people's feet to the fire:

You know, soothing words are nice, but maybe it’s time that the two people who want to be President of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country. . . .

And everybody always says, ‘Isn’t it tragic,’ and you know, we look for was the guy, as you said, maybe trying to recreate Batman. I mean, there are so many murders with guns every day, it’s just got to stop. And instead of the two people – President Obama and Governor Romney – talking in broad things about they want to make the world a better place, okay, tell us how. And this is a real problem. No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them concretely, not just in generalities – specifically what are they going to do about guns?

Or, to put it in more realistic terms, what will the NRA allow them to do about guns?

If you want a good take on the scale of this problem, read this post by Darcy Burner. No other so-called "civilized" country can even come close to this. I can only echo Burner's final comment: "The NRA can go to hell."

Footnote: I just ran across this editorial from the New York Daily News that echoes Darcy Burner's sentiments, and my own:

The police chief in Aurora, Colo., said he is confident that massacre gunman James Holmes acted alone. The police chief was dead wrong.

Standing at Holmes’ side as he unleashed an AR-15 assault rifle and a shotgun and a handgun was Wayne LaPierre, political enforcer of the National Rifle Association.

Standing at Holmes’ side as he sprayed bullets and buckshot into a crowded movie theater were Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, a President and a would-be President, who have bowed to the NRA’s dictates and who responded to the slaughter Friday with revolting, useless treacle.

And this, somewhat more restrained, from NYT:

Politicians are far too fearful of the gun lobby to address gun violence, and, as a society, we keep getting stuck on a theoretical debate about the Second Amendment, which keeps us from taking practical measures that just might help avoid the all-too-frequent tragedies like the one in Aurora.

Whether you believe, as many perfectly reasonable people do, that the amendment gives each individual the right to bear arms, or whether you believe, as this editorial page has often argued, that it is society’s right to raising a militia, there is no excuse to ignore the out-of-control gun market.

I think everyone sees the problem, but those in a position to do something about it would prefer to sweep it under the rug.

Damned Socialist Canadians!

They're doing something right:

Over the past five years, the net worth of the average Canadian has crept up, overtaking the average American’s wealth for the first time. These days, Canadian households are about $40,000 richer than American ones.

Interesting article about how Canada has weathered the economic mess better than we have. Aside from Canadians' relative lack of personal debt, there's one key factor that stuck out:

On a national level, assets like the Alberta tar sands certainly help, but, Marche proposes, it was a policy of "hard-headed socialism" that allowed the banks and the housing market to stay stable and weather the global economic crisis.

It may also be that Canadians still believe a middle class has some value in a democratic society.

I wasn't going to write this post

But it seems I should.

It started with this post by Timothy Kincaid at BTB:

In the past four years we have witnessed a number of highly respected and influential black men – politicians, writers, sports legends, musicians, spiritual leaders, and even the President- have expressed their support for gay equality. The most established symbols of masculinity have made it clear that they do not see gay people as weak or inferior or less a part of the authentic black experience.

And it has impacted the community.

In the past, any suggestion that a rap artist might be gay put him outside the mainstream. If not totally ostracized, he was relegated to a niche and ignored (women have fared better, but only if they stayed semi-closeted). But when Frank Ocean released a statement revealing that his first love had been another man, the response has been noticeably different.

That led me to reflect on how acceptance of GLBTs has spread through popular culture -- think about it: ten years ago, do you think a sports figure would have been fined $50,000 for making a homophobic remark? And look at the resounding flop of NOM's "Dump Starbucks" campaign.

My first thought, of course, was comics, specifically superhero comics. Offhand, can you think of anything more heterocentric? Yes, I know there's always been a gay element -- I mean, come on, big muscular guys in tights and skimpy shorts? -- and the first gay characters made their appearance in the late '80s, but there was a certain element of tokenism there. In the past few years it's moved way beyond that. In the current Astonishing X-Men series, in which Northstar and Kyle get married, writer Marjorie Liu has taken the time to work in an up-close examination of their relationship. Here's one of the lighter moments:

It echoes something I noted about the relationship between Hulkling and Wiccan in Young Avengers: it's normal. It's perfectly normal, and it's accepted by their peers. The problems are the problems that any young couple has in learning to deal with each other.

So, while thinking these thoughts, I ran across this article:

The effects of such publishing milestones are palpable at Comic-Con, which is seeing more gay-themed panels, parties, signings and off-site events than ever before, notes Justin Hall, author of the just-released “No Straight Lines,” a retrospective of LGBT comics.

“Queer fandom is absolutely galvanized by seeing more accurate representations of ourselves,” he says. “There’s a snowball effect.”

“It’s always been going on under the surface, but now there’s a real queer presence,” adds Love Ablan, a self-described pop culture nerd who’s bisexual. “Even among non-queer fans. My super-straight guy friend is totally into this comic about queer bears.”

We're seeing the same sequence of events across the spectrum of popular culture, to the extent that it's strange if there's a soap opera that doesn't have a gay character. Sports clubs and leagues are taking active measures to penalize expressions of homophobia and both players and fans. And now we're seeing more musicians, especially in hip hop and rap, supporting the gay community.

It's inevitable, and I can hardly wait for the heads to start exploding on the right. (Yes, I know I'm not being nice, but then, they're not being nice to us.)

(Note: this one's been pretty much off the top of my head. When and if I have time and inclination, I'll go back and hunt up some links to the relevant stories.

Catching Up

It's been kind of sketchy this week, but I haven't been completely idle. Here's a couple of things I think are worth looking at.

First, David Link at IGF has done a very good take-down of Robert Gagnon's latest diatribe.

I am unqualified to criticize the theology in Robert Gagnon’s hefty essay on the biblical errors in Alan Chambers’ leadership of Exodus International.  But what’s at stake here is pretty considerable, and more than just theological.  Chambers is president of Exodus, the group that assists Evangelical Christians with “same-sex attraction.”  Exodus had famously supported the notion that gays could change their sexual orientation, but Chambers – a gay man who is satisfactorily married to a woman, though he does not deny he continues to be sexually attracted to men – says now that he doubts such change in orientation is possible.

His change about change is important, as the sheer length of Gagnon’s critique (35 pages, with appendices) suggests, because it lets us see what Maggie Gallagher and the NOM Choir try so furiously to obscure: all that is left of the debate over homosexuality is the vestigial tail of a religious question about sin.

I seldom agree with Link, so this is sort of important.

And at The Advocate, there's an interview with Barry Sandler, who wrote Making Love, which is a pretty important film in gay history. Remember what it was like in the early '80s?

On the DOMA Wars front, although BLAG (which is the acronym for the House's Bipartisan Legal Advisory Group, and somehow the acronym is just right) is defending DOMA in the courts, since no one else in the government wants to be humiliated, House Democrats are taking their own action -- 132 of them have signed on to an amicus brief in Golinski vs. Office of Personnel Management, which is being appealed to the Ninth Circuit after coming a cropper in the district proceedings:

Unlike most Acts of Congress, DOMA cannot be viewed as the rational result of impartial lawmaking and should be treated with judicial skepticism. The brief makes it clear that the House is not united on DOMA’s validity, that the BLAG lawyers do not speak for the entire institution, and that there is no legitimate federal interest in denying married same-sex couples the legal security, rights and responsibilities that federal law provides to couples who are married under state law. …This law affirmatively harms married gay and lesbian couples and their children.

And, sure as god made little fishes, 60 Democrats refused to sign on. There's a list at the link. If your rep is on it, write your Congressman.

So, let's finish off with a picture. I got a little point-and-shoot digital camera, just to try it out, and I hate it -- there's a time delay between when you point and when the image shows up on the display, and for better than thirty years I've been shooting really fast. But you can get some nice stuff. From a visit to Lincoln Park Conservatory.

Pffft!

I'm still laughing over this one:

Does he think it's a gender-neutral restroom? Does the Bible dictate men's and women's restrooms be at opposite sides of the building. Does he think someone's going to be in the restrooms to "help"?n Does he object because it's spelled correctly?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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.