Marriage News Watch: June 22, 2015

We're down to the last few days before the Supreme Court rules on marriage. In the mean time, the National Organization for Marriage is asking all of the GOP presidential candidates to sign an anti-equality pledge. Let's take a look at just how crazy this pledge gets.

Here's the text of NOM's "marriage pledge," courtesy of Good As You:

Of course, most of the Republican candidates are vowing to fight on, no matter what the Court rules. Here's Jeb! on the subject:

Many in the Republican Party have hinted that they would rather the issue simply went away. And while they might prefer that the court not invalidate state laws limiting marriage to heterosexual couples, they would welcome a decision that settled the question once and for all.

But with the court expected to rule before the end of the month on whether gay and lesbian couples have a constitutional right to marry, one of the looming questions for Mr. Bush and the other Republicans running for president is how aggressively they should respond to that ruling.

In his comments to the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Conference, Mr. Bush, the former governor of Florida, said he was not content to let the defense of traditional marriage fade away.

“It’s got to be important over the long haul, irrespective of what the courts say,” he said.

Of course, the basic question is, "What are they defending 'traditional marriage' from?" If the Court rules in favor of gay couples' right to equal protection, "traditional marriage" isn't going to disappear.

There's a deeper question here, and this comment by Bush throws it, I think, into some relief:

“In a country like ours we should recognize the power of a man and a woman loving their children with all their heart and soul as a good thing, as something that is positive and helpful for those children to live a successful life,” he said.

According to Pink News, he went on to say:

“And while there are people who disagree with this, we should not push aside those who do believe in traditional marriage.”

My first reaction was to wonder "Who, specifically, disagrees with this?" But there's some subtext here that falls into what I call "The 'Christian' Fallacy": the idea that there is only one option, and that is the one approved by whoever is speaking. It's the logical endpoint of a worldview that admits of only one possibility, itself an idea erroneous on its face: anyone who stops to think about it will realize that there are any number of pathways to a given place.

This also comes into play in regard to those poor, persecuted "Christians" who are only trying to bake "Christian" cakes or arrange "Christian" flowers. Aside from the fact that they're trying to set themselves above the law based on their cherry-picked "religious beliefs," they're not being persecuted. Their just being told to mind their own business.

Of course, if you've gotten to be as cynical as I am about politicians and why they say what they say (and never forget, the various avatars of Anti-Gay, Inc., are politicians one and all), a war always makes it easier to raise money.

Who Could Have Predicted This?

The white supremacist right wing is insisting that Dylann Roof has nothing to do with them:

“If starting a race war is what this kid is about, he did it in the worst possible way,” said Kirk Lyons, a prominent lawyer who has defended Ku Klux Klan members, supporters of the old southern Confederacy and a notorious Holocaust denier.

“I’m a Christian,” Lyons added. “I consider the congregants of black churches my fellow Christians. These are the last people you want to hurt.”

On far-right online comment forums, avowed white nationalists and white supremacists substantially agreed, worrying that the Charleston killings might become an excuse for the government they hate to arrest them, crack down on gun ownership and suppress public displays of the Confederate flag many of them revere.

(Emphasis added.)

I suspect we can see the real reason they're distancing themselves: they certainly don't want any closer scrutiny.

While they're claiming no knowledge of who Roof was and swearing that he had no association with anyone in their movement, they're dodging the question of who's responsible for creating the environment:

Whether Dylann Roof had a serious agenda or was just a deeply disturbed individual using the language of racial hatred to justify an irrational act, it is little mystery where he derived his ideas. News reports suggest Roof told either his friends or the police he meant to incite a race war – a term frequently thrown about online in response to the civil unrest in Ferguson, Missouri last year or in Baltimore in April. In the website manifesto, the author referenced the killing of Trayvon Martin, the black teenager from Florida who was shot by a neighbourhood watch leader three years ago.

A picture on Roof’s Facebook page showed him wearing a jacket with flags from apartheid-era South Africa and Rhodesia on the front – an association frequently made by advocates of an all-white America, or an all-white republic within its borders. The website containing the manifesto linked to his name was called The Last Rhodesian.

Where do you suppose he got the idea?

When domestic violence does break out, it reliably sparks panic in groups that skirt close to the wind in their rhetoric but do not want to be identified with acts of gratuitous violence.

Ben Jones of the Sons of Confederate Veterans – a one-time actor who appeared on the TV show Dukes of Hazzard – wasted no time denouncing the Charleston killings as “an act of purposeful evil”. He added: “We must not allow the sickness of one demented individual to become that with which the media and our ‘politically correct’ opponents define us. We are the same good-hearted people that we were last week and last year.”

Somehow, the "good-heartedness" of these groups eludes me. What is in stark relief is their moral cowardice.

Footnote: And why does this remind me of Tony Perkins' reaction to Dan Savage's comment, in the wake of a rash of suicides by gay teenagers, that Perkins went to his office every day and sat on a pile of dead queer kids? As you'll recall, Perkins' reaction was so close to hysterical as to make no difference. I smell a little bit of guilty panic here.

Either/Or

Have you noticed how often the right wing presents questions in terms of either/or? Here's an example from Jeb Bush (hereinafter known as "Jeb!") on same-sex marriage:

At the conference, he affirmed his support for “traditional marriage,” saying: “In a country like ours, we should recognize the power of a man and a woman loving their children with all their soul as a good thing, as something positive and helpful for those children to live successful lives.

“And while there are people who disagree with this, we should not push aside those who do believe in traditional marriage.”

First off, who, specifically, disagrees with his example? No one that I've heard of. Take this as another example of the arrogance and narcissism of the "Christian" right: theirs is the only possibility, and if you hold out other alternatives, which can certainly co-exist, then you're negating their position.

The reality, of course, is that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the right of same-sex couples to marry, "traditional marriage" will still be around. It's not being threatened at all, and those who support it are not being pushed aside -- they're simply being told to mind their own business.

It's a consequence of seeing the universe as sketched in black and white, a matter of absolutes, which, as we learn more and more about it, we realize isn't the case at all.

On Charleston

(And isn't it interesting how these mass murders are known by place names?)

The responses to this horror have been coming thick and fast, and rather than do my own analysis (which I was going to do, but as I said, "thick and fast" and a little much to keep up with), I'm going to rely on a couple of other commentators.

First, Jon Green at AmericaBlog has a good recap of the Republicans' attempt to dodge the race issue:

Roof traveled over 100 miles from his home in Lexington, South Carolina in order to target Emmanuel Church specifically. Roof’s Facebook photos showed him sporting and taking pictures with white supremacist flags, ranging from the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy all the way to the apartheid-era flags of South Africa and Rhodesia. The suspect’s former roommate was quoted by CBS as saying that Roof had been “planning something like that for six months,” and “said he wanted to start a civil war.” Roof reportedly told his victims, who were all black, that “you rape our women and are taking over our country.”

This was not a random, senseless act of violence. This was a planned, thought-out terror attack. It fits every one of our criteria for terrorism: Violence committed by a non-state actor with a clear political motive — in this case white supremacy. So, of course, mainstream conservatives — some of whom have a non-zero probability of being our next president — took to the airwaves to remind everyone that, despite the shooter’s clearly-stated motives, the attack really isn’t about race.

It’s actually an attack on Christianity.

Let's keep one idea front and center: this was about race. It was all about race. That's all it was about. The Republicans' problem is that they are, for some reason, reluctant to address racism as an issue -- unless, of course, it's about whites being discriminated against, which isn't really going to fly in this context.

The first one that I saw who labeled this an example of persecution against Christians was that font of wisdom, Rick Santorum. Now, of course, everyone's piling on, especially since President Obama commented on the shooting and the ease of acquiring guns. Don't be fooled -- Rick Perry knows it's about drugs:

Instead of talking about guns, Perry said, we should be talking about prescription drugs: “Also, I think there is a real issue to be talked about. It seems to me, again without having all the details about this, that these individuals have been medicated and there may be a real issue in this country from the standpoint of these drugs and how they’re used.”

He said that such drugs are responsible for high suicide and joblessness rates, adding that “there are a lot of issues underlying this that I think we as a country need to have a conversion about rather than just the knee-jerk reaction of saying, ‘If we can just take all the guns away, this won’t happen.’”

There's more -- pick a Republican presidential candidate, or non-candidate, or Fox News -- and brace yourself for a completely irrelevant reaction.

Another good summary/analysis comes from Digby, who surveys the off-the-wall responses -- this, from WSJ, is worth highlighting:

Today the system and philosophy of institutionalized racism identified by Dr. King no longer exists.

What causes young men such as Dylann Roof to erupt in homicidal rage, whatever their motivation, is a problem that defies explanation beyond the reality that evil still stalks humanity. It is no small solace that in committing such an act today, he stands alone.

Emphasis added.

I'm at a loss for words after that one. (But do remember one of the crimes punishable by death: existing while black.)

If you want to see a prime example of the evil that stalks humanity, read this rant by white-supremacist, arch-homophobe and Duggar defender Tony Perkins. Or at least, as much as you can without ruining your keyboard.

Read both Green's and Digby's posts. I can't do them justice through excerpts.

Curses, Foiled Again!

Something a little lighter than the news has been this week:

But We Knew That (Update)

At least, those of us who have been paying attention over the past few years, as the discourse on gay rights has focused more and more on marriage. From Tierney Sneed at TPM:

The leading opponents of same-sex marriage have been attempting to re-write recent American history, where decades of sneering public attacks on gays and lesbians, condemnations of their "lifestyle," and blaming them for a decline of America's moral virtue are quietly forgotten.

Their argument, made in front of the Supreme Court, no less, is that gay marriage bans are not motivated by prejudice toward gays and lesbians, but by a more noble if newfound purpose.

If one was paying attention, the fact that marriage bans were prompted by anti-gay animus comes as no surprise. Sneed outlines a number of examples. But that was going to sink them in the courts, so they came up with a brand shiny new argument:

The "problem" that bans on same-sex marriage were solving, in Bursh's view, was keeping biological parents attached to their children. How allowing gay couples to marry threatened that attachment puzzled even some of the justices -- Justice Elena Kagan called the reasoning "inexplicable." But even more bewildering, to longtime observers of the issue, is how divorced such logic was from the original motivation for the bans.

"The states’ arguments don’t pass the straight face test, no pun intended," Judith Schaeffer, vice president of Constitutional Accountability Center, a D.C.-based legal organization, said in an interview with TPM. "These are ridiculous arguments that are being made to cover up the fact that these discriminatory laws are motivated by a desire to keep gay people out of this important legal relationship."

It's rather more far-reaching than that, as witness the spate of "religious freedom" laws in state legislatures now that a Supreme Court decision supporting the right of same-sex couples to marry seems inevitable: the point of those laws is not to uphold "traditional marriage," but to create a special right of discrimination on religious beliefs. One example is the adoption law recently passed in Michigan, which gives religious-based adoption agencies the right to turn away prospective parents they don't approve of. Timothy Kincaid outlines the problem:

But these bills change the ground rules. These specifically say that contractors CAN discriminate, using taxpayer funds, so long as it’s based on a religious reason. And that is an unjustifiable position for a state. If a state contractor cannot provide services to all citizens on an equal and fair basis, then it’s time to go be a charity again.

I think that the legislators and Governor in Michigan will regret this decision. While it is intended to protect religious adoption agencies from placing children with gay couples, laws tend to never stay in the box for which they were intended. Unable to just come out and say “you can refuse gay people”, the legislature used the vaguer concept of ‘religious objection’ and that is a notion that is very broad.

Other laws cover small businesses, with even broader implications: you might as well kiss non-discrimination laws good-bye. And of course, no matter the language in the bills themselves, they are directed against gay people.

I'd like to say that the courts are going to throw these bills out, but we're now dealing with a legal landscape that includes Hobby Lobby, which, as you'll remember, not only assumes that corporations have the rights of natural persons, but they got religion, and the corporation's beliefs supercede the rights of its employees.

Update: And we know that Rick Santorum (google it!) is more than happy to reinforce whatever anti-gay bullshit he can:

Santorum was asked why the government “allows people that hurt children by way of child molestation” to impose their views upon the nation.

My own response would likely have had something to do with restricting access of heterosexual men to minors, especially evangelical preachers and Boy Scout leaders, but since it's Santorum, you can guess the response:

“Depending on what they rule, we would certainly make sure that we are protecting children and that we are creating an optimal atmosphere for every child, as I said, that have their birthright, which is to be raised by their mother and father.”

Have you noticed, by the way, that these proponents of the "traditional nuclear family" (as set forth by the Saints Nelson -- that would be Ozzie and Harriet) never espouse any programs to support families, or help teenagers avoid pregnancy, or anything like that? They're more likely to cut SNAP benefits.

Defiance!

No, not the TV series (which I'm anxiously awaiting on Netflix), but leading Republicans reacting to the possibility of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality.

Some highlights (if we can call them that):

Rick Santorum:

“We’re not bound by what nine people say in perpetuity.”

"I think it's important to understand that the Supreme Court doesn't have the final word," Santorum told viewers. "It has its word. Its word has validity. But it's important for Congress and the president, frankly, to push back when the Supreme Court gets it wrong."

Given that Santorum is exhibiting his usual clarity of thought, it's hard to know how to address this. Yes, Congress, at least, has the ability to "push back." Congress has tried that twice on this issue, and failed both times. Until Congress does manage to do something, we are bound by what those nine people say.

Mike Huckabee:

“Presidents have understood that the Supreme Court cannot make a law, they cannot make it, the legislature has to make it, the executive branch has to sign it and enforce it,” Huckabee told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “And the notion that the Supreme Court comes up with the ruling and that automatically subjects the two other branches to following it defies everything there is about the three equal branches of government.”

The Supreme Court can overturn a law, which is what it's being asked to do in this case. And the Supreme Court can indeed come up with a ruling that binds the other two branches, unless and until that ruling is overturned by some legal, constitutional means.

Ted Cruz:

“If the court tries to do this it will be rampant judicial activism. It will be lawlessness, it will be fundamentally illegitimate,” he said during an Iowa campaign stop earlier this spring.

Hmm -- the "judicial activism" mantra in overdrive. I still haven't figured out how a court ruling can be "lawless." It can be bad law, but it can't be lawless.

Cruz is really proving himself to be the wingnut's wingnut. And he's a serious contender for the Republican nomination.

Ben Carson:

"First of all, we have to understand how the Constitution works. The president is required to carry out the laws of the land, the laws of the land come from the legislative branch," Carson said in May. "So if the legislative branch creates a law or changes a law, the executive branch has a responsibly to carry it out. It doesn’t say they have the responsibility to carry out a judicial law. And that's something we need to talk about."

Ben Carson needs to figure out how the Constitution works. He seems to have missed the last couple hundred years of judicial history. A Supreme Court decision is the law of the land.

And of course, Judge Roy Moore:

"When federal courts start changing our Constitution by defining words that are not even there, like marriage, they're going to do the same thing with family in the future,” he later said, doubling down on his order. "When a word’s not in the Constitution, clearly the powers of the Supreme Court do not allow them to redefine words and seize power.”

Wow. Just "Wow!" This is a common thread through all the rhetoric of Anti-Gay, Inc., against marriage equality, and it's total bullshit. The Court is not redefining anything. The Court is addressing the applicability of the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the states' ability to abrogate the fundamental right of marriage for a class of citizens with no rational basis. Marriage will still be marriage.

I've skipped some -- Steve King, convicted felon Tom DeLay, Texas state rep Cecil Bell -- but I'm sure, if you care to take the time, you're more well-informed -- and more honest -- than they are: you can come up with your own comments.

Marriage News Watch, June 15, 2015

With the Supreme Court due to rule on marriage any day now, Presidential "candidate" Rick Santorum says he would fight back against a pro-equality ruling. He says that states allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry is a violation of his religious freedom, which is an argument a lot people made about interracial marriage in the 60s. So do couples need to worry about the possibility that Rick Santorum could stop them from marrying? No. For one thing, the president doesn't get to veto Supreme Court rulings. And for another, Rick Santorum will never be president.

More on Santorum's rationale for for refusing to enforce same-sex marriage (and what the hell does that even mean?):

When the United States government comes in and says this is what you are going to believe, this is how you're going to practice your faith, this is a new religion. This violates, in my opinion, the Establishment Clause in the Constitution that says that Congress shall make no law with respect to an establishment of religion. If the government goes around and tells churches what they have to believe in and what their doctrine is, that is something that is a violation of the First Amendment.

If you're sitting there thinking "WTF is he talking about?", join the club.

Or you can take it as just another example of the fundamental narcissism of the "Christian" right: somehow, in their universe, someone else's marriage is about them.

Idiot du Jour

Cal Thomas' take on the upcoming Supreme Court ruling on marriage rights.

Even during the anti-slavery movement, even the pro-slavery movement in the South in the United States, the United States government didn't come in and try to keep pastors from preaching either for or against slavery," he insisted. "They let them have freedom of speech. You hear a lot from the left about the separation of church and state. A lot of evangelicals would would be happy if the state got back on its side of the line.

The only ones talking about keeping pastors from preaching whatever they want are Anti-Gay, Inc., and they're just doing it to scare people and increase their cash flow. As for the line between church and state, the state (and the rest of us) would be happy if evangelicals got back on their side of the line. Note to Cal Thomas: people criticizing you for repulsive opinions is not the same as the government censoring your speech.

If equal protection covers gays, lesbians, transgenders and the rest, what about the polygamists?" Thomas asked. . . .

So, who's going to say no? And based on what?" he continued. "Where's the standard. If it's not the Constitution, if it's not scripture, where is the standard?

Well, the Court is not considering a case brought by polygamists, so there's no need to worry about that right now. And considering Thomas' insistence on scripture, one wonders if he's read it at all. I refer him to King Solomon, for example, who wound up with 700 wives.

Besides, the Supreme Court is not allowed to base its decisions on scripture. Anybody's. So we're stuck with the Constitution, which does guarantee all citizens equal protection of the law and the exercise of their fundamental rights -- which include marriage to the person of one's choice.

If you are going to repeal something that has been part of human history for thousands of years, what's the new standard? And according to whom?

Is someone repealing something? News to me. Somehow, expanding a fundamental right doesn't really seem like repealing anything, y'know?

The more shrill they get, the stupider they sound.

This Is Promoting Sin

According to Franklin Graham:

I wonder how many disabled children Franklin Graham has adopted.

From Graham:

Every day it is something else! Tiffany’s started advertising wedding rings for gay couples. Wells Fargo bank is using a same-sex couple in their advertising. And there are more. But it has dawned on me that we don’t have to do business with them.

At the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, we are moving our accounts from Wells Fargo to another bank. And guess what—we don’t have to shop at Tiffany & Co., there are plenty of other jewelry stores.

This is one way we as Christians can speak out—we have the power of choice. Let’s just stop doing business with those who promote sin and stand against Almighty God’s laws and His standards.

The punchline:

[Graham]called on Christians to boycott Wells Fargo, and move their money to a bank that does not support LGBT equality.

As NCRM pointed out yesterday, good luck finding one.

Graham yesterday told the Family Research Council that he's settled on BB&T Bank, which is based in his home state of North Carolina.

Someone probably should let him know, as Right Wing Watch points out, that he "may not have done much research, as BB&T has received an 80 percent score in the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index and this year is the sponsor of the Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade, along with the chief sponsor of Miami Beach Gay Pride’s “Legacy Couples” program, which celebrates same-sex couples in “committed relationships of 10 years or longer.”

Note to Franklin Graham: We're everywhere.

Through the Looking Glass

And the award today goes to Sen. John Thune (R-WTF?), for what is perhaps the most jaw-dropping tweet ever:

Via Joe.My.God.

Marriage News Watch, June 8, 2015

A bill to allow North Carolina officials to refuse to serve any couple they don't like is several steps closer to passing, even after the governor vetoed it. Texas is coming up with new excuses for refusing to issue marriage licenses. And with a federal ruling on marriage due any day now, Judge Roy Moore continues to speak out against the Supreme Court.

Compare and Contrast

(Be warned: for some reason, Blogger is not accepting my spacing this morning, so there are portions of this that are going to bee somewhat run-on.)

The subject today is real Christians.
First, we have this young woman:

One interesting aspect of this story is that neither Hailey nor her mother even mention their religious beliefs as a motivation for undertaking these projects: “It just doesn’t seem right,” [Hailey] told local KING 5 News, “because I think everyone should have a place to live.” And then there are those who wave their religion around like an AK-47: Joseph Farah, editor of WND, is always good for a laugh:

I know there are millions of Christians, Jews and others who would pull up stakes and move to another country that honored the institution of marriage as it was designed by God – a union between one man and one woman. As Jesus said it: 'For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh.' Is there one state in 50 that would not only defy the coming abomination, but secede in response?

That's been tried. It didn't end well -- for the secessionists, at least. Or Matt Barber:

Certainly, this novelty of so-called gay marriage is going to be one of the primary, I believe, drawbacks that end up potentially leading to the end of western civilization as we certainly know it now, at least.

Cue Ragnarok. (But have you noticed that all those "end of the world" scenarios in all the major mythologies -- at least, the non-Christian ones -- all end with a rebirth into something better?) And of course, Old Reliable, Tony Perkins:

in the last seven years, Americans have witnessed an almost perpetual parade of deviance, with the President grand marshalling them all! Now, the government's rainbow love fest is spilling over into the military, where each branch is racing to out-sexualize the other. Going where no branch has gone before, the Air Force will let high-ranking officials decide the fate of known transgenders in their ranks. Unfortunately, the President has certainly agreed with any LGBT sentiment that undermines marriage, free speech, public health, religious liberty, and now national security.

And that's just a quick sample from the past few days. I'd love to be in a position to ask some of these high-profile "Christians" how many homeless people they've sheltered or how many hungry people they've fed. And remind them about Matthew 25:35-40:

35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him and say, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 When did we see you ill or in prison, and visit you?’ 40 And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’

Tweet du Jour

Under the heading "Do they even hear what they're saying?"




Words fail me.

Via Mahablog.

Marriage News Watch, June 1, 2015

An NBC station in Tennessee is refusing to broadcast footage of a gay soldier who wants to get married. The governor of North Carolina vetoed a bill that would let state officials turn gay couples away from marriage counters -- but the bill's not dead yet. And Alabama is actually going through with a threat to stop issuing marriage licenses state-wide -- but that might not have the effect they want.

Here's the ad that was rejected in Chatanooga:

Strangely enough, the ad is running in Memphis and Nashville. I guess Chatanooga is special.

Best Ad Ever

I don't have anything to add:

Although the puppy's cute, too.

Unintended Hiatus

Life has a way of happening, sometimes.

Marriage News Watch, May 25, 2015

Alabama has sent a minister to jail for 30 days for defying a local judge and marrying a lesbian couple. Irish voters support marriage equality in a landslide, but marriage could still start in America before they start in Ireland. And one more study shows support for equality on the rise.

Actually, the Irish government has already started drafting the necessary legislation with an eye toward having it passed before summer.

Work will begin this week to give effect to the referendum decision to amend the Constitution with the first same-sex marriages likely to take place as early as September.

Tánaiste Joan Burton said legislation would be brought before the Seanad and Dáil as early as possible, with the aim of getting it passed before the summer recess.

“That would mean that we would be in a position to have same-sex marriage celebrations, civil ceremonies by, probably, September,” she told reporters at the Africa Day celebrations in the Phoenix Park.

Marriage News Watch, May 18, 2015

Texas is setting itself up for a showdown with the Supreme Court. A bill to defy the court's rulings died in the House last week, but anti-gay politicians could find a sneaky way to revive it. Meanwhile, the Attorney General of Texas refuses to say if he'll obey the Supreme Court's ruling in June.

I really have nothing to say, except maybe the armed forces should invade Texas.

Image(s) of the Week

It's hard to explain, sometimes, why I shoot the pictures I shoot. Call it instinct, refined by a lifetime of making visual images in one medium or another -- and studying the work of other artists, of course. (No one works in a vacuum.)

At any rate, a couple more from the "Skylines" series:

And minus the fog:

It's still about edges. And diagonals -- can't do without diagonals.

Remember Mark Regnerus?

And his "study" on people raised by gay parents? Except that almost none of them were:

In an upcoming article, a pair of sociologists are putting what they call the “final nail in the coffin” of the much-criticized study by University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus that purported to show that being raised by gay and lesbian parents harms children. The Regnerus study has become a favorite tool of Religious Right activists seeking to show that households led by same-sex couples are bad for children. At the same time, the study has come under scrutiny for the funding it received from anti-gay groups and for its lack of respondents who were actually raised in same-sex parent households.

Indiana University's Brian Powell and the University of Connecticut’s Simon Cheng didn’t just find methodological flaws in Regnerus’ research — they took the data he collected, cleaned it up, and redid the study, coming to a very different conclusion about families led by same-sex couples.

It seems that not only was the methodology flawed, but a significant portion of the data was suspect:

By eliminating suspect data — for example, a 25-year-old respondent who claimed to be 7’8” tall, 88 pounds, married 8 times and with 8 children, and another who reported having been arrested at age 1 — and correcting what they view as Regnerus’ methodological errors, Cheng and Powell found that Regnerus’ conclusions were so “fragile” that his data could just as easily show that children raised by gay and lesbian parents don’t face negative adult outcomes. . . .

Many people who he categorized as having been raised by a gay or lesbian parent had spent very little time with that parent or with his or her same-sex partner. Even Regnerus admitted that his data included only two people who said they had been raised for their entire childhoods by a same-sex couple.

There are also serious questions about the genesis and conduct of the study, as well as its publication -- why was it accepted for publication before the data analysis was complete? for example. (The article at the link strikes me as a little shrill, even verging on sensationalistic, but seems, ultimately, to be well-documented. A more concise and less slanted summary is at Wikipedia.)

Of course, this won't affect Anti-Gay, Inc.'s use of the study -- they'll just mutter something about "the gaystapo" and keep on citing it.

Marriage News Watch, May 11, 2015

Texas lawmakers vote this week on whether the state should officially defy the Supreme Court's ruling on marriage. Alabama and Minnesota are debating bills to undermine marriage equality. At least one presidential candidate seems to think that if elected he could veto the Supreme Court. But a new survey shows that Americans are getting tired of these anti-gay shenanigans.

Pamela Geller and Free Speech

Not to mention a free press. Geller, via Digby:

I have been working closely with [Cliff] Kincaid (Ed.: another anti-Muslim extremist) for years to keep Al Jazeera off American airwaves. There is still time to keep this vicious jihadist network off American airwaves. Urge the House Homeland Security Committee to convene hearings into the national security threat posed by Al Jazeera on American soil.

From everything I've seen, Al Jazeera is more reliable than, say, Fox News.

"Free speech for me, but not for thee" -- how very right-wing.

Today's Must-Read

"How to Talk to Your Kids About Bernie Sanders," by Kimberly Harrington.

And I really don't have anything to add.

The Big Night

Remember the straight guy in Las Vegas who asked his gay best friend to the prom? Well, here's a mini-documentary of the big night:

They're so cute I can barely stand it.

Rights and Responsibilities

Well, Pam Geller got her wish:

Texas police shot dead two gunmen who opened fire on Sunday outside an exhibit of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad that was organized by an anti-Islamic group and billed as a free-speech event. . . .

The exhibit was organized by Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI). Her organization, which is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group, has sponsored anti-Islamic advertising campaigns in transit systems across the country.

Organizers of the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” said the event was to promote freedom of expression. They offered a $10,000 prize for the best artwork or cartoon depicting the Prophet, as well as a $2,500 “People’s Choice Award.”

Depictions of the Prophet Mohammad are viewed as offensive in Islam, and Western art that portrays the Prophet has sometimes angered Muslims and provoked threats and attacks from radicals.

One thing we don't hear much about from the proponents of our "Constitutional rights" is the responsibility that goes with those rights. I mean, that's part of the deal, right? You exercise your right to free speech, but you also undertake to exercise that right in a responsible manner. After all, we live in a society in which everyone, at least theoretically, is equal and is treated fairly. The only way to make that work is for us to exercise some restraint. It's also known as "common courtesy."

What we've been seeing more and more in recent years is the demand that people be allowed to exercise their rights with no restraints: want to take your AK-47 to Chipotle? Well, that's your right. If it makes other patrons uneasy or concerned about their safety, well, that's their problem. Want to assert your right to religious freedom by refusing to offer to gay couples the same services you offer to anyone else, no questions asked? Well, that's your right. If the gay couple is hurt and insulted, well, that's their problem. Want to engage in inflammatory speech vilifying a group you don't approve of? Well, that's your right. If someone takes forceful exception to your words, that's not your fault.

It's really an infantile take on citizenship.

So, Pam Geller (who's a real piece of work -- a couple of her more outrageous escapades are noted in the article) wants to hold a "free speech" event deliberately designed to offend and insult Muslims? Well, that's her right.

And who's to blame if someone gets shot?

Pam Geller.

But you won't hear that from her -- she doesn't seem to be real big on taking responsibility.

Another Upbeat Story

This is sweet, and once again, another indicator of how badly the "Christian" right is losing hearts and minds. I'm not going to recap -- the whole story's in the clip:

Did It Again: Image of the Week

I really do try to post these on Fridays. In fact, I remember thinking this Friday past, "I have to post and 'Image of the Week'." And then, for some reason, I didn't. Well, here it is, from Bernice:

It's particularly appropriate right now because I've actually been seeing butterflies out in the park, and even around my neighborhood. Maybe we really will have summer. Eventually.

An Antidote

To all the hysteria spewing forth from the usual suspects on same-sex marriage. This is the kind of story that, for the time being, is still news:

The Mussleman High School senior prom was held at The Heritage Hall in Inwood, West Virginia. Among the couples attending were Michael Martin, a Mussleman senior, and his boyfriend Logan Westrope, who attends Hedgesville High School.

In a rational world, there wouldn't be a story here: two kids go to a senior prom. Big deal. And in this case, it wasn't such a big deal:

"We knew this would be a night to remember," Logan told Outsports. "We walked in, checked in with our tickets, and were off to have fun! At first we were both a little hesitant to hold hands, not knowing how the rest of the student body would react. But after a short while, we were always next to each other and danced together the whole night. . . .

"We didn't hear any negative comments about Michael and I. A lot of people would come up to us (especially the girls) and say, 'You both are so cute!' or 'You guys look great!' Once we left the prom, I remember Michael saying to me in the car, 'Logan, this is our last prom and I'm so glad I got to spend it with you.' I couldn't have asked for a more perfect night."

Read the whole story. Do.

Via The New Civil Rights Movement.

Well, This Is Interesting

Backlash seems to have lasting effects:

Members of the Michigan Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony Tuesday on whether Michigan needs a law that backers say protects people's religious freedoms and opponents say permits discrimination against gays and others.

The bill appears to have little chance of passing and may not go any further in the Legislature. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has threatened to veto the legislation unless lawmakers also extend anti-discrimination protections to gays, and Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Rick Jones of Grand Ledge said Tuesday that no further hearings were planned on the measure.

It seems that state legislators are not so eager to adopt broad "religious freedom" bills after the double debacle in Indiana and Arkansas.

Of course, there's always Bobby Jindal:

In 2010, Louisiana adopted a Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prohibits government from unduly burdening a person’s exercise of religion. However, given the changing positions of politicians, judges and the public in favor of same-sex marriage, along with the potential for discrimination against Christian individuals and businesses that comes with these shifts, I plan in this legislative session to fight for passage of the Marriage and Conscience Act.

Oh, this is good:

I hold the view that has been the consensus in our country for over two centuries: that marriage is between one man and one woman. Polls indicate that the American consensus is changing — but like many other believers, I will not change my faith-driven view on this matter, even if it becomes a minority opinion.

Translation: I'm going to impose my religious beliefs on everyone, no matter what.

And now you know why everyone laughs when you say "Bobby Jindal."

Culture Break: Robert MirabaI: The Dance

I ran across Robert Mirabal many years ago, when I was investigating American Indian music. He was, at that time, a noted flute player. He went on to move into a more pop/rock oriented mode, but still with strong roots in tradition. This is more or less in that mode:

I'm always impressed by the way traditional musicians from any number of cultures can adopt and adapt Western pop modes to their music without losing the sense of the original tradition.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? Redux

Guess

There's a huge discussion going on at Joe.My.God. about the dinner for Ted Cruz thrown by Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass. What bothers me about many of the comments is evidence of what I call "right-wing logic": I know it's true, therefore it must be true, even though I have no evidence indicating it's true.

This stems largely from the insistence that the dinner was a fundraiser, even though the hosts insist that it was not -- but it must have been, because Cruz is running for president.

That's sort of like saying that Hillary Clinton having lunch at Chipotle must have been a fundraiser because she's running for president.

*sigh*

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

After too many days of news reports about two gay New York developers/hoteliers, Ian Reisner and Mati Weiderpass, hosting a dinner party for Ted Cruz (which was definitively NOT a fundraiser), all I've got to say to the gay "activists" kicking up all the fuss is, "Is this all you've got to worry about right now?"

Sorry, boys and girls, but this is something rich people do: if someone important is coming to town, if you have the right connections, you throw a dinner party for them. If you're involved in politics, it's going to be a politician.

So by all means, give the likes of Erick Erickson more ammunition. That'll help the cause.

Marriage News Watch, April 27, 2015

We'll have oral argument before the Supreme Court this week. Ted Cruz has introduced two new bills in Congress to stop marriage, but they may backfire on him. And the National Organization for Marriage has lost yet another court case.

More later -- if I can find the links.

Image of the Week

I don't really have anything in mind, so I'm just going to dip into the files and see what looks good.

Here's one from Bernice. We don't have butterflies on the loose yet, but you can find them year 'round at the Nature Museum:

And from me, one looking through the fence at the Addison Street nature reserve. It doesn't look like this yet, but it will.

The Tony Perkins Award

Today, the proud recipient is Pastor/Governor Mike Huckabee (and maybe, one day, he'll figure out the difference), for this whopper:

If the courts rule that people have a civil right not only to be a homosexual but a civil right to have a homosexual marriage, then a homosexual couple coming to a pastor who believes in biblical marriage who says ‘I can’t perform that wedding’ will now be breaking the law. It’s not just saying, ‘I’m sorry you have a preference.’ No, you will be breaking the law subject to civil for sure and possible criminal penalties for violating the law. If you do practice biblical convictions and you carry them out and you do what you’ve been led by the spirit of God to do, your behavior will be criminal. God help us all.

Strangely enough, Pastor-Governor Huckabee seems to have forgotten the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause. I guess he thinks that only applies to bakers, florists, and photographers.

Theocracy on the March

Looks like the gloves are off in the "Christian" right's war against everything not of the "Christian" right -- including the United States of America.

First up, the ever-reliable Family Research Council, with day something or other their prayer jihad against the Supreme Court. The give-away:

May [Justice Sotomayor] refrain now and for the rest of her tenure as a justice from supporting any law that forces people to do anything the Bible calls sin and that violates their religious conscience. . . . May God move Justice Sotomayor to vote for each state’s right to reflect the deeply held faith of a majority of its citizens, especially as expressed by their votes to uphold traditional marriage.

In other words, forget the Constitution and rule according to Tony Perkins' interpretation of Leviticus.

The military, with its history of "Onward, Christian Soliders," is a prime target:

[Mike]Huckabee told Iowa talk radio host Jan Mickelson that the Obama administration “orders its chaplains to put its Bibles away, not to pray in Jesus' name, not to counsel people on the issues of sexual morality.”

“When you have this attitude that is more about promoting gay marriage and gay rights in the military than it is about being able to protect religious liberty for those people of faith,” Huckabee said, “it’s going to be hard to find people that are truly devoted people of faith and Christian believers and Orthodox Jews and others.”

Interesting that only Orthodox Jews count as "people of faith." The rest of Huckabee's comment is pure bullshit.

Military chaplains are not there to proselytize. They are charged with counseling those of all faiths -- there's even a section in their manual on Wiccan practices, although there are apparently no Wiccan chaplains. (Here's a nice litle story about what happened to the first chaplain to try to change his affiliation to Wiccan.)

And of course, it's in the states that you're going to find the most rapid theocrats. Let's teach Christianity in the public schools!

"What you don’t know is that yesterday, the imam prayed. That one didn’t make the press. You see, when we’re not willing to defend our God in the public square, we shouldn’t be surprised when others try to replace Him. When we fail to teach it in the public school, the history of this nation, the God mentioned in our Declaration, the Supreme Being mentioned in the preamble of this constitution of the state. And we not only don’t teach it, but we suppress it and refuse to allow it to be taught.

We shouldn’t be surprised when others do differently and expect differently and think that religion is just about equality, because it’s not,. There’s only one true God. And the Bible’s quite clear about what happens when we refuse to tell the truth and we allow others to tell a wrong truth. That’s where we’re at. We’ve been neglectful, we’ve been very neglectful. So no one even spoke about the imam being there yesterday or the Muslims that were all around the center of the capitol, talking and evangelizing about their way of life.

Do they have that freedom? Absolutely. But the shame is that so little people know the truth about the heritage, the Christian heritage — I’m sorry, Mr. President, but we are, we were a Christian nation and we were founded on Christian values."

All straight out of the echo chamber in which she was raised. Do I really need to rebut this nonsense?

Fasten your seat belts -- it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Marriage News Watch, April 20, 2015

I've rounded up the weirdest Supreme Court briefs that argue in favor of preventing gays and lesbians from marrying. Some are full of mistakes, others have baffling arguments. And at least one is incredibly sexist, and signed by a member of Congress.

Desperately hoping something sticks to the wall.

Here's yet another one, from fifteen state attorneys general.

One thing that strikes me, reading through a number of these briefs, is that they all start, as they must, with the "Questions Presented," the two questions the Court said it wanted responses to. (Except for NOM's amicus brief -- NOM rewrote the questions.) Those two questions are:

1. Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?

2. Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

And then they lay out arguments based on reproductive biology, "vox populi", tradition, natural law, and a whole resale shop full of bizarre arguments (including one brief about Alfred Kinsey, for some reason), and nothing about the Fourteenth Amendment.

Question: Is it reading comprehension, or attention span?

Stupid Tweet du Jour

This is actually from yesterday: it's über-blowhard Bryan Fischer's response to Marco Rubio's statement that he thinks gays are born that way.*

WTF is "anti-genetics credibility"?

*Rubio still thinks marriage should be reserved for straights. The whole argument is nonsense anyway, as far as civil rights are concerned -- although I'll be willing to reconsider when someone discovers the "Christian" gene.

So how's that for a bargain? Two idiots in one post.

Sidebar: In some comment thread or other -- I've forgotten where it was -- some nitpicking genius made the breathtaking announcement that sexual orientation is not genetic, it's epigenetic. News flash: for all practical purposes, it's the same thing.

Image of the Week: Oops, Did It Again!

Yesterday was so beautiful, I couldn't wait to get out, so of course I forgot to post an image.

I've been playing with edges, which right now means a series I'm calling "Skylines." Here's one:

It occurs to me that my images these days are based as much on color field painting as Garry Winogrand or Todd Papageorge.

Go figure.

Here's another, not in the "Skylines" series:

Hmm -- looks like the edges are invading the center.

Hardball Diplomacy

Laurent Stefanini

I don't know if you've been following the adventures of France's new nominee for Ambassador to the Holy See, but it's been interesting:

Last January, the Council of Ministers appointed Laurent Stefanini, (photo above) a 55-year-old career foreign service officer who is openly gay, to be France's ambassador to the Vatican. That post, to the historic Villa Bonaparte Embassy in Rome, is considered a plum assignment, often given as a reward for years of service by members of France's diplomatic corps.

The Vatican was notified of the new ambassador in early January, and the ambassadorship has been vacant for more than a month now, but Stefanini has yet to be credentialed by the Vatican. Reports are Pope Francis himself personally rejected the posting, telling members of the Curia that he would not yield.

This, apparently, is the way things are done at the Vatican: no outright refusal to accept the Ambassador's credentials, just silence. In the good old days, after a certain period of non-response, the nomination would be withdrawn and a substitute named. But that was the good old days:

France has announced it will not rescind the nomination of Laurent Stefanini as its ambassador to the Vatican. Speculation is that French officials have determined to force Pope Francis to either accept Msr. Stefanini's appointment or openly reject it for all the world to see.

A government spokesman, Stephane LeFoll, told France24:

"France has chosen its ambassador to the Vatican. This choice was Stefanini and that remains the French proposal. ...We are awaiting the response from the Vatican."

I'm with France -- if the Pope is going to reject the nomination, let him do it openly.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out -- the article notes that "negotiations are underway."

Culture Break: New Order, "True Faith"

There's a story here, of a sort: this is a song that I have heard over the years every once in a while, inevitably over the sound system in some establishment where the staff have no idea what's playing. Well, I walked into a local resale shop recently and there it was, coming over the sound system. I asked. They checked. And so, Dear Reader, we bring you New Order's "True Faith."

And since I know nothing about the band (during the '80s I was listening to mostly classical music), this is what Wikipedia has to say -- or the beginning of what Wikipedia has to say:

New Order are an English rock band formed in 1980 and currently consisting of Bernard Sumner, Stephen Morris, Gillian Gilbert, Phil Cunningham and Tom Chapman. The band was formed in 1980 by Sumner (vocals, guitars, keyboards and synthesisers), Peter Hook (bass and vocals) and Morris (drums, electronic drums, keyboards and synthesisers) – the remaining members of Joy Division, following the suicide of vocalist Ian Curtis – with the addition of Gilbert (keyboards, synthesisers and guitars).

By combining post-punk and electronic dance music, New Order became one of the most critically acclaimed and influential bands of the 1980s.

And now, to the reason for this post:

Today's Must Read: It's the Economy, Stupid (Redux) (Update, Update II)

Very good, concise view of a recent study on income inequality and its effects on the economy -- which, of course, anyone who stops to think for a minute will realize is not good:

The United States has a private economy, but relies on public spending to guarantee a (low) floor of economic wellbeing. And it’s no secret that, for decades, private companies have taken advantage of that public floor to pay workers less than what they’re worth.

But now that fact has a number: $153,000,000,000. According to a new study from UC Berkeley, highlighted by the Washington Post, that’s how much taxpayers spend in public assistance every year on families that are also receiving a paycheck.

These are families that don’t want to be on TANF or SNAP, and don’t want to be shamed by the GOP for not qualifying for the federal income tax, but the jobs they hold down aren’t paying them enough in wages to make ends meet on their own.

The favorite targets on something like this are WalMart and McDonald's, and they certainly are egregious scrooges when it comes to paying their employees a living wage, but it's a fairly widespread phenomenon. Apple, for example, brags about creating over a million jobs in the past few years -- and then as you scroll down, you notice that Apple's employees in the U.S. number 66,000. The number is significantly higher -- as in, an order of magnitude higher -- overseas, counting in Apple's suppliers. It makes good sense from their point of view, which has little or nothing to do with the state of the American worker. Come to think of it, it's not so great for the Chinese worker, either. And they're not alone.

Read the whole thing. There are also some good comments.

And add to that this post from Tom Sullivan at Hullabaloo which notes a key observation from Robert Reich:

In recent decades Republicans have made a moral case for less government and lower taxes on the rich, based on their idea of “freedom.”

They talk endlessly about freedom but they never talk about power. But it’s power that’s askew in America –concentrated power that’s constraining the freedom of the vast majority.

Update: Factor in this:

It’s hard to comprehend the thinking of people who cut funding for homeless and hungry children. It may be delusion about trickle-down, it may be indifference to poverty, it may be resentment toward people unable to “make it on their own.”

The indifference and resentment and disdain for society reach around the globe. Only two nations still refuse to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: South Sudan and the United States.

Maybe it makes them feel powerful.

Update II: Of course, the Republicans have a solution to the problem:

GOP leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) have begun to recognize that the vast gap between rich and poor is detrimental — and to blame the problem on President Obama. Their solution, so far, has been to propose cuts of hundreds of billions of dollars from food stamps, Pell grants, Medicaid and other programs for those without means — and, on Tax Day, to give $269 billion to the few who already have the most.

That'll fix it, all right.

Marriage News Watch, April 13, 2015

We have more details about the Supreme Court arguments at the end of the month. The National Organization for Marriage has fumbled yet another brief. And two public officials are suing for the right to discriminate.

I commented on NOM's "amicus brief" here.

Today's Must Read: It's Not All Christians

This:

John Pavlovitz . . . is an 18-year local church ministry veteran.

He is currently the pastor of a house church community called North Wake House Church, and also a volunteer at North Raleigh Community Church.

He is married to wife, Jennifer, and has two young children, Noah and Selah. He’s also a keen blogger, and a blog that he posted last week – entitled ‘If I Have Gay Children: Four Promises From A Christian Pastor/Parent’ has gone viral and prompted thousands of comments.

The reason? Because he believes he would treat his LGBTI children with exactly the same love and support as if they were straight, and would pray that they weren’t the victims of ignorance or hatred.

You can read his original blog post at the link. Do it.

Over the Top and Through the Looking Glass

It's time for the Through the Looking Glass Award, and we've got a couple of candidates this morning.

First, the "Family" "Research" Council, on Day Four of their twenty-one day prayer and fasting vigil leading up to oral arguments in Obergefell et al. before the Supreme Court. This one's good:

Today, we must pray for each member and the collective court:

-- May those Justices who fear God, prepare and rule in the fear of God (2 Sam 23:3),

-- May the literal fear of God fall upon those Justices who do not fear Him.

-- May the Fear of God be upon each member’s staff: their clerks, their assistants, their friends, their families and all who influence them.

-- May they collectively sense the very power and presence of God hovering over them, warning them of his righteousness and justice; warning them that they must give an account to the Supreme Judge of the World for their actions.

-- May they receive visions and dreams like Abimelech, Pharaoh, Pilate’s wife, Belshazzar; Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, warning them of what will come to pass if they rule wrongly in this important case. May they be shown the consequences of their decision.

-- And finally, may they, like Balaam, who was warned by God’s voice not to take an assignment from Balak, to curse the Jews, be rebuked supernaturally as Balaam was, by a dumb donkey speaking, and an angel of the Lord, his sword drawn, ready to kill Balaam. When he met Balak to fulfil his contract, he could only speak the words God commanded him – to “bless and not curse” the Jews. May that power fall upon the entire court, in such a way that those who now lack the fear of God will be moved by the fear of God to vote in a way they would not otherwise have voted. Take the time to read 1Samuel 22-24, and God will stir you to pray. Read all of Hebrews 11 and He will give you faith to believe for Him to move upon these men and women in miraculous ways.

Prayers like we’ve always prayed will not do today, this is life or death. In Acts 4:23-31.

God has supernaturally intervened to save America at crucial moments throughout our history, and had he not, our nation would not even exist today.

I have to say, a religion founded in fear doesn't really inspire a lot of respect -- at least not from me, but then, I don't respond well to authority.

But, "God has supernaturally intervened"? I'd really like to see some evidence of that -- and I don't mean one of David Barton's fantasies.

And just exactly how is someone else's marriage a matter of "life or death"?

And if you want to do some interpretation of the story of Balaam, which group is a better fit for the Jews?

And, again regarding Obergefell, et al., another amicus brief, from a group of "religious organizations". This section is just overflowing with something:

Representative democracy matters to religious organizations and people of faith.

Unless the vote doesn't go their way, in which case, they run to -- you guessed it -- the courts. (I understand someone's still trying to overturn same-sex marriage in New York.)

Their capacity to build communities where their values are respected and their ways of life protected depends on the plu­ralism that our democratic institutions foster and secure. The fundamental liberty of religious believers to participate with other free citizens in deliberating about and shaping the character of their common destiny has been protected by this Court’s determina­tion to read the Constitution as a charter for “people of fundamentally differing views.”

Considering the lack of tolerance on the part of these organizations for "fundamentally differing views," this is beyond laughable. We are talking about denominations that have spend a great deal of energy and resources attempting to deny equal rights to others throughout their histories.

To de­clare an unprecedented constitutional right to same-sex marriage would deny people of faith who support traditional marriage the liberty to participate as equal citizens in deciding which values and policies will govern their communities.

First, I have to ask whether any of the groups filing as amici on this side of the question have any capacity for reading comprehension at all. This is not about whether there is a consitutional right to same-sex marriage, but, as the Court quite plainly stated, it's about whether the Fourteenth Amendment requires states to treat same-sex couples the same as opposite-sex couples in regard to marriage laws. As to their liberty to "participate as equal citizens," see my previous comment.

We urge the Court to trust the people and their democratic institutions to resolve the marriage issue, as it has on other divisive issues so many times.

Right -- just the way those democratic institutions resolved the divisive issues of slavery, segregation, voting rights, women's rights, interracial marriage, stuff like that.

I'm hard put to decide which of these efforts is more deserving of the Through the Looking Glass Award. Care to offer an opinion?

Image du Jour

Let's see, what's in the picture files today?

Geese, from Bernice. They're always here, but they seem to be everywhere these days. And they'll always find time to tidy up.

Headline du Jour

Via Joe.My.God.:

The article.

Culture Break: Icehouse, "Love in Motion"

The song is titled on the videos as "No Promises," but on the album it's "Love in Motion," so that's what I'm using.

There are songs songs that grab you right away. Some of them stay with you. I first heard this one in a bar in the late-1980s-early 1990s, had no idea who it was, so I asked. Wound up buying a couple of Icehouse albums. Icehouse was, basically, Iva Davies and whoever was working with him at the time. And yes, it's Australian.

Today's Press Release from NOM

Sorry -- excuse me: they're calling it an amicus curiae brief. It just reads like a press release, starting with NOM's version of the questions to be argued:

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

1. Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to redefine marriage and license a marriage between two people of the same sex, contrary to express, recently reaffirmed vote of the people of the state?

2. Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex performed out of state, when doing so is contrary to the state’s own fundamental policy decision?

The questions the court actually wanted addressed are as follows:

1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex?

2) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to recognize a marriage between two people of the same sex when their marriage was lawfully licensed and performed out-of-state?

It goes downhill from there. The whole brief is at the first link above. I may come back to it -- it's a cloudy, nasty day, so I may get bored enough to pick it apart.

The Tony Perkins Award

I haven't awarded this one in a while, but today's example is so egregious, it deserves special mention. And the winner is, none other than Tony Perkins:

Appearing on Newsmakers Sunday, Perkins claimed that there is no Biblical foundation for racial discrimination, but claimed marriage as a Biblical institution which is therefore governed by Biblical principles reserving marriage for one man and one woman. Therefore, Perkins argues, it is perfectly reasonable to allow businesses to discriminate based upon their religious beliefs. . . .

Even the Family Research Council amicus brief doesn't argue that. Instead, it uses the same argument used to discriminate on the basis of race in the Loving case. Worse yet, they claim in their brief that the laws in states which define marriage as between one man and one woman weren't intended to discriminate against LGBT couples. That was just a happy accident!

Not only is he a bald-faced liar -- the Bible is replete with examples of racial and ethnic bias, not only implied but overt -- but he doesn't even bother to try to adhere to his own organizations amicus brief. (Of course, he doesn't mention it, because it doesn't reflect the lie du jour.) And considering Perkins' long ties with white supremacists, the irony is palpable.

Click through and read the whole post -- there's video, which I can't embed, and there are some good rebuttals of everything Perkins says.

The Perfect Response

I'd love to see this sort of thing spread:

Daintree Paper, a handmade paper shop in Dublin, has launched the campaign ahead of the country’s referendum on same-sex marriage on May 22.

Extreme anti-gay leaflets have been distributed by groups ahead of the referendum, with some claiming that being gay will give you cancer, and equal marriage “exposes” children to the “sounds of Sodomy”.

In reaction to the deluge of leaflets, Daintree have begun to offer a special service – shredding the anti-gay literature and re-purposing it as wedding confetti for same-sex couples.

The company has appealed to members of the public to forward them any homophobic literature they receive, with the proceeds from the confetti sales going to campaign group Yes Equality.

You Know You're Losing

When most of your Congressional representatives are jumping ship:

Six U.S. senators and 51 U.S. House members have signed a brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold state bans on same-sex marriage, the AP reports.

So, how is this jumping ship? Well, out of 435 members of the House, 247 were Republicans as of December 31. (Since then, two Republicans have resigned and one died.) And as for the Senate, out of 100 senators, 54 are Republicans. You do the math.

But wait -- it gets better:

Last month over 300 Republicans, including 23 current and former GOP congressional members, signed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of marriage equality.

Looks like the tide has turned.

Marriage News Watch, April 6, 2015

Michigan says that they don't want to let gay people get married because that would be demeaning to gay people. Kentucky says that their marriage ban isn't discriminatory, since LGBTs are free to get straight-married. Ohio wants to maintain its marriage ban out of concern for the people who voted for it. And Tennessee is just fixated on sex.

The oral arguments before the Supreme Court should be an absolute scream.

Gays vs. Christians?

The debate over Indiana's "religious freedom" law has drawn in stark relief a meme that's been around for awhile: it's gays and their allies (which apparently include everyone except evangelical Christians) against Christianity. Now, anyone who stops to think for a minute is going to realize this is bullshit. I've run across a couple of posts in the past few days that point this up quite clearly.

Max Mills, in a very erudite post at AmericaBlog, goes through and discusses the very few references to homosexuality in the Bible, and how they have been interpreted -- or misinterpreted. He starts off with "abomination":

The Hebrew word, to’ebah, is most accurately understood to mean “that which goes against the accepted order”. Dr. Friedman offers several examples in his book, The Bible Now:

“…in the Bible the term is in fact relative. For example, in the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis, Joseph tells his brothers that if the Pharaoh asks them what their occupation is, they should say that they are cowherds. They must not say that they are shepherds. Why? Because, Joseph explains, all shepherds are an offensive thing (tō‘ēbāh) to the Egyptians. But shepherds are not an offensive thing to the Israelites or Moabites or many other cultures. In another passage in that story, we read that Egyptians do not eat with Israelites because that would be an offensive thing (tō‘ēbāh) to them. But Arameans and Canaanites eat with Israelites and do not find it offensive. See also the story of the exodus from Egypt, where Moses tells Pharaoh that the things that Israelites sacrifice would be an offensive thing (tō‘ēbāh) to the Egyptians. But these things are certainly not an offensive thing to the Israelites.

He gives several more examples, all of which point to the fact that the "abominations" in the Old Testament are really no more than things that depart from accepted custom.

He also gives us the real story on the "sin of Sodom."

In a post at Mahablog, Barbara O'Brien points up an essential fact:

A number of religious groups, including Christian ones, have spoken out in opposition of Indiana’s “religious freedom” law and call it plain old bigotry. Here’s a roundup. I’d already mentioned the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and the Indiana Episcopal diocese, and other denominations speaking out in support of equal treatment for LGBT people include the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty. I’m betting the BJCRL doesn’t include Southern Baptists, but still … also the Unitarian Universalists, the Sikh Coalition, the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism and the Central Conference of American Rabbis.

The dichotomy we’re seeing is a faction of hyper-reactionary religionists — some of whom are about as genuinely religious as the Las Vegas strip — versus everybody else. Let’s keep that straight.

Both posts are worth reading in full.

Now, the lesson to be learned from this is one that I've found myself repeating again and again lately, to the point where I'm getting a little tired of it, but here it is again, with a slight variation: In the sacred texts, teachings, and doctrines of any religion, you can find something to justify what you wanted to do anyway -- or something that can be interpreted to justify what you wanted to do.

I'm also a bit more cynical about motivations, and just want to point out that for some -- Family Research Council, American Family Association, National Organization for Marriage -- anti-gay is a big cash cow. I point this out because in American politics, it's always a good idea to follow the money if you want to know what's really going on.

About Reviews

Another couple of updates of things newly republished at Sleeping Hedgehog, and discovering that eBay has really screwed up my Epinions reviews: half the links on the Reviews pages no longer work, and the only way you can find some of them is to go to my profile page and scroll through. (And I just discovered that I can't even link to my profile page any more.)

I'm considering uploading them to pages here from my own files, but I'm not sure I'm ready to start that yet. I still have most of the older GMR things to get through.

It's going to be a long summer.

Coming Soon: Daredevil

On Netflix, April 10:

I'm planning on watching it. Daredevil is one of those characters who interests me, and I'm looking forward to seeing what the series has done with him.