Where is our Brown vs. Board?

There is no shortage of people who have drawn the parallel between the separate but equal system of the post Civil War era and the current plight of the gay couples being offered civil union which "hold all the same rights and powers as marriage" while withholding actual marriage from them.  If they deserve all the same rights, then why must they be separated?

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55 years have passed since "separate but equal" was a legal standard for black and white people.  How is it that any court today could possibly decide against gay marriage while completely barring from their decision making one of the most important and relevant cases the Supreme Court has ever seen?  We need a new Brown vs. Board, and we shouldn't have to wait any longer.

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It is quite shameful that Proposition 8 has passed by the 52% majority of California voters, but what is really shameful is the California Supreme Court's 180 degree turn-around in supporting the limit on marriage.  Only last year it was this same court that opened up gay marriage, and now it's Justices don't even stand up in opposition when the door is slammed shut once again.

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It was up to the Supreme Court to control the tyranny of the majority, and they failed miserably.

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Now we New Yorkers must hope that our State Senators will follow on the coat tails of Vermont, Iowa, Connecticut, and Maine and ignore the sinking of California into the ol' south when deciding our own marriage policy.

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I apologize for the spacing, blogger is messing with me today.

A Reciprocating Saw Tearing Through California

I mentioned before in my Prop 8: Enough Already! entry that prior to this past election day gay marriage had been shifted back and forth in legality six times.  Well thanks to a conservative, religious and traditionalist population, the lucky gays in California have been blessed with lucky number seven.  All the gays in California should walk into as many churches as you can and shake hands with everyone, thank them for dragging you back and forth like a rag doll.

I prophetized in that entry that if Prop 8 was enacted into law that within eight years the courts would again take up the case and possibly pull the power back to the side of the gays. Remove eight years, insert two weeks and I was EXACTLY right. 

Yes at the urging of Attorney General and Former Governor Jerry Brown (his aura always smiles and never frowns [bonus points if you get that]) the supreme court is again going to take up the gay marriage question.  The case is slotted for March and will answer the question of whether this was a proper use of an initiative. Unfortunately all gay marriages remaining on hold at least until a decision is made.

It is painfully sad and a little scary that this battle has come to this.  We are back to the courts, how many times can this go back and forth?  It can not be healthy for the legislature and now the people to be fighting for control of the constitution with the supreme court.  Is this not asking for a breakdown of democracy in the state of California? Should we have written rules as to when one branch of the government supersedes the others?

It is hard for me to be unbiased in weighing whether the Supreme Court should be again looking at this case, because I have a direct hope for an outcome that can only come from them doing so.  I know that if Prop 8 had been voted down, and the supporters of it had proceeded to bring the case to court I would be extremely annoyed, but yet I'm advocating just that for my side.

The only way that I can defend this belief is in saying, as I have in the before mentioned entry, that this is a case best left to the courts.  The reason being that it is a case of extending the rights of a minority against the tyranny of the majority.  It was wrong for the majority to hold a popular vote against a minority in the first place, therefore their taking it to court would be furthering the wrong.

I was going to write more about the reasons that this was a case best left to the courts, but I found this article by Kermit Roosevelt which makes my arguments seem like the fourth grade abridged version. Here is a taste:

"Regardless of where you stand on same-sex marriage, what's troubling
for US citizens in the California case is the idea that an equality
guarantee could not be effectively enforced against the will of a
majority. The point of such a guarantee is precisely to protect
minorities from discrimination at the hands of a majority."

I encourage you all to read the article, it gives quite a compelling argument for the supreme court intervention.

Write to Marry Day

*UPDATE* Contributed posts are up


I just wanted to pass along a some information I found at the Caffection blog about Write to Marry Day. This is an organized write-in of anyone interested in blogging against Proposition 8 in California. If you write or have written a blog against prop 8 before October 29 you can submit it at Mombian and together we can help show Californians why this proposal is despicable.

In related news the New York Times and Fox News (links are to the articles not main sites)each printed articles Sunday about the extreme attention (and $$$) this California Proposition is getting state, nation, and international wide.

I'm feeling a little short-winded tonight so I'll just leave it at: good reads, dig in. Even the Fox News one, hell even they can put out a fairly unbiased piece of news occasionally.

Proposition 8: Enough Already!

The California gay community has some of the strongest legal power in the country over their right to marry, however they have been dragged back and forth through the dirt more times than in any other state. The legal right for them to marry has been given to, and taken back from them, around six times. Five of which have been since 1977.

It is great to see that Apple and Google have stepped up to the plate in opposition to Prop 8. But let's be honest, it is quite sad that they even have to.

Prop 8 in essence does the same thing that Prop 22 did back in 2000. Prop 22 was found to be unconstitutional by the California Supreme Court in May 2008. So just why are we going in circles? Should we expect that if Prop 8 gets passed on the ballot next month that the supreme court will come around in the next eight years and also find it unconstitutional? It seems as though at some point we need to draw the line on wasting all this time and money.

It is in my opinion that this is an issue best left for the Supreme Court. Obviously I have a biased view as I am supportive of gay couples right to marry, but the purpose of the Court system is better suited for this kind of decision. Voter initiatives and congressional votes serve the purpose of keeping the government running as a democracy. Unfortunately, in allowing for majority rule, sometimes the minority gets stepped on a little too much. In these cases, which include the current, the court system is a much better place to determine constitutionality.

UCLA estimates that over 11,000 gay couples have been married since the floodgates were opened in May until mid September. God hasn't sank it out of spite yet, so why not just leave the gays alone?

All Americans need to get behind the 'anti-anti-gay marriage movement' and help get prop 8 voted down. Even if the rest of us in the other 49 can't make the vote we need to make it clear that this proposition is a terrible thing. As I have said before, only 4% of the United States allows for gay marriage (that's two states for you math buffs), losing California would be a great loss to the cause.

See also my earlier, mostly relevant blog: The Hypocrites Dilemma

The Hypocrite's Dilemma

Starting today, officially 4% of the states in the Union allow a gay couple to legally marry. Bay-bee steps. California's leap onto the official homo-scene of course coincided with a very important Observer Dispatch article which highlights, quite well, why we are going to be pushing for legalized gay marriage far beyond the time when I move into a nursing home. The article was a comparison of the policies of the men running for the 24th district congress seat, the incumbent Democrat Michael Arcuri and his opponent Republican Richard Hanna.

The question was framed as follows: "Should there be a federal law mandating that all marriages should be between a man and a woman? Why?" Of course it couldn't have been stated better, such as "what do you think about a gay couple's right to marry?" but who is splitting hairs? Anyway both men took the fairly safe position that it is not up to the feds to make a decision, that the issue must be taken up by the individual states. Arcuri went on to say that although he does agree that 'civil unions' should be allowed he felt that there are more pressing issues to be dealt with on the national scale such as health care, energy costs, and trade policies.

So to better highlight the plight of a group of people, who's request is only to be considered normal citizens: There are a ton of people who completely disagree with their request and most of the rest think is just not important enough to address.

To argue with those that outright disagree is, of course, laborious and a fruitless task which certainly leads to insanity, or at least stupidity. You may as well go yell at the bible itself because that is apparently where much of the justification for intolerance comes from. I am repeatedly dumbfounded every time I am confronted with a biblical argument when debating U.S policy since I swear I read somewhere that the U.S was founded as a secular nation. Couldn't these people just try to develop their own moral code based on the bible and argue with that, rather than telling us about the rules set forth in the bible?

If only they could let the rest of live in sin around them without interfering with their rules, we could live in harmony and just all get our eternal damnation in the afterlife. After all we're not asking to sacrifice your babies, we're asking for gay couples to be allowed to legally marry, like they do. But hell, that's silly, even if they did allow that then there would be a bunch of fags running around with their fair share of the taxes they pay, and that's cutting into God's people's change purses. We can't have that.

For those that do not completely disagree with gay marriage, but feel that there are much more important tasks to attend to, you're wrong too. Granted, health care and keeping the poor fed are very important issues among many that can not be discounted. However, how many senators and congressmen are single? It seems funny for a group so disinterested in marriage rights to all stop and get married before they got on with their important policy making. How many congressmen and senators kiss their husbands or wives on way out the door in the morning to go save the sick and the poor? Are they completely blind to the irony?

Now obviously this issue is going to have to be started by the individual states as it has, unless of course the South decides to secede again (we really should have just let them go). But those that think that this is not an issue best addressed on the national scale are crazy! The very reason for the development of our government over independent states was to aid in the relationships between those states. Like shipments over state lines, married couples are constantly moving from state to state. This leads to the inevitable cluster-fuck that we are seeing today, gay couples who are married in one state are not in the next, within the borders of their own country! Nothing travels over state lines more than people, so to say that this is not a national decision is to stamp yourself an idiot.

Congratulations California.

Honey I love you, but ooooh that porno!

I really started to pay attention to this thing a couple months ago when I was watching a special on the life of Reverent Billy Graham, the world renowned televangelist. They were telling the stories of peoples lives he had touched. One such story was about a man, with a problem, an addiction, and addiction to something so unholy and sinful that it nearly tore his marriage apart. His addiction? Porno. Yes when they were showing blurbs of what was to come later in the show "the addiction that nearly tore a man's marriage apart", I admit it, I was thinking heroin. Oh boy was I wrong, it was something much worse.

Since then I have noticed that many church groups are raging against the porn industry for spreading sin and destroying our very natural monogamous relationships. Yes marriage is natural, and lust is a sin. As an alternative they could keep their noses out of where they don't belong, but obviously that's not an option. If they can't control what their sheep do, then they go after the ones that supply them with a reason to sway. Or is it because us porn loving, lust wielding criminals are the reason that God allowed the terrorist attacks? (Oh yes Jerry Falwell went there.)

To get back to the story of the man addicted to porn, the problem was that he couldn't control his lust, he had a big collection of porn hidden in the basement, and when he drove by cute girls jogging he had to look. His wife's reaction to finding out about the porn, and catching him looking at other girls? Something to the effect of 'I started to think that I wasn't pretty enough for him.'

My verdict? She's and idiot, and he's a lying asshole. If she really believes that her husband is not going to look at other girls, flirt with them sometimes, and fantasize about other women then she better take that rock that her head has been under all her life and slam it down. She's in for a rude awakening.

As for him, a little honesty goes a long way. Some people just have high sex drives. They think about sex more often. They need to go look in other places. If he loves his wife then he should tell her that, but explain to her his situation. He shouldn't have to stunt his sex drive just because he's married, it's bad enough he has to remain monogamous.

Now I'm no marriagologist, but porn doesn't tear marriages apart, dishonesty and unrealistic expectations do. People need to be open, honest, and educated on sex. People need to know about sex, because everyone has some desire for it.

These groups however continue to harp on the ridiculously unrealistic view of human sexuality. Expecting people not to watch porn? Not to fantasize? Masturbate? They teach children to abstain from sex, thinking that it is the best method. Not for nothing, they are obviously not paying much attention. The God damn priests of the catholic church can't keep their hands off the alter boys! Trained religious scholars who have committed their lives to God, and taken vows of celibacy can not handle it. (I am in no way advocating pedophilia, simply going on the assumption that the high rate of it within this group practicing celibacy group is probably due to a build up of sexual desire that in time becomes uncontrollable.) How on earth are teenagers then expected to do it? Their hormones are raging, drives are multiple times higher, are at a time of body experimentation, and have peer pressure. Yes nice choices idiots. Are you even paying attention?

Fascism, Ignorance, and Religion

In Italy and Germany before WWII there were no questions. What Hitler or Mussolini said was right, duh. People were murdered by the millions, lands were concurred, armies were built up larger than ever seen before, police states were created. There were to be no questions.
In religion class I was taught to have faith, everyone was unsure sometimes, but I should have full faith in God. If you question the bible you are a sinner. It is against the very moral fabric of religion to question that religion.

I hope it's not to hard to find the similarity between these two stories. Religion is Fascist. It's a disgusting institution that has been built around keeping itself alive because it falls short of the very thing that it promises. Religion is supposed to give us the answers to the questions of the world. It doesn't, it give us the answers to the obvious things and tells us the rest either isn't important, or maybe that we'll find out after death. Great, that'll do the world a lot of good now won't it. So since religion doesn't do what it is supposed to, in it had to be created a self-protection mechanism so that people get mad if you ask questions.

If we don't ask questions we don't learn. If we accept the answers from yesterday we don't learn more. Without a constant quest for truth the world becomes stagnant and hateful. If we are going to have a chance we can't be held back by these old ideologies. We no longer think that the world is flat but we feel that without marriage a couple shouldn't be living together. And god-forgive that couple be of the same sex!

Religion is a haven for ignorance, choke on that when you're wearing you expensive easter dresses with your pretty flower hats, so you can “impress god.” The world is having a hard time stepping forward with ¾ of the population standing with their heads up their asses.

Fuck your easter.

Fucking Think for Yourself

I've been on this topic lately called religion, its been floating around in my head a lot and at times spewing out of my mouth like fire. It's occurring to me that my hatred for organized religion which I find to be growing in me more and more every day is actually only a side effect of a bigger dilemma I see this world in. I think I would actually consider this problem and epidemic. The problem is faith, not just any faith because we all have some otherwise we'd have put the guns to our heads long ago, my problem however lies with a special kind of faith. Blind Faith. From now on this should be called "faith for idiots."

Faith for idiots consists of sitting at home reading your book, be it the bible, the Koran, or any other holy book and believing every possible thing in there with no questions asked. Correct your mom and dad and pastor and religion teacher all seem to be really nice people, but did you ever consider thinking outside the box? Possibly considering other people ideas comparing them with the ones of your religion, maybe formulating your own? Personal hatred can stem out of peoples inability to see outside of the church, that is not a newsflash.

The problem is, is that there is no perfect religion. Every one has contradictions within itself and each is made out of fallible people which make up a fallible network. If for instance Islam had all the answers everyone would be a Muslim, it only makes sense if all of the puzzle pieces fit together it would be stupid not to be one. Unfortunately Muslims don't have all the answers and neither does anyone else, I know I don't have them but I'm satisfied with that. Reading one book and feeling that you have all the answers makes about as much sense as listening to one person talk, who happens to be in the kkk who tells you "niggers is bad" and you going out and spreading the word around to the whole world. You have to think for yourself first, why are they so bad, do I have any evidence? Hmm just an afterthought.... kkk:blacks, Christianity:gays?

Mahatma Gandhi once said when he was asked if he was a Hindu "Yes I am, I am also a Christian a Muslim a Buddhist and a Jew." Gandhi realized the core values in all of these religions were the same, love and peace. Therefore he realized that fighting between two religions that have the same values is retarded. All religions can be right and all can be wrong simultaneously. Your faith doesn't have to be the same as your best friend, nor your spouse. Faith is a personal thing, but for the sake of the sanity of the world, believe what YOU feel is right not what one books says. Explore, ponder, consider, and be willing to evolve, and lastly stop fucking asking me when the last time I went to church was!

Get Your Jesus Off My Penis

That title isn't mine, its the name of song by Eric Schwartz about the separation of church and state. Don't get all mad about that title, I don't mean it literally, and if you hear me out you may even respect my opinion a little.

When the writers of the constitution sat down in that oh so hot room in the summer, heroically setting up this great government we have (Oh glamorized history!) they wrote in many different statements about the free practice of religion of choice, and the separation of the church and state. I've heard the arguments over and over that these people were primarily Christians and never meant what was written to be taken so literally, and that Christianity should be the religion of choice for America. I'm sorry but that just sounds like a crock of bullshit to me. As flawed as the constitution is, it is the one document that we must always look to when making decisions of rights and powers. Why did they say one thing and do another? That is a great question, which unfortunately will never be answered. As however always have to do what is written, this is a "do as i say, not as i do" situation.

Therefore I say again, Get your Jesus off my Penis! Do not make abortions illegal! If you do that it will just go back to the old coat hanger method anyways, which is just a bit more dangerous so then you have two deaths, mom and baby....hmmm! If you don't believe in abortion, don't have one, but leave me alone, I believe in a woman's right to choose. President Bush in his infinite wisdom is proclaiming that abstinence is the only way, that contraceptives are the devils work, and therefore we shouldn't even mention their use to teenagers. This is a great idea, tell teenagers not to have sex! While you're at it, tell them not to eat either, because you're gonna have about the same luck. Now they're still horny, and ill-informed, good way to release them into the world. The information is out there, the teaching of abstinence has an adverse effect on controlling STD's and unwanted pregnancies.

As for the other side, "my side" You people that are so preoccupied with removing every instance of god from anything governmental need to get a fucking hobby. If you don't believe in God but want to say the pledge, don't say that part, no one is going to kill you. If there's a set of ten commandments on the front of a courthouse, who the fuck cares, hey a good six of them aren't that bad anyways. If you're gonna start a federal case about something make it for something that is actually infringing on your rights, like if those courts are using the ten commandments in their decisions. Stop wasting everyone's time with your anal needs to have everything perfect and anti-God.

Don't blame me i voted for the lesser of the two assholes.