can you fix? (altho i'm not excited to read her bigotry)

how this reflects on California. The state Democratic legislative leaders signed onto a brief asking for an overturn.

PropH8 defenders have asked to intervene to defend their view in court if the California SC grants status.

In their brief, lawmakers described the 500,000-vote margin as a "bare majority," and said it was "compromising the enduring constitutional promise of equal protection under the law."

"Proposition 8 seeks to effect a monumental revision of this foundational principle and constitutional structure by allowing a bare majority of voters to eliminate a fundamental right of a constitutionally protected minority group," the brief says.

"If Proposition 8 takes effect, this court will no longer be the final arbiter of the rights of minorities," it continues.

The action contends that the ban, created by the initiative that defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, cannot be done by a mere constitutional amendment. Rather, it must be done by a revision of the entire Constitution and the Legislature would have to be involved.

I say let the PropH8 forces go broke fighting it in court.
If they manage to break the Mormon Church financially, that's a bonus.

We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18

Not copywrite.

I typed several childish things after this, describing the various orifices in which Cannick should go looking for her head, the kinds of gestures she can imagine I'm making, the destinations she can go (with or without handbasket), and verbs in various forms. But my rapier-like wit fails me. Jesus H. Christ on a crutch, this is an easy one.

(I am aware of the irony of using "Jesus H. Christ" being an atheist an all, but sometimes I wish Jesus would show up, swing his hammer around and say, "What's the matter with you people? Show me where I said: Thou shalt love God and love thine neighbor, unless thine neighbor is one of teh gheys, because teh gheys freak me out and thou shalt hate 'em with all your might.")

How in the world can someone not see that the failure to see the humanity of some people makes it easier to deny the humanity of others? Think racism and homophobia aren't related? Then you aren't thinking clearly.

So simple. Ah, well, simple things rarely have simple machinery.

what a strawman!

because she doesn't care about it--even tho marriage affects and helps and protects families first and foremost--black or white, straight or gay--she makes it seem like it's the only fight we're fighting.

As if those "white gays" purposely forced this on the ballot themselves.

As if there aren't ongoing fights for employment, housing, anti-hatecrime and marriage rights on all levels for us--everywhere. From local places to Congress to the courts on all levels.

As if it's "white gays" fault that Blacks in CA actively chose to discriminate against us.

As if it only benefits "white gays".

As if the fight for marriage equality hasn't been going on since Hawaii in the very early 90s--and other couple/family/adoption rights fights even longer.

She's an ass--and she's making excuses for the very harmful and direct action Black Christians took against all who believe in equal rights on Election Day.

Too bad for her if she doesn't value it--when it comes up, you fight.

an ass.

Actual Christians are supposed to love thy neighbor, and to help people in need. She's just like those who used the bible to justify slavery and segregation--absolutely wrong.

1) You didn't ask her right.
2) Voting "No" rather than "Yes" would distract her from registering people to vote. When every black person is registered to vote, then ask her again, but more correctly this time, and she will consider your case.

to that NPR link. Just jaw-dropping.

She didn't learn that crucial first lesson: the first thing to do when you are in a hole is stop digging.

-----------------------------

Around these parts we call cucumber slices circle bites

the equal marriage fights are a direct result of the fights that have been going on for decades on other issues and on the increased safety that resulted--that more of us could live our lives in ways we wanted without fear of death (and since we're all brought up to marry, marriage necessarily came up) -- and a direct result of the massive and ongoing work to ensure that the country no longer portrayed and stereotyped us as something weird, dangerous, or freaky.

Rather than seeing marriage as something only rich or suburban or white gays want or need, she might want to marvel--as i do--that gay couples and families of all colors and income levels are now everywhere--living side by side with straight families--they didn't use to be. And that so many companies, cities, and states have--with our successes--helped us get to this point in the first place.

the massive backlash to us on marriage equality is a sign of our success on many levels--it's because we are everywhere, and are families, and can't be closeted or rendered invisible anymore.

who have most benefited from this fight--overwhelmingly so--and who need this most precisely because they don't have as much income as gay male couples and families.

2 of the 3 couples in Hawaii in 1990 at the start of this were lesbian, and i think the majority of marriages performed here in the US have been lesbian. -- http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_ma...

Jasmyne can be, and how uninformed, and most of all, how much cover she can give to her own little black fanny for being to lazy to reach out:

Why? Because I don’t see why the right to marry should be a priority for me or other black people. Gay marriage? Please. At a time when blacks are still more likely than whites to be pulled over for no reason, more likely to be unemployed than whites, more likely to live at or below the poverty line, I was too busy trying to get black people registered to vote, period; I wasn’t about to focus my attention on what couldn’t help but feel like a secondary issue.
...
Does someone who is homeless or suffering from HIV but has no healthcare, or newly out of prison and unemployed, really benefit from the right to marry someone of the same sex?
....
White gays often wonder aloud why blacks, of all people, won’t support their civil rights. There is a real misunderstanding by the white gay community about the term. Proponents of gay marriage fling it around as if it is a one-size-fits-all catchphrase for issues of fairness.

But the black civil rights movement was essentially born out of and driven by the black church; social justice and religion are inextricably intertwined in the black community. To many blacks, civil rights are grounded in Christianity – not something separate and apart from religion but synonymous with it. To the extent that the issue of gay marriage seemed to be pitted against the church, it was going to be a losing battle in my community.
...
Likewise, holding the occasional town-hall meeting in Leimert Park – the one part of the black community where they now feel safe thanks to gentrification – to tell black people how to vote on something gay isn’t effective outreach either.

Sounds to me like what we've got here is a failure to communicate, especially since she self-identifies as gay.

There is an enormous pressure in the black community to deny homosexuality. Jasmyne is one more example of how well that works. The right to marry is a "secondary issue."

I can't do anything about "Driving While Black," because I'm not a cop in California. But Jasmyne and other members of her community might be able to have a way positive effect on at least two of the other inequalities relating to her race that she is on about.

One is the dropout rate. Mentoring is a good step to help prevent this. Yes, I know that the schools are unequal -- but oddly enough that doesn't seem to be stopping the sports stars. They get the support to stay in school. Their parents, coaches, extended family and friends want to see them succeed enough to push them to stay in school, succeed enough in school to stay in sports. I submit that a similar value on good grades for good grades' sake would have an impact on the dropout rate -- and while it might not happen overnight it's possible it might also have an impact on wage rates. Maybe even incarceration.

It's a lot easier to get a job if you can read and write and fill out an application, and it's a lot easier to get a job if you haven't done time. Those two facts are color-blind as any facts can be.

A community can produce children who can read, write, fill out an application, and stay out of jail just as easily as it produces children who can't. Exemplars abound -- they have names like Thurgood Marshall and Barack Obama, James Earl Jones and Mike Singletary, Johnnie Cochran and Sammie Davis Jr., Hill Harper and Rocky Carroll, Valerie Jarrett and Colin Powell, Oprah Winfrey and Beyonce Knowles.

Yes, the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s relied heavily on the black church -- the black church was the one place black people could safely congregate and hear a message of hope -- a message the news wouldn't bring on the airwaves, a message the papers wouldn't carry, a message you couldn't talk about at the lunch counter or carry a sign for down the street, because it wasn't safe. Don't confuse that with being beholden to a religious bigotry that only helps keep people divided, and miserable. So, Ms. Cannick -- don't try to sell me on your particular prioritization of civil rights as the only one, or the right one.

Oh and Jasmyne? Honey child, if it takes "gentrification" in a neighborhood to make black people feel safe in the park, something is W.R.O.N.G. with that neighborhood, and all the other not-yet-gentrified ones like it. And that wrong is not the fault of people who don't live there, Jasmyne. No, this isn't over yet. Yes, I deliberately insulted Jasmyne with that last remark -- if she wants to take it that way. Because it looks like it's going to take an insult to get her attention. Divide and conquer is the Republican way. If we don't do a damn thing else under Obama, we've got to stop falling for that damn trap in all its flavors.

...and wow. Jaw-dropping is putting it mildly. She came off as a totally irrational condescending ass. Her weak and strange arguments were laughable and her attitude was obnoxious. She is trying to defend the indefensible abd it shows. She absolutely embarrassed herself.

What Do We Do Now?? An Answer to The Gay Marriage Bans -- http://lesbianmommy.blogspot.com/2008/11...

-- including this fab sign-- http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_UwODXTof4dY/SR...

and this -- Family Equality Council blog -- http://www.familyequality.org/blog/

http://www.blogher.com/blogging-lgbt-fam...

I hope he still maintains some influence, particularly on this issue. Oh yeah, and his "least of these" advocacy.

in her reaction. They interviewed several black gays and lesbians on my local NPR station and they were devastated that the prop passed and the role blacks played in passing it. It confirmed for them how much further they have to go to be accepted by the black community.

where do you stop taking rights away from people? I can't imagine that those churches gave any thought to the street they started down here. Human history is stained with atrocities that started in this kind of small step. In a Democracy, the expansion of rights is an integral part of its nature. In this democracy we have a history of expansion of human rights that has defined us up until the present, where religious zealotry has made our nature as a country, and our history subservient to their views. It's pretty sad.

As far as I can tell, the conclusion to her argument is that marriage equality activists should just continue to do what she's griping about -- ignore AAs -- because nothing will work. Civil rights arguments will just alienate them and their grounding the civil rights movement in the church makes them Teflon against any other argument.

Her only suggestion for how to reach out to the religious AA community was her own argument, that she's already going to hell, keeping her from getting married won't change that one way or another.

She's a regular contributor to NPR? Not sorry I've given it a miss this past year.

After listening, I find myself positively nostalgic for Obama's equivocating non-support of marriage equality. Whew.

It always blows my mind to hear different sets of historically oppressed minorities tell the others to go to the back of the bus and wait their turn, as if civil and human rights are to be handed out in a scheduled fashion. It was always one of the things that completely amazed me about the majority of Israeli's in their views of the Palestinians. It always makes me sad when I see these groups angling for the title of "Biggest Loser," so that they can then tell everyone that rights are to be distributed and on a scale and time.