A phrase you won't hear me say often: a must-read at AMERICAblog:

It's pretty despicable, and gratuitously homophobic. It reads as if it were written by one of George Bush's top political appointees. I cannot state strongly enough how damaging this brief is to us. Obama didn't just argue a technicality about the case, he argued that DOMA is reasonable. That DOMA is constitutional. That DOMA wasn't motivated by any anti-gay animus. He argued why our Supreme Court victories in Roemer and Lawrence shouldn't be interpreted to give us rights in any other area (which hurts us in countless other cases and battles).

 Read more…

Enjoy!

Letter to the Salt Lake Weekly

We have dozens of Utah families living in homeless shelters, and the leadership of the LDS Church has led a $20 million crusade off through the Nevada desert to California.
Squandering the good will that they have gained through their humanitarian efforts, they claim that the idea of the marriage of Jim and Bob of Arbuckle at the Colusa County Courthouse is an event of cosmic proportions.

Oh, please, save me from such hypocrisy, and do your Christian duty and get those families out of the homeless shelters.

In defense of black voters voting at least 2 to 1 for California's Proposition 8 rides Jasmyne A. Cannick. Her argument is that white gays aren't "sufficiently sensitive" to the fact that the word and concept of "rights" was trademarked and copywritten by black churches in the 60's. Therefore, any use of that word by white gays is offensive to the black community, including black lesbians like Cannick. I parachuted in to hearing her laughingly dismiss outraged callers on Talk of the Nation.

"... the Obama campaign next week will kick off “Barack Obama: Faith, Family, and Values Tour,” designed to woo the votes of left-leaning Catholics, progressive Evangelicals, and some conservative mainline Protestants. If LGBT people find the tour eerily reminiscent of the South Carolina gospel tour the campaign arranged last year with antigay "ex-gay" gospel singer Donnie McClurkin, their instincts may not be far off.

CBN names Catholic legal scholar Douglas Kmiec as one of the religious surrogates who will hit the road stumping for Obama. Kmiec wrote a June 13 op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle supporting California's Proposition 8, the ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage ..."

Al Gore isn’t running for President because he wouldn’t be able to tell the truth, and how sad is that? He has now clearly spoken out on another inconvenient truth, that homosexuals are citizens too and are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. (video after the jump)   Read more…

Way to go, Judge Hanson. Let's hope he survives his next election; fundies have long memories about this sort of thing. But nonetheless, Iowa has an important opportunity here and we'll see if a Heartland state can truly support the concept behind the 14th and other amendments. 'Equal under the law' is really simple, when you get down to it.

Anyway, to me this is a lot like the drug legalization issue: to get to the moderates and fence sitters, argue the money. Gay marriage means money for Iowa. There is a huge, unsung population of bears and cubs, Wedgewood collectors and Judy Garland fans, working class dykes and fags, all of whom would love nothing more than to have a wholesome, churchie, Heartland wedding. Not the flashy, sparkling Queers of the tribe of Har, mind you. But the regular folks, like the one you have a beer with twice a week after work and would never guess lives with another man. The quiet lesbian couple who are the pillar of small town activism and community building. That police officer in your church. Etc.

Today, I am very proud of my state, and also proud of our paper of record for an editorial for the ages (reg. required).

After weeks of intense lobbying and endless speculation about who might vote how, a joint session of the Legislature made blessedly quick work yesterday of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. In a State House mobbed with revved-up campaigners on both sides of the issue, lawmakers took a quarter hour to dispatch the proposal by a decisive margin. The vote was a victory for decency and civil equality, and underscored Massachusetts' long history of protecting individual rights.

I'm sorry that the husband in this case is such a lecherous pedophile, and that I have to agree with the logic of the SCOTUS. He's just proving the stereotype of polygamists by being incapable of waiting to get his hands on his sister-in-law before she's 18. I totally grok that "fundamentalist" Mormons like him really just want to keep a harem of teenage girls while sucking off welfare programs to support them, and that abuse and domestic violence runs rampant in communities where this practice occurs. But...

I find myself responding to this logic:

Via our good pal, and creator of the term 'blogtopia,' The Manly Marsupial Skippy of the Forrest, we discover this exciting blog and a project that seems to be getting a lot of attention. Attention Democratic operatives with the good sense to study history and learn from it: a lot of us out here will do this kind of work for you, for free. I too am sick and tired of bringing squirt guns to a knife fight:

#333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 12.35px; line-height: 28px" class="Apple-style-span">Sometimes you've just had enough. I've hit that point.

 Read more…

Let's just make it simple. John, here's what you say: I support full and equal rights for all Americans, period. That includes the right to marry, regardless of orientation. That's not hard. As Pam notes, "moral values" handwringing and wishywashy "my daughter is for it before I was against it" really won't help you. Fact: gay-haters will never vote for you anyway. Fact: you can ride a huge wave of mobilized, loyal to the death gays and progressives (see: Dean) if you come out on the right side of this issue. Fact: every passing year there are more of us and fewer of them (homophobes). Only the right wing noise machine gives the impression that they represent some large portion of the population. Fact: even in states where anti-gay initiatives passed, progressive candidates beat out the gay hating Republicans who ran on gay bashing (see: VA)It's likely Hillary and Obama will also take the "faggots at the back of the bus" stance, so you're not going to win over any of their supporters by echoing them.

Be brave man, take a stand. You can't be the Progressive Candidate without getting on board the equality train all the way.

Sigh. I remember protesting against the old South African government, firm in my conviction that my nation would always be ahead of them when it came to civil liberties and justice. What Progress looks like:

 Read more…

And fuck you four judges too afraid to admit that the Constitution guarantees equal protections for everyone, no matter how much the idea of me and my girlfriend being happy together shrivels your pathetic manhood.You won't see me advocating for Spitzer any time soon:

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- New York's highest court ruled Thursday that gay marriage is not allowed under state law.

The Court of Appeals in a 4-2 decision rejected arguments from gay and lesbian plaintiffs throughout the state that their inability to get marriage licenses in New York violated their constitutional rights.

Judge Robert Smith said New York's marriage law is constitutional and clearly limits marriage to between a man and a woman. Any change in the law should come from the state Legislature, he said.

"We do not predict what people will think generations from now, but we believe the present generation should have a chance to decide the issue through its elected representatives," Smith wrote.

Gov. George Pataki's health department and state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's office have argued New York law prohibits issuing licenses to same-sex couples. The state had prevailed in lower appeals courts.

 Read more…

From vastleft.com.

While we're on the subject of inconvenient truths, let's face up to this one: it's time for the Democratic Party to stop being chickenshit about gay marriage.

Channeling that scene from Princess Bride here. The alternate title for this post is, "Stupid and Ugly is no way to go through life, kids. Have sex, but hold off on the marriage thing until you get some schooling, a job, and a clue." Facts:

The state with the lowest divorce rate in the nation is Massachusetts. At latest count it had a divorce rate of 2.4 per 1,000 population, while the rate for Texas was 4.1.

But don't take the US government's word for it. Take a look at the findings from the George Barna Research Group. George Barna, a born-again Christian whose company is in Ventura, Calif., found that Massachusetts does indeed have the lowest divorce rate among all 50 states. More disturbing was the finding that born-again Christians have among the highest divorce rates.

The Associated Press, using data supplied by the US Census Bureau, found that the highest divorce rates are to be found in the Bible Belt. The AP report stated that "the divorce rates in these conservative states are roughly 50 percent above the national average of 4.2 per thousand people." The 10 Southern states with some of the highest divorce rates were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Texas. By comparison nine states in the Northeast were among those with the lowest divorce rates: Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

 Read more…