It's 10:30 AM (PST) In San Francisco. Do You Know Where Your Marriage Rights Are?

BREAKING (10:05 PST): THE RULING STAYS/IS OVERTURNED
CLERGY ON THE READY WILL/WON'T BE PERFORMING CEREMONIES

Live blogging is very difficult, especially when you've got to follow something like Prop 8 in California. But it's got to be done. The news has hit the streets and reactions will be analyzed.

Ad infinitum.

But first, a message from our sponsor: marriage equality. 

There's no doubt about it: marriage equality is the defining issue of the culture war as it stands. Not even abortion comes close. A panoramic view of how widespread it has become is needed:

There are six states, one district and one Native American tribe that recognize same-sex marriages: Coquille Indian Tribe in Oregon, Connecticut, District of ColumbiaC, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont

There are five state that recognize civil unions: Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey and Rhode Island

There are nine states that recognize domestic partnerships: California, Colorado, Maryland, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin

There are nine court cases pending on marriage equality:
California (federal appeals court), Hawaii, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Carolina

There are nine proposals/laws pending involving state legislatures:
Colorado, Iowa (proposed repea) Maryland, Montana,New Jersey, New Hampshire (proposed repeal) Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia [civil unions]

Marriage equality is on 5 state ballots: California (maybe), Maine, Minnesota [constitutional marriage ban]
North Carolina [constitutional marriage ban] and Washington (maybe)

National foes of marriage equality include: The American Family Association, The Family Research Council, the Catholic Church, Focus On The Family, the Mormon Church, The Southern Baptist Convention, National  Organization for Marriage (NOM), Concerned Women of America, the Tea Party. 

Prominent politicians and political figures against marriage equality: Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Michele Bachmann, Phyllis Schlafley, Sam Brownback, John McCain, Chris Christie, 

Prominent religious figures opposing marriage equality: Pope Benedict XVI, Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, "Bishop" Eddie Long, (prophet) Lou Engle, (historian) David Barton, Ken Copeland, Pat Robertson (700 Club), "Bishop" T.D. Jakes, Robert Jeffress (First Baptist, Dallas), Richard Land (Southern Baptist Convention).  

Chief media against marriage equality: FOX News, World Net Daily, most Rupert Murdoch-owned media.

PROP 8

The California Proposition 8 saga will go down in history as one of the defining issues of our times: it consumed all of the culture warriors in the country, because: "as goes California, so goes the country." The state of California is the largest (population-wise) in the country (nearly 10%) and the sixth largest economic entity in the world. Whatever the Right/Christian Right says about California and its components (e.g. "Hollyweird"), it cannot deny California's influence...and the thing it hates about California the most: its diversity. California is everything to everyone. 

When Prop 8 first reared its rather ugly head, the nation saw just how powerful - and desperate - the Christian Right was to maintain control over marriage laws: for the first time, one state's proposition drew (massive amounts of) outside money and people were bused across state lines to help with the campaign. Notable figures like Rick Warren filmed public service announcements. Battle lines were drawn. Prop 8 banners were either displayed prominently ... or vandalized. 

"That was four years ago, this is now."  

Guess again. The climate of pro-marriage equality in California may have significantly changed (54% now approve of same-sex marriage as opposed to only 48% in 2008), but sentiments have gotten stronger .. on both sides, each one vowing to take it to the U.S. Supreme Court. It's a fight to SCOTUS, to be sure, and any wounded animal in the battle will be incredibly difficult to fend off. 

Don't Forget The Technicality:

Today's decision was NOT about the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. It was about UPHOLDING the RULING by Judge Vaughn Walker AND it was about the standing of a judge who ruled about Prop 8's constitutionality simply because he was gay. It adds to the confusion and the drama of an already legendary battle for rights. Elation in the decision will be ephemeral as well as disappointment. 

In other words, we're just looking at a dress rehearsal. And compared to what's ahead, a high school dress rehearsal at that. 

Thanks and a hat tip to Marriage Equality U.S.A. for providing the legend pictured below.

DRIVE

It takes drive to write about stuff that makes you passionate, because  no matter how passionate you are, your passion needs to be braced by stimulus: drive. 


It's not easy writing about jerks, assholes, charlatans, dimwits and the righteously arrogant. It's tiring. Sometimes it's almost boring. Sometimes it can make you feel irrelevant. 


DRIVE


The Christian Right's machinations supply the DRIVE. Ironic, isn't it: there very things they campaign against, they fuel.


DRIVE.


Stay tuned.

Prop 8 case decision tomorrow

Gilligan Wasn't THAT Stupid: How The GOP's Castaways Have Never Looked Sillier

Santorum missed the boat. 


It was bound to happen: someone portraying today's GOP politicos as the cast of Gilligan's Island. They have, after all, been considered clowns, even by Dukes of Hazzard fans. And the parallels are so rich! Come on, you know you can't stop laughing!


The above photo-shopped portrait has hit the ether with a scream and people all over the net are doubling over, reaching for Kleenex, and gasping for breath. It almost makes you sorry for the REAL cast - they never got laughs THIS big!


One of the best ones is Palin as Maryann. Maryann was corn-fed and clueless... and she had "perky pills" for breakfast. If the characters had longer lives, Maryann's daughter would have wound up on Dancing With The Stars. 


Ron Paul as Lovey Howell isn't bad either. Paul may consider himself an outsider, but he's demured to people like Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich more than some people realize. And of all the characters, Lovey's was the most useless: Paul's stances have never swayed the other candidates and since everyone knows he won't win the GOP nomination, there's a fruitlessness about his campaign. He's making a statement, but so what?


Newt as the Skipper demonstrates the burly politics that win over people who bludgeon cats.


Romney's Thurston Howell is apropos because most of Howell's money came with him on the boat. Romney can never shake the image of a rich man who's never really known poverty.

Michele Bachmann's Ginger exudes a contrived beauty. (probably with help from her make-up man, Marcus Bachmann). She floated through her campaign as if in a Hollywood cloud, too enamored of herself to think that anyone would touch her negatively - or her husband. 


Huntsman is intelligent - and pretty to look at, but his character - the professor - was the weakest of all and barely got any laughs. He was too smart for his own good.


The best, of course, is Perry as Gilligan, the blundering goof who didn't know that when the Texas GOP applauded his execution rate, the rest of the world was appalled. "N*ggerhead" and his debate gaffs shot him to the top of  laugh meters. His campaign video "Strong" and his Brokeback Mountain jacket blunder have now become the stuff of  comedy legend. His campaign manager, Joe Allbaugh, let him roll without a laugh track: Perry didn't need one.


You're still laughing, aren't you? Come on! You ARE!


Against The Assault Of Laughter, Nothing Can Stand 


Yes, Mark Twain said it best: laughter can certainly be a wonderful weapon when it comes to any war against politicians and their hypocrisy, for who wants to be on the side of fools? And it's the best medicine for a country that's ill with Koch Brother shenanigans, shady banking maneuvers, 1% mentality, and Citizens United possibilities. 


Of course, since most comedy is actually built upon tragedy, the field of Christian-Right pandering politicians has its dark side. Perhaps that's why Santorum isn't in the picture: laughter could be swept away in an instant WTF? Ginrich's moral mea culpas are funny, Paul's past views are ridiculously inconsistent, Romney's strident attempts to appear common are whimsical, but Santorum's overt moralizing is truly scary. His latest statement to a woman about her son's healthcare* is horrific and strains comedy writers across the country to see anything funny in it. 


But we must keep laughing at the Right's list of leaders, if only to knock them down for their hilarious hubris. 
We must keep laughing because the only thing more nightmare-inducing than the crew and antics of the SS GOP:


RERUNS.


*Santorum recently told a mother to stop whining about her son's million-dollar prescription medicine bill.

Maybe They'll Find Jimmy Hoffa

Russians drilling in the coldest spot on earth (Antarctica) have not been heard from in several days! They have been drilling TWO MILES DEEP to a subterranean lake which has not seen the light of day for 20 million years! 


They may find different life forms.


Who will find them?


Hopefully, someone will.

Putting The "FUN" Back Into Retailing Means Telling The AFA To Go F*ck Itself

And that's FUN!


The American Family Association's campaign to have J.C. Penney "fire" Ellen Degeneres as its spokeperson has backfired. Of course, they're uber-pissed.

Gerbils, Cell Phones And Bats Up The Butt: The Culture War Heats Up With Diatribes From Another World

The other world being the other side - the far right other side -  that is.


The irony of today's Gingrich morality debate is that it highlights rather than downplays the hypocrisies and the falsehoods spun by "social conservatives." Gingrich's infidelity mea culpas served him well in South Carolina, of course. Sarah Palin blasted the "dumb arse" media for covering the "open marriage story."  And his victory was lauded by organizations such as NOM (National Organization for Marriage). Gingrich's past, it seems is blissfully in the past and has nothing whatsoever to do with the country's economic future.


The the future of the country's morality? Why, it lies not with Gingrich, but with the country's more pulpit-driven lawmakers ... and the pulpits themselves, of course. Mea culpa's evidently helped homophobic "Bishop" Eddie Long  regain his stature at New Birth Missionary Church last Sunday where he was crowned "king" by a suspect "rabbi". He was paraded around on a throne and clothed in tabernacle scrolls (they couldn't afford spandex?).  People are calling it a mockery, but his congregation is calling it righteousness.


RAMPING UP THE RIGHTEOUSNESS


So in the culture war of this year, "social conservatives," "values voters" and just plain ole' fundamentalists are ramping up the rhetoric to obscene levels. Obscene in their own minds. Hysterical in others.

On a recent appearance on LaBarbera’s radio show, [Americans for Truth About Homosexuality] [Dr./Pastor Patrick ] Wooden called homosexuality a “wicked, deviant, immoral, self-destructive, anti-human sexual behavior” and should make people “literally gag.” Wooden added that gay men have “to wear a diaper or a butt plug just to be able to contain their bowels” by their “40s or 50s” as a result of “what happens to the male anus.” (listen to excerpt below)

Then we have this man who is not capable of teaching sex education:

“Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”
“My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…

He is, of course, Tennessee state senator Stacey Campfield who, late on, was refused service at a restaurant because of his bigoted views.

“What is the average lifespan of a homosexual? It’s very short ... Anybody out there who’s listening – your twelve listeners on your show, you have them Google ‘average homosexual lifespan.’ It’s very short.”*

The "evidence" cited, of course, is a regurgitation of old lies, myths and irrelevant controversies. We can view vaguely literate "research" HERE and HERE. And they are repeated by every Family Research Council, every American Family Association, every Christian Right mega-church pastor in the country to push the electorate and the political candidates into a false sense of righteousness in the voting booth. 


From Eddie Long being crowned "king" to prophetess/apostle Cindy Jacobs "curing" a woman of her hysterectomy, the moralizing elements of the far right promise to attack liberals with cruel distortions, irrational fears (ala anti-Islam),  chicanery and pomposity never seen since the Crusades. 

But the influence of these deep thinkers is not to be dismissed, because it leads to people being discriminated against, or bludgeoned cats left on doorsteps with the word "liberal" scrawled across them.




*This last dig at Michelangelo Signorile's popularity is very telling: Signorile's program is broadcast to over 20 million Sirius XM radio subscribers. Campfield's aides evidently didn't know that when they booked him on the program. Spouting these "facts" on Signorile's program is in itself, ludicrous.