The Prop 8 Decision: Can We Laugh Now?

I won't lie: I had a hell of a time writing this. Oh, it was fun, to be sure, because any situation involving the Christian Right always comes with its own form of amusement. In fact, it seems that the CR holds dear the maxim "we've made a religion out of entertainment and an entertainment out of religion." But this time, I was torn between the ridiculous and the just plain disgusting: on one hand knowing that the CR reacted ridiculously and on the other that the CR reacted so viciously that "Christian" had no business being part of its label.

The decision handed down by Federal Judge Vaughn Walker about the Right's ban on same-sex marriages in California hit every nerve in the body of the CR. I'm sure that remarks about his sexuality will be the least bothersome to him. And while I haven't yet read about death threats, it goes without saying that there will be some. You can't be that stupid to think that if you say that his decision will bring about Armageddon,  no one will get out their crayons and scrawl a note.*


Such is the fine line between comedy and tragedy in this case: we laugh and cry at the same time at the Right's handling of the case/trial and of its reactions. The plot of the Prop 8 play had so very many twists and turns, so many elements: religion, politics, deceit, ineptitude, money, fear, power and greed. And pathos (in the form of love fighting hate) hung in front of them like some dingy scrim. Certainly from the Left's point of view, it was a "tale told by an idiot." The CR cobbled the script together with snippets of ideologies they thought everyone wanted to hear while they paid no attention to the laws and mores protecting a diverse (and secular) society. Some unschooled people of the audience fell for all the machinations, while most looked on in amazement because the clueless CR wound up portraying itself: reactionary, ruthless and lacking reason.

At this point, we have to ask ourselves what drugs the Protect Marriage (Prop 8) people were on when they asked the Alliance Defense Fund to represent them as proponents for the trial? To say that they were inept presents a lack of depth: they were horrendously stupid. 

 - They did not know before the trial that PROPONENTS OF  THE TRIAL HAVE NO "STANDING" TO APPEAL!! Only the governor and the attorney general have a right to appeal since the state of California was on trial and NOT Protect Marriage. Proponents are merely legal counsel to supporters of the defense. 

 - ADF CANCELLED all of their pertinent witnesses except two: David  Blankenhorn and William Tam.  

Proponents elected not to call the majority of their designated witnesses to testify at trial and call not a single official proponent of Proposition 8 presented to voters and the arguments presented in court. 

And they never vetted them properly (or at all) nor did they practice in a mock trial. Both witnesses were deemed completely unacceptable by the judge. They had no pertinent academic credentials and they both had ties to the George Reeker scandal as well. When asked about sources for a statement, William Tam gave one of the most anemic answers in trial history "I found it on the internet."

While they were supposedly acting as proponents for the State of California (NOT Protect Marriage), they did nothing to prove that the State of California would be harmed in any way by same-sex marriages. NOTE: Judge Walker has been known to weigh heavily on economic impact in cases like these. They certainly didn't do their homework.

Neither Blankenhorn nor Tam could come up with plausible reasons for the vicious ads placed during the campaign. In fact, these "experts" couldn't explain much of anything. The whole campaign was clearly discriminatory. And the defense folded before everyone's eyes. As with Mark Twain's sentiment above, monkeys might have done better.

Their slowly diminishing I.Q not withstanding, the proponents not only threw away their own case, but placed in stark contrast the points that Walker focused upon:

•  The defendants were backed by a "broad coalition" of churches.
•  No state has ever required "individuals entering a marriage be willing or able to        procreate."
•  Domestic partnerships "lack the social meaning associated with marriage."
• The purpose of Proposition 8 - evidenced by its campaign - was to portray gays and lesbians as less worthy of marriage and therefore less than equal citizens.
•  They could not prove that same-sex marriage would in any way harm families or the citizens of California.

The Alliance Defense Fund DID PROVE that if you say "God" "Bible" "Family" and (probably) "abomination" enough, you can convince any Christianist to hire you. 

Has Protect Marriage asked for its money back?

As entertaining as the trial was, the reaction to its decision was stellar in its righteous outrage:

- Pat Robertson (the last to chime in, perhaps because God took too much time explaining it to him): "Why, homosexuals want to destroy the church"


- Tony Perkins: 

Despite Walker 's own biases, which are woven into all 136 pages of the court's opinion, protecting marriage is not discriminatory. Nor is it, as he mocked, an "artifact" rooted in "unfounded stereotypes and prejudices."

(BTW: Perkins had a tough time alluding to Walker's gayness on Face the Nation: he looked the complete homophobe in spite of himself)

- Tim Wildmon, leader of the American Family Association: 

“tyrannical, abusive and utterly unconstitutional” and  “It’s also extremely problematic that Judge [Vaughn] Walker is a practicing homosexual himself. … His situation is no different than a judge who owns a porn studio being asked to rule on an anti-pornography statute.” 

 Wildmon later called for Walker's impeachment.


- Bastion for the sanctity of marriage Newt Gingrich called the ruling a:

 “notorious decision” and showed “outrageous disrespect for the Constitution.”


 - Andy Pugno, general counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund (heretofore known as the  Loony Lawyers League), said Walker had

“literally accused the majority of California voters of having ill and discriminatory intent”  

 - Robert George of the American Principles Project said that same-sex marriage supporters have a  “revolutionary sexual ideology.” 

 -  The decision shocked Richard Land, past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, so much that he didn't put "God" in his pronouncement: 

"This is a grievously serious crisis in how the American people will choose to be governed,” he said. “If and when the Supreme Court agrees with the lower court, then the American people will have to decide whether they will insist on continuing to have a government of the people, by the people and for the people, or whether they’re going to live under the serfdom of government by the judges, of the judges and for the judges.”

 - Maggie Gallagher, chairman of National Organization for Marriage (NOM):

If this ruling is upheld, ...Parents will find that, almost Soviet-style, their own children will be re-educated using their own tax dollars to disrespect their parents' views and values.

 - And finally, Bryan Fischer of American Family Association:

What they want is not equal rights, but special rights. They want a special exemption carved out for them so that their sexually aberrant relationships can be recognized as marriages, an exemption we don’t grant to folks who want to marry a son or a daughter, or a mother or a father, an uncle or an aunt, or a child.

Just in: American Family Association provided the biggest laugh today by presenting the results of a OneNewsNow.com poll. But accident (or was it - horrors! - sabotage?) the poll gave people  a choice that included the Supreme Court as an answer:

Which entity should have the final say in whether same-gender 'marriage' is legal? 

Congress - 0.64%

The Supreme Court - 85.77%

State legislatures - 1.49%

Voters - 12.10%

As if to cement the ADF and Protect Marriage people in their place, Judge Walker  threw some proverbial pies in their faces in his Fact section of the decision. IF an appeal is granted, these are the ONLY points that will be considered by the appeals court - no new wacko witnesses or dubious "studies":

• 
  
  

  Religious leaders may determine independently whether to recognize a civil marriage or divorce but that recognition or lack thereof has no effect on the relationship under state law.

• 
  
  

  California, like every other state, has never required that individuals entering a marriage be willing or able to procreate.

• 
  
  

  That the majority of California voters supported Proposition 8 is irrelevant, as 'fundamental rights may not be submitted to [a] vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.'"

AND:

Proposition 8 places the force of law behind stigmas against gays and lesbians.

So there we have it: a bumbling, disorganized, clueless defense chasing after same-sex marriage and the "homosexual agenda" followed by The Christian Right reactionaries, their billy clubs of arrogant self-righteousness waving in the air. 

Yes, we can laugh now.

*Stock tip: Crayola.

To clarify some of the hilarity that went on, watch an indredulous, can't-stop-laughing Rachel Maddow:

Bring Forth The Gays! Bring Forth The Jews! And.. RELEASE THE KAGAN!!

  

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
 Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
 His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
 The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
 About his shadowy sides; above him swell
 Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
 And far away into the sickly light,
 From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

 - from The Kraken, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

OK, I got the idea for the title from Jon Stewart's take on the Right's reaction to the nomination of Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. Watch it below. He is, as always, spot on. Any fan of fantasy and science-fiction films is familiar with The Kraken, a mythical beast of the sea sometimes physically depicted as a giant squid. The Right takes Kagan's nomination as an  attack, directly hitting its "left" flank in the culture war.

But the Right seems confused in its counterattack: lesbian? no experience? anti-military? Harriet Miers? Intelligence? As Stewart put it: "She's a recordless entity with no paper trail."

The comparisons to Harriet Miers are, of course, ridiculous: Miers committed THE public relations suicide of the decade when she said of George Bush, "He's the most brilliant man I have ever met." So much for judgment. She also received her law degree at Pat Robertson's Regent University, so you could pretty well determine the direction of her  stances, especially concerning gay rights. Anyway, after her fifteen minutes, she was put back in her cage for two years, during which she was constantly  pressured by Johua Bolton to resign. She now works for the Dallas law firm known as Locke Lord Bissell Lamp, Liddell.  

Any comparisons come from desperate Right wingnuts or people who get their news from Fox. 

We Fear What We Don't Know

The Judicial Crisis Network is just coming out with an ad requesting that the Obama administration make every effort to make all of Kagan's records (and thoughts) from the Clinton administration public. They are obviously scared of what they don't know. That's understandable. What's not understandable is taking a "pre-emptive strike" stance by unleashing a video that calls into account her limited experience and her stance against military recruitment on college campuses. The latter is akin to a tempest in a teapot. Her knowledge of the Constitution and American law are never questioned. Neither are her presentations to the Supreme Court as Solicitor General.

The Intelligent Lesbian

The moment I saw a picture of Elena Kagan, I thought "Well, this will be interesting." Afterwards, I was struck by her impressive background and realize that Tony Perkins had a right to be afraid of her: she might become the most intelligent of the justices. Say what? An intelligent President picking an intelligent SCOTUS justice?  Horrors!! OMG! She's a shorter, stouter Rachel Maddow! What will become of us!

So with the looming passage of ENDA, the Christian Right has come forth in battle armed with the question of moral fitness: Elena Kagan is gay and she'll swing the Supreme Court towards acceptance of gay marriage and gay rights in general. It makes no difference that Kagan has already been quoted as saying she does not believe that the Constitution supports gay marriage, but the mere possibility that she might be gay makes her totally unfit in their eyes. And any position that she has taken is skewed toward the far left:

"As the Harvard Law School Dean, Elena Kagan tried to bar the military from recruiting on her law school's campus during the height of the Iraq War based on her opposition to the federal law restricting homosexuals in the military. 

"...Ms. Kagan's incredibly hostile view of the military suggests she is out of touch with mainstream sensibilities and obedience to the rule of law. President Obama promised a nominee committed to the 'rule of law,' but, instead, he appears to have nominated a hard-left activist to the Supreme Court.

Of course, Bryan Fischer of American Family Association is apoplectic:

... [They want] an activist on the bench, a crusader, and knows that a homosexual judge will tilt the playing field on behalf of the legalization and social endorsement of sexually aberrant behavior.

The day a homosexual is elevated to the bench, the end will have come for the principle of sexual normalcy, the rule of law and the supremacy of the Constitution. That's too big a price to pay.

So left, center-left, center, center-right? Like a chess player who can't make up his mind, the Right is all around the board with Kagan. The problem the Right has is that some of their clan support Kagan's nomination: she has been sympathetic to the woes of big business. The Court might find itself in  the position of deciding regulation or deregulation of businesses like British Petroleum, so the fate of the environment can rest in Kagan's decisions.

And then there's Pat Buchanan's take on the nomination: not enough African-Americans on SCOTUS and too many Jews:

If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats.

So there we have the Right's precise, well-informed, analysis of Elena Kagan's nomination to SCOTUS: she's a too-intelligent, military-hating, allegedly lesbian Jew who never saw the inside of a courtroom. 

Hey, that's better than Scalia, isn't it?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Release the Kagan
www.thedailyshow.com

George Rekers Vs The Nashville Flood: The Media's Decisions

Which is more important? 

We all have our passions ...

and they must be made known.

Anderson Cooper has HUMANITY. Janet Porter hawks DOMINION over everything,   Lou Engle SANCTIONS UGANDA and Tony Perkins' favorite words are CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION. With me, it's HYPOCRISY.

But on his CNN program, Anderson Cooper 360,  taught me a valuable lesson: good journalism concentrates on the truly important things. At times, those things may seem frivolous, even salacious, but they are important for people to know.

As I watched his fervor in relating what the city of Nashville was going through and the determination of its people to immediately help one another to recuperate and rebuild, I realized that he was doing what he believed should be done: tell the rest of us about the whole story no matter how horrendous or tragic, mawkish or even numbing it may seem. By now, everyone knows that Cooper loves being in the middle of the conflict or disaster: his coverage of Haiti continues even though some news sources have dropped it all together. Cooper's coverage, however, does not go for the sensational, but instead earnestly attempts the real. 

I covered the George Rekers scandal from the moment I read Wayne Besen's account. Wayne's report came immediately after the Miami New Times piece (within one hour, actually) and I submitted mine to OpEdNews within the next several hours. I looked anxiously for any other news sources. Over a period of 24 hours, I found only Joe  Jervis   (Joe.My.God), Alvin McEwen (Huffington Post), and Stephen Colbert. The Miami New Times gave updates, followed immediately by first-hand interviews by Joe  Jervis. I waited another 12 hours and discovered Jay Leno, Craig Ferguson, Rachel Maddow, and Joy Behar along with continuing updates by Besen and Jervis  upon which I wrote another piece and submitted it to OpEdNews. However, I was getting frustrated. I must have googled "George Alan Rekers" a thousand times in 24 hours, almost always coming up with nothing (yes, there was a small interview with the gay online magazine, Unzipped, but it wasn't publicized very well) Then I found out that Rekers' rentboy, Julien, acquiesed to an interview on Anderson Cooper 360. 

I was definitely anxious to see how the scandal and the rentboy would be treated. I was not let down: the story was told in a very straightforward manner, Julien was treated with respect and Cooper's ending included the formal statement by the Family Research Council. Yes, it was fair and balanced (ahem). 

Watching CNN's other stories impacted me in a way I had not expected: Cooper and CNN gave as much time and attention to Rekers' story as they did to the looming epidemic in Haiti and the murder of UVA student Yardley Love. And while the reporting was done in several different styles (Julien's interview was with CNN's Randi Kaye), each report was given its own impetus ... and its own stature among the rest. The message was clear: this was an IMPORTANT story and people should know about it. The focus was not placed entirely on Julien. That would have been too tempting for any other newscast; instead, the focus was on Rekers and his hypocrisy. 

And here I thought that only a few investigators and late-night comics considered it newsworthy.

Of course, other people (namely people like Tony Perkins and James Dobson) will put down CNN and Cooper because they consider anyone placing them in a bad light (or under a microscope) to be "anti-Christian." Janet Porter will point out that it's another reason  why America's Christian community should have "dominion" over the media. Lou Engles will try to blame Julien and all gays. And Pat Robertson will say, well, ah, something stupid.

Joe Jervis thought that CNN's coverage of the scandal (including Lucien's interview) was a disappointment and that Rachel Maddow's comments rocked. I liked both: Cooper 's job was to present the news while Maddow's job was to analyze the news and comment on it. 

Inmany case, the story is now "world class" thanks to sound investigative reporting. BTW, FOX "News" has not covered it. Go ahead and google it. Go to Fox's website and search. Unless it has done something between the time that I'm writing and the time you're reading, I'll venture a guess that you will find ... nothing. 

It doesn't matter, really. You know that FOX will end it with their (now) ubiquitous, but lame piece of political philosophy: "Blame Obama."

Just a thought.

American Putz: Is FOX Going To Hell Riding A Very Happy Horse?

"It's Like Getting Hate Mail From Hitler"

I was scared. All forty of us were. We went from the showers through the foot disinfectant and into the cold, subterranean vault of tile walls and floor. There were no windows, which was just as well because we were all naked. I was fourteen and, with the exception of my father, I had never seen naked men. Or naked boys called “men.”

No, this was not Auschwitz. Instead, it was the first day of swimming class in my Catholic college prep school. It was then that I sadly realized: all men are not created equal. And that keeping this knowledge from young "men" (like me, at least) was criminal.

Likewise for getting a hissy-fit over a male mammal function.

Last Sunday, FOX aired its episode of American Dad, titled Never Look a Smith Horse In The Mouth. The animated program is definitely adult in content in that it has scenes and references that children would not comprehend: its send off of "The Rapture", Jesus meeting Sam in a bar to tell him that the Anti-Christ has taken Francine and an episode titled "Fake Jesus." One of the most notable was when Roger the alien talks about Christianity:

Roger: Oh, I love your religion ... for the crazy! Virgin birth. Water into wine. It's like Harry Potter, but it causes genocide and bad folk music.

But this time, the program really pushed the envelope with a scene implying the masturbation of a horse! The Parent's Television Council is `now starting to get American Dad punished by the FCC since it thinks the episode "depicted scenes of a man masturbating a horse. " Explicit bestiality!! So how does the creator of American Dad and Family Guy, Seth MacFarlane, take all the criticism?

"That’s like getting hate mail from Hitler. They’re literally terrible human beings. I've read their newsletter, I've visited their website, and they're just rotten to the core. For an organization that prides itself on Christian values—I mean, I'm an atheist, so what do I know ?—they spend their entire day hating people."

BTW, a poll was taken and 40% of those polled thought the scene was harmless and very funny.

Now here's the primary attack: From PTC:

A broadcast television network aired an animated program on a Sunday evening when children were in the audience, and the program featured a man masturbating a horse," said Tim Winter, president of the PTC. "Up until now, I never imagined that those exact words could ever be spoken in that particular order. But sadly, here we are.

Fox declined to comment on the backlash.

I wish I had a copy of the aforementioned scene, but the only one you can view is on the PTC's site HERE. Do you see Stan actually touch the horse's penis and stroke it? No. Is masturbation implied? Yes. Implied. And to the people of the PTC, implying masturbation is just as bad as the act itself. Imagining sex is just as bad as the act itself. And with all that imagining and implying going on, the PTC exploits people's assumptions that something wrong happened.

The PTC is trying to penalize Fox and MacFarlane due to implications and not actual fact. They are also arguing that since American Dad airs at 9:30PM, it violates the law that says more adult content must be shown after 10:00PM.

A question: just where does bestiality come in on all of this? The horse may have ended the episode very happy, but did Stan get pleasure out of it? Obviously not. And if Stan didn't derive any pleasure, is there, in fact, any bestiality going on at all?

There wasn't. The PTC wants you to think that. They also do not want you to see a mammalian appendage ever again, unless you have to.

Like when you're in swimming class.

Rick Warren's Front Man: Saddleback Is Exactly Like A Seinfeld Episode!

Huh?!?

There's something amiss when a publicist defends a noted minister's actions in the Op Ed section of a major newspaper. Especially when the minister is Rick Warren and the publicist is - his own, A. Larry Ross:

While experiencing banner ministry impact, including monthly food assistance to 2,000 local families, the Southern California mega-church had been essentially on budget for the first half of its fiscal year, until this past week. But despite 10 overflow Christmas Eve services, the seasonal offering benefiting many of the church's benevolence outreaches was down significantly; and the timing of Christmas on Friday affected attendance and giving on the final weekend of the year.

This piece, btw, was titled Rick Warren: Soup Nazi or soup, grazie? Ross does a barely creditable job at tying Rick Warren to a Seinfeld character:

This past week, Rick Warren, renowned pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif., faced a similar dilemma of having to turn away people in the community in need of assistance - not because of any capricious regimen, but due to limited resources at the close of the last decade.

I hope Rachel Maddow covers this in her inimitable style:

So Rick Warren - the great pastor who delivers august sermons at inaugurations - was surprised. At a downturn in donations. During a time of severe economic recession. And he uses a publicist who doesn't know an adjective from a noun ("benevolence outreaches"). The same publicist who, two weeks after Warren's "noteworthy" speech to Muslim-Americans on July 4th, sends a misspelled, ungrammatical and error-ridden transcript. And to only one - rather obscure - Muslim-American website.

From the website of A. Larry Ross Communications:

A. Larry Ross Communications (ALRC) is a full-service media and public relations agency founded in 1994 to “restore faith in media,” provide “value-added P.R. that defines values” and give Christian messages relevance and meaning in mainstream media.

More from the Op Ed in the WashingtonPost:

Warren challenged the congregation to help offset a $900,000 shortfall from the final week offerings that help fund year-end benevolence ministry prior to the start of 2010, which would allow Saddleback to continue to minister and meet the needs of not just Orange County, but Southern California, the nation - and the world, through the PEACE Plan.

Today Orange County, tomorrow the WORLD!! Uh, gee, I didn't know $900,000 could stretch that far! I didn't know Warren's ministries were that GLOBAL! That STUPENDOUS! But, ah, if they're that global, $900k seems like a drop on the proverbial ministry bucket.
From The Orange County Register

The church does not make its financial information public, so it’s impossible to tell just how big of a hole in the boat this $900,000 represents. A spokeswoman for Warren said the church does not release detail on its finances, so it’s hard to put the shortfall in context. (Suffice to say it may not represent a terribly significant portion of Saddleback’s annual budget, and that his personal appeal may well close the hole, and then some.)

So, transparency is not in Saddleback's financial lexicon. Only Ross' ill-treatment of buzz-words. And fuzzy math. Also vagaries. Oops, almost forgot an important word: hyperbole. Which comes before another word in the dictionary: hypocrisy (our personal favorite, although Ross doesn't use it very much).

Well, enough of channeling Rachel. Suffice it to say that there are actually those who believe Ross' press releases/op-eds.

Holy Minestrone!

We're doomed.