A Gay Can Be President - Just Don't Let The President Get Married!

A Gallup poll conducted in December of last year indicates that a majority of America's plebiscite would be O.K. with a gay President. But according to polls on same-sex marriage, the country would not allow that President to be married to his own sex. Make sense? No. But then the Christian Right who spearheads hate in this country is not about to make sense where (their) morals are concerned.

The same Gallup poll also tells us more than just who would vote for who. It also gives us a glimpse of dyed-in-the-wool haters:

4% hate Catholics (John Hagee alone is large enough to account for that figure)
5% are racist (that's an awful lot of single-wides!)
6% are anti-Semitic (excluding, of course, Mel Gibson)
12% are sexist (but only "The Good Ole Boys")
12% are anti-Hispanic (unless you know B**h - he speaks Spanish!)
17% are anti-Mormon (Mitt Romney thought it was higher)
41% are homophobic (but they can't all look like Rod Parsley)
48% are anti-atheist (there goes Christopher Hitchens' bid for the White House!)


O.K., so "haters" may have a margin of error since some might simply think that a person of a particular race or religion could not be qualified. But think again: there are people who hate ALL or most of the above. Is it possible that up to 4% of Americans are neo-Nazis, skinheads or Grand Wizards of some sort? Or are they people who hate everyone except white American Christian heterosexual males?

It's possible. It's scary. The portrait painted by this figure would mean that up to 12 million Americans are very dangerous people. And since hate breeds stupidity, they are also extremely stupid. The poll also gives us an indication of how many self-described Christians are anti-Mormon, anti-gay and anti-atheist (the last is a dead giveaway). And when you think of Fundamentalists, try to think of the person they WOULD vote for. Southern Baptists? Reconstructionists? Assemblies of God? Nope, I didn't think so.

Another significant demographic: 24% of Americans believe that their religion is the "one true faith" (Pew Research). How many of those "Christians" look with contempt (if not outright hatred) on other religions or sects? How many have morphed into neo-Nazis?

It's too bad Gallup can't give us a more accurate picture of religious intolerance. The figures we have now will have to do. It's a puzzle; but one worth solving.

Just a thought.

The Last Obama Smear?

Or Will Palin and McCain Strike Again?

They have nothing to lose. Unless you count their integrity. McCain, maybe. Palin, naaaah! I saw her last night on Saturday Night Live. SNL did well, considering they were, in essence, hosting Governor Palin. I really don't think she knew exactly what was going on. The Alec Baldwin bit was one of the best indirect digs I've seen lately. And his reaction to finding out who she really was was priceless because it was the same as the heads of state she was introduced to ("she's gorgeous!"). The Update's caricature of Todd Palin was something that must have caught her off guard.

Of course, she has other things to think about - like ACORN. Watch her work it into an Obama smear right up there with "pals around with terrorists."

ACORN officials have repeatedly claimed that their own quality control workers were the first to discover problematic ballots. In every state investigating bad registrations, ACORN tipped off local officials to bogus or incomplete cards, spokesman Kettenring said.

Just how many Obama smears have there been?

1. Barack HUSSEIN Obama "He's an A-rab"
2. Rev. Wright and Liberation Theology
3. "Pals around with terrorists"
4. Massive voter fraud (ACORN)

O.K., those are only the top 4. The other two hundred are just a bit too hard to swallow. Does Sarah Palin herself count as a smear? She uses smear tactics - enough to cover most of Washington, but I think she's comes in second to Ann Coulter(geist). If Obama is elected, Coulter will have a field day along with enough half-truths and lies to set her up for the rest of her life. But she would never retire: she has too many people to "perfect."

One Washington Post comment on Sarah Palin's smear campaign:

The problem is not unvarnished truth, but thinly varnished hatred.

As she proved in her speeches accepting John McCain's and her party's nominations, Governor Palin is a person with acute skills of self-expression. She knows exactly what response - and what bigotry - she will elicit when she denigrates the concept of a "community organizer."

The next two weeks will still be as the public wishes them to be: entertaining.

"There are certainly problems and I don't think anyone disagrees on that," said Wang of Common Cause. "But it doesn't get reported that ACORN finds these registrations errors themselves. They flag them as being no good, but they have to turn them in anyway."

"They don't get processed," she said. "And Mickey Mouse is not going to vote."

True, but Mickey Mouse might GET votes...along with Bullwinkle. Such is today's mentality of the Right.

Religious Persecution Just Ain't What It Used To Be!

But Don't Worry, Torture of Gays May Yet Become Legal

Hypatia of Alexandria (pronounced /haɪˈpeɪʃə/) (Greek: Ὑπατία; born between AD 350 and 370 – 415) was a Greek scholar from Alexandria in Egypt, considered the first notable woman in mathematics, who also taught philosophy and astronomy. She lived in Roman Egypt, and was killed by a Coptic Christian mob who blamed her for religious turmoil. She has been hailed as a "valiant defender of science against religion."

And according to Gibbon:

She was stripped naked and dragged through the streets to the newly christianised Caesareum church and killed. Some reports suggest she was flayed with ostrakois (literally, "oyster shells", though also used to refer to roof tiles or broken pottery) and set ablaze while still alive, though other accounts suggest those actions happened after her death:

A new angle by one reader:

This Prop. 8 is nothing less than religious persecution against those who have different beliefs. And if straight unmarried people think they are safe from these "conservatives"- think again. In Arkansas, there is a push by these religious groups to ban unmarried people from fostering children.

Once gays and lesbians have been persecuted with a change to the state Constitution, there is no telling who these people will set their sights on next. Vote No on Prop. 8 - it is religious persecution, pure and simple.

I agree, but making the Elmer Gantrys and Elmer Fudds of the world see that point of view is totally frustrating. They, like their religious ancestors, need to hate people. To them, life isn't worth living unless you have "heathens" "pagans" "Jews" "outcasts" "lepers" "sodomites" to go up against. They are, after all, devils in disguise.

There's a Christian Crimeline somewhere in my research. From ca. 200 CE (yes, even before the New Testament was solidified/sanctioned, there were Christians killing other Christians as "heretics") through events like the concentration camp for pagans (a Catholic Auschwitz) at Skythopolis (in Syria) and through the Crusades (great excuse for killing Jews as well as Muslims!) and through the "civilization" of the Americas and the "heathen" Native Americans, up till the present day, over 140 MILLION people have been killed "In the Name of God!"


In Europe, most of the 782 wars in the last 800 years have been sanctioned (on both sides) by Christianity. To this day, Christianity has not been able to come up with satisfactory apologies for anti-Semitism, slavery and just about every kind of bigotry known to man. Hitler was not original: even popes thought about the possibility of eugenics (Pacelli - Pius XII - would have experimented with anything to destroy Communist Russia).


Crazy, nitpicking "doctrines" have given rise to about 30,000 denominations, while the "non-denominational" churches still have "statements of belief" which are scary in the extreme. Televangelists and megachurch preachers don't even bother to hide their hatred for others. And while some proselytizing churchgoers preach "love the sinner, hate the sin," they more than not get their slogan backwards when "at war" in the sinful secular world handling subjects like homosexuality.

Do I actually think that gas ovens are in our future if they succeed in legislating hate and bans like Proposition 8?

Let's put it this way: once they feel any sort of power, they know that such power is not an end.

It's a beginning.

Just a thought.

jesus-loves-you

jesus-loves-you
Originally uploaded by DiscoWeasel

The one that gets me is "Capable of logical reason" because most Christofasicst sheeple are told not to reason because it is sinful to question the Word of God. They can use reasoning in any other endeavor but not when it comes to their religion, not on your life! (or soul). They actually have signs that read; "Don't think...believe" (Creation Museum, of course). And when a good, thinking Christian asks questions his/her minister can't answer, the reply is "take it as a matter of faith." That may be the coward's way out of a situation, but to the clergy, it works every time.

Try this little conundrum in your Bible Study class: The Bible says that the Ark was made out of "gopher wood." Fine. So what does gopher wood look like? Where is it indigenous? Is it soft, hard, porous, what? Answer: gopher wood has never been identified. If the Ark was so large, then there must have been plenty of gopher wood around. Mesopotamia? No. Lebanon? No. Syria? Jordan? Sudan? Ethiopia? Egypt? No. No. No. No. And...no. No gopher wood. Period.

Well, we just have to take its existence on faith. Right?

Right.

Mormons Send Money Across State Lines for Immoral Purposes

It's Not Proposition 8
It's Proposition Hate!

Mormons really do want to be accepted by the rest of the "Christian" Community. In fact, they're willing to shell out money for that acceptance.

Lots of money.

Actually, it's "hate money." That's where the questionable morality of donating to California's Proposition 8 comes in. It's not a "protect the children" Proposition. It's not a "government legislating morals" Proposition. It's not even a "it will cost the taxpayers money" Proposition. No, though all of these things have been cited in the "we're not hatemongers" ads, it's still a Proposition of Hate.

Several segments of "Letters to the Editor" of the San Francisco Chronicle have well-founded reasons to say "No" to Proposition 8:

Since Mormons have donated in excess of $9 million, accounting for at least 40 percent of Prop. 8's donors, we Californians need to scrupulously guard against a secretive religious sect from Utah controlling and subverting civil rights law in our state.

And this one raises the rather unique angle of religious persecution:

This Prop. 8 is nothing less than religious persecution against those who have different beliefs. And if straight unmarried people think they are safe from these "conservatives"- think again. In Arkansas, there is a push by these religious groups to ban unmarried people from fostering children.

Once gays and lesbians have been persecuted with a change to the state Constitution, there is no telling who these people will set their sights on next. Vote No on Prop. 8 - it is religious persecution, pure and simple.

Mormons have given money and MANPOWER for Proposition 8, according to CBS News:

Mormons have been active participants in the campaign both as volunteers and financial contributors, giving an estimated 43 percent—some $8.4 million—to the Proposition 8 campaign, according to the Web site mormonsfor8.com. There are about 770,000 Mormon church members in California, but Mormons from outside the state have been encouraged to give money and time to help pass the measure.

We could also look at the infusion of Mormon money into California as Big Business: while getting in good with Christians who think that Mormonism is a cult, they can promote the temples already in California.

Gotta protect the franchises.

Just a thought.

The Stupidity of Banning People From Doing What They Enjoy

Or...Ban, Baby, Ban!

Freedom was written into the Constitution. There were only a few instances (in its Amendments) where the Constitution actually banned certain procedures, social institutions or substances:

Abolition (Prohibition) of Slavery
Prohibition of the Poll Tax
Prohibition of Alcohol
Prohibition of Cruel and Unusual Punishment

So, in a way, the Constitution - through some of its prohibitions - legislated morality. When it banned personal freedoms, such as drinking alcohol, it met with some very disastrous results: (From Wikipedia):

The effects of Prohibition were largely unanticipated. Production, importation and distribution of alcoholic beverages—once the province of legitimate business—were taken over by criminal gangs, which fought each other for market control in violent confrontations, including mass murder. Top gangsters became rich and were admired locally, such as Omaha's Tom Dennison, and nationally, such as Chicago's Al Capone. This effectively made murderers into national celebrities. Enforcement was difficult because the gangs became so rich that they were often able to bribe underpaid and understaffed law-enforcement personnel and hire top lawyers.

Evangelists have tried - and failed - to ban things people truly enjoy: Carry Nation and Billy Sunday both crusaded for the prohibition of alcohol. Southern Baptist churches have had a ban on dancing. But dancing (like sex) is hard to ban since it is an enjoyable pastime.

Now people are trying to ban love and commitment.

At least, that's what marriage is supposed to be. However, love and commitment are rather popular these days, and when people want to ban them or even restrict them in any way, the public will still do what it wants in secret (like back-alley abortions, illegal commitments will still happen). The funny thing about banning same-sex marriages is that they still have to be proven harmful to the public at large. People who espouse the "protection" of marriage have put forth lame "theories" about what legalization of gay marriage would do to families, but no concrete facts. So, the same argument that they (erroneously) use on evolution could be used here: "Same-sex marriage as a social detriment is ONLY A THEORY."

Of course, the mentality of Christofascists does not accept rationality. They're still working to repeal the ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."

Just a thought.

Today Is The Day Disagree With Andrew Sullivan About Gay Marriage

Andrew Sullivan on marriage:

No other institution has an equivalent power to include people in their own familial narrative or civic history as deeply or as powerfully as civil marriage does. And the next generation see themselves as people first and gay second.

I read Andrew Sullivan every day. His POV is essential reading for anyone who wants to engage in a rational, but impassioned (and sometimes conservative) discussion on the people and events of the day. No matter how frustrating the news feed headlines are, I feel I can always turn to Sullivan to bring me back to a very human earth. So it is with sadness that I must qualify his views on same-sex marriage.

I say "qualify" because I agree with him in his article "My Big Fat Straight Wedding" - to a point.

It's wonderful to read:

Ours was not, we realized, a different institution, after all, and we were not different kinds of people. In the doing of it, it was the same as my sister’s wedding and we were the same as my sister and brother-in-law. The strange, bewildering emotions of the moment, the cake and reception, the distracted children and weeping mothers, the morning’s butterflies and the night’s drunkenness: this was not a gay marriage; it was a marriage.

I had that kind of feeling 33 years ago. I wasn't formally "married" to David, but his family treated me as a welcome addition to the family. Aunts, uncles, grandparents - all accepted me (one time David got visibly jealous that I received more Christmas presents than he did!). It was so wonderful that, when we parted I wanted "custody" of his family. Our loving friendship (his family's and mine) lasted past his death from AIDS in 1986. Yes, I know what a difference joyful acceptance can make.

But it's not an acceptance everyone is lucky enough to savor.

At the time, both David and I - the rest of our gay community - were absolutely certain that once a significant number of people were out of the closet, people everywhere would accept us as equals.

That was not to be. Still isn't.

We didn't count on the ferocity of anti-gay sentiments and the "Christian Right", at first led by Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority, then by various others all over the country. We didn't count on "religious" people demonizing us when AIDS came along. We didn't know then that there were people who needed to hate someone, something... anything.

Andrew: I'm overjoyed at the experiences you have with your family. They make me feel lucky that I ever had them. But please try to understand the sheer volume of people who repudiate you for being gay. And repudiate your family for accepting you.

Gay marriage will be a rallying point for bigotry and homophobia for as long as the two exist. And for as long as CINOs (Christians In Name Only), Fundamentalists and Christofascists continue to work against equality. Even winning in cases like No on Proposition 8 won't make things any better. Yes, "it's a start," but I have a very uneasy feeling that with the defeat of Prop 8, we will inadvertently corner a very dangerous wild animal. I'm for that defeat, but I fear it at the same time.

We're already seeing how angry people are when they attend McCain-Palin rallies. We've known for the whole time that Palin was just a bone tossed to Franklin Graham and the rest. But feeding on the wild (read: ungrammatical) rhetoric of Palin has made them rabid. They're the "sheeple" of the leaders like Robertson (old school), Rod Parsley (new and unschooled) and Rick Warren (new and very very shrewd). They are today's Elmer Gantrys and their followers are Elmer Fudds.

But always remember, Andrew: Fudd is the one with the gun.

Just a thought.