Quote of the Day: Gay Republicans, WTF?

From a comment on a post about GOProud, the new-ish gay Republican group, on Queerty:

“I suppose it is good to have people who support equality in the GOP to TRY to counter those who would oppose that equality (and going back to the old adage that it is hard to hate those you know personally), but I can't get over the hump that ultimately these people care more about conservative issues on the economy than they do about their own personal relationships and rights. What kind of person cares more about their wallet and their property than they do their partner or children?”

Well said, Caleb.  Well said.

Anti-marriage activist tells gays to "get married"

Hypocritical idiot of the day award goes to Kerry Messer of the Missouri Family Network, who told same-sex couples in Missouri to "get married or live with the status quo." Did he somehow forget the fact that Missouri has a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage? And that his organization helped PASS IT?!?

The context of the quote is a heartbreaking story about Dennis Engelhard, a gay Missouri State Highway Patrolman who was struck by a car and killed in the line of duty on Christmas day, leaving behind his parnter of fifteen years, Kelly Glossip. since then, the state has denied Kelly's request for Dennis's survivor pension benefits, which would be readily given to any opposite-sex spouse. To add insult to injury, the BackStoppers Police and Firefighters Fund — an organization that raises money to help the families of officers killed in the line of duty — has refused to give Kelly any support even though they are USING DENNIS'S DEATH TO RAISE MONEY!!!

The whole situation is disgusting and illustrates just how desperately same-sex couples need laws that will include them in the protections that married opposite-sex couples take for granted. But in terms of sheer hypocrisy, disingenuousness and cold-hearted cruelty, this quote from Mr. Messer — which appeared in an AP story on Dennis and Kelly — just takes the cake.

Kerry Messer, founder and president of conservative Missouri Family Network, said that even in the case of unmarried heterosexual couples, rights defer to blood relatives first.

"Common law marriage doesn't exist in Missouri for a very good reason," he said. "It throws other laws into a tailspin and muddies every other policy. The state says 'get married or live with the status quo.' That's true for gays and heterosexuals."

Hear that, Kelly? If you wanted to be protected in case your partner died while serving the state, you and Dennis should have gotten married. Except you couldn't. Kerry Messer and the voters of Missouri — who Dennis spent his career protecting — made sure of that.

Get mad... but for the right reasons, please.

There's a lot of outrage being expressed in the gay press, on gay blogs and on Facebook over the Department of Justice's brief defending DOMA in Smelt v. United States. The organization I work for has even issued a statement, along with other LGBT groups, criticizing the DOJ's arguments.

The problem is, the most outrage coming from John Aravosis, Queerty and others is over the fact that the DOJ is defending DOMA in the first place. That's just crazy talk. When someone sues the United States, it is the DOJ's job to defend the government against the lawsuit. For them not to would be like if you were being sued and your lawyer said "well, I'm not going to defend you because I kind of agree with the other side." Moreover, it would set a horrible precident that could be used against us under a conservative administration.

New York Law School Professor Arthur S. Link has a great explanation on his site:

Some have criticized the government for defending DOMA and DADT in the courts. Actually, this is the Justice Department's job, especially in the case of statutes that have been upheld by the courts many times. DADT has been under continual attack in the courts since the mid 1990s, and suits challenging DOMA date back almost as far, and neither have succeeded yet. In a stand-off between the legislative branch and the executive branch about the constitutionality of a law, I'm not sure I would feel good about the executive branch being free to decide which validly enacted laws it is going to enforce. That sounds too much to me like George W. Bush's position that as commander in chief he could ignore any law that gets in his way in carrying out his strategy for preserving national security. Demanding that the President or the Attorney General refuse to enforce a law with which they disagree as a matter of policy because they believe it may be unconstitutional or because they advocate its repeal is a dangerous demand to make, and arguing that they should refuse to defend an existing federal statute in court comes dangerously close to that.

Aravosis tries to argue that the Obama administration could have refused to defend DOMA in the Smelt case by disingenuously citing previous situations where the DOJ declined to defend the government in a lawsuit. But in all four examples, the law in question was obviously unconstitutional based on previous SCOTUS decisions. There has never been a SCOTUS decision on same-sex marriage (save Baker v. Nelson, which was really just a punt), so to suggest that this question has been settled and the DOJ would be justified in NOT defending DOMA is just absurd. (Even more frustrating is that major news outlets, including CBS, have quoted Aravosis's contention that the DOJ could have refused to defend the government as fact - without ever doing any actual research to find out if it is true.)

Now don't get me wrong: there is much to criticize President Obama for in his handling of LGBT rights, both in this case and elsewhere. Smelt has some serious issues - including big jurisdictional problems and the fact that the plaintiffs haven't alleged any particular injury - which could have been used to get the case dismissed without ever having to defend DOMA on its merits. The strange new argument that DOMA keeps the federal government neutral on the question is just patently absurd.

Elsewhere, Obama has still not issued an executive order banning transgender discrimination in federal employment and requiring government contractors not to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity - something he could have done on his very first day in office. And his public positions on passing ENDA and repealing DOMA and DADT have not been as robust as one would expect from a man who claimed he'd be a "fierce advocate" for the LGBT community.

So yes, we need to call out the administration and apply pressure on Obama to live up to his campaign promises. But to go apoplectic because the DOJ did its job by defending the government against a lawsuit just makes our side look naive and reactionary.

Choice Quotes from Iowa Marriage Ruling

Just finished reading the ruling in Varnum v. Brien, the Iowa Supreme Court case that, today, resulted in the Court striking down Iowa's same-sex marriage ban. The opinion is really quite awesome. The justices do a great job refuting a lot of common arguments against gay marriage and the courts' role in promoting equality.

Here are my favorite excerpts:

It's Simple: How is Banning Marriage Fair?

"The same-sex-marriage debate waged in this case is part of a strong national dialogue centered on a fundamental, deep-seated, traditional institution that has excluded, by state action, a particular class of Iowans. This class of people asks a simple and direct question: How can a state premised on the constitutional principle of equal protection justify exclusion of a class of Iowans from civil marriage?"

Activist Judges? This is our JOB, Bitches.

"Our responsibility, however, is to protect constitutional rights of individuals from legislative enactments that have denied those rights, even when the rights have not yet been broadly accepted, were at one time unimagined, or challenge a deeply ingrained practice or law viewed to be impervious to the passage of time. The framers of the Iowa Constitution knew, as did the drafters of the United States Constitution, that 'times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress,' and as our constitution 'endures, persons in every generation can invoke its principles in their own search for greater freedom' and equality."

Society BENEFITS from Same-Sex Marriage

"Therefore, with respect to the subject and purposes of Iowa’s marriage laws, we find that the plaintiffs are similarly situated compared to heterosexual persons. Plaintiffs are in committed and loving relationships, many raising families, just like heterosexual couples. Moreover, official recognition of their status provides an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational rights and responsibilities, just as it does for heterosexual couples. Society benefits, for example, from providing same-sex couples a stable framework within which to raise their children and the power to make health care and end-of-life decisions for loved ones, just as it does when that framework is provided for opposite-sex couples."

Same-Sex Marriage Bans ARE SO Discriminatory
(I love this bit, because it answers the fundies who claim this isn't discrimination because a gay or lesbian person is as free to marry an opposite-sex spouse as anyone else.)

"It is true the marriage statute does not expressly prohibit gay and lesbian persons from marrying; it does, however, require that if they marry, it must be to someone of the opposite sex. Viewed in the complete context of marriage, including intimacy, civil marriage with a person of the opposite sex is as unappealing to a gay or lesbian person as civil marriage with a person of the same sex is to a heterosexual. Thus, the right of a gay or lesbian person under the marriage statute to enter into a civil marriage only with a person of the opposite sex is no right at all."

If Tradition = Discrimination, then Tradition Gots to Go!

"This precise situation is presented by the County’s claim that the statute in this case exists to preserve the traditional understanding of marriage. The governmental objective identified by the County—to maintain the traditional understanding of marriage—is simply another way of saying the governmental objective is to limit civil marriage to opposite-sex couples... Moreover, it can allow discrimination to become acceptable as tradition and helps to explain how discrimination can exist for such a long time. If a simple showing that discrimination is traditional satisfies equal protection, previous successful equal protection challenges of invidious racial and gender classifications would have failed."

You're Wrong About Gay Parents. You Mean Well, but Still, Wrong.

"Plaintiffs presented an abundance of evidence and research, confirmed by our independent research, supporting the proposition that the interests of children are served equally by same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents. On the other hand, we acknowledge the existence of reasoned opinions that
dual-gender parenting is the optimal environment for children. These opinions, while thoughtful and sincere, were largely unsupported by reliable scientific studies."

The court then calls out the haters, saying, basically, that if "protecting marriage" were really about giving kids the "optimal" environment, all these fundies would be moving to ban "child abusers, sexual predators, parents neglecting to provide child support, and violent felons" from getting married, not gay people. They continue, saying:

"If the statute was truly about the best interest of children, some benefit to children derived from the ban on same-sex civil marriages would be observable. Yet, the germane analysis does not show how the best interests of children of gay and lesbian parents, who are denied an environment supported by the benefits of marriage under the statute, are served by the ban. Likewise, the exclusion of gays and lesbians from marriage does not benefit the interests of those children of heterosexual parents, who are able to enjoy the environment supported by marriage with or without the inclusion of same-sex couples."

There are two longer passages, one on the bullshit "promotion of procreation" argument in support of banning same-sex marriage (which the New York Supreme Court bought) and another on the unspoken religious argument, but they are good enough to warrant their own posts. More to come...

Stop teasing us, HuffPo!

Wait a minute! Did the Huffington Post really just allege that Michael Phelps has a beard??? I mean, I'd heard rumors and all, but...

Oh. I see. Never mind.

Protecting gay students may make your son a faggot

Mission America, the same folk who started praying for me over the holidays last year, have released a "Dirty Dozen" checklist of ways you can tell if your school is trying to persuade Junior to become Juanita. Number one? A safe schools policy prohibiting gay and lesbian students from being beat up at school.

At first I assumed that the rationale was that if little Junior doesn't get to give the local faggots a good ass kicking, then his masculinity will come into question and he'll be sucking dick down at the truck stop faster than you can say "Judy Garland." But upon reading more closely, I saw that the official line from Mission America is even MORE TERRIFYING. They assert that when a school passes a rule protection LGBT students from violence:

"homosexuality becomes essentially endorsed by the school, because it protects the option for any student to engage in it."

Read that again:

"homosexuality becomes essentially endorsed by the school, because it protects the option for any student to engage in it."

To get how truly frightening this is, let's look at the corollary of Mission America's argument. It would go something like this:

When a school does NOT pass rules protecting gay students from violence, it does not endorse homosexuality because it allows violence to happen against any student who engages in it.

This is the real face of "Christian" America. Kill the fags. Now.

I hate that Christianity is used to defend this prejudice and hatred. Please, stop blaming your ignorant, narrow-minded, hate-filled prejudices on God.

She's fucking sick of it.

Planet Unicorn, heyyy

I know it's been waaaaayyyyy too long. I'll be posting for real again soon. Promise. In the meantime, this is the funniest thing I've seen in quite awhile...

Associated Press: Not so much with the pop culture references

The headline above was an AP story on the internets the other day, speculating that Ann Coulter's recent homophobic comments about John Edwards were the beginning of the end for her. But The Tipping Point was all about how trends go very quickly from relative obscurity to mass appeal very quickly. Not so relevant for Ann Coulter, 46.

Think they meant to say "Has Ann Coulter jumped the shark?"

Ann Coulter: Evil Homophobic Bimbo

One of the events that made me most proud of Tucson, my adopted hometown, was when Ann Coulter, 45 (or is it 46 by now?), was speaking there and someone threw a pie at her. Brilliant! Sadly, it didn't get her to shut up, then or now...

Today brought a clip from thinkprogress.com wherein EvilAnn says that she'd talk about John Edwards but "you have to go into rehab if you use the word faggot." It's pissed me off on so many different levels, I don't even know what to say. So I'll just let Raggedy Ann speak for herself:

Can I start a pie throwing campaign? Like, everywhere she ever appears in public?

UPDATE: I'm not able to get the video above to work, and don't really have hours to spend on trying, so go here if you want to see Ann Coulter's homophobic tirade.

Lou Dobbs is half right: Close the other border!!!

Okay, I'm the last one who would argue a hard-line stance on immigration, but in this one particular case, I'm making an exception. There is a real problem with immigrants in my neighborhood, and it's driving me crazy. I'm talking about all the GAY MALE FRENCH-CANADIANS who have invaded Chelsea!!!

Calling them arrogant and obnoxious is the only way I can describe why they bother me so. Yes, it is a sweeping generalization, but in my highly scientific observations, I know this one to be true. Every time I'm at the gym, there's one on his cell phone, in the locker room, having a really LOUD conversation while everyone else gets to listen. You notice groups of them at crowded local restaurants, talking for HOURS after they've finished their meals, while other patrons huddle in the cold, waiting for tables. Just today, as I popped into the local grocery store to get three items, there was one going through the 10-items-or-less line with 23 - YES, TWENTY-FUCKING-THREE, I COUNTED - items, who then made us all wait while he used the ATM because, malheureusement, he'd forgotten he had no cash. But it's ce n'est pas grave to him, right? I wanted to kick him in the squish!

The guy who lives across the hall from me is a prime example. For the first year we lived here, I was nothing but nice. If I noticed him behind me as I was entering the courtyard to my building, I'd hold the gate for him. If I saw him in the hallway, I'd say "Hi." If I saw him on the street, I'd smile and nod. NOT ONLY, did he never reciprocate, but his face usually contorted into a look that I would more likely expect if I'd just fired a snot rocket onto his lower lip. At this point, I just ignore him and get a silent satisfaction when I let the the gate shut and hear him digging for his keys...

I can already hear the protestations of my gay bretheren: "BUT THEY'RE HOT!" And, yes, this is true. But there are so many hot foreigners in New York who are NICE that I just can't excuse their arrogance because of their hotness. You CAN be hot and nice... And you can go visit Montreal, if you really must, my friends...

So, please, take down the fence along our border with Mexico and put one up at our border with Quebec. For reals, yo. I'm so serial.

Gay Student Gets Hate Mail From Adults

Isn't sweet when adult bigots pick on a gay high school kid as the target of their intimidation? And people ask why we need No Name-Calling Week and the Day of Silence. Sheesh.

From the Santa Cruz Sentinel:

Ronnie Childers, Harbor's senior class president, said Monday he's received about 50 letters attacking his sexuality since his complaints about national blood donor rules, and his photo, were published in a Sentinel story last month. The story later attracted state and national attention.

Some of the letters were hostile enough that Childers forwarded them to police, "just to be on the safe side"

"There are a couple key phrases, 'I know where you go to school,'" he said. "I think adults need to understand that letters like this are inappropriate"

Gay Student Gets Hate Mail